Creative Questions: Episode 10

Episode Transcript

Desiree: Welcome to Creative Questions. The podcast where we attempt to review various creative projects we ourselves are part of and, or other people’s unique creations in an attempt to celebrate the creative inspiration and all of us. I am Desiree Silver, your host and owner of New Nerd Novelties and hashtag Own Your Weird lifestyle brand.

Liam: And I’m your co-host Liam Hewlett back at again, after a rather arduous December.

Desiree: Yeah, it is both good and bad. Thanks very much for being patient with us.

Liam: Yeah. Well, I’ve got all the time in the world. Well, until I finally kick it, but yeah, I’ll not doing much else besides playing video games. I’ve been doing an awful lot of that. I had some creative endeavors during the time during the month of December. But mostly it’s just been treating myself to video games.

Desiree: Rest and relaxation’s kind of what we expect December to be anyways. So we weren’t really expecting to podcast much this month. So that’s good. Unfortunately we did have a death in the family at the beginning of the month, which seems to always happen either around Thanksgiving or Christmas. Which I don’t, I don’t know why, but they had a celebration of life and I got to go.

So there’s that? I did unfortunately fall outside the house and sprained my wrist in front of my poor cousin who had to pick me up, off the ground. Well they offered. But yeah, I’m glad. No one else, like a big group of people didn’t see me do it. My ankle just decided Nope, not having it. I tried to catch myself when you do those little baby steps and then I just gave up and landed on one of my wrists before the other one.

Of course I sprained it. I got it checked out with the doc, but it’s, I’m glad that my ankles were okay. Cause I have fractured, uh, a foot bone and I’ve actually sprained ankles before, but that was not the ankle that decided to give out. So

Liam: Well, it’s the same. I have, uh, I’ve had a broken knee before and that’s never the one that gives out. It’s always the other one that hurts.

Desiree: I think it’s cause they overcompensate for so long. Cause my other wrist really fricking hurts.

Liam: Quite possibly.

Desiree: Could be, yeah, I’m just glad it wasn’t the one that, you know, cause apparently once you sprain it, you can spring it really easily again. So yeah. Was just grateful for that and it didn’t hurt all that much, but it swelled up quite a bit.

Liam: Yeah. Well, muscle muscle sprains generally. It’s the few days afterwards. So it’s been a little while since then.

Uh, since you sprained her wrist, also gotten a lot. Yeah. You’ve also gotten a lot of snow. Like that was one of the things that caused you to slip, right?

Desiree: Well, it wasn’t snowing then. Of course it was just raining, but it doesn’t, it doesn’t matter. That’s not what caused it was my own ankle. I could have done that in the summer. It’s my own fault. I wore tiny little baby heels that are Dr. Shoels and it’s supposedly comfortable and I’m used to wearing sky-high heels, but it’s been how many years, since the pandemic, when have I worn a heel and I went to someone’s house and I was like, well, I’m expecting them at someone’s house.

We should take our shoes off. They have hardwood floors. So we didn’t. So I wore heels for hours and an hour away from my house. I’m not surprised my ankle just went. Nope, it. I’ve had it. I’ve had it officially! Learned my lesson. Don’t do that. Or at least bring flats. It’s always the answer. When you have heels bring flats, I don’t care if they’re doctor Scholls or Crocs with a heel on the back of them, which I would never wear.

Liam: Good advice. I think that especially all Cosplayers definitely, adhere to that. No matter what your costume is, always have a change of shoes. you never know how long you’re going to be out and about. And

Desiree: Exactly. Or how your body’s gonna react or whatever.

Liam: Even if it’s integral part of your costume, you gotta bring a spare set.

Desiree: And I just bought, like, I saw a sale at Party City, these like little shoes to go in a little bag. I bought one for me and one for mom. Cause they were like five bucks. Didn’t bring it because when am I going to use these? I never leave the house?

Anyway. So that was my beginning of December. I’m glad I bought most of you guys and made most you guys just Christmas presents before then, but I really want to pack and stuff. You can’t really do that if he can’t lift things. So I mostly just crafted and sat and, and then the snow came and in Vancouver when it snows, nothing works.

Nothing.

Liam: Yeah, the city doesn’t know how to operate when snowfalls.

Desiree: Public transit doesn’t work that there are barely any snowplows or Salters. My cul-de-sac is an ice skating rink. And yeah, I can’t even order food or groceries, so I have to carry them in a block in the ice. Try not to die again. Yeah. not,

Liam: Uphill both ways.

Desiree: Uh, well yeah. Cause the cul-de-sac kind of a bowl.

That’s why it turns into an ice rink. That’s why I’m looking forward to moving in with you guys. But it, man, I hear it’s really negative. Really negative,

Liam: Cold. Yeah.

Uh, I believe it was negative 27 degrees Celsius

Desiree: It hasn’t done that since I moved.

Liam: Yeah, it was cold enough that the car wouldn’t start. We had a plug in the block heater and I had to start it during my shift at work. So I would start by the end of my shift at work.

Desiree: Yeah. That’s what mom said.

Liam: Yeah. it was cold. It still is cold, but not as cold as it has been over the last few days.

And we’ve gotten more snow. It’s been sewing consistently over the entire week of Christmas. It snowed pretty much every day,

Desiree: It snowed on Christmas here, which never happens, you know, that never the day of.

Liam: Never Vancouver.

Desiree: And it was a, it was a nice, it was a good Christmas snow. I’m pretty sure there was a lot of little kids that were super happy.

Liam: That’s good. When, when it does snow in Vancouver, it’s usually good for making snowballs and snow men because it’s usually wet snow up here. It just gets cold It turns to powder

Desiree: And then that’s why half your house has got snow and the other half doesn’t because of the wind.

LIam: The wind.

Yeah. Especially where we live. And it’s a, it’s a funnel valley so.

Desiree: So Dori was brushing off the car because I had to go buy him cigerettes on Christmas day. Of course I did. And it was powder. So it started like just raining all over me the wind was blowing my way and I’m just covered in it and I’ll look at him and he’s like, “Good thing you have a good jacket.”

Thanks.

Liam: A good thing. yeah.

Desiree: Yeah, we survived. And there’s a picture there actually for Christmas Dori bought me snow shoes. I asked for a good pair of snow shoes and that’s what those purple boots are.

Liam: Snow boots, not snow shoes.

Desiree: No boots. They’re are snow boots because they got really good grip.

Liam: Yeah, because snow shoes are a different thing. There are the tennis rackets that you put onto your feet.

Desiree: Yeah, not those, no snow boots. Yeah. They’re boots with good grip and, uh, they’re vinyl that are waterproof. They ain’t got no holes, you know, some have holes for air, which makes no sense. They’re even better than the picture. Cause you can’t really tell, but when Dori opened it, he cause he checked them cause he ordered them online. He’s like, Ooh, you’re really gonna like these put them back in the box and wraps it cause they’re sparkle vinyl. So they’re like kind of metallic and sparkly. He’s like the pictures don’t do them justice and it wasn’t my first choice. So I was pretty happy with that.

Liam: That’s That’s cool. You’re going to need those. Well, you need good grip when you’re coming up here. Cause if you think it’s icy down there, that’s the one thing we like, we don’t get wet snow. We just get compacted ice.

Desiree: Yeah, because you drive over it and then it gets icy, but at least they do plow, and salt your areas in different areas. Yeah.

Liam: Pretty consistently. They don’t always, they’re not always able to keep up, but.

Desiree: Yeah, no, no. These, I tested them on our ice rink. They’re pretty good. So I’m pretty happy. And

Liam: That was one of your Christmas presents?

Desiree: Yeah, that was from Dori.. And then you guys, in case you didn’t know, you bought me the heat press, which was the other picture

Liam: I did. Yeah. I contributed in that I approved of this transaction.

Desiree: And it, it comes with more than one piece. The only piece I have there is the one for like shirts and vinyl and stuff, the flat one, but then there, it comes with other pieces.

I can do baseball, hats. I can do baseball, hats and plates and mugs too. So. I’m not as interested in the plates and hats, but the mugs are a big deal. So I tested out the mugs and I tested out the flat one, and then they do work just in case they smell like, you know, burning rubber, but that’s, you know, it’s a heat press.

That’s normal. There was like, ew it stinks. So I’m like, have you smelled vinyl? Have you smelled rubber? They stink, especially when you heat them up, of course they’re going to stink, but that will help with, um, if I paint anything you’re supposed to heat seal it so that when you wash the shirt or whatever, it doesn’t come out.

So I can do t-shirts with my heat transfer vinyl, with my silhouette, which cuts everything out. And then you just stick it down, like a big sticker, and then you heat press it in, and you can also do that with the vinyl. So I can add like cool pictures and stuff to my vinyl projects, like purses and bags and wallets.

Liam: Sounds like a useful tool.

Desiree: Yes, very useful. I love it. Thank you very much. Cause it’s the last piece of the puzzle for sublimation printer. You have the printer that prints the ink that will sublimate onto the items with the heat. So now Teela can, could print me off, off the printer that I helped her pay for the images and I can put them onto shirts and mugs and stuff too.

Liam: Nice.

Desiree: That’s exciting. I’m excited. So many things.

Liam: It does look like you’ve been quite busy. Crafting up a storm during the time where you haven’t been going outside.

Desiree: Yeah, I haven’t been able to go outside and I finished most of you guys presents. So your presents still aren’t pictured yet. Cause I want to surprise you with them. Some of mom’s and some other peoples are here. So there’s a pillow that I actually got commissioned for a couple of months ago, but it was around October and everybody knows I’m busy in October.

So there were nice. And they, they waited. So there’s a Jack face pillow. And I think this is my favorite pillow I’ve made so far. It’s so cute. I used felt as an applique and I also painted it. So I tested out the heat press on that new paint. The puff paint you can’t, you, you can’t obviously put heat on puff paint, but I had some t-shirt paint and I tested it out on that.

And then I put the puff paint on top.

Liam: So the big Jack face is felt?

Desiree: Yeah. So yeah. So the big Jack faces yeah. Is,

Liam: It’s hard to tell in the picture, but I know the pillows that you make, it would definitely like I’ve got a tri force in felt for Zelda pillow

Desiree: Yeah. So the big the big Jack face itself, the face is felt, and then the appliques are his eyes and his smile and then added paint on top. And then the underneath is the stuff that’s just paint. It’s his neck, his neck tie a bit just pieces of it. And that’s where I tested out the heat press like the heat press on.

So yeah, that was, they really like it, but you know, they live in, I think Langley and we’re here in Coquitlam and there’s snow in between. And I don’t know when we’re going to see each other, but it’s sitting here on my desk waiting for him and they’re very excited about it. So that’s cool. And I also have had a lot of requests for a more masculine, smaller size tri-fold or double fold type wallets, because everybody’s like, well, what if I want something plain?

That’s what those next pictures are. It’s the, the Jack faces are a tri-fold wallet that I just bought the pattern for. And, I immediately altered it because it was. Simpler than some of my other patterns didn’t even have lining. So it, it opens up to do the kind of normal double fold, but then folds upwards for the, the tri-fold and Dori decided that he’s like, you know, you should put a clear window there cause everybody has ID or a bus pass or, you know, your vaccination status card or whatever to stick in that window.

So when I immediately added a window, because that just makes sense to me, he was like, why would you have that fold there if you don’t have it? So you can display something. I’m like, well, that makes sense. And then I added backing and I made, cause it has a pocket for dollar bills. I made the front of that a little lower than the back, so you can get into it and see it easier.

And I may be adding snaps depending on which type of wallet I make. I got a bunch of scraps of leather from the Horse Barn over by you guys. And that’s where you can see the little tri-folds that are snapped together with the clips, most of those are partial, if not full leather, not vinyl.

And I don’t usually work with leather. So that was kind of nice. It smells really good. Why do we like the smell of leather so much? I don’t know as humans, but it smells good. That blue one and the metallic, like cheetah print, that’s actually leather. So I don’t have to line those, which is kind of nice, but some of the ones with vinyl, cause they’re so stiff, they won’t sit closed.

So I may have to put snaps. And so that’s another addition and one of them I made with the fuck, you, you fucking fuck fabric, which I love. And so I actually have, it’s really hard cause you have to, what they call is fussy cut the fabric. So you have the image in the right places. So I got all these.

Random scraps with random fucks on them. So I might make a snap tab that just says fuck on it, because I can, it’ll go into the not safe for work or mature content section. Don’t worry about putting it in the kids section. Cause there isn’t a kids’ section, but yeah, I think those tri-folds will work out well.

So I did my usual number of apparently my magic number for making things in a bulk, like set is seven. I don’t know why, but I usually go huh I’ve got some ideas and then I start doing them and then I wind up stopping at seven. So there’s

Liam: half Baker’s dozen,

Desiree: I guess I like the number seven. I like number three and like the number seven.

Liam: A Baker’s half dozen. You go for half a dozen and then you make one extra.

Desiree: That’s right.

Liam: Okay,

Desiree: So that’s those are the guys I’m currently working on there. They’re at various stages.

Liam: What’s the little hat or thing that you’ve got going on with a bat symbol.

Desiree: Okay. That’s a bag actually. That’s one of my bags.

Liam: Let’s see. Utility belt.

Desiree: Yeah, it’s a dumpling bag that I put the bat symbol on. And then I made little pouch pockets in the front and the actually snap closed. And you can put little things in them. And the back of them is that Batman fabric, if you see that other side, and he actually has a Batman symbol zipper too.

And that was actually for Mark. My friend Nicky’s boyfriend, because he has an ostomy bag from his Crohn’s and he has to carry supplies for it. So I made him a bag to put his supplies in just like me. I used to have a zombie head lunchbox to bring my, my, you know, girl feminine products or whatever else to me, the bathrooms.

So he’ll always have a bag to go to the bathroom with. And so I made him his own emergency bat bag, utility bat bag.

Liam: Yeah. That’s where he can carry his Shark Repellent Bat spray.

Desiree: Yep.

Liam: Yeah.

Desiree: It may have the equivalent in there. He’s probably got like, I’ve seen people have the, the adhesive remover spray. So you might have that in there. I put like wet wipes and gum and Tums and all kinds of stuff in it.

Liam: Things you don’t want to get mixed up.

Desiree: No. No..

Liam: What’s this a ornament that you have here? It’s an IT ornament?

Desiree: Yes, I did. Uh, I’ve done quite a few, a couple of horror and a couple cute. I did Mom some raccoon ones, but, there’s a Coraline there. And then an IT there, the pictures that I took, I took Styrofoam balls. Everybody loves Styrofoam cept this is the white shit, which no one likes.

Liam: As long as you’re not cutting it. It’s all fine.

Desiree: I had to cut it a little bit because what you do is you, you make those lines to make the six parts and then you slice it in a little bit and what you do as you tuck the fabric in. So you add a little bit of like a batting, which gives it a little bit 3D ness with glue and then tuck, the ends in, and then you just decorate it.

So it’s all fabric. And then it’s like ribbon or whatever else you want to put in it. So I thought those were really cute. They were something really easy to do that wasn’t too hard on my wrist. So I enjoyed those. I made the nightmare before Christmas beetle juice, raccoons it, uh, Coraline.

Liam: Cool.

Desiree: And I don’t have picture there, but I added some fake blood to the it ones because I have red glue gun glue, which actually is used spinning.

So whenever I just, I use this one glue gun that’s just dedicated for fake blood. And it’s basically just glue Glen glue that drips on the stuff to look like blood. It’s perfect. I love it. Everybody thought it was so much cooler than just a plain one. I had a couple people come over, actually this Christmas. I had Nickyand her boyfriend, which is great because Nicky’s in Ontario.

So that was really nice for her to come over. And then Teela and her boyfriend came over and I made fettuccine Alfredo, which was like 34 year old Parmesan cheese that killed us all, but it tasted so good.

Liam: So good.

Desiree: And then, I made Nicky the Coraline bag there too. Cause there’s a dumpling bag with Coraline. I do like that fabric. It’s pretty darn cute.

Liam: It is pretty cool.

Desiree: Yeah. And then.

I got pictures of my mini Claudias. So I made the big version of the wallet for mom. That kind of looks like a sub sandwich. Cause there’s so much in it that’s shaped like a coffin.

Well, they just came out with a new version, which is the mini version. So this one’s only got four little card slots and I’ve made a bunch of those. I think there’s more than seven those or no, I think I stopped myself at seven.

Liam: you only have really small pockets.

Desiree: Yeah, really small pockets. So it’s got, it’s got pockets for coins.

It’s got the zipper for coins. It’s got the things for, for cash or receipts. And then it’s got four little slits for cards, which you can fit more than one in. They’re not finished yet cause I haven’t edged painted them. So I haven’t finished the clips but they’re really cute. Cause there’s the one pattern there.

If you look, there’s a couple of patterns, actually from this one person who makes patterns in Victoria, her name is Brittalicious Designs. So she’s Brittany and she made the cool pastel coffins and the kaleidoscope coffins and the skulls with roses. And those are all like the right size to make the front cutout just shaped like a coffin.

And I thought that was really cute.

Liam: Nice.

Desiree: Yeah. So I’m experimenting with those

Liam: Dad and I did attempt to make some stocking stuffers for mom. Mom always is the lightest on the stocking stuffers because, she is the one that enjoy shopping.

Whereas none of us, the rest of us in the family do. So we. Get, what we feel is necessary for each other and stocking stuffers often fall by the wayside when it comes

Desiree: Well, they’re left to me and I wasn’t there. So I have those, those balls, but whatever.

Liam: You also enjoy shopping. Uh, whereas Dad and I we’d, we did not.

But we did make an attempt. So what we did is we took some of mom’s knickknacks and, we attempted to, encase them in resin to, create Sort of a terrarium, right? Like in a solid block of resin. And we’re just both of us, dad has some experience with resin, but he’s used it to finish tables, right.

To give it like a permanent varnish basically. And that works fine when you’re doing thin coats and we just didn’t have the proper experience for doing what we were trying to do So our first attempt didn’t work out basically at all. It was just too cloudy, the object that we wanted to put into the thing floated.

And

Desiree: It’ll do that. Yeah.

Liam: We tried to set it all at once and the object floated to the top and it was way too cloudy. You can see anything. So that was a bust. The first one, mark two worked out a little bit more. And that we made multiple layers. We D we did two layers. Like first we did the first layer and then added in the objects so that they would be in the center of the resin.

And then we seal it in with a second coat. The problem is that we were just following the instructions on the bottle too much. It said on the bottle that you should stir for five minutes, which for the amount that we are doing was way too much, it added in way too much air to the mixture.

And so there was just like bubbles. We could not get out no matter how hard we tried to make it a little bit more clear. So for that second one, he and I spent like an hour or two, maybe more trying to sand down and buff up and Polish what we could to get the items inside to be visible. We did get to there.

At some point it was certainly like the smoothest resin you’ve ever touched. It was basically like a glass or mirror, but it still was too filled with impurities, mostly air bubbles to really be able to see what was in it. Dad himself put together a third one and he did multiple layers. And this time he mixed it for only as much as he thought what would be required in order to actually mix the two-part resin.

And that one turned out significantly better. It was you’re able to see it and he didn’t have to go through all of the riggermerall that we didn’t have. Like we were putting it through the plainer, we were sanding it from like five to six different grits of sandpaper. We buffed it with all different kinds of like washes materials, wet, dry, and.

But eventually we got something that we could show for it, but it could have been better.

It’s One of those thigs where if this had been our fifth or sixth or seventh time doing it we probably would’ve gotten it down. Pat.

Desiree: It depends on the type of resin. What were you guys using for a mold too?

Liam: Well, the mold wasn’t really the issue. It was just our inexperience with the product. Uh
we never had a problem removing it from the mold that wasn’t an issue.

Desiree: Okay. Cause each, each one’s different. Like some resins are meant to be like tabletops and some are supposed to be thicker. And yeah, the difference is huge. I’m still learning all this stuff too, because I’ve already worked with three different types and even Michael’s carries it now, of course, when I started, they didn’t have it.

I’m totally the hipster because me and mom always seem to be ahead of the curve for what’s cool. It’s like after we’re done doing it. Years later, everybody’s away, let’s do this. And I’m like, uh, already tried that. Now you have 10 more varieties. I’m going to have to learn. God damn it.

Liam: I bought this when it was rare. And now it’s everywhere.

Desiree: Exactly, but I still like resin. So I’m going to go back to it. Teela went out with Nicky and I, because Nicky’s mom in Ontario works for Michaels two days a week. She gets a 30% off everything card just about. We’re all like, woo Michael’s run. Yeah, we went and bought she bought a whole bunch of resin. I guess they have resin in there now and stuff like that.

She needs for her business. So, and I bought some like a heat transfer vinyl for the, my cricket, which is actually a silhouette. I always call it a cricket. They’re the same thing. They basically just, they cut or they embossthings or you can put pens in them too, and they can draw things, but they’re same product.

It’s just, the silhouette is a little more, um, easy software wise is kind of like Android compared to iPhone. Crickets is the iPhone. It’s closed when it comes to certain Things it likes to open and how to fix things when it comes to its processes and its applications where, whereas silhouettes more like Android, it takes different things a lot better.

So I like my silhouette because of course I always want the jailbreak one.

I also joined there. Um, cause they have a group like for design studio, which you pay a per month amount and they gave you a certain number of credits and you can go into their store and buy a whole bunch of images. So are different things you can cut, um, that other people have made and put up on the sites.

So for 1499 I get $40 worth of credit. And then I go in there and I buy things for like two bucks. You get like an image of, you know, bats flying out of lips and stuff for three bucks. So every month that’s like Christmas was like, oh, download that, download that for the price. It’s not too bad.

Liam: I’m terrible about subscription services. It’d be instant. I like find that I’ve stopped using it. I have to cancel it otherwise. I won’t remember. And I’ll be eight months down the road. I’ll be like, all right. I need to get rid of that.

I’ve had subscriptions. I haven’t used. Two years. And I was like, all right, I just need to, I just need to, stop it, just stop

Desiree: Oh no.

Liam: That’s in the past. I’ve definitely gotten to the point. Like I recognize now once I’ve, if it’s been like two or three days since I’ve used a subscription service, I’ll cancel it because I’ll forget in the future. And it’ll just auto renew forever. Right? that’s how, fitness places get you, right?

Desiree: That is, yeah,

Liam: They all require memberships and they’re like, there’s so many hoops that you have to jump through to get them to stop it. But I, I knew the last time, like when I got a membership, a gym membership, I specifically went for the more expensive option that allows you to cancel it anytime.

Like it was a set fee every month. But you could pay for, like you could basically sign a contract that you’ll do longer for less per month. And I was like no,

I’m paying exactly this amount per month. and I’ll stop it. When I got damn feel like it.

Desiree: Yeah, that’s one of the things I’m going to have to do when we move, I have to go through all of our subscription services and decide what I need what we don’t need. Teela, cause she has Plex and like I think she said five terabytes of stuff on there. Like she’s got everything that you want and if she doesn’t have it, she’ll get it for you.

And it’s free. So probably not going to have Netflix anymore, only going to have prime because I like the free shipping. And then Dori wants to keep Disney plus because you know, stuff is kind of exclusive to that. I’m like, okay, okay.

Liam: Mean, if it was just, if it was just me in the house, I wouldn’t have basically any subscription services, but mom and dad, they use Netflix all the time. Right. I have watched a single show in the last, I think, five years. And it was within the last month because

everybody, kept recommending to me, uh, that I should watch arcane was to just show that like, it’s a recent show based off of league of legends, which is a game I’ve played.

Um, it’s a game, many, many people have played. And everybody was, has always been talking about how exceptional the show was and it was good. It was quite good. And it was like, I, I was in between games one night and spent like five hours just wash it straight through. But that’s literally the only show I’ve watched in the last five years.

Desiree: Was that a one season? one season?

Liam: Yeah. Just One season? that they they’ve confirmed. They’re getting more seasons, but, uh, that’s, stuff’s in the future. It’s not out yet.

Desiree: You watched something. Good for you.

Liam: I watched something. Yeah,

Uh, rare as it is. I mean, I used to watch anime all the time. I haven’t watched an anime in God knows how long, because I just read it now. Ever since I started reading manga, I’ve stopped watching anime because most anime comes from manga and generally it’s behind the manga source material.

So

while the animation might be good, it’ll be a scene I’ve already seen. So if I’m interested in a show or a story, I’ll just read it, especially because of how fast I read. I can just read it way faster than I could ever watch a series

Desiree: Well, technically manga is comics. so like comics you can blow through real quick. So

Liam: Super fast. Oh yeah, Real, real fast.

Desiree: I have to stop myself cause you know, you want, I want to look at the graphics, the pictures. There’s a reason why they made them they’re art, but

Liam: I know. yeah, I’m, I’m, I’m pretty bad at that. Especially if it’s like a chapter, that’s all action. I’m like cool. 20 seconds done. Right. It’s just

Desiree: like I should go back and read that again to look at the pics.

Liam: Yeah. I should go appreciate the art. Yeah.

I got time later and it just never do,

Desiree: Oh, those poor cartoonists.

Liam: I don’t, they, they pour, they pour decades of their life, into their art form.

Right. And that a double page spread could easily take them and their team because especially at manga, they’re not doing it by themselves.

Right. They’re doing it. Uh, as they have to do it as a team, because they’re, most of the time their publication schedule is on a weekly basis, which is absurd.

Like they, they, yeah.

They actually kill themselves with their work schedule. The fact that they can do it even with a team is astounding, especially to the level of quality that they do consistently. And I’m just like, yeah, that’s cool. yeah.

I I’m looking forward to next week, right? Yeah. I’m one of those unappreciative assholes.

So it was just like, man, that was awesome. I really appreciate the writing and like the character work and stuff like that, that goes into good manga and the art as well too, can definitely sell it. But it’s not something that I hover on. I’ve definitely have read some series that just have bad art.

Right. But they’re really interesting, cool concepts or like they’ve got a funny premise or whatever it might be. And then there are some that are like art here is amazing. I’m pretty much only here for the art because the rest of it is complete dog shit, I’ll go through that chapter a lot faster than I will.

The one that I appreciate the writing of right. Uh, it’s just like, Aw, man, that’s pretty, there’s nothing else here worth of substance. Cause like a really good manga gets you thinking about it after you’ve read it. Right.

It’s like any, any good story or novel, right? What the mangas, the, the stories and the novels that I really do, like and appreciate are the ones that get you thinking about them afterwards.

Especially if they have a really interesting premise or they present to you an interesting question, something that can give you really like food for thought those are my favorite kinds of series. I love that stuff.

Desiree: Yeah, me too.

Liam: And that’s, that’s true of TV shows and movies and stuff like that. I just find that they don’t try as hard to get view that food for thought.

Uh, it’s rare that it happens,

Desiree: That’s true.

Liam: Especially science fiction. I love to read science fiction, but I don’t watch practically any of it because, uh, I don’t even play much in the way of science fiction, video games either. Cause. Science fiction in those mediums to be very limited in its scope. It’s just very much fantasy with a future veneer.

In my regard, like a lot of those worlds, especially when it comes to TV or movies, even more so, because they have a limited runtimes there’s only so much they can do.

They just don’t feel very well thought out.

Desiree: That and limited, limited budget as well.

Liam: Yeah, that can also definitely limit I even with unlimited budget stuff, like the modern star treks and stuff like that, none of that is food for thought that it doesn’t provide me with any interesting ideas.

It doesn’t like extrapolate anything to me that would like get me wanting to create something in that space or extrapolate upon that space or anything like that. So it could be a really big budget science fiction movie. And unless it’s, it’s just never going to be as thought-provoking to me as reading a science fiction novel

Desiree: They also like, cause they have the ability to create their own wold. Universe, I guess not world worlds.

Liam: They, they can, they can put a lot more science into their fiction when you have a novel, right. You’re not going to take time out of a movie and you shouldn’t take time out of the runtime of a movie to describe how you’re like faster than light drive system works. Right. It’s unless it’s relevant to the plot, that’s not even then it would be difficult to get like a technical description, even if it is something that would be the entire basis upon how your universe works.

Right. It’s Yeah.

I just prefer to read science fiction rather than watch it or play it in a video game. I just find that, they don’t really put the time into the world-building that I feel is necessary to draw me into science fiction. Whereas I don’t expect that from fantasy, right. When you do fantasy, magic is magic.

That’s cool. As long as your rules for your magic system are consistent, I don’t need anything to be explained or to be logic to me. Right. It just has to be consistent so long as like, your rules for magic in your system are like laws of equivalent exchange where it’s like the more powerful the spell, the more costs associated with it.

That’s all I need for like a magic system. That’s totally fine by me, but in the same vein as science fiction, I’m just like, okay, you made a weapon that can destroy planets. How are you the only person that’s able to make that? Why is this not running around all over the place? That’s of like, I want more details.

Right. I want to, I want it to be logic-ed out. Whereas in fantasy it could just be like, this is the ultimate mega sword. Right. Why?

Desiree: And you’re like done.

Liam: It was created that way and just like, okay, sure. You’re right.

Desiree: By God-like powers years ago.

Liam: Yet, doesn’t have to be logic-ed out to me nearly as much as it, when it comes to science fiction, right?

Desiree: Yeah, that’s fair because it’s supposed to have a basis in fact.

Liam: Yeah. It’s so it’s supposed to be science fiction, not, you know, fantasy. Whereas stuff like star wars has always been more of a space fantasy to me than anything

And that’s, and that’s fine with me. Like, it’s very like science loose word, right. It’s to me, it’s a space fantasy. And that’s fine.

It’s just like, it’s better that the force be magic. When you try to explain it, it seems dumb. Just make it magic.

Desiree: No midi cloreans.

Liam: Yeah. Yeah. Just, just make a magic. It’s fine. You got space wizards. They just call themselves Jedi. Right. That’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that,

Desiree: Nope.

Liam: I can enjoy that, but it’s not science fiction, right.

It’s certainly not science fiction to me anyway.

Desiree: And that’s fine. I agree though. I do like watching shows as science fiction and fantasy simply because of outfits and production. I like

Liam: Oh yeah.

Desiree: like the prettiness, the pretty, I like the pretty.

Liam: You can get that from period pieces as well, right?

Desiree: I can as well. I can watch period pieces, but they annoy me with a story.

I don’t care about pride and prejudice. I just want to see the pretty outfits.

Liam: Yeah. My problem with most, historical fiction not generally how it’s written, but how it’s portrayed in. Like movies and especially TV shows is that generally they go to like dark with it.

Right? like I like, comedy. I like action. I like romance too. Right. Those are my, like three main generas and very few period pieces are made in any of those genres.

Right?

Desiree: No

Liam: Like how many action comedies are like comedic romances or how many of those are period pieces?

They’re all dramas. Like every single one of them is a drama. I’m just, that’s my least favorite genre. I hate drama we’ve got enough real-world shit to deal with. I want comedy

Desiree: So talking about weird combinations for like movie types, Dori and I have been on this kick that we’ve watched some Blumhouse creations with the same director and they did three movies we really like. They’re supposed to be horror movies, but they’re horror comedies. And you know, me, I don’t like straight horror, gross kind of crap.

We liked the comedies, like, cabin in the woods and Dale and Tucker. Well, what we like about Sean of the Dead., these three you’ll probably like too and you could always watch them with us at some point. So the first one is called freaky. And it’s like freaky Friday, but instead of, you know, the mom and the daughter changing over it’s the serial killer and the 16 year old girl switched bodies and the serial killer is Vince Vaughn.

Liam: Okay. I mean, to be fair, he’s got a, he’s got a serial killer face.

Desiree: And he’s six, four, right. And he changes places with a 16 year old girl. Who’s like five, four, and they both do such an awesome job. It’s hilarious. I love it. It’s great. So we keep introducing people to that. It’s it’s on crave, but I’m sure you can find it on the internet somewhere. So that’s the same director.

Does these other two movies and that’s a happy death day and happy death day two. And it’s basically Groundhog’s day with serial killer.

Liam: Yes. I saw, I saw, ads for that. Uh,

Desiree: Me too. And I was like,

Liam: I had never heard of the first one. I saw ads for the second one And I was like, oh, well that looks like my cup of tea because you add comedy to basically enemy genre and I’d probably be interested in it so long as it’s, you know, at least half well done.

Desiree: And neither of them is either, none of them are actually really Grossy. There’s more B rated comedy horror. Like I like, yeah. The one and two is hilarious. You don’t need to see one to see two. You don’t need to see two to see, see one, they do connect, but you don’t need to. And that’s also, again like another blonde 16 year old girl who keeps dying.

And when she dies, the day is reset, but she keeps being killed by the serial killer. She doesn’t know who it is. And, and so she’s like trying to figure out who’s killing her before she dies again. And especially the second one, she gets pissed off and she starts killing herself for, for shits and giggles and stupid ways just to reset the day,

Liam: Yeah, that’s just crap ah, well, this is a wash reset button. It’s just my reset button happens to be murdering myself

Desiree: After awhile though. Obviously her body goes through a lot of trauma, but I like she’s, especially like at one point, I guess her boyfriend breaks up with her or something. So she jumps out of a plane and lands on him and that kind of thing. It’s just, just fun. Yeah. And I, I must respect the girls that both, both acted in those because the one that acted in freaky did a really good job of being a creepy serial killer at five, four, like she did a good job of Vince Vaughn being a little girl screaming and running around.

Ew i smell like hot dog water. He did a great job. And the girl happy death day. She’s one of the mean girls. She wakes up in some other random dudes bed after an all-nighter of drink, bingeing, not even knowing where she is and that’s where she starts the day every day.

So it’s pretty good.

Liam: Pretty good.

Talking about those, like switching of personalities, that was one of the things that I, as one of the tropes that I like, I like it when actors get to do stuff like that, like the first Jumanji movie, uh,

Desiree: Yeah.

Liam: With, Jack Black being in that same, that same situation. Right. Jack Black is the popular girl. And, the rock the nerd boy. Uh

Desiree: Yeah. Yeah.

Liam: I still think that in my opinion, Jumanji is as of yet the best video game movie that’s been made, despite the fact that it wasn’t made based off of a video game.

It definitely, Yeah.

I mean, they, they probably made a Jumanji video game afterwards, but it wasn’t based off of a Jumanji video game.

It was obviously based off of the, the Robin Williams Jumanji. But it was still taken as its own Mo like movie. It was the best adaptation of a video game that I’ve seen to a blockbuster movie. They had a whole bunch of video game tropes that were really well spoofed in that, in that movie. It was a pretty funny movie.

Desiree: And it was comedy. Yeah. Dory and I

Liam: That was a comedy.

Desiree: We watched Mortal Combat and then Street Fighter. We watched Street Fighter.

Liam: Oh man. That’s a bad movie.

Desiree: The guy who plays Gomez Adams from the Adams family is the bad guy in that. And I always

Liam: That was, That was the last movie ever.

Desiree: Yeah, he had cancer at the time.

Liam Yeah, he was actually dying of cancer while he was shooting that

Desiree: Yeah, well he

Liam: Why they put, that’s Why they put, them in the muscle suit. It’s cause he was like skin and bones, but apparently he accepted, he did that movie because his son was, a big fan of street fighter.

Desiree: Yeah. Cause of his kids, he wanted to do something his kids would like to see him in. So.

Liam: Yeah.

Desiree: He’s pretty awesome. Apparently van Damme was so high on Coke. They had a really hard time to wrangling him for that.

Liam: Yeah. The, I I’ve seen a documentary about the production woes of that movie and it’s just amazing that it got made at all.

It was basically the super Mario brothers except for street fighter.

Desiree: I still really like the Super Marios movie though. I do.

Liam: It’s a terrible movie and that the production, uh, woes of that, like it’s amazing. It came out at all. And it was apparently just a horrible time for everybody involved.

Desiree: The super Mario, so as well?

Liam: The super Mario brothers movie. Yeah, the Mario brothers movie. yeah.

Inexperienced directors and a really hostile work environment apparently, but for street fighter, it was just like the rampant incompetence that wound up making a movie. Um, and it, it is glorious.

Desiree: Everything that, uh, what’s his name is, I can’t remember his name that did Gomez. He did such a good job. Every scene that he was in, he did so well.

Liam: Oh yeah. Yeah. He’s, he’s a great actor.

Desiree: And so much action and

Liam: Yeah, he He’s had some very good quotes in that movie too, uh, much like, cause like you talked about moral combat. Moral combat, before Jumanji was my go-to of like, this is the best, video game movie and it was actual adaptation, but this is like the best video game movie because it knows it’s bad and it’s leans into it.

Like it’s, it’s. Camp, right. That’s what mortal combat is. The second one is just complete shit,
but the first, the first one was like, yeah, this is we’re going to make a bad movie. And it’s going to be like a bad Kung Fu movie, just like mortal combat is kind of a bad fighting game, honestly. And Yeah. it still to this day, I think moral combat is a great fighting game movie.

Like just a great game moot like gaming movie. Cause it’s bad and it knows it’s bad.

Desiree: We like the soundtracks. That’s all.

Liam: That’s it? Yeah.

That’s the thing. My favorite soundtrack of all time for movies anyway, comes from mortal Kombat 2. Right. Mortal combat 2 annihilation. They blew their entire budget on the soundtrack. And then the fuck happened to the movie. I don’t know. It was an excuse to get all these artists together.

They had Ramstein on that cd

Desiree: Oh yeah. I know KMFDM. I know

Liam: KMFDM. Yeah.

Desiree: Love them.

Liam: It’s ridiculous.

Desiree: I still, I actually recently, yesterday went through my CDs because we’re packing slowly and I took the CDs out of the cases that I’m putting them back into uh, a folder again. So that it takes up less space and I’m like, oh look, it’s almost all movie soundtracks, a Knight’s tale and

Liam: I had three CDs. I had three CDs while I was delivering papers with my Diskman as a kid.

And those three CDs that I listened to constantly Mortal Kombat 2 which is like the main one. Um, A Knight’s Tale and Shrek.

Desiree: Yeah. Mom’s still got Shrek of, it’s probably dead. She’ll be quite happy though. Cause Dori and I went through our CDs and I found a couple more mixed CDs from bear share and Napster time where we downloaded individual songs. Remember that Sony? We found some mixed CDs and two of them say Halloween.

So I think mom’s going to be pretty happy cause she, she fricking loves those Halloween mixes I made for her at that time. And I’ve found two more. And then we found a whole bunch that are like completely blank and they don’t say anything on them and we’re all like, Ooh, we got to play Russian roulette. We got to mom’s house.

So the five CD changer put five of the blank, CDs that we burned in there and see what comes out.

Liam: Yeah, three of them are just like episodes of something downloaded to a disc

Desiree: Well, I’m hoping they’re music. I’m not sure though. I had to throw out, you know, some of the other like ripped movies and stuff. I was like, screw that. Who cares? So I’ve got like, huh?

Liam: and nowadays you probably can’t even like plug them into a computer and have it recognized the code

Desiree: I don’t know. Uh, Dori’s computers don’t even have disc drives. Mine does cause it’s old.

Liam: I own a comp and I don’t even have a disc drive.

Desiree: Yeah. And I’m not sure what can play on our PlayStations and stuff. Cause they’re new. But they do have disk drives. We made sure that you had already got the new PlayStation four, because the last one sounded like a jet engine when it was on. Cause the F it was the first version and it was really, it runs really hot.

Yeah. It was so noisy. It gave me a migraine. This one, I can’t even hear it when it’s on. I’m like, oh, thank

Liam: So he got himself a PlayStation pro or something like that?

Desiree: Yeah. I think he got the four pro or the four regular, but it’s quiet, really quiet. It’s not the five.

Liam: The five is apparently still very difficult to find.

Desiree: Yeah. So he didn’t get that yet. Teela got us the Roku, which is like the app.You plug into your TV to make it a smart TV because our TV isn’t smart. It’s just a regular TV.

Liam: It’s a dumb ass TV.

Desiree: Yup to make it smart. And so I got like all of my streaming services on here and YouTube and stuff, and Dori was just doing airplay from his Mac computer. He just bought and we’re like, Ooh, it’s so fast.

Even faster than the PlayStation playing our Plex and stuff. So we’re pretty happy with that. And we’re probably gonna let mom and dad have that one upstairs. If we can connect it to dad’s ears. So he can listen to Plex finally, because Plex has everything, literally everything like he wants his home improvement.

Teela’s got it. You know, you want music Teela has thousands of songs. So there’s everything.

Liam: Yeah. Um,

I’m sure they’ll find something. Mom and dad spend a lot of time, uh, watching stuff like antique road shows or cooking shows, especially dad likes his cooking shows and.

Desiree: There’s lots, lots of types. Yeah. I’m looking forward to it because, well, when we get a smart TV, I’ll let them have that web one upstairs. Cause they’re just going to die, but it’s really, it’s pretty awesome. I’m like looking at

Liam: TVs are remarkably, um, affordable. Nowadays. I had my TV that I use as a monitor die on me like a year ago or whatever. And I replaced it with a larger model for like 300 bucks, something like that.

And, uh, I don’t use any of the features, but it could do that. Uh, like it could browse streaming services and stuff like that.

If I wanted to, I just don’t use it for that, of that, that I, it, with tax, it was probably about 400 bucks. That’s still replaced a, exactly $2,000, 10 80 P 37 inch TV that I bought when there was still the choice between, uh, LCD and plasma. Like that was how early it was that I got this. HDTV.

Desiree: And it’s not even that giant. Cause you got a bigger one,

Liam: No it well, it’s certainly like at the time it was large.

There were bigger ones that I could have gotten, but it was the largest one I could get at 10 80 P for my budget. It was exactly 2000 with tax and a cable. Cause that’s the max I could withdraw from my debit card at the time and I had to call ahead to let them do that.

Desiree: oh yeah, you do. Yeah.

Liam: Um, so Yeah.

I called ahead to approve the purchase, went into the store, basically got them to make the transaction exactly that amount, because otherwise I wasn’t buying it. but I was given the choice of getting a larger TV and having it not be 10 80, it would have been like seven 20 or something like that.

And I’m no, no, no.the 10 80. because like we didn’t know back then, but I had done like a preliminary research and that 10 ADP, like that thing lasted me for almost. Actually it probably more than a decade and Yeah.

Having replaced it like a year or two ago when I got that thing, when I was like 17, um, definitely more than a decade then, but yeah.

Yeah. I got a much larger, much thinner TV for not even a fifth of the cost. And it has got all these other additional features that I’ll never use. That’s yeah. You can get yourself for what would have been the price of a monitor right. Cause I would

Desiree: Oh, Yeah. Yeah.

Liam: If you wanted to get a monitor for a PC back then that was like high definition monitor easily. You will paid three, 400 bucks And it would’ve just been, you know, one step up from a CRT.

Desiree: Yeah.

Liam: Um,

Desiree: Teela’s been trying change everything on Plex to 1080 p even like murder she wrote. I’m like, I don’t know why you’re bothering to change murder she wrote 1080 p

LIam: it still, it will still be in a box. Yeah,

Desire: but

Liam: During like the 80, the seventies,

Desiree: well apparently it does like it does, I guess. What is that called? I guess condense upscale. It, it looks good. So she wants everything to be 10 ADP on there now. So it’ll be like deluxe Plex. And mom wants me to bring all of my DVDs over. So I’m like, okay, you can have them all. They all get to sit in your space.

Liam: Yeah, she actually, she uses them, right. She, she likes to watch, She likes to watch movies,
even if she does watch love actually once every two weeks

Desiree: Oh my

Liam: at most, at most, uh, doesn’t matter what season.

Desiree: I saw something on, um, online that made me laugh really hard. And it said, watch love actually. And then watch diehard so that you could watch him get his comeuppance right after Alan Rickman. How dare you cheat on me die. I’m like, oh, I should tell him mom, that one he got dropped off a building.

Liam: Apparently they, they didn’t let him know that they were going to be doing that.

Desiree: Oh?

Liam: Like he knew that was a part of the scene. They just didn’t know that he was like, they were going to drop him. Nobody told them that. Cause they wanted to, they

Desiree: wanted the shocked expression?

Liam: Uh, yeah, they want a genuine reaction out of him, which they got.

Cause he didn’t fucking know they were going to drop them.

Desiree: That’s horrible. They do that to actors a lot though. I feel bad for them, especially in horror movies and horror movies. They don’t tell them about shit. Poor drew Barrymore. So the screamer face one scream, I guess she, yeah, for the director actually said stuff.

So mean to her to make her cry on purpose and then uh, Candyman. There’s a point where an arm comes out of a mirror. They didn’t tell the actress that was happening. So like she literally screamed and ran like,

Liam: Yeah. Yeah. At that point you were lucky someone doesn’t just go, Jesus. Fuck.

Desiree: The good thing with the horror movies though, they’re allowed to have that. They got the R rating

Liam: Yeah. Most of the time, man.

Desiree: Yeah. But if you do it in like, you know, a non rated R

Liam: You’d get at least slap the arm.

Desiree: That would be me. Yeah.

Boing, boing, boing. This arm.All Severed. Like I think it was one of the Exsorcist movies or something. They actually couldn’t afford fake bodies. They used real dead bodies in this swimming pool scene. I forget which movies that one. So I’m like, are you fucking kidding me?

Liam: That’s got to be more expensive than fake bodies, right? Like where they extras that we’re just pretending or

Desiree: No, no, these are corpses like skeletons. So I’m like what? There’s gotta be some law against that. Ah, not cool. Poor actress.

Liam: we just, we just had bodies available and we didn’t have the budget did not use them?

Desiree: And we’re just not going to tell her she’s going to be swimming in this pool. That’s basically, they tried to dig out a pool in the backyard and it wasn’t finished. And so it’s like this rain scene in this mud puddle with, with dead bodies. So she’s swimming through , no, not okay. Some horror movies.

I don’t watch that’s for sure.

Liam: Now it is a little, it’s a little bit hard to feel too bad for actresses and actors considering how much they get paid for doing something like that. Um, not all of them obviously, but definitely the, the high ticket ones. Certainly.

Desiree: Yeah, some horror, are the most horrible because they aren’t able to get paid enough for what they do though. Especially if it’s a B rated, when they don’t get paid much,.

Liam: Yeah, most, most actors and actresses, the 90% of them are, or more are definitely the starving variety. Whereas the top 10% is much like a athletes. Like it’s hard to feel bad for a professional athlete, uh, destroying their body for the amount that they’re getting paid. Uh, but the, all of the people that don’t make it to be professional athletes that destroy their bodies before they actually get there. And it does kind of feel bad.

Desiree: And that works for like singers, dancers, actors. Yeah. I agree. Well, it looks like we’re getting close to our time. Do you have anything else specific? You want to talk about?

Liam: Well, I guess I wanted to take a little bit of a look at 2021 just as a whole and what we thought of it. So entertainment wise, I think that’s mostly what we’ve been talking about for the last year. Besides the one show that I watched and the many mangas that have read, I’ve really appreciated a lot of the games that have come out this year.

And I’ve played a lot of games that didn’t come out this year. Um, but I also, I’ve played a lot of new stuff too. And some of the stuff I’ll probably be playing for quite a long time afterwards. I’ve also been doing a D and D. Now this was the second I’m going on the second year here. And so this was a full year of playing D and D and it’s been a blast I’m really looking forward to doing more of it.

Desiree: More than just playing, being the dungeon master and writing so much.

Liam: Yeah, it’s definitely been, it’s been a great motivator to flesh out my world because I wouldn’t touch it otherwise. So the majority of the stuff I’ve been doing for the last few weeks has been making a living city where there was none before. Um, since the guys decided to go follow a thread into one area of investigation, brought them to a town that, uh, was at one point just a name on a map and

Desiree: Oh yeah, you got a map there. So there’s

Liam: I do now.

Yeah. That’s something for the guys to reference when they go through their investigation in this town. And I’ve got, you know, people that live here and actions that they’ve been taking and dealings that are going on. Yeah, this, uh, this, whole town, my concept behind it is called port refuge, or refuge it’s, basically Navy HQ.

It’s a fortress town that is the center of naval operations for lie and tire continent. So there are multiple different basically Marine battalions stationed here, as well as the central Naval HQ. So there are a lot of civilians in this area. It’s the most protected port in the union.

So it’s a distribution center as well for supplies and merchants and stuff like that all along the coast, but it’s the center port for the Navy of the union. And so they’ve come here looking for a traitor, basically, , someone that is in my world’s equivalent of, the espionage covert agency has gone rogue and they’re trying to hunt them down, find out like why they may have turncoats or what exactly it is their motivations are and what they’re doing.

So there are hunting for a traitor in a Naval town. That’s what they’re going to be doing over the next several sessions, most likely.

Desiree: So it looks very fortified and very built up. As in you built it from the ground up, it looks like a really good, like, very organized and flourishing kind of port town. That’s right.

Liam: Yeah. I like split it up into, major points of interests and like district’s, fleshed out like the few lines that I’d written about it in history. I gave it some more landmarks and just, you know, wrote some occupants and people. And we’ll see what the guys experience while they’re in this area.

I wanted to put a little bit more effort into this one, because I do think there’ll be like a significant amount of investigation going on in this city. Whereas when they were in Asmatin, which is the capital of my Dvarven Almian, kingdom, they spent more time there than I had expected. And so I never actually made a map for ALM, uh, but specifically for asthma ITN the capital, because. Uh, according to my lore, a giant city that is basically in two mountains. And the second mountain that is adjacent to is basically one giant necropolis. So they have like the living Spire and they’re undead Spire. The alminsin my setting, the dwarves are they’ve taken ancestor worship to such an extreme that they have revived their ancestors because they’ve been able to.

Desiree. Yeah. You’ve said that before.

Liam: Very much,

The whole concept of the Dvarvan almineanswas like, Okay.

If dwarves worship their ancestors so much in a world where you could literally return things from the dead, then wouldn’t, they just do that.

Right. It’s like, all right, you respect your grandfather. So fucking much that.

Bringing them back from the dead because you have his remains and the means to do so. Why wouldn’t you?

Right. Uh, and then if he didn’t want to, you could ask him that, but after your rez him., right, it’s just like, Hey grandpa, you want to, you know, stay on the mortal plane for a little bit longer. You
can keep your position.

Uh, right. So, uh, that the assets in is very much reflective of their society in that the, the larger of the mountains is actually the necropolis mountain. And it’s only reserved for the honor dead. Whereas the living side is the, where production happens, right. Where it’s much more, uh, divided in its like class structure.

So the guy has spent quite a bit of time and has gotten more. Like I said, more so than I had expected. If I had known that they were going to spend multiple sessions in Aspen, I probably would have made a map for it properly.

Desiree: Do you think you could with this, this program? Cause it’s supposed to be inside of mountain, I guess you

Liam: Oh, Yeah.

I could, I could, for sure. Yeah. I’ve um, somewhat I’ve done it before. I think I, uh, I’ve made a few dwarven holds, uh, one of them for sure was in a mountain. And then a few others were in like craters and stuff like that, but I can do it for sure, because you just, you do it like a cut-out Yeah.

Desiree: Yeah it is. I like it. Cause, I almost want to like print these and put them in a book or something or put them like, put, print this out and put it up if that’s where you guys are on the wall. So you guys can look at it. Cause

Liam: Yeah, this one I’m going to print out, uh, since they most likely will be spending some time investigating this area, I’m going to print this one out I’ll laminate and they’ll be able to quick reference it. Like I have it on my site so that they can look at it on their phone, but I it’s Especially for my group, for them to have something hands-on, if they can like feel it and like, just move it around between themselves, it makes a big difference as opposed to having it available digitally.

I’ve definitely found that, especially when I make like, an activity for them, I try to make as much of it physical as possible for them to interact with. Like, when I did them trying to prepare people for winter or when they were trying to infiltrate solar, Kllauss like all that sort of stuff I gamified and made into a physical representation that they could like pour over and make their decisions.

And I think the guys have appreciated those mini games that I’ve made in our campaign.

Desiree: Much cooler. I think then, then all digital, while at the same time, like when I’m moving, one of the things Marie Kondo, the person that says, you know, does this give you joy? That girl you ever heard of her? wrote a yeah. Yeah. And she wrote a book about how to downsize. And one of the things she was saying is, you know, you don’t have to keep the sentimental items.

Sometimes you can keep a picture of it. an idea, you know, like digital pictures or cause I’m going through my photo albums, I’ve got like five giant photo albums. And my like, I love me, uh, certificates and stuff that I’ve earned and trophies and whatever. And I do, I really need those. Do I have space for those?

No. Can I scan those and then deal with them? Yes. You know what I mean? So at the same time I was like, I don’t mind having those digital because I don’t look at them now physically, I, if I’m playing a game or something, yeah. I would appreciate to have the reminder of physically, cause I’m not going to remember it.

Right. But you know, certain things can be both. It’s kind of weird. Cause I, I had this issue the other day. It was a little stressed out. Cause you know it’s end of the year. I haven’t really packed that much. We’re moving in two months. Dad’s not quite ready with the suite.. So I’m a little worried, cause I don’t want to hurt myself again and then not being able to move and whatever else.

And I was like, oh, when I make my website, cause Teela is working on it right now. It’s not going to be up by January, which is when I wanted it to, but it wasn’t a hard, a hard date or anything. I just feel like I’m a little behind, but then I’m like, wait, it’s a website. Teela, do I have to go live with everything at once?

Cause I’ve got like 10 different things I want to do with this website. And she’s like, no, you know, we can do this, this and that. And that other thing that we can be working on in the background and it doesn’t need to go live and I’m like, oh thank God. Cause you know, we, we grew up with technology kind of nacient.

So it doesn’t automatically occur to me that I don’t have to do everything all at once for a website or something like that. You know, technology doesn’t mean it’s all or nothing. Sometimes half-ass works out. You know what I

Liam: And that’s my website to a T.

Desiree: Exactly.

I, I very slowly add stuff to it. I there’s a lot of stuff I would, cause for me, one, my focus is on something. I put all of my time into that one thing. Right. And it’s difficult for me to keep D and D in my main focus because it requires other people and it’s over a period of time, two weeks generally.

Liam: So, if I have my stuff prepared or what I think is adequate preparation for the next session, it’s difficult for me to maintain a focus on the and D to be like, okay, there’s a bunch of other stuff that I can do for the website. Right. I’ll be like, all right, I’m good for the next time. Onto my focus switched shifts and I start playing a different game or whatever.

Right. My, and I’ll be completely absorbed in whatever that focus is for that specific theme. So when I get the most work done on the website is when I have a real crunch usually of things I need to get done for D and D. So,

Desiree: Or a crunch when, you know, right before these, we have pictures to have to go up or whatever.

Liam: Yeah, I was adjusting this map literally, uh, minutes before I uploaded it.

I finished the map several days ago, but as I uploaded it, I was like, I added districts and I haven’t like given them clear markers yet. So I just quickly did something like for that,

Desiree: Okay. That makes sense.

LIam: Right. That sort of thing. Uh,

Desiree: Like it looks great. I like it. It’s a very in some ways Tolkien ask and some ways CS Lewis, I like it. I like the, whatever the art style that they’re using is it’s good.

Liam: Yeah, and I am mixing And matching. They actually present you with multiple different,
options. So I could go like a complete sketch style. I could go for a more realistic style. I use use what I feel is best for the thing that I’m trying to portray. Usually the larger, the map, the more of the like parchment style that I go for.

But this this program has a lot of similar shortcuts, as well as like user friendliness and tools that you would get from Photoshop.

So, when you, and, video editing software and stuff like that, there’s a lot of common languages in that regard.

So when, when you are, yeah, when you learn one of these programs, it really assists you a lot in using the other programs.

Desiree: Which I forget all the time too, because Photoshop has become, so user-friendly, I’m

Liam: And so ubiquitous, right? like the fact that you can,

Like in this map image, for example, if I wanted to select like the right half of all of the objects on my screen. So that would be like all of the titles, the houses, the docs, and the stuff like that. I could literally click and drag a box over them and then copy my control C control V and mirror it.

If I want it to literally just make exactly the left hand, look like the right hand, like I could do that. And it would be super easy. There would be no issue whatsoever.

If I wanted to make a copy of a building, I can literally just click on it and rotate it or mirror it, flip it, reverse it, re change its size shape, and then put it wherever I want.

Like there’s a lot of things that I use that are. Uh, and it’s something I learned from planet coaster. Planet coaster is a game like rollercoaster tycoon, but a more modern version.

Desiree: Oh, okay.

Liam: And the thing that planet coaster does is it’s a secret tool for 3d animated modelers. Like it’s a secret training tool.

It’s like an indoctrination to 3d modeling because

Desiree: The rollercoaster tycoon was too. It was just very basic obviously.

Liam: Yeah, it was more, it was more limited in what you could do, whereas in planet coaster, literally every single item you take that item and then you can move it on a Z like a Zed Y and X axis, and you can put it up down and through rotate it into a train piece. so you can take a lap post for example, and you can put that lamp post down on the ground, near a pathway and like, all right, simple.

That’s the most like basic action that you could do, but then you’re like, okay, Now what if this lamp posts, I really like the top of this lamppost. It’s a really cool, like, you know, lantern, what if I just take that lamppost and then move it into the ground? So that the only thing that’s showing is just that top part.

And now it’s like the height of a recycle bin, but it’s giving off light. And so you don’t see all of the other parts that are now below the ground. And that’s the sort of thing that you do all the time in Photoshop,

Where you, you take something and then you have it on a different layer below or above something else.

So it’s only showing the part that you want to show, right? It’s so applicable to so many different things.

Desiree: For my cards. The second one, the own your weird one. I wanted to have a brick background and then I wanted like a rainbow sunset color to my lettering. And it was, it was a mask which is technically only like a one-click and then layers at all like, oh, oh, I remember when I learned Photoshop, it was not this easy.

Makes me so happy.

Liam: Like taking these objects in planet coaster, it’s a 3d space. And this program that incarnate, it’s a 2d space, but still like taking a bunch of objects and using them to make what you actually want to they’ll have look like what you want to show in the picture. It’s very similar to what people do when they’re filming movies, right?

Everything within the frame of a movie is what they want you to see everything outside of that is not at all conducive to what’s being shown in the frame. Like, and this is true.
of literally every movie set ever, because every movie uses some sort of microphone, right?

So if, if they zoom out just a little bit too far, you get a boom mic in the shot, right.

And that completely destroys any kind of immersion that you have for your scene, because now there’s just this fucking fuzzy mike hanging in front of somebodies face.

But that’s exactly the sort of thing that you adjust in, and work with. And when you’re making a movie, when you’re making an image in Photoshop, when you’re doing, creating a ride or some sort of attraction implant, coaster is you’re just making it so that the framing shows only what you wanna show.

And then the picture, or like seeing that you’re creating is disparate parts shown exactly how you want it. Well, how you want them to be seen. And that’s very much what this, map-making program is like. Right. So learning how to do it in a different medium can really help you produce these maps. It really does.

It has helped me a lot. And working with this map program has also helped me with these other like framing, like how I take pictures of my managers and stuff like that.

Desiree: And they have improved definitely dramatically. I was actually uploading the pictures from previous link dumps and yeah. Your pictures of your models and definitely gotten better. I, I was looking, some of them were

Liam: Yeah. Well, I, I, have definitely, I have old, I have old pictures. I took with my tablet. And then I eventually stopped being lazy and dragged out my camera, found his power cord and stuff like that. And my camera is, it’s an old camera, but it’s still, and when I take pictures, I use lighting and stuff like that, but yeah, framing is really important and it makes my managers look way better than they do otherwise.

Right. They look fine. When, you’re using them in real life, but you can, I can make them look way cooler with a properly taken picture.

Desiree: Well also, like we don’t get to see them that close up. So it’s nice to see the details. It’s not like we’re going to grab some things, especially if they’re glued down or whatever, shove it up into our eyes and look that close. So I won’t have the appropriate lighting to actually see it.

Yes. That’s a big issue in my house now. Well, I’m lazy and every time a light goes out, I haven’t changed it. The spare room has been gone for months without lights. Cause I just don’t care.

Liam: Well, I was helping out in the suite today and you guys are definitely going to be moving into the best lit, area in the entire house, for sure. Yeah.

Desiree: Dad went a little overboard. I had to tell him to stop. He’s like I have more, I have more.

Liam: You’ve got switches and dimmers. You’ll be able to use whatever, however much, however little you want.

Desiree: That’s why I made him put the dimmers there. Cause there’s so many lights and he wanted to put more. I’m like, no stop. It’s not very big. I don’t need any more light. I’m glad though, he had a good time doing that and it’s definitely worth it. And besides he could light up some lights in the spare room, cause there’s no light in there and I’m going to need some cause I’m going to have some of my shit in there to work on so

Liam: So

Desiree: That you can put some lights in there, keep them from there.

But, I definitely want to tell everybody that, I actually went and looked what the different apps are that our podcast is on. Cause I had to list them out for Teela. So we’ve got Google podcast, we’ve got the pod B nap and the pod bean, obviously internet browser. And then there’s the Amazon music, which is also called an audible.

We have Pandora and then we have YouTube. So those, all the ones that we have are going to have this available on. And, I’m working on my podcast actual section of my website. Teela says she’s working on it. So hopefully that will be out soon too, at newnerdnovelties.com. Then they have solo quest, creative questions.

Number 10 now has all the pictures that we were talking about. And of course you can always take a look at any of my weird creations at new nerd novelties on Facebook and or Instagram or Twitter.

Liam: Yeah. And for what I have of my miniatures, which is, I need to take more pictures of my miniatures. It takes a long time though. That’s the thing is like taking. Uh, a scene set up, taking pictures, then transferring it over and then putting everything away.

I got, even for a few pictures, it’s like an hour long process and more energy than you usually have, especially in a day. And I’m working. That’s why I haven’t uploaded more pictures of my matches. Cause I’ve painted way more pictures than I had way more managers than I have pictures. I was thinking of like taking pictures of everything that I’ve painted this year.

And I was like, it’s more effort than it would be just to paint more miniatures.

Desiree: Maybe, maybe you should just start, doing a once a month picture thing and then catch up. You know what I mean?

Liam: That might not be a bad idea. Yeah. If I schedule it

Desiree: Yeah, for only like half a day or whatever, how many hours you want to do it. And then just be like, this is my time to do it. Cause I know you need specific deadlines.

Liam: I do. Yeah, That’s not a bad idea. I might schedule it. If I schedule it, I’ll actually stick to it. Um, and then you can catch up and it won’t feel like it’s so much arduous work. Because you have so much backlog. I have to do the same. I have to do the same thing with my stock because yeah I have hundreds of pieces of stock in 300 words for each item before I can even put them on the website.

Desiree: So I have 36 pages of writing so far of those 36 pages. Now, every single one of those items, I have to get ready for shipping to find out how much the shipping cost is. So after like, yeah, that’s, that’s my next step.

So I’m got to work on the blog and the podcast at Teela first, because those are easier.

And then I’ll get to that merch.

Liam: I think I will try, I have one more. I’ve been so lazy. I have one miniature for half painted for the last, like three weeks. And it got half painted in like an hour. I probably can finish it in another hour. I’d have just been like, eh, yeah,

Desiree: We’ve got a little overtime, but we had to, we were kind of doing a year in review, so very much appreciate everybody’s time. And thank you for listening to us. Just want to say that. Yeah. All of our social media, as we said, just before I on a solo quest and Facebook and Facebook and Podbean and poppy, we’ll show you all the other different places that we have it.

I appreciate your time, Liam. And I hope everybody has a happy new year or at least a new year that’s as gentle as possible.

Liam: Right. And we’ll be trying to get together at some point next week.

Desiree: Yes, for

Liam: No promises though. I never promised anything.

Desiree: Thank you so much for your time. This has been creative questions the brother sister duo of myself and

Liam: Liam Hewlett and we’ll see you again. Next time. Have a good night.

Desiree: Thank you so much for listening. You have a great day.