Friday, May 13, 2022

An Annotated Copy of Advanced Potion-Making

Harry was without a textbook for the magic portion class was used an old copy of the text, which just so happened to be annotated by the student who had come before him.

Screenshot is from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Tuesday, May 10, 2022

Miniature Detail Parts

"Creating miniature parts can be hobby in it self". The author has created hundreds detail parts for his dioramas. There are dozens of images of his detail collection.

Friday, May 6, 2022

Language is Fear

“…the future is desolation. Progress has reached its peak. Earth’s possibilities have been explored and exhausted. Spacemen have conquered and have been conquered, and God has been offered the ultimate challenge-human resurrection.

Only one man still lives in a world made- and destroyed -by his progenitors. Now he faces extinction through the machinations of those who have inherited the earth-Robots.”

Prologue: Who can Replace a Man?, Brian Aldiss, 1965



Other Works by Brian Aldiss:

No Time Like Tomorrow
The Dark Light Years
Starswarm
The Long Afternoon on Earth
Greybeard
Galaxies Like Grains of Sand

Tuesday, May 3, 2022

Behind the Scenes of Star Wars: The Original Trilogy ILM Special Effects Makers

I didn't find that I had posted this video on my blog. This 59 minute video will take you behind the scenes of the technique for the creation of the special effects for the first three Star Wars episodes.

Monday, May 2, 2022

Friday, April 29, 2022

My Western Town | Building 6

Why not start at the end and work your way forward? I just happened upon this video while going back to look for other vidoes by this author.

Thursday, April 28, 2022

The Coincidence of Combination’s

One of the factors that fascinates me about narrow gauge model railroading is all the different configurations one can come up with by using off the shelf track and mechanisms.

OO gauge is 36” in 1:48 scale-On3
HO gauge is 42” gauge in 1:64 scale-Sn3 ½
HO gauge is close to 30” gauge in 1:48 scale-On30
TT gauge is 30” gauge in 1:64 scale-Sn2 ½
N gauge is 30" gauge in 1:87 scale-HOn30
Z gauge is close to meter and 42” gauge in 1:160 scale-Nnm, Nn3 ½
N gauge is close to 15” gauge in 1:48 scale-On 1 ¼

Creative Model Railroad Design, John Armstrong, Kalmbach Books, 1990

Wednesday, April 27, 2022

Mattel's Micro Jurassic World Collection

Here are four out of the five dino miniatures from the Mattel Micro Jurassic World Collection. They are cute little gobs of plastic that I couldn't resist.

Dimetrodon

Stegosaurus

Triceratops

Velociraptor

Tuesday, April 26, 2022

The Hogwart Express

The grand Hogwart Express stream engine in its red and black livery. Every bit of her brass sparkels in the reflections of the sun.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardly

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

The grand old structure of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardly. The school is a place of magic, of learning and a place of mystery. It is a place where the staircases mysteriouly move and change up. You may end up somewhere other then where you had intended.

Constructing the Windows

I have come to the most tedious part of construction, the assembly of the windows. I have already added the glazing to the interior of the windows and have 'framed' out the outside of the window. I have been experimenting with different methods for creating scale windows. All I have left to do is to add the shash, rails, and grills.

I had planned to use four pane windows of this portion of the structure as it represents the older part of the shack. I am giving this process some thought and am trying to come up with an efficient method for this very tedious next step.

Friday, April 22, 2022

Wood Boulders

I was walking down the trail the other day and I heard a wood pecker pecking at a tree. Once I got a bit closer I noticed that there were these bits of wood covering a bit of the trail. I got down and examined the bits and thought these bits might work well as wood debris of some sort, but after studying them for a time I realized they might make some very convincing boulders, that is after a little application of paint and a good wash.

Thursday, April 21, 2022

The Legends of New Earth

“Wild on the wind rose the righteous wrath of Maalvin,
Borne like a brand to the burning of the Barrens.
Arms of hands of rebels perished then,
Stars nor moons bedecked that midnight.
IMT made the sky-
Fall!

Black with their blood was the brick of that barrow,
Toppled the tall towers, crushed to the clay.
None might live who flouted Mallvin,
Earth their souls spurned spaceward, wailing- IMT made the sky-
Fall!”

Cities in Flight, James Blish

Wednesday, April 20, 2022

Bulletin 100000: Blackett Dirac Equations

“Space flight got its start as a war weapon amid the collapse of the great Western culture of Earth. The invention of Muir’s tape-mass engine carried early explorers out as far as Jupiter. The building, by remote control, of the Bridge on the face of Jupiter itself, easily the most enormous engineering project ever undertaken by man, had made possible direct, close measurements of Jupiter’s magnetic field.

The measurements provided final confirmation of the Blackett Dirac equations, which as early as 1948 had proposed a direct relationship between magnetism, gravitation, and the rate of spin of any mass.”

Prologue, Earthmen Come Home, Cities in Flight, James Blish, 1955