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by doc on comics, gif

It’s pronounced “GIF”: Pieces from the Hard G Project

Last week I wrote about some pieces I created for the Hard G Project. After hanging these pieces around the city, the organizer of the project then gave a talk at XOXO in Portland. Now that the project is officially over, I can share the gifs I created online. So, here they are:

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

via GIPHY

The first two gifs, “Pac-Man Fever” and “Book on Tape”, were drawn on my iPad using the Procreate App. But that doesn’t have an animation feature, so I had to use photoshop to turn my Procreate images into Gifs. The third piece, “Nerd Resistance”, was created using an image from an old NASA guide to soldering.

 
by doc on comics, crafts, gif, iPhone, mission life, video

Gif art IRL and emergent behaviour

I was asked to create some GIFs for a new gorilla art project called The Hard G Project. The organizers gave me a couple of tablets to display the gifs on and I got to decide when, where, and how the art was hung. The idea was that we’d leave the tablets up, with my art animating, and they stay up until they are stolen or the batteries die.

I hung one of my pieces on Clarion Alley and stuck around to watch a few people interact with it. When I came back 4 or 5 hours later, I was surprised at what I found… the iPad had been switched to camera mode and a bunch of people took selfies from this odd little iPad hanging in an Alley.

That feeling when people like taking selfies more than they like your art. Sigh…

Hard G Project

Hard G Project

 
by doc on games, gif

GIFs from Akira, the 1988 video game for Nintendo’s Famicom system

Last night I booted up Akira on an NES emulator and did my best to live-GIF the experience. Akira is one of my all-time favorite films and I remember hearing rumors of a 8-bit videogame version released in 1988, but it was only released in Japan for the Famicom. 25 years later, some volunteers worked their asses off to create an updated NES version of the ROM with english translations.

The game sucks. It’s filled with amazing pixel art and a really interesting (and at times experimental) chiptune soundtrack, but it’s downright painful to play without step by step instructions. It often requires clicking on an option that is hard to find (or off screen), or some convoluted sequence of clicks that require clicking on the same option a number of times even though the answers don’t change. At some point it briefly turns into a 1st person shooter, as you dodge bullets in the sewer, that’s super twitchy and kills you instantly, requiring a long slog through various dialogue options just to instantly die again. I hate this game so much.

But the graphics are incredible, so I captured a bunch of GIFs of the game’s best moments. You can download the ROM here and follow this guide for the best experience. FYI, I made it all the way to the final “boss fight” with Tetsuo and Kaneda before the game just glitched out. I’ll have to try another play through to get the ending animations, which I assume are beautiful.


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