Jon Decker: Grasping at Creativity

Unicorn Horn for Sale

Just sayin’

I’m back from a long writing hiatus. I took a couple photos in Central Park today. It was really cold; well nigh unto freezing, actually. There’s some small samples after the break. Before that, let me just say that in finally getting on the internet and reading a post that made me want to write again I left my eggs on the boil and they burned leaving my house smelling of burned toenails. Gross. [Read the rest of this entry...]

I was just doing some needed research for a period piece that I’m writing. I’m probably not the first to notice this trend, but it seems that the decade just after any major war in America comes a “golden age” of perceived prosperity that rejuvinates, among other things, public opinion of politics. Of course, that slowly dwindles into complacency pretty quickly. On that note, I think all the wars that happen are politically motivated for eventual public opinion shift; that, or else somone just got bored.

For a while now I have been looking at getting a fancy dress watch for those rare occasions when I dress fancy. As I have an affinity to the cogwerks style, I have been searching through the “steampunk watches” on the interweb for some time now, but to no avail. All the specifically dedicated “steampunk” watches that I have come across are just re-purposed old watches with gears and bits soldered on. They’re usually way too chunky and heavy to fit under the sleeve of a shirt, a point absolutely necessary in order to take a wristwatch seriously. For those who have not looked here are a few examples of “steampunk” watches.

I find the idea of a “steampunk” watch a little funny. You see, unlike computers, heavier than air airships, and motorcycles the Victorian era actually had watches. I understand that Steampunk is fantasy and such, but I wish to impose my own reality based framework on things when coming up with the rules for a style. My rule is, Steampunk is what our world would look like today if oil based fuels were not developed beyond 1883. That gives us all a lot of leeway when developing Steampunk style, but does not discount the progress in many other non-related fields. I digress. The watch I settled on was this:

It’s not exactly “Steampunk”, but throws in the cogwerk decoratively like I wanted. It’s unfortunately priced at over a thousand dollars, but auctions on overstock.com may fix that. We’ll see. I’d probably replace the band with something less dandy.

All the pictures link to the location at which I found them. Credit given, stop harping on me.

I needed some PhotoShop Brushes to create fog, smoke or cloud cover for use in an animation. You can now add them to your collection should you have the need.

Smokely Photoshop Brush Set (22)