More Elven Door(window?) Designs

Further iterations, this time with heavily modified columns and the addition of hanging lamps. The lamps especially need some more detail work. As before, this is heavily inspired by the brilliant artistry of Roberto Castro, concept artist (for Rings of Power in this case).

Updates and Twatnot...

I managed to get through the dental travails, none the worse for wear. I think we’ve settled on this new dental clinic as our permanent choice. They don’t push unnecessary procedures, and the appointment and co-pay process is painless. Aeyong has been there a few times, and things have gone relatively smoothly.

This spring has been a wet one for North Texas, and as luck would have it, the rains have come at a very inopportune time for us. I had started to address some bare spots in the lawn with a seed fabric (Growtrax), and while I was in the process, I thought it would make more sense to try and rejuvenate the entire front yard. Mother nature thought otherwise. The fabric is susceptible to high winds and heavy rain. We tried to time the installation for a calm day, which was several days before the next rain forecast.

We didn’t look close at the rain forecast, it was predicted at around 50% so we didn’t have much concern. Famous last words. We received record rainfall that weekend and similar torrential rains for the next two weekends. Much of the material and seeds washed out, leaving the lawn with many bare spots. I decided to put any lawn rejuvenation on hold until the spring rains had died down. That means late June at the earliest.

In the meantime, I think it was sometime in May that the upstairs HVAC started struggling. To cut the story short, several different companies came out, and all of them recommended a new system (surprise, surprise). We got a fairly wide range of estimates, none of which were cheap. During this process, an HVAC contractor (Atlas AC) that hosts a YouTube channel came up in my feed. I had watched a few of their videos and liked their transparency about the process and prices. As luck would have it, they are headquartered in Texas, and they serve our area.

They publish all their prices online, and there’s a tool to design your own system and get a cost estimate. The prices were much more reasonable and I didn’t have to worry about any gotchas or last-minute changes. I had them come out and estimate our needs, and then we purchased the new system. We had a few payment options, including paying cash outright, using our credit cards, or financing it through their affiliated credit company, CreditHuman.

We didn’t want to take on more debt just as we were getting close to paying off the only remaining debt we had, which was our mortgage. But, we didn’t want to use our emergency cash to pay for something we could get financed. We decided to withdraw $5K from our TSP (IRA), which has had a good year. We’ll end up paying a 10% early withdrawal penalty in addition to taxes, but for something as important as HVAC in Texas, we decided this was a worthy exception.

The install didn’t go as smoothly as desired, we had everything from one of the installers falling off the attic ladder (due to their own incompetence) as well as the outside condenser getting dented at some point in the delivery and installation process. The good news is that Atlas AC stands behind their services and products, and they came back out to replace the damaged condenser with a new one and assess and clean up some residual trash and damage. They also installed two new closet AC runs that were supposed to be installed during the initial visit. During the first visit, the installer removed the attic ladder hinges and springs, and when they put them back together, they didn’t replace some framing nails holding the ladder securely. The installer also damaged our wall when he fell. Atlas AC scheduled a handyman to come out and repair the damage. He’s been out to check and should return sometime next week to make the repairs. All’s well that ends well, and overall we’re happy with the result and will probably use them again when the downstairs unit inevitably needs replacement.

I’ve continued on my primary creative disciplines of 3D and guitar. The other disciplines have been on hold with all the additional concerns of the lawn, HVAC, Aeyong’s medical issues (routine) and the thousand little daily distractions. I resume my guitar studies at Berklee on Monday week, so I’ve been reviewing all the level 1-3 material as well as starting on the level 4 material. I should have enough remaining benefits to complete the Guitar Performance degree with only one semester of the private guitar instruction remaining that I’ll have to pay for myself. I’ve fought against a lack of motivation for more of the theory fire hydrant, but I know that if I don’t take advantage of these remaining benefits, I’ll likely look back on it as a failure. I hope with some deeper immersion (meaning more dedication to the guitar program), that I’ll finally be able to absorb this knowledge and these techniques into my automatic vocabulary on the instrument. All with the main goal of writing great songs, and not necessarily in line with the focus and intent of many of Berklee’s instructors.

As time is of the essence, I decided to try and finish (reset) my yard renovations before the start of the summer semester. While we were laying the yard fabric, a part of one of the rolls came loose and a bunch of seeds spilled out in a pile. We had already laid fabric around it and didn’t want to walk on it, so we just left the pile as it was. Lo and behold, that particular patch was the only part of the new lawn that grew in as thick and lush as we desired. The remainder of the fabric grew in sparse and thin. The good news is I finally have evidence that a thick, lush lawn is possible if the appropriate steps are taken.

I ended up watering with less volume but more frequently that I had with new seed in the past. The other lesson I think I’ve learned is that I need to ensure the seed is at least partially pushed into the soil as opposed to just broadcast spreading and hoping for the best. To that end, I decided to follow the lead of some successful YouTubers and employ several techniques for the first time. Namely, I’m getting five yards of enriched topsoil delivered so I can level out several low areas while providing a nutrient-dense base for the new seed. I’ll be using a lawn levelling rake to get the topsoil spread and levelled, and then I’ll probably give the topsoil a light scarification before laying down a new seed. I’ve purchased some common Bermuda with added fertilizer and some premium Bermuda hybrid seeds. Yesterday I scalped the lawn (for the second time this year), scarified the soil, and then laid down the Anderson’s PGF fertilizer in preparation for the new topsoil coming next week. I also need to install this yard barrier against the sidewalk to keep the new topsoil from washing out on the sidewalk.

When I ordered the topsoil, there was no rain forecast for the next several weeks, but, when I looked at today’s forecast, next week there is now, wait for it, rain in the forecast. I’ve already pulled the trigger on the topsoil and paid for it, and with Berklee starting up again the following week, there won’t be another good time until the fall. I don’t want to try to replant the yard during the hottest time of the year (July-August) despite reports that Bermuda can handle it.

Not bad, but it could be better...

This should be a short one (famous last words). I’ve had to reflect on the amount of time it’s taken me to progress in my first big 3D project, the Moria environment for my Doors of Durin Legends Unboxed video. I was trying to remember when I started and coincidentally, the order from Weta actually shipped a year ago yesterday. That means the idea for the unboxing video is about that old now.

I’ve certainly made some progress in the last year, but there have been many starts and stops and several times I’ve rebooted the entire project. Which leads me to the post title. Often, I’ll set out to model a certain element, like the Doors themselves, and I’ll get a result that’s “satisfactory”, at least based on my current skillset at the time. I’ll then move on to the next logical step or two, and after I complete those I’ll likely have improved my overall skillset slightly, enough to look back a few steps and think “Not bad, but it could be better.”

It’s accurate to say that this project in many ways has been an education in 3D…from modeling to environment design to materials and textures, visual fx, fluid simulations, sculpture, and the list goes on. I’ve been slowly building on my foundational skills, and probably more importantly, my eye and ability to discern what’s mediocre, what’s okay, and what’s sublime. I’ve made many things in the first category, some in the middle, and as yet, none in the latter.

Learning to make the distinction and force myself to acknowledge that something is not bad, but could be better has become my approach to pushing my skillset further and hopefully achieving the results I see in my mind’s eye. The main downside is that it’s increasing the project size and time (noob hours?) and taking much longer to complete. And, I’m still in a place where nothing feels completely finished and will likely be revisited and improved or redone before I’m satisfied. What was meant to be a relatively short unboxing video with a bit of extra lore thrown in has evolved to become an education in itself.