hen
t h e e r
the blender once more
warpus i havent drawn an ansi in maybe 8 years, and the ansi i drew 8 years
ago said ANSI and was horrible. the last ansi I drew before that
was maybe 10 years before that
n e w s
So... after finally sharing the results of a dozen lost compos, last
year we revived the franchise and ran the first Blender IRC compo in 16 years!
It was small but sweet, and you can enjoy the results in BLNDR2015.ZIP !
Hidden therein was an easter egg pointing to another one this year.
t i m i n g i s s u e s
So, right off the bat some of my cronies were in place and awaiting my
arrival, hoping to disappoint me with an explanation rather than with their
unexplained absence:
maze you picked the middle of the night again for Europeans
maze well done
hellbeard i guess i wont be able to participate either as its too late in
the night for me
hellbeard but good luck :
cthmist Maze, your criticism is dead on.
cthmist When I ran the Blender last year while hosting my own
birthday party I wasnt clued-in enough to realise that the time
difference was stifling, then I just lazily moved the dates ahead
in the documents.
cthmist I learned that lesson running the Trackerfix last month, but the
times and dates had already been carved in stone. Blender 2017
will for sure have different times!
cthmist I really did not factor in for European time zones, this wasnt a
factor 20 years ago...
cthmist If you hang in for a half hour longer, I can grant you a 24 hour
period to go to sleep, then get up and put something together for
the compo 8
There you go! New compo rules: give everyone in the world a reasonable
slice of time in which to work, and a truly generous slice of time for
the unreasonable sleep-eschewers to capitalize on.
o l d f r i e n d s
We werent successful at rounding up Blender founder Hennifer this time
around, but his old buddy Warpus, who ran the compo series through most of its
lifespan, logged an appearance to help make things official.
16:29 * warpus has joined blender
cthmist The Last Minute, so to speak.
cthmist Well well well, look what the cat dragged in!
warpus I have arrived at the last minute, exactly as planned
warpus perfect punctuation on my part if I dare say so
warpus err wait punctuation is not when youre punctual
sudndeath warpus i need a partner
* cthmist checks warpus hand for a wedding band
w e p i c k e d w o r d s
BLNDR2016 monkey / baking / factory
cthmist All right, WAKE UP EVERYBODY!
cthmist RINGADINGADINGADINGA
warpus WAKE THE FUCK UP
warpus AUFSTEHEN
warpus FRUHSTUCK
warpus these are europeans, right
The compounding problem with having a small pool of Blender participants
is that you have relatively few people to get word suggestions from. We had to
look a little farther afield than usual to generate a pool of sufficiently
potential-filled words from which to harvest a suitable compo subject. It
takes a while to produce a Blender topic even when you have lots of ideas to
choose from, but strangely it seems to take even longer when you dont, and
you twist in the breeze, desperately trying to turn three sows ears into one
silk purse.
cthmist Im just shaking down my roommate ok, its my wife for a final
set of words. Were starting to get some potential together.
warpus nice, I just checked and I dont have a wife, but if I did she would
probably have good words for us
sudndeath so what are we looking at for the subject etc..
cthmist warpus and I are hashing it out, were professionals
sudndeath and i cant be in on this conversation?
cthmist then I feel I owe you explanations if your suggestions dont get
used. this way its just a black box and the process is unknown 8
sudndeath hmm.... is this rigged like the elections :-
cthmist its like warp and I are superdelegates
Eventually we ended up with a few to pick from:
locations:
America
the Internet
Uranus
factory
subjects:
cthulu
clown
bbw
shih tzu
monkey
activities:
saving
killing
sexting
pumping
baking
cthmist OK, I have Blender subjects!
cthmist drum roll please
cthmist ahem:
cthmist DRUM ROLL PLEASE
* warpus hits some drums
cthmist thank you warpus
cthmist a round of applause for warpus, ladies and gentlemen!
cthmist MONKEY
cthmist BAKING
cthmist FACTORY
cthmist there you go!
cthmist now go forth and create!
sudndeath its all good i just dont feel motivated for that subject but the
pablodraw server will be up if anyone wants to doodle
cthmist the relationship of the subjects is ambiguous -- it could be a
monkey baking in a factory... or it could be ... a factory that
bakes monkeys!
warpus or baked monkeys raving in a factory
warpus maybe
a s l o w b u r n
OK. We started with people in the channel, then they told us that it was
too late for them. We told them we would give them more time, then they left.
We ended up with two more people in the channel, but one didnt like the words
and the other one had a soccer game to watch. That left me in a tough spot.
All right, everyone! The Blender series is done with, forever! Turns out,
people didnt want to do it! I figured Id have to eventually get around to
making a crude drawing of a Monkey closing the Blender Baking Factory for good,
so Id have something to put in this pack besides a textfile called YOUSUCK.TXT
But then, something strange started happening. After wed already gone
through the pre-show, boom and bust, with a compo prompt and no one to take it
on, latecomers began straggling into the channel.
* remorse has joined blender
remorse - late as usual!
cthmist remorse! You missed everything!
remorse i saw cths msg on ansi and just wanted to see what was going on :
* nail67 has joined blender
cthmist nail, what are you doing awake?
nail67 I had actually planned to be here on time but somehow turned around
and went back to sleep
remorse lol
cthmist Sudndeath was here, threatens to tie up CiA and Fire
nail67 uh huh
cthmist Im serious!
cthmist he was actually the only artist awake in here at that time 8
* lGiOcDe has joined blender
cthmist oh, I see Fire is in full effect now!
nail67 let Phil take care of that
lGiOcDe ok people
nail67 hey mister
lGiOcDe hello everyone!
lGiOcDe I actually put this on my calendar and everything, but randomly got
invited next door to a shindig my neighbor was putting on, so
everything got pushed back
nail67 phil: rowan threatened that Sudden Death might tie CiA with Fire
again... after all my hard work last year to get us ahead
cthmist Its a very real risk
lGiOcDe I admit I had no idea we were even in the running!
nail67 currently all-time 2 spot
lGiOcDe ok, so I just need to figure out how to use photoshop again.
cthmist Hey, you can use any tool you like, draw on a piece of paper and
scan it
nail67 I think youre technically allowed to use your kiddos crayons
cthmist we are nooooot piiiiicky
* cthmist picks his nose
cthmist You did noooooot seeeeeee that.
a n d t h e s c o r e s ?
Announcing the results!
GOD-MBF010 through 120.JPG
God Among Lice of Fire wins first place by default, as the only
contributing participant of the compo. But happily, his contribution, a
12-part image series, was sufficiently awesome that Im confident it would have
won even if it was competing against a dozen other entries. Maybe if hed
realized how low the bar was recipe for success: submit literally anything,
he wouldnt have put quite so much into his entry, but arent I glad that he
did. Ha ha, I tricked you into making great art!
He had a fun little making-of story about his Blender 2016 experience:
woot. This was super fun. Thanks again for organizing.
Im a little late because my one year old managed to both shit in our
bathtub and then pee on her potty for the first time, all within the space of
about 2 minutes.
So yea, this is what life is like for us now, huh? :
Thats nothing, I should tell you what Genocide Kitten was doing at 16!
cthulu Liceboy!
cthulu I am ready to hand you your gold prize whenever you are ready.
* liceboy points to himself and mouths me?
* liceboy steps up to the podium
cthulu Make your speech. Or if you like, you can send me your piece first.
cthulu Unless it has somehow achieved negative value, as the only
contributor vaguely near the submission deadline, you win by
acclamation!
cthulu Oh wow, thats amazing!
cthulu I would say thats on part with Mistigris legendary Monks / Playing
Water Polo / In Venice multimedia submission.
cthulu I was thinking how can I release a Blender pack with just one
submission? but since your piece is a series, there is enough
material there for a collection
cthulu Also the humour.
cthulu Also the poignancy!
lGiOcDe wow, thanks
cthulu Any other submissions would just drag it down.
cthulu OK, youve turned around my Blender despair!
cthulu I was convinced I was sunk, that the franchise was doomed to end on a
low note! Not so!
cthulu Also, hats off, as it looks like quite a lot of work by you and your
family, combined with a consistent concept... rare to find in
Blender entries, which typically rate being half-baked at best.
lGiOcDe it gradually coalesced around one story. there were initial vague
plans about relating consumption to the negative affects...
lGiOcDe I have a hard time doing things half-assed, which is why I have a
hard time doing anything at all.
lGiOcDe there is a folder filled with google image search results of
overcrowded cows, huge vats of butter, dominos pizza dough delivery
vans exploding, things like that
cthulu that is amazing and hilarious, precisely the way Id like this
Blender to go off!
lGiOcDe in true method performance, Ive also ingested about 2000 calories
worth of sugar, butter, and dough
cthulu Now I dont know if I should just officially close the series or
double down and hope that we get something twice as good next year
cthulu because this will be hard to top!
lGiOcDe thanks again for arranging everything. just the act of getting the
word out there helps greatly to keep the community intact, even if
its in the form of shared guilt for not participating. :
lGiOcDe thats been my mo for the past several years, anyway. :
So our sad story still ended up with a happy ending. But it ends on a
bit of a puzzler:
cthulu 9 people liked it on Facebook, Nail was the only one who showed up!
cthulu Facebook: good at getting the artscene halfway back together, bad at
getting it all the way to anything!
cthulu If you want the job done right, youve gotta take it to IRC!
The thing is, were not running these for the benefit of the home
viewers: if you think that its cool that weve exhumed these primitive bones
and made them dance again, then the only way to support the strange ritual is
to participate in it. Your moral support means nothing if nobody comes out to
play the game, because I cant fill an artpack afterwards with your thumbs-ups,
retweets and +1s. So well extend probation of the Blender revival to one
further compo, this time next year. Get out your calendar. Write it down.
Program an alarm into your phone. This is your last chance!
b y e
if there ever is another blender, it will most likely be held:
tag team blender!
7:30pm est saturday, april 8th - 7:30pm est sunday, april 9th, 2017
blender on EFnet
please join us. - cthulu
nail67 alright guys... uhm.. see you next year