I Don’t Have a Gas Mask Fetish…And Yet

August 3, 2011

Not that I dislike the gas mask fetish per se, its just not especially my cup of tea. However, this past weekend I came across a nest of gas mask pics and, for whatever reason, the muse kicked me in the face and set me to work. I’m not sure why gas mask imagery has never really appealed to me; any more than I understand why its such a turn-on for others. I guess if I had some deep and insightful understanding of sexual fetishes, I’d have a book deal by now.

So, for whatever reason, when I came across this particular series of images, what really grabbed my interest was the contrast. Now, as I was remarking over the weekend (though for no reason connected to this update): contrast is the foundation of all design. Whether its contrast between form, color, or aesthetic, the difference between A and B is where interesting things happen.

In this case, I found the contrast between the beautiful lines of the female form and the harsh, industrial design of a gas mask to be very striking. Striking, but just the imagery of a woman wearing such a mask doesn’t elicit interest from me…unless there’s something brainwashy (new adverb) happening inside the mask. Fortunately, my imagination was prepared to supply all manner of such naughtiness and so I have not one, but a trio of thus-themed animated manips to share with you today.

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Who Goes There, Again…Again!

July 29, 2011

Welcome back dear reader,

So, as I said last time my thoughts and reaction to the trailer for the upcoming remake/prequel to The Thing was going to take two posts. This time out, I’d like to publicly engage in one of those weird things I normally do in a dark room behind a closed door: Advance frame-by-frame through a new trailer to pick up on little bits and pieces about the film.

I also thought it might be fun to throw in some shots of the prior adaptations for comparison and to see how the prequel lines up certain things with John Carpenter’s The Thing. So, grab a flame-thrower and a parka we’re heading in.

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Guest Post – Tabico

July 26, 2011

When we finished Lieder, I asked Tabico if she would be interested in penning a little retrospective post for my blog. Happily, she was on-board and so I’m pleased to treat you to a guest post (the first for my site) from none other than the lady herself. Do enjoy. -Callidus

My motivation to write comes and goes. A couple of months ago I was
running out of impetus so I posted some parts of a story I was working
on, hoping to vampirically turn other peoples’ enthusiasm into my own
and, thus invigorated, move forward. Instead, the reverse happened – two
days, 17 views, and 2 comments later – my thanks to those who did
comment! – I found myself staring at the stark tininess (but extremely
high quality, I love both of you) of my audience and threw in the towel.

Don’t worry, I’ll get back up again. This sort of thing has happened
before.

I discovered some time ago that when I find myself interested in EMC
but lack the impetus to write, I can turn instead to creating
photomanipulations. The process is sufficiently different that when I
feel uninspired to do one, I may still be enthused by doing the other.
And at this time a couple of things had come together – I had just
happened upon a very nice set of pictures of a hot girl with a book, and
over the last several months I had created a number of ‘olithoi’
pictures purely to amuse myself, which gave me a stock of said pictures.
So a very nebulous idea began to form.

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Who Goes There?

July 23, 2011

Check it out, I’m writing about movies again. In my continuing quest to figure out why the hell I can’t seem to update here more regularly, its occurred to me that I might broaden my horizons a bit. I don’t necessarily have a erotic-mind-control-moment every day that would be worth sharing, so why not write about other things?

So, this week I’m going to write about an upcoming film that is a unique prequel/remake of which I happen to be a big fan of the source material. As it turns out, I’m a really big fan and this is going to take two posts so…buckle in.

Last time, I wrote about At The Mountains of Madness. Now, in addition to being one of my favorite Lovecraft stories, it was also extremely influential on a novella published two years later: John W. Campbell’s Who Goes There?

Spoilers ahead…

Who Goes There? depicts a group of scientists in Antarctica who discover a spacecraft and its pilot buried in the ice. They bring the preserved pilot back to their camp where it’s thawed out and they discover that it is a highly-intelligent creature capable of assuming the physical appearance, memories, and personality of any being it devours. Soon, panic and madness set in as the group realizes that someone, and probably several someones, amongst them are no longer human.

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Return To Middle-Urth

July 19, 2011

Somewhere in this lengthy email I’m reading from Tabico is an offer to collaborate. She’s working on a manip series, it involves Middle Urth mythology, a hot young thing, and a large book. That’s how it all started. An email out of the blue. She was going to go off on another adventure and wanted to know if I’d care to join her. I imagine it must have been the same for Sallah. Sitting around, enjoying the simple life in Cairo when a telegram from the U.S. arrives. Dr. Indi-Tabico-ana Jones is off hunting fortune and glory again. Wanna come?

Four more paragraphs to go before I can reply and say ‘YES.’

That was three months ago. Tabico and I just finished (as in six hours ago) the aforementioned new manip series and I have the distinct pleasure of unveiling it in public for the very first time. In typical Tabico fashion it involves several (though one in particular) brilliant ladies messing with things that they oughtn’t to be. But of course, they’re going to mess with them to their (and our) eventual delight. You know how these things go.

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Its Not Guillermo del Toro’s At The Mountains of Madness, But…

July 1, 2011

H.P. Lovecraft gets mad-love in the mc community. Particularly with the likes of Tabico, thrall, Lady K, and others who aren’t averse to wandering into squicky waters. I’m a fan of Lovecraft and an even bigger fan of Guillermo del Toro (btw, if you’ve never seen The Devil’s Backbone, get it now). As such, I’m patiently waiting for Del Toro to get around to making his adaptation of Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness.

As that film recently hit a bump, I may be waiting a long time. Until then, this very intriguing short film may have to suffice. Its an Italian, animated storybook that moves through Mountains in about 30 min and, despite some pretty simple animation, is nonetheless very enjoyable. So, if you’ve never read Lovecraft…go read Lovecraft. If you HAVE read Lovecraft, then give this a spin and see how it compares to what you see in your head.

Oh and by-the-by I’m collaborating with an old friend on some spicy new naughtiness. More details soon.

Manip Musings 003

March 22, 2011

Well I’m afraid I fell off the wagon there for a few weeks, but y’know what? That’s okay. I’m not going to apologize for being busy. That said I’m definitely trying to get back on-track with my goal to do a lot more updating this year. So for now, I’m here with some more mouth-watering, manip-morsels for your perusal and enjoyment. So let’s tuck in shall we?

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Literary Lauding

February 16, 2011

Just to give you an idea of how far behind I am in updating this blog, the very post you’re reading now was originally intended for Thanksgiving. You see, around that time there had been a literal (or literary) deluge of fiction from some of my very favorite authors. Jukebox and thrall had formed an alliance and released the White Album trilogy in late August/early September, Tabico had rolled out a 6-part, chapter-a-week scifi epic beginning in mid-November, and Vanderbilt had been busy adding to his ongoing Harbinger mythos as well as an non-canon gem I’ll discuss later.

The point, dear reader, is that I had a lot to be thankful for in the way of mc fiction last year but I was just a bit too busy to say so at the time. So, I’m saying so now; which in a sense isn’t such a bad thing, because now there’s even more naughty stories to discuss from the aforementioned authors as well as some delightful prose both new and classic from one of my absolute favs: Sara H and an especially hot-n-naughty tale from Flibinite. So without further delay, lets examine these fine authors and their work in a bit more detail.

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Free Photoshop Training This Week

February 8, 2011

For all those out there that aspire to do their own manipping, Photoshop can sometimes seem an intimidating prospect. Its a complex program which can make for a steep learning curve if you don’t have some grounding in it to begin with. This week, Lifehacker is running a series of posts to get you trained up in the tools and techniques of the world’s most famous image-editor.

Don’t have Photoshop? Don’t worry. As the article and accompanying video explains, knowledge of the toolset is applicable across a wide variety of Photoshop alternatives. And speaking of which, if you’re on Mac, I highly recommend you check out Pixelmator. Its an image editor that’s been kicking around for several years and is showing great signs of maturity with every update. With the launch of the Mac App Store, Pixelmator is available at half of its original cost; running a very reasonable $30 (but only for a limited time). The devs note that if you buy now, you’ll get a free upgrade to v2.0 when it launches this year.

I’ve been playing with Pixelmator this evening and I’m very impressed at how far this program has come since the first version I tried out years ago. While there are still some key Photoshop features I miss (vectors, layer styles, and deeper typography options), the actual image editing tools are absolutely comparable with Photoshop’s. If you’re a budding manip artist, I’d highly recommend downloading the free trial and giving it a spin.

That’s all for now. Happy manipping.

Manip Musings 002

February 1, 2011

Welcome back true believer. Good update at the Archive this week, including great stuff from Jukebox and Vanderbilt. I’m prepping a post now that highlights both of these authors (as well as some others) and some of their recent contributions that I felt were paticularaly strong. But for now, I thought I’d share some more spicy images from the Callidus-manip-treasure-backlog file.

Submitted for your approval…

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