Pick O’ the Week | February ’08 #2

February 25, 2008
tortex tri pick

Greetings and salutations. This time around I’d like to highlight a couple of authors who have been contributing for some time, but whose work I only recently discovered. One of my favorite past times is perusing through reader’s picks on the EMCSA and the MC Forum (and as of late the Garden), looking for new authors to read. I liken it to those guys with the metal detectors roaming through the forest looking for buried jewelry to give their sweethearts. Except finding mc pay-dirt is infinitely more rewarding and less…what’s the word? Stupid.

And so:

zorkmeister recently posted his fourth story Loveblind to the EMCSA, though his earliest dates back to 2004. I hardly know were to begin with him. He and I share an identical list of authors who’ve influenced and inspired us. He’s one of a handful of authors that I can point to and say if I were to ever pen a tale, I’d want it to be like that. His stories are dramatic, tense, and so very, very human. And I love that if you tear his work down to its most basic parts, its really all about relationships. He’s able to maintain very human drama while weaving some of the most blazingly hot erotica to be found anywhere. Of course he shares my predilection for brainwashing chairs, so I may be a little biased.

Flibinite or Jo to those who know her from the Garden and MC Forum was until recently a stranger to me. I stumbled onto her terrific story A Gift Beyond Imagining through an old post from the MC Forum. After finishing that, I just couldn’t believe I had never seen her stuff before, given her incredible talent. In addition to the eleven stories on the EMCSA she’s got a huge catalog of stuff posted to the MC Forum and the Garden of MC. Here’s a list of a bunch of her stuff from the MC Forum. And I’ll play favorites again and recommend this excellent series she did called Dangerous Duo. Its a Justice League Unlimited fanfic concerning the bondage and mental enslavement of all your favorite female JL members. Its fantastic, hot, and best of all true to the source material. If you’re a fan of the show (as I am) you’ll really appreciate how true-to-life her characters are. Its not to be missed. And face it, you know you want to find out about all the erotic possibilities of Wonder Woman’s magic lasso.

I’m out, I’ll see you all next time. Thanks for your listenership.

Pick of the Week | February ’08 #1

February 9, 2008
Pick of the Week

Welcome back everyone! I hope the week finds you all well. If you’ve got some mc site-seeing on the agenda this weekend, then let me recommend checking out some of these exotic locales:

Photo-manips:
Orpheus_sail has been posting to The Collective for a little over two weeks and already his work is showing great promise. Dramatic images, inventive writing, and strong technical polish leave orpheus a manip talent to keep your eye on.

Jord is no stranger to anyone who follows the Photo-manip scene. His (well earned) reputation precedes him in many online circles. His art is inventive, edgy, sometimes humorous, and always his own. You can tell by a thumbnail that you’re looking a Jord manip. His astounding technical polish and fearless sense of exploration are the hallmarks of one of the finest manip artists around. For those squick fans among us, his gallery at the Galaxy of Terror is not to be missed.

Both orpheus_sail and Jord have new work posted this week.

That’s it for this time. Remember, if you enjoy these artists’ work, let them know! Leave them some comments or drop them an email. See you next week.

More Bigger Faster Better

February 5, 2008
updates

Just finished a major maintenance update. Spent today rebuilding the site structure and making some tweaks behind the scenes. Things should be easier to get to now, as I’ve eliminated several redundant layers of folder structure. Be aware you may need to update your bookmarks.

…And we’re back.

February 4, 2008
parcel.png

For everybody who’s been unsuccessfully trying to access the photo gallery and videos: sorry for the down time. A little maintenance update last night created some problems, but everything is back up and working now. Thank you to everyone who took the time to drop me a line about the outage, I owe you one. Discreet packages filled with illegal mind-control technology are on their way to you now, with my compliments.

-Callidus

Pick of the Week

January 31, 2008
weekly pick

Well as January is nearly gone and I promised myself I’d do better at keeping up with the Blog this year, I figure its time for an update. Something I’ve been wanting to do for a while now is a weekly update on my favorite things in the mc community. Just whatever caught my eye during the week from an artist, author or website. This week, I’ve got several since really I’m pulling stuff from the whole month of January. Sue me, they’re my rules to break. One quick note, I do try and track down an author’s/artist’s gender before I talk about them, but not everyone is on the forums and even then not everyone discloses that info. Bottom line, if I’ve got it wrong, please let me know so I can correct myself, or at the least just pretend I’m using the editorial hers/his. Anyhoo:

Fiction:
This past week, ghosthostblue added an eleventh chapter to The Art of Following. While I don’t normally go for the MD stuff, this series has been exceptional on every level. The writing is excellent, the protagonists’ struggle with the power he wields over his several hypno-playthings is handled with uncommon honesty, and every chapter has its share of some seriously scintillating mind-control sex (three times fast). While the emphasis on the act of sex itself as opposed to the eroticism of mind control is a bit of a departure from my usual haunts, its been a welcome change of pace. Ghosthostblue strikes an excellent balance between these two qualities, all while weaving a haunting tale of one man’s struggle with his own nature.

Last week, sara castle, who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors, posted the final two chapters to her excellent series: Sluthack. Like many of her stories, Sluthack is set in a near-future cyberpunk/tech fantasy world. Think old-school Shadowrun (for all my fellow gen-x’ers). Lies, deception, and hot, hot, hot mc are on the menu as well as some anthropomorph-sex and sara’s superb prose. She’s amassed quite a catalog over the last year or so, all of it worth checking out.

Manips:
Ooae10 updated over the weekend with five new manip offerings. His gallery is noteworthy for his excellent captions and healthy appetite for voluptuous women. Most of his images feature models wearing the classic “trance-face” and an added hypno-bauble, usually a pocket watch, crystal, or locket, dangling before their pretty (and sleepy) eyes. His work is some of the best and most pure in terms of its expression of the mc fetish, recalling the heady days of privatepages.com and the work of William Lee.

Paladin has been posting for two years, though sadly I only recently discovered his work. His gallery is relatively small (just under thirty images as of this writing) but filled with super-hot writing and creativity running in all directions. I love the different ways he approaches his text. Just a glance at his gallery finds speech balloons, traditional captions, and almost subliminal type; all at home in his work. His latest posting is a three part series, utilizing comic-style panels, and a picture set I happen to have saved myself; filed away for some rainy day manipping. No need to do it now though: it wouldn’t be nearly as good as what Paladin’s done with them.

So there you have it: the Weekly Picks. Go check em out, leave some comments, email the authors, etc. And leave some comments here too, let’s hear what you think. Hope you’ve enjoyed (or at least had your horizons broadened a little).

Until next time.

First Update of the Year

January 25, 2008

After nearly a year of testing, tweaking, and getting things just right, I’m officially “launching” the site. The update today will be (I hope) the first of many this year, as I am trying to follow the sage advice of a good friend and not let “the perfect be the enemy of the good”.

In any case, on to the update.

Today I have seven fresh manips for your enjoyment. There’s a little of the supernatural, some of my more traditional tech stuff, and I also noticed (after the fact) a sort of common “Bystander mc” theme in a few. It always interesting to see the different ways an idea works itself out sometimes.

4 new pics added to the FD / MD Gallery

Bathroom
Limo Game
Roadside
Stakeout


1 new pic added to the Supernatural Gallery

Vanity


2 new pics added to the Tech Gallery

Dream
Hotel Room



Also in this update, in what I hope will become a regular feature on the site, is the maiden voyage of the Interviews section. I love the Bravo series Inside the Actor’s Studio, not just because I’m an aspiring film maker, but because I really enjoy listening to people talk about what influences and motivates them creatively. One day it just occurred to me that it would be really interesting to ask those kind of questions to some of my favorite artists from the mc-scene.

And so, I’m happy to present this first interview with the wonderful writer and manip artist Tabico. If you’ve read her fiction or seen her photo-manips, you know Tabico’s one of the most talented artists in the scene, but did you also know that she holds a PhD in Biology? Funny, intelligent, and always insightful, her thoughts reveal not just something of herself, but I think, all of us.

-Callidus

Relaxation Machine

August 15, 2007

The title pretty much says it all.

Umine

Turn the projector on…and relax…

Takara Tomy is putting on sale a new projector called UMINE destined to help you relax whenever you need it, after work for example…

Umine is a LED projector displaying various “atmospheres” depending on your mood… ocean, beach, forest…where do you want to go today? A nice way to travel while being comfy seated in your living room…And you can also connect it to an audio player!

Standard batteries will make it last 8 hours.

From

UMINE relaxation projector: $84, iPod Nano to hold hours of soothing hypnotic commands: $150, Finally realizing your dream of becoming an evil mind controller: Priceless.

Subliminal Message Software

May 6, 2007
Subliminal Message

Subliminal Message is a free application (available for mac and pc) that allows you to create and display custom subliminal messages while using your computer. Trying to quit smoking? Just add a custom message (“Cigarettes taste like the floor of a public bathroom”) and tweak the settings to determine the text size & color, how long the message appears on screen, and the period between flashes. The software comes with 90 built-in messages and also features a picture mode that allows you to display a jpg instead of text.

An interesting free application for anyone interested in experimenting with subliminals. Recent research suggests that the brain does perceive subliminal messages, though many question whether these messages influence behavior. I’m currently using the software with the message: “My mother-in-law is not evil incarnate”. Do subliminals work? Time will tell.

Excellent Photoshop tutorial vids

April 20, 2007
Photoshop CS3

For all the manip artists out there, you’re probably aware that Adobe recently released Photoshop CS3. But what you might not know is that Adobe has set up a video workshop site highlighting some of the impressive new features for CS3. While some of the vids are purely to show off Photoshop’s shiny new toys, a number really focus on techniques that every manip artist could benefit from learning. I think great manips start with great images. And whether you need to replace a model’s head so that her perfect facial expression can match the most ideal pose, or simply create a bit more drama within a manip by increasing the contrast and darkening it up a bit: almost every photo could benefit from a little retouching. And that’s where this series of videos can really benefit you.

I think one of the best lessons one could take away from these vids is the extensive use of non-destructive techniques when doing any kind of work in Photoshop. Time and again, you’ll see the authors using layer masks instead of the eraser tool, adjustment layers instead of image operators. Non-destructive editing allows you to polish and refine your images without ever having to choose between accepting a flaw and starting over to fix it.

While not all of you may be willing to fork out the money for CS3 (or jump through the necessary hoops to obtain a copy), just watching these vids can make you a better manip artist if you implement the same workflow and habits employed by the authors at the Design Center. From basic use of curves to improve contrast and clarity, to the use of adjustment layers and gradient masks to correcting lighting, there are some very useful lessons to be learned in these video tutorials. Some are more beneficial than others and some won’t really do you any good without a copy of CS3. But, if you want to learn some techniques that can really add polish to your work and help take your manips to the next level, then check them out.

From the “Select a Product” box in the upper left, select Photoshop CS3 or Photoshop CS Extended, then select a vid to view.

Some of my favs are:
-Making Tonal Corrections
-Making Lighting Corrections
-Using Blend Modes for Photographers