Gabriele Dell'Otto

There is a lot I could say right now. I want to be angry and yell at the high heavens. But I doubt that will do much good.

This race is all but decided it seems. And it doesn't look good. I could go into detail about the dangers we now face, but you've all heard it.

I am angry, scared, and tired. And I doubt tomorrow will be much better. It is more important now than ever that we make our voices heard. That we stand tall against the bigotry, hatred, and injustice we may face.

In the immortal words of one Ambassador G'Kar-

There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power governments, and tyrants, and armies can not stand.

Remember that, remember to stand up against those who would see such liberties taken away, and remember that only you have the choice to stand for what is right.

We are all so fucked

I was high off my ass last night and had this dream where I was in this dense ass forest and sitting there was a tall woman. She was so tall I couldn’t see her face but she was wearing gold and I was like “uh...hi?” And she said “I made you, do you know that?” And I nodded and she was like “I hear your thoughts. Why do you hate my creation? Why do you try to destroy yourself? I made you perfect as you are. Please don’t break my heart”. Then she started crying and it flooded and I woke up with fucking heart palpitations like what does it Mean™️????

I know it’s not hard to point out reactionaries hypocrisy when it comes to like safe spaces or hug boxes or whatever but genuinely how much of an echo chamber do you have to exist in for you to think this is a reasonable thing to say

well I said I would do it

1974 Ray Feibush cover art to Isaac Asimov’s ‘The Rings of Saturn’

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine "Past Tense, Pt. 1"

Calvin and Hobbes was magic--and sometimes a little creepy--when it embraced surrealism. And this was in the funny papers alongside goofiness like Garfield and The Family Circus.

Halo 5 Helmet Redesigns

A little project I’ve had in the works since the end of inktober.

There is a ton of criticism I have for the game, but one thing that’s bothered me a lot is the design of the Gen 2 armor variants and helmets. 

Many of them just didn’t look like Spartan armor anymore. By all means excellent designs by themselves, they weren’t really the best fit for Halo. This was probably to support differentiation of rewards in the card pack system in the game, but from an in-universe standpoint it makes no sense to me. 

Although it’s stated that production of power armor has been opened up to the private sector as well, there is something to be said about having compatible standards, especially in a military context and even more so when the people wearing these suits regularly get into extremely hazardous situations where damage to their armor is likely an replacements need to be made. Worse, Spartans often operate behind enemy lines without easy access to maintenance and having wildly different designs seems like a bad recipe for field repairs.

So that’s one thing I tried to do as a design exercise with this and create a more uniform look while keeping the icons that make the helmets unique: Where possible, all helmets share the same neck seal and neural interface port and a more straightforward visor. (Don’t get me started on Seeker.)

Variants where the main difference is some sort of add-on tech or visor have been redesigned to have one baseline frame with these additions on top (like back in Reach). 

Variants that were really similar in design (think EVA and Orbital) have been condensed into one.

Some helmets have been ignored entirely and ones with super-gimmicky designs (hello Warmaster) have been dialed back.

Armor designs will follow once I figure those out.

To this day I am still mixed on the Halo 4/5 Elite designs. I do not like how the faces are, with the placement of the mandibles and really, how tiny their faces are compared to the rest of their head (if that makes sense.)

I also don't really care for how they made them come off a bit too thuggish at times, be that in their movement or characterization.

That being said- I like their long sharp fingers, the texture work for them is great with the grey almost scaley skin, and there are some solid armor designs