Monthly Archives: May 2016

Of Spies and Spacetime

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Stephanie DeMarco interviewed me a few weeks ago for an article she was writing about the science in the TV show Agent Carter (season two). As you know, I did a lot of work for them on the science, some of which I’ve mentioned here, and we spoke about some of that and a lot of interesting other things besides. Well, her article appeared in Signal to Noise magazine, a publication all about communicating science, and it’s really a nice piece. You can read it here. (The excellent title I used for this post is from her article.)

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It is a pity that the show has not been renewed for a third season (I’m trying not […] Click to continue reading this post →

Gestures

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gesture_construction_25_may_2016

I’m trying to make the characters somewhat expressive, since you, the book’s reader, will be spending a lot of time with them. This means constructing lots of hands doing things. Lots of hands. Hands take time, but are actually rather fun to construct from scratch. I start mine as two or three planes hinged together, and then go from there, subdividing until I’m done.

-cvj Click to continue reading this post →

A New Era

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expo_line_two_opening_1Many years ago, even before the ground was broken on phase one of the Expo line and arguments were continuing about whether it would ever happen, I started saying that I was looking forward to the days when I could put my pen down, step out of my office, get on the train a minute away, and take it all the way to the beach and finish my computation there. Well, Friday, the first such day arrived. Phase two of the Expo line is now complete and has opened to the public, with newly finished stations from Culver City through Santa Monica. It joins the already running (since April 2012) Expo phase one, which I’ve been using every day to get to campus after changing from the Red line (connecting downtown).

expo_line_two_opening_2On Friday I happened to accidentally catch the first Expo Line train heading all the way out to Santa Monica! (I mean the first one for the plebs – there had been a celebratory one earlier with the mayor and so forth, I was told). I was not planning to do so and was just doing my routine trip to campus, thinking I’d try the new leg out later (as I did when phase one opened – see here). But there was a cheer when the train pulled up at Metro/7th downtown and the voice over the overhead speakers […] Click to continue reading this post →

Gut Feeling…

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gut_feeling_sampleStill slowly getting back up to speed (literally) on page production. I’ve made some major tweaks in my desktop workflow (I mostly move back and forth between Photoshop and Illustrator at this stage), and finally have started keeping track of my colours in a more efficient way (using global process colours, etc), which will be useful if I have to do big colour changes later on. My workflow improvement also now includes […] Click to continue reading this post →

Close Encounter?

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…of the physics kind.

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Ok, I’ll share a bit during my lunch break from spending too much time doing detail in a tiny panel few will linger on. (Perils of a detail-freak….) It’s a rough underdrawing I did this morning for a panel I’m now turning into final art (the black stuff is the start of final lines). That’s the character you saw a turnaround for earlier, busy at work in a cafe when… (To be continued…)

-cvj
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Competition Results!

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design_film_competition_logo_mediumThis year’s USC Science Film Competition saw another crop of films with a great variety of approaches, with live action and animation, comedy, drama and documentary, and all sorts of hydrids of those forms. Thanks to all who took part. As for the results, and seeing the films (do take a look!) I’ll repeat here the post I did over on the competition’s blog:

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We had a lot of fun at the screening and showcase last Thursday. The films looked great on the Imax screen. Many thanks to Matt Scott for working hard to make sure it all looked great, and also to him and the Large Format Cinema Club for co-hosting the event! Once again, thanks to the Burg Foundation for supporting the competition financially with prize money, grants for helping with the filmmaking, and funds for refreshments and logistics.

The results are as follows: […] Click to continue reading this post →

Every Now and Then…

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Here’s a character turnaround I finished today. It is a sign that I’m about to delve into finished art on one of the stories in the book. Finally. Been a long time since I’ve done that, but I’ve been building up to it. Only 3 months later than I’d planned.

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What’s a turnaround? Sort of self-explanatory name I hope. Its purpose? It is […] Click to continue reading this post →

Southern California Strings Seminar – Santa Barbara

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KITP_SCSS_2For the first time in its history, the Southern California Strings Seminar was held in Santa Barbara, at the KITP! It was probably the largest meeting that has been held under that banner, with attendance from all over the map of theory groups in the region. Thanks for Edgar Shaghoulian for organising it!

Although I was a bit under the weather (never really figured out what the matter was) and super-pressed for time, I went along to support it and learn a bit about what was going on. I think that there’ll be a posting on the KITP’s online talks website at some point with the various talks, so you can look in too (keep an eye on their website).

I did not fancy driving there and playing dodgems with the traffic and so -as seems to be my custom when [….] Click to continue reading this post →

QFT Book Review

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9780199699322This month’s issue of Physics Today has a review that I wrote of the book “Quantum Field Theory for the Gifted Amateur”, by Tom Lancaster and Stephen J. Blundell. I took the opportunity to give a broader view (albeit brief, given the word limit) of the landscape of books on that subject and how it has changed a lot, in a way that I think reflects some excellent changes in formal theory brought about by (at least in part) research into the many topics pulled together under the broad umbrella of string theory. As you might know from reading here and elsewhere, I’ve long been pushing for the increased application of the ideas and techniques of string theory to other areas of physics, and it has become quite the thing these days, I’m happy to see. Such research has resulted in the blurring of the […] Click to continue reading this post →