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I remember The Man from U.N.C.L.E. as a great spy series from the early 1960’s, starring Robert Vaughn and David McCallum as American Napoleon Solo and Russian Illya Kuryakin. So I drew Solo in pixel art from reference. I haven’t seen it in ages, so I don’t know if it holds up to today’s standards.
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Art used to be an opportunity for self-reflection, art for art’s sake. With mechanical reproduction, art became a commodity, entertainment. With these immersive exhibitions and AI generative art, even the original is nullified. It’s entertainment for entertainment’s sake.
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It is sometimes said that practice makes perfect, but a better saying is that practice brings improvement. This is even without a conscience effort—i.e. an art self-critique—to improve. In pixel art readability is always an issue, as with any stylized art. It often relies on shape and contrast.
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Here’s some simple fan art animation inspired by Leo Laport’s This Week in Tech show I made 14 years ago, and which still makes me jump for joy when I see it.
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Creating portraits in pixel art reminds how important it is to be mindful while making art, not to just follow a recipe or rely on what you’ve done before. Each artwork has to be intuitive at first, then more contemplative as you continue. Then take a break, and start again, using one’s intuition.
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My resting heart rate reached an all-time low of 42 beats per minute. Soon I’ll have to disable the low heart alarm on my watch, which has an (odd) lowest setting of 40 bpm. Mind you, I’m still overweight, quite a lot, so that resting heart rate is bound to drop a few bpm in the coming months. ❤️
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Yesterday I ran a 10 km “race” in the heat of the day (30℃, 86℉), which is quite hot for traditional Dutch summers (though becoming norm with climate change). I wanted to run a half marathon, and was prepared with a cooling vest, but, apparently, this is a novelty, and I a fool to expect a race 🏃♂️
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I now have a temporary free premium account with Strava, and am even less impressed than with Garmin Connect. Unless you like to flaunt with made up statistics to get some clout within the runner community, I don’t see any point in paying for a premium account.
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24 marathons across 24 European countries in 2 months. This guy is just crazy, but in a nice way. He almost died during his first marathon from exposure, separated from his team (words were spoken, improvements discussed). See this YT video.
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Today’s long run was (from the start) a bit of a bad run (see my result on Strava). It wasn’t so much the temperature, but the fact I wasn’t recovered (enough) from last Sunday’s intensive long run of 32 km. I had to walk the last 6 km. Better luck next time, in three weeks.🏃♂️
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On my run this afternoon I saw a guy in winter clothing and mittens, while it’s 31℃ (88℉) in the shade 🫢 I thought myself being odd for running in hot weather, but, apparently, I didn’t even scratch the surface of strange 🤡 human behavior.
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I looked into doing multiple marathons within a year. The best advice I found was:
- plan the marathon races far in advance, so you know what you’re up to
- concentrate on post-marathon recovery, especially the first week after a marathon (mostly non-running related activities: walk, cycle, swim)
🏃♂️
