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| Weasel collides with LHC; A* ep 29 starts Mon | Apr 29, 2016 6:11 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:^ That's the end of episode 28! 29 starts Monday! It's an episode packed full of shark jumping! Or more accurately, dragon jumping! Oops, did I say too much? ... Nahh!
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Large Hadron Collider: Weasel causes shutdown (BBC) - Not a headline you might have expected! A wayward weasel wandered into an electrical facility at the Large Hadron Collider this morning and managed to take the world's largest science experiment offline by frying itself on a high-voltage transformer. : o The giant particle accelerator is expected to be offline for a few days while the weasel damage is repaired.
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Here's a sketch I sent to a reader as their monthly reward for supporting the comic through the A* Patreon campaign : D
If it wasn't for readers supporting me through Patreon, I would *not* be able to keep making A*! It may just be a buck or two a month for you, but it makes a huge difference for me! So a hearty thanks to everyone contributing to the campaign! : D
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| Paint paint paint | Apr 28, 2016 8:22 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Thought I'd try doing some painting ^_^
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| Cool meteorites | Apr 27, 2016 9:23 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:An interesting and even potentially useful bit of space science came out of an unusual BBC headline this morning: US firefighters forced to backtrack on meteorite fire claim. Basically, US firefighters found a tiny rock at the bottom of a 6 foot-deep crater after putting out a brush fire in Maryland. The fire department then tweeted that it was a "possible meteorite" that was to blame for the fire. But astronomer Greg Redfern pointed out two problems with the firefighters' theory: a) the rock can't be called a meteorite until it has actually been confirmed as such by laboratory testing, and b) "rocks that enter the Earth's atmosphere from space partially burn up in the air but when they hit the ground they are cold."
So, contrary to what Hollywood may have taught you, meteorites are actually cool to the touch by the time they reach the ground!
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| Loose watercolor coloring is fun! | Apr 26, 2016 9:02 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Here's a watercolor sketch I sent to a reader as their monthly reward for supporting the comic through the A* Patreon campaign, which provides an easy way for anyone to send me a buck or two a month automatically to help me keep this comic coming to you:
Thank you very much, the support I get from readers through Patreon makes a huge difference! : D
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| Shadows shadows shadows | Apr 25, 2016 9:30 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Not sure I picked the best way I could have colored this—maybe that'll teach me not to give myself six overlapping layers of depth to try to make sense of. :"P
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| It's all about the wind machine | Apr 22, 2016 11:49 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Yes it's another monthly reward sketch I sent to a reader for supporting the comic through the A* Patreon campaign! : )
Thanks everyone who's helping me out through Patreon, it really makes a *big* difference. And thanks everyone for reading the comic! : D
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| A* Episode 28, Page 79 | Apr 21, 2016 9:56 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:This extra tiny brush I got out to paint Selenis in the distance of the alley a week or so ago is dangerous—now finding myself tempted to paint these fine little lines!
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| Sketchy sketch | Apr 20, 2016 9:01 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Here's another sketch I sent to a reader as their monthly reward for supporting the comic through the A* Patreon campaign : D
Thank you!!
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| Doorknobs and Boomsticks | Apr 19, 2016 10:09 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Getting in my quota of doorway drawings. ^_^
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| Thank you sketch! | Apr 18, 2016 8:36 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Thanks to everyone who's helping me keep the comic going by supporting me through the A* Patreon campaign! : D Here's a sketch I mailed to a reader a few months back as their monthly Patreon reward for their support:
Thank you! :))
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| Drawing tips for myself! | Apr 16, 2016 5:10 AM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Oh man it's late. This was one of those ones where I drew it all out, then decided I didn't like it and started over from scratch. Well, you learn something each time you do that, right? : o I think I've learned, for instance, not to try drawing characters in angled perspective just for the heck of it, because these day it seems I'm never happy with the result; I used to do wacky perspectives on characters all the time, as you can see in the earlier episodes, but either I've just gotten pickier, or I've got out of practice on the perspective stuff, but anyway it isn't working very well for me these days. Gotta not do that.
Also gotta focus in keeping things simple, not throwing in detail just to add noise, condensing stuff down as much as possible, because in watercolor at least, simple reads a heck of a lot better than busy. Watercolor just needs a lot of space to breathe sometimes, I guess. But for some reason I'm always making things more complicated than they need to be. Silly! (On the other hand, the real studied, super-simple look can actually take a really long time, because first you have to draw the scene, then you have to boil it down to its essentials, which can take way more time than just drawing it in all its superfluous detail took in the first place!
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| I must away 'til break of day | Apr 14, 2016 10:20 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:I can think of nothing at all to say. ... Must be bed time! : D
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| This is not a hairdryer | Apr 13, 2016 10:10 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:I had to break out a tiny size 0 brush to paint tiny Selenis in today's page!
Readers supporting A* through my Patreon campaign are a big part of what keeps this comic going! I really appreciate anyone who can help me out by pledging a buck or two or even more each month to help keep this comic coming to you five days a week. Here's a monthly reward sketch I sent to a reader a little while back for their support through Patreon:
Thank you!! : D
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| Sixty Symbols on supermassive black holes | Apr 12, 2016 9:35 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:The nifty University of Nottingham-based "Sixty Symbols" series of science videos has just uploaded a video about supermassive black holes. It's a pretty good overview of what they are, and they talk about Sagittarius A* specifically—the one at the center of our galaxy, around which this webcomic is set (at a generous relatively safe distance, mind you)—starting at the 5:50 mark.
This is actually the second (and latest) video they've done in a new themed series dedicated to black holes; the first one covers black holes in general. Sixty Symbols has also covered many aspects of black holes in other videos before this new series; they have them all conveniently catalogued in a playlist.
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| SpaceX improves reusable rocket landing | Apr 11, 2016 9:49 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:SpaceX reusable rocket lands on ocean platform is a recent BBC article, complete with nifty rocket's-eye video, about the commercial NASA-sponsored space company by that name managing to land one of their rockets back on Earth, after it had boosted an experimental inflatable space module ("made of many layers of fabric and covered with a flexible Kevlar-like material") up to the International Space Station.
This isn't the first rocket that SpaceX has managed to land successfully back on Earth after a mission—the first one was back in December—but it is the first one they've landed after a mission for NASA—they hadn't run a NASA mission since their last one ended abruptly last June when the rocket exploded shortly after takeoff—and the first success after a string of four landing failures. It's also the first one that's landed on one of their relatively tiny floating platforms in the ocean; the earlier one had a whole desert to land in. So, they're getting closer to being able to do this reusable rocket thing like pros!
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| A* Episode 28, Page 71 | Apr 11, 2016 9:48 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:SpaceX reusable rocket lands on ocean platform is a recent BBC article, complete with nifty rocket's-eye video, about the commercial NASA-sponsored space company by that name managing to land one of their rockets back on Earth, after it had boosted an experimental inflatable space module ("made of many layers of fabric and covered with a flexible Kevlar-like material") up to the International Space Station.
This isn't the first rocket that SpaceX has managed to land successfully back on Earth after a mission—the first one was back in December—but it is the first one they've landed after a mission for NASA—they hadn't run a NASA mission since their last one ended abruptly last June when the rocket exploded shortly after takeoff—and the first success after a string of four landing failures. It's also the first one that's landed on one of their relatively tiny floating platforms in the ocean; the earlier one had a whole desert to land in. So, they're getting closer to being able to do this reusable rocket thing like pros!
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| Space sugar! | Apr 09, 2016 1:50 AM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:The BBC's new article Complex sugars cooked up from 'comet ice' describes the results of new experiments in which researchers
mixed methanol and ammonia with water, and subjected the cocktail to low pressure and very low temperature (-195C) in a vacuum chamber. They then allowed it to condense on a very cold surface, just as "pre-cometary" ice might settle around dust grains.
As it condensed, they hit the mixture with intense UV light - such as the young Sun would have emitted - and let it to warm up to room temperature. |
The article also points out that the Philae lander dropped onto comet 67P in 2014 detected a "frozen primordial soup" on the comet's surface. So it seems that the building blocks of life as we know it—amino acids—and the fuel that powers it—sugars—could very well be quite common in the icy regions of solar systems.
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Here's a sketch I sent to a reader as their monthly reward for supporting the comic through the A* Patreon campaign! Thanks to everyone who helps keep this comic coming to you every weekday by helping me out through Patreon : )
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| Also I couldn't get that second eye >_< | Apr 07, 2016 10:57 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:This page took me three hours and fifteen minutes just to draw in pencil. >_< So much erasing! Trying to figure out the angle, expression, blah blah. On the plus side, I've been trying to spend a little more time at the pencil stage lately because if I can work things out pretty solidly at the pencil stage, that can easily chop like an hour off the watercoloring, because there will be a lot less "drawing" and reworking I have to do to the watercolors, a messy and time-consuming affair at best!
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| Blowing the Local Bubble | Apr 06, 2016 10:57 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:The BBC article "Exploding stars left recent, radioactive mark on Earth" has a nifty illustration of the local bubble, the cloud of relatively hot but low-density gas, roughly 300 light years across, through which our solar system is currently traveling—this cloud is actually a cavity blown in the galaxy's pervading interstellar medium, which is on average ten times denser than the space inside the bubble.
According to the article, new studies looking at the distribution of iron-60, by far the most stable heavy isotope of iron—which comes, in theory, from the extreme fusion furnace of supernova explosion—both across the sea beds of Earth, and throughout the local bubble, suggest that particles from supernova explosions within 300 light years of Earth, ie probably within the local bubble (the aforementioned illustration of the bubble is in fact a 3D visualization modeling the distribution of iron-60 in our galactic neighborhood, in distinctly bubbly shapes), struck the Earth in "an increased smattering" from 1.5 million to 3.2 million years ago, and that these came from "a series of supernovae, one after another," that probably left the remnant we see as the local bubble today.
These explosions, particularly the two closest, taking place around 2.3 million and 1.5 million years ago, while "close enough to light up the sky as much as the Moon," would not have been close enough to cause mass extinctions on Earth, but still may have played a role in the evolution of life here.
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| The blurb is back : oo | Apr 05, 2016 10:15 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:I added the orange Patreon text blurb back between the comic and the blog, because I haven't had as many new supporters joining my Patreon campaign since I removed the blurb oh a year or something back. The Patreon-orange text link in it is a little garish but that also makes it pretty decent at getting attention, I guess, and I could definitely use more folks finding my Patreon campaign, because that's where most of the very modest income that has so far enabled me to keep this comic going comes from these days! Yay Patreon! Yay the 43 people already supporting the comic through Patreon! : D Yay the 44th person, whoever that will be! ^_^
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| Death and e-books! | Apr 04, 2016 9:44 PM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:It's a new month which means I send out e-book rewards to the folks supporting my Patreon campaign at the e-book reward levels, except this weekend I had to get my taxes done. :P Next weekend though, e-books! : D
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| Art for readers and at a show! | Apr 02, 2016 12:19 AM PDT | url |
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Added 1 new A* page:Okay I had an art show reception tonight but first (!) let me just mention that a great way to support this comic is through the A* Patreon campaign, because that's an easy way to send me a little money each month to help me keep working on the comic, and in return you can get cool rewards sent right from me to you! For instance here's a watercolor painting I made as a monthly reward for a particularly generous supporter (this might be mildly Not Safe for Work, I dunno; if you have a stickler for a boss and they're watching then maybe don't scroll down here):
wait...
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okay!
Thank youuuu! ^_^
Okay the reception for my new art show at Frame Up Studios (map) in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood (show runs through April! Get on down and check it out) was tonight, it was a lovely evening in Seattle and lots of folks stopped in on the monthly art walk. Lots of free refreshments were snaffled up and I think at least some fun was had by all. Thanks everyone who stopped by! : D Here are a few shots I managed to grab of the layout right at the beginning, before anyone could get there and block the view of the art:
Notice how you can see the inside stuff all the way from the outside? Neat! If you missed it you still have a whole month to drop by and check it out, and if you can't make it, that's okay, we can still be friends. Have a nice weekend! : D
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