This is Silicon Angles and Wikibon's exclusive coverage of IBM Edge. Now this is theCUBE, our flagship program. We go out to the events, extract the signal from the noise. Two days of wall-to-wall, all-day coverage. We're talking IBM executives, customers, partners, CIOs, Intel, you had Intel on earlier, how about the Xeon? We're going to have Intel CIO on later today. But this is where we want to get the data and share that with you. This is theCUBE. I'm John Furrier, the founder of Silicon Angle. I'm joined by my co-host. I'm Dave Vellante of Wikibon.org. John Borkenhagen is here. He's the CTO of System X and Blade Center within IBM. John, welcome. Thank you. Good to have you here. Good to be here. Good to see such good systems presence at the storage conference. We heard today from Ambu, storage is going away. It's changing and we're having some fun with that. Where's it going to go? Where's all the data going to go? I don't understand. What does that mean? Storage is going away. Well, I think- Storage is dead. I think storage as we know it is maybe waning. Storage is a container that is the most expensive thing in the floor, maybe it's going to change. But anyway, so John, take us through your sort of CTO perspective. What are the big mega trends that you're following, the tectonic shifts that you're trying to capitalize on from a technology perspective? Well, there is a big shift around storage. Storage over the last 10 years of performance is only increased by 1.2X. That compares to 800X in the processor capability. Storage, something has to be done there. And the big disruptive technology is flash, flash memory. Make flash part of the storage and you address that bottleneck, that part of the equation, to give them more balance system. Yeah, so it's interesting. We spent a lot of time talking to companies that are putting flash. I mean, people think of flash as a storage technology. I actually think of it as a systems technology. It's an old saying, the best IO is no IO. And so I think about for years, we've seen function move out of the server onto the storage array. In a way, you can see two merging together. Yes, and I wonder if we could talk about that in terms of how that change is coming about. Sure, there's use for flash in both the server and out on the storage area. On the server, the issue is that you don't get high availability. If the server goes down, whatever data that you stored into the flash on the server, you can't access. You cannot access while the servers don't. That's one advantage. Unless you copy it somewhere. Unless you copy and you can't copy, there's a technology emerging to help you more efficiently copy. But right now, the real high availability from a hardware perspective is still out on the storage. There's other uses for flash though. And like you said, there's capabilities to be able to copy it. There's flash question for the external storage, the same for NAS. We'll be introducing in second quarter flash cache software that uses flash on the server and does a read cache for the data, for the sanding. We've seen a huge performance increases by being able to do that. And it's not, even though it's just a read cache, it doesn't just add performance to reads. It also helps the writes. By getting those reads all the way, the writes get done faster on the standard storage. I think the line's blurring a little bit between servers and storage. If you look at the servers and the storage in the past, disk drives, hard drives were just slow. You didn't need much performance to control the storage you use real low-end processors. Now that you have SSD out there, the storage controllers become in the bottleneck. It's not enabling the full performance of the SSD if you do put it out on the storage. So what you're seeing is server class processors out in the storage. Or you could look at it the other way and say, you're seeing storage on these server processors. So it is blurring the storage servers and the traditional storage are kind of merging together and they're looking like one another. Yeah, so what is that from a CTO's perspective as to that trend? John and I love to watch what the hyperscaler guys are doing, but there's this discussion now while they're having a hard time managing all this scale out, share, nothing. What's your take? That is a trick managing it, but that's the direction that people want to go in it. It's lower cost hardware if you can scale out rather than using a larger scale up system. But at the same time, I would have said that we're going to continue to see a fast shift or acceleration in that direction. But there's things in-memory databases you're seeing SAP HANA where that really is reversing that trend a little bit. For some of the transactional capabilities on SAP HANA, you want these scale up and it provides a lot better performance than the scale out. Yeah, so it all comes down to sort of management costs at the end of the day, right? Because you're driving costs down, the industry's doing a great job of driving cap ends down. Management costs are really the get factor. So what do you guys do in there to lower those admin costs? First of all, it's not just management costs, it's also a complexity of software to try to scale out. But management costs, first of all, virtualization. Today there's a hypervisor on the server that really simplifies the management. It makes it easier to move things, it makes it easier to configure things by virtualizing everything on the server. Now we have software-defined networking, which is bringing that same capability out to the network so that you don't have to go out and move cables, you don't have to have the administrative staff to do that, you can do it now from a console with the software-defined networking. There's some capability there to date that has a lot of maturity that can take place as we go towards the future, it's gonna be just as important as a hypervisor. Okay, we participate heavily in the open source stuff, whether it's open flow, open stack, open daylight for the SDN stuff. We have, there's been a shift, it used to be IBM kept everything internal to ourselves. Now we really have embraced the open world. And we not only participate, and we help drive a lot of those standards. And there's still room for innovation on top of that. The standards are, a lot of them are the interfaces, so you can interconnect, inter-operate. So our IBM can interconnect and operate with other industry offerings out there. So as a standards part of it, where everybody has the same stuff and we wanna contribute, that we do. But on top of that, we still contribute, we can still put in capabilities that we need for our own servers, our own technology, which we can't do without participating in those open communities. How do you deal with another question on a different, on similar topic? Density, right? Data center footprint we had earlier. And we actually gave the example of using Flash, how they've actually reduced the server component, footprint, increase overall throughput, lower power, and footprint, all kind of coming together off that comment that was a customer told them about old code, Flash brings out the best code. That's a big issue, density, power, and cooling. So we saw HP has moonshot, covered that, that's been great, Harold has great engineering fee, but still hasn't shipped anything yet. So how do you play in that world? Because a moonshot's the god box of this world. So all footprint, high capability. I would debate that, that it has high capability. We did a study, a moonshot, one of the applications target is big data, I do. And we did a study, we looked at how much performance compute power can you put in a rack with moonshot. There's a lot of little processors. They're not, the cores aren't as strong as the standard Intel 2 socket core. There's actually more performance in 40 standard EP processors than the 805 atom processors that you can put in a rack with moonshot. There's about 20% more compute power. Really? How those public benchmarks? This is using their, it's using the CPU compute power, I forget which standard it is, but they assign a compute power. And you guys did this internally at IBM? We did internally, yes. Yep, it was a study to say, okay, how important is this? We've done other benchmarks. Right now, the microservers, whether it's ARM or ATOM, we're not seeing broad advantages of them. There's some corners in HPC and the web workloads where it makes sense in the commercial market. There's still performance, cost, power, density, advantage, trying to put as many high performance cores on a processor, a silicon chip, as you can, and up to the point where the cost of that chip hits neither curve. You can't put any more on the wafer without the yields going down to the lower. We'll continue to be consolidation. If you look at, I mean, the processor is going to continue to follow more is a lot. It hasn't stopped. There's going to be more performance per server, which means that you can do more consolidation on that one server. You're going to get more out of a server. Once you use Flash technology, we've seen up to 8x performance improvement by leveraging Flash where storage was a bottleneck. That means you can take eight servers and use one to get the same type of performance. The bandwidth capabilities, it's just been a tremendous increase whether it's PCIe or Ethernet in bandwidth. That is no longer a bottleneck, and that's allowing us to do things. Flash opens the kimono to new scenarios. Yes, it does. New caching layers. It's almost, it's a creative license for engineering right now. It is, it's disruptive technology. How can you best leverage it? The first steps are to leverage it just like hard drive, and it's taken a while to really see Flash proliferate because of the limitations that storage controllers just can't support the Flash performance like that. The storage controllers are being redesigned, so they support it. The software wasn't there. We talked about the Flash caching. If you have a server consolidation, virtualized workload, hot these general apps, file server apps, how do you get performance with Flash out of them? Now with this Flash caching, you knock down as a storage control. So when we're using Flash internally for database, for example, we had to, we worked with Elsai to get a SSD controller. The standard storage controllers, they were the bottleneck. You couldn't get the IOPS out of the Flash. Now the storage controllers are being redesigned. Instead of, I think we talked about instead of the small Intel processors, they're beefing up the processing power to really get the IOPS out of there. That has to be fixed first. And then the next level of innovation caching layers? Sand caching? Yes, definitely tiered. There's sand caching. There's tiering. There's really the software. There's two components. The hardware infrastructure has to be designed, the system, to fully leverage cache. That's being done in parallel. It's the software. How does the software fully leverage it? Flash caching, sand flash caching is one of them. There's, the applications will be rewritten. Critical applications to really get the full value out of the Flash. You know, get rid of the path length that you could hide all the code path length when you had a hard drive. Because a hard drive access lanes you was so long. Now it's popped up to say, why is this taking so long? It should be a lot shorter. It's a code. They're optimizing that code to make it shorter. Well, we certainly got to get you a David Floyer because you guys could geek out because it's something that we like to talk about the different levels. And obviously the highest level of, but you know, for the top of the tree that's hard to get at is a complete data center reboot with Flash.


I'm in the kitchen now. It's easier for me to buy something from someone in America than for me to buy someone in just five miles away. Customers' software. I'm good. What is that? So basically, we are presenting, making sure that we inform all the people in the country to be sure of the information. Also, we do a bit of marketing. The payment problems we see, cashless drive and everything, we need more people trying to figure this out. So I started to face that. My thinking was that before a payment happens, there's a lot that needs to happen. And after that payment, there's a lot that still needs to happen and we need people helping businesses with that. Time and time again, as I run around the world making speeches, I talk about all of these things without necessarily having to mention one of them. I've talked about it several times. So many others that we've talked about, but I've never really come across. So we'll see you guys in class. It's really exciting. I'm glad to see that it's an entirely youthful combination. And even the work environment is so different from many things.    So really, this is really exciting. And I'm really extremely proud of the work that you're doing. We're looking forward to caring even greater stories about the work that you're doing. And so we're happy to be here. I'm really honored for your very warm welcome and thank you. Thank you very much.


While you should download Valorant, many gamers heard of Valorant at least a couple of times in 2020, and I was one of them. I got addicted to the game in a few days and I still play it almost every day today. This whole video is my opinion, so if you're thinking of downloading Valorant, this is that video. So if you're on PC, I highly recommend you download Valorant because it's free and doesn't require that much PC storage or power. But the real reason is because it's just so fun and unique that I can play for hours and hours. So first of all are the agents and their abilities. If you like pushing in first and carrying your team, you can play a duelist. If you like playing passive and camping, you can play a sentinel. Valorant allows players to choose what role players want to play. All agents have three main abilities and their ultimate. Just gives the game a lot of variety and it's really what differs it from CSGO. I would say it's the perfect mix of CSGO and Overwatch because aim is vital to getting good, but ability usage is also a key aspect to winning gunfights. I would get so born in CSGO when other players would simply out aim me due to me not having any experience prior to playing it. Although you can just get away with aim by using abilities and spraying like in Fortnite, you would have to focus more on aiming if you want to become a better player.  Valorant was made for new players and experienced players. This is why so many CSGO pros are switching to Valorant like Scream or Hiko, while bringing so many new players who don't even know what crosshair placement is. Valorant brought players from many games from Fortnite to Apex because those games were getting hella boring anyways and built a whole new community due to them having a variety of fun and skill. Speaking of the community, it's huge right now when it comes to esports, competitive or just normal play and trolling. In fact, a week ago, Valorant had its biggest tournament, First Strike, and it was so fun watching Ninja and Mith go back at each other to see which team was better. I'm sure there will be way more fun experiences to come in this game. Another reason you should play Valorant is its longevity. League of Legends has been around for more than a decade and Valorant isn't going anywhere, considering the fact that it's Riot's first FPS shooter and its second most popular game right behind League of Legends. Riot's incredible responsiveness with their community, often doing Q&As about bugs and balance changes is also a reason why they're so good at communicating. They release new updates multiple times a month and a new act every couple of months which they add a new agent to. The meta changes a lot and even casual players talk about what agents are the best in the meta right now. Like when Sage was nerfed, a ton of players when I queue up say don't play her, don't play her. Some even got toxic. Valorant can also be very funny too. The casual community will always say something in the all chat whenever something unusual happens. Surprisingly, many players have mics in the competitive mode. Every time I queue up, there's always at least 3 or 4 players with mics. This surprised me a lot because back when I was playing full modes in Fortnite, no one had mics or a very small chance. If they did, it would be like a 9 year old screaming louder than a truck. In conclusion, Valorant is definitely worth downloading if you have even a slow PC. It's extremely fun with all the abilities and agents. The aiming mechanics and all around wonderful community. Riot is planning to also reach more players by creating a console and mobile version, but I doubt that it will be as advanced as PC. Fortnite and Cod can get away with it though because it doesn't punish you as much for bad movement or aim.


What's up, everyone? Takedown here. Welcome back to another video. We're back going through some more comic books. Today, I'm going to be going through the new Mutants and the amazing Spider-Man that were included in the 2000 comic book lot that I did purchase to resell. But let's face it, I'm going to end up keeping some of these comics. So I haven't gone through these yet. I don't know exactly what there is. They're likely going to be all mixed and the issues are going to go back and forth. It's not going to be complete sets or anything like that, likely. But I'm really excited to go through these ones as well. I know there's not many of the new Mutants and there's not many of the amazing Spider-Man. So I decided to combine them into one video. I hope you guys enjoy. Let's start off with the new Mutants. New Mutants, I do enjoy those comics. They're from my era. I like collecting the 80s, early, early 90s. But there's a cutoff point whenever they start to make, I don't know, the artwork all different and I just stopped enjoying it. So most of these ones here, the new Mutants aren't really ones that I collect, but I might end up picking a few out for my collection as well. We'll see what there is. Up first, there is the new Mutants issue 14. Now just a reminder, I don't know what a lot of these comics are worth. This is the first time I'm going through them and I'm going through them on camera. So this one here is really interesting. I do like the fight scene ones. This one here is probably the earliest new Mutants that is included in the lot. So I am going to consider keeping it. Right now I really don't know if I'm going to. Next is issue 47. So a little bit of a jump there. They already do have a new fonts for the new Mutants. That does look really cool. Next is fall of the Mutants issue 59. Now some of these are not bagged and boarded. Some of the comics that are included in the lot are. That looks really cool. Let's try to get it so there's no glare. Again, issue 61. Another fall of the Mutants. That's a nice scene. I like that. I'm not sure what any of these creatures are. I'm going to have to check out this comic, at least read it before I end up selling it. And see what it's about just because I don't know what those really are. Then we have 65. That's cool. I like how they have a light blue cover. I like how it's different colors. I usually am drawn to the artwork. And I always like purple, which is 66. But I don't know, this cover is not really doing it for me. It's just a weird fight scene. I'm not sure who these are on the cover. Not really familiar with the new Mutants. Magneto battles the Black King 65. Sorry, 75. That's cool. That's going to be an interesting one. Issue 95. Again, I'm not familiar with it, so it's a very cool comic. I do like these comics, but am I going to keep them from my personal collection? Probably not. 96. Unless there's issue 100 here, which it doesn't look like it's 97. This has Wolverine and Cable on it. Kind of reminds me of an X-Force comic or an X-Men comic that I've already come across. That's really cool though. I like that. So that's all of the new Mutant comics that were included in the lots. Now we're going to switch things up and go through the amazing spare demand. Some of these are probably going to be high 300s for the issues. But I am going to likely pick out more of these ones for my personal collection than I did for the new Mutants. So let's just get right into it here. This one looks really, really cool. Issue 386. I like that. That just looks amazing. This one's going to be one that I'm keeping. I love that. Issue 320. I'll think about it. I honestly don't know. I like the design. I like the artwork. I'm just not part one of six. I likely don't have a complete set here of this one. So I don't know. I'll put it aside for now. Issue 342. This one has Scorpio, Black Hat, and Spider-Man. I think it's Scorpio. I think it's Scorpion. This one's interesting. Moon Knight's Punisher Nova. This is going to be cool. 357. I like that. This one's going to be a tough one for me to get rid of if I don't end up keeping it. I like Punisher. I don't find much of his stuff. But I like the cameo comics. So I'll put that in the pile to keep in my personal collection for now. This one actually is a little bit better in my opinion. I like this one a lot more. I can't tell who else is in this one. It's issue 358. It has Punisher on the cover. That's a way better cover than the last one. I might have to keep this and swap this one out. Keep this one instead. It's just something that I personally like. 359. Punisher's not on the cover of this one. Very cool. Issue 370. These are all high 300s right now. This one's neat. 372. You got a giant spider. Giant insects here. That's really cool. I like that. 376. Another fight scene here. I'm not sure who the villains are. Who the other guys are up here. But it's a cool comic. 377. Spider-Man needs some help here. Very cool stuff. I'm glad I bought this lot. The amazing Spider-Man. This has the Incredible Hulk. And it looks like they're fighting. I always love whenever the heroes fight each other. So this one likely I'm going to keep in my collection. I love the Incredible Hulk. I don't find much of his stuff. In the lot there is a comic that is worth 150 bucks. Though I have to list that soon. That'll help with making back some of my money on this investment. It's just a comic that's not interesting to me. That I want to keep anyways. 382. Has them again in it. I don't know if they're going to be fighting. Or if they're going to be on the same side in this one. That's very cool though. I like that. We have 383. Another fight scene. I'm not sure who Spider-Man is fighting in this one. 384. Spider-Man needs some help. He's a little trapped. I'm not familiar who the robots are that he's fighting. Comment down below if you guys do. I don't know. Just not familiar with me. 385. 385. I like the artwork at least. Does look like nice comics. Then we have 371. I'm not sure who it is. Not sure who this big creature is. Has three faces on it. I'm not familiar. But it has a black hat in it. That's cool. This one has a little bend to it. It's not bagged and boarded obviously. But it has a nice little bow in it. I'm not going to keep that in my personal collection. These are all of the new mutants. And the spectacular Spider-Man. Sorry. Amazing Spider-Man that is included in the lot. I still have the web of Spider-Man to go through. That's normally what I collect. I'll have to pick out the ones I'm missing for my collection. And there is a set that is in the web of Spider-Man. That I will be sharing in that video in the future. But I hope you guys enjoyed. These are all of the comics I'm going to be sharing with you guys today. If you guys want to see more comic books. Moving forward and me going through more comic books. That not only were included in this lot. But the ones that I have in my personal collection. Please like, comment and subscribe. And let me know that you guys are interested in seeing. All of the comic books that I have. Because I am absolutely loving. Having the opportunity to share them once again. On the channel with you guys. So I'm going to leave this video here. Hope you guys enjoyed. I'll see you guys in the next one. Please take care. Peace.


Alright, I think you get the point by now. So this is a compilation of book reviews, part two. This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long. First up, I'm gonna talk about Beastly. Now, I think most of you are probably semi-familiar with Beastly because you saw, or at least have heard of, the movie that came out that was made off of it. It had Vanessa Hudgens and Alex Pettyfer in it. And the movie's awful, obviously. And a few weeks ago, I was looking around and I saw that the book has sequels. And I thought, oh, okay, those will be hilariously bad. And so, I had never read the book before. So I got that, and I got the two sequels. And I read through the first book, and while there were some parts that were, like, just laughably awful, I looked up the meaning of Kyle online, and that clinched it. Kyle means handsome. I wasn't. I found a name that means ugly. Feo, who would name their kid that, but finally settled on Adrian, which means dark one. That was me, the dark one. Everyone, by which I mean Magda and Will, called me Adrian now. I was darkness. Like, that passage is, that's a work of art, okay? That deserves to be displayed alongside the Last Supper or the Taj Mahal or Hannah John Common. It's just too beautiful for human eyes. Overall, it's, like, it's fine. You know, it's a cute romance. It's not too horrendous in most ways. Like, you do really feel bad for the main character, Kyle, who, if you didn't know, Beastly is a rendition, a modern rendition of Beauty and the Beast, so Kyle is, like, the beast. He gets turned into this animal-like thing.  Um, yeah, it's just, it's fine. Like, I could probably spend more time making fun of it, but the, I... What's the point? And then I did go into the sequel book, and I read about 75 pages of it, and it was definitely worse than Beastly, but it still wasn't awful. It was just kind of boring. There wasn't much in there that was hilariously bad or anything. And I was a little disappointed by that, because I was hoping it would be, like, another elixir where I can make this, you know, giant video just picking apart everything, and it would be a lot of fun, but it just really isn't even that. It's just... The sequels are just kind of dull, they're not my thing. The first book is perfectly fine, though, so if you're just looking for a cute romance, go ahead, check that one out, whatever. Okay, the camera angle felt a little awkward there, but... Okay, whatever. So next up is Article 5, and that one I read a couple of months ago, that was, like, right after I read Malazan, so I was... I was just on the lookout for something simpler and easier to put together that would take a lot less energy to read, you know? And so I read a couple of young adult things, and Article 5, like... I really wanted to like it, okay? It's one of those dystopian, like, Hunger Games knockoffs, you know what I'm talking about. There were tons of them all over the place a couple of years ago. And that one stood out just a little bit, though, because the main character is Ember, and she is just this teenage girl who's living in the United States as it is becoming more and more of a dictatorship. And one day, her and her mother are arrested and sent away, because one of the new laws that they've put in place is that children cannot be born out of wedlock, and Ember was born out of wedlock and her mom was unmarried, so they sent them to two separate reeducation camps, and then the majority of the story is just Ember escaping from the camp and then trying to escape the country. And the thing about that is that it's immediately different than a lot of its fellows, because in most of those, it's just like, hey, let's have a rebellion, cool. Whereas this one, it's like much more small scale. It's just a couple of characters saying we need to try and escape. And in addition to that, it actually is saying something about our modern-day world. It's actually saying something about our society, because the world that they're in, it's a horrible dictatorship, like I said, and there's constant war going on. We don't get a lot of detail about why the war is happening, but inside the United States, we can see that an extreme form of religion has taken hold. It's like they've gone back to an extremist Christian worldview. And so, yeah, the author is actually pointing at something and saying, hey, if we're not careful, this can be bad. And so whereas a lot of the other ones are just like, hey, society is structured weird, doesn't that kind of suck? This one actually is saying something. But beyond that, there's just not much in this book. Like, it's Ember, she falls in love with a cute soldier boy who helps her escape. They go out of the education camp.  They're going on a road trip. And it's just, there's not much there.  Like, at first, she was fine because like, you feel really bad for her and you do know that she remembers before things got this bad and you do get a sense of how normal people live under this system. And when she's in the reeducation camp, she is actually planning her escape and she's trying to figure out like, okay, how do I deal with this without losing my mind? You know, that sort of thing. And so at first she's fine, but once they're on the road trip, she's just dead weight up until the very end. Like the climax, she actually does some stuff, so that's better. But still, it's like, she's just an obnoxious character. So, and from what I understand, the sequels go into much more traditional territory where it's just like, hey, these two are trying to help out a rebellion now. And it's just, it's just kind of dumb at that point. So I will probably never read the sequels. My head canon is just that Ember and her friends got away and they lived the rest of their lives in Canada and then eventually the American regime just collapsed in on itself. Yeah, but I really wanted to like this one, but it just made too many missteps so I couldn't quite get there. Next we have Inheritance, which is the final book in the Inheritance Cycle which started with Aragon. And the thing about Inheritance is that I've seen it get a lot of flak over the years for being like a crappy ending, like people didn't like it. They thought it was trash, it's just been trashed a lot. And honestly, I never understood why exactly. I guess I can get how the romance between Aragon and Aria never really materialized and a lot of people were hoping for that. But well, I was fine with it. You know, it kind of makes sense how it would go that way and I appreciate that it was doing something different. You know, Aria is like over a hundred years older than Aragon and he's only like 16, I think at this point. So to her, that's like a toddler being in love with her or in love with her as it would seem from her perspective. So that makes sense. A lot of people were kind of disappointed with the way they defeated Galvatorex. So I thought it was really creative, you know, rather than just being more powerful than this dude or finding this one secret weakness, they just did something creative. And I think a lot of people were just hoping for a more upbeat ending than what we got.  So overall, I thought that the way this looked at the reconstruction of Allagasia and the way things were going to change going forward, I thought that was a much more mature way of looking at it than most other books aimed at this age range will get. And beyond that, I just thought a lot of the battles and stuff were cool. You know, the final confrontation with Galvatorex and all that, that was cool. So yeah, I don't have much else to say about it. I just think that inheritance was pretty good as a finale to a relatively big epic series. Next is The Legend Trilogy by Marie Lu. And I'm looking at all three books here. And this is another one of those kind of dystopian Hunger Games knockoffs, but it actually does some different stuff. I read these a couple of years ago. It was before I started this channel and I had, I guess I had more patience for that sort of thing at the time. But basically, it follows two characters, one named Day and one named June. And they live in a post-apocalyptic world in the Republic of America, which is like the western chunk of the United States. And that is, as always, a horrible authoritarian dictatorial regime where normal people live in horrifying poverty and all their freedoms are suppressed. And, you know, life is pretty miserable for the majority of the population. And Day is a wanted criminal who faked his death a while ago, and now he goes around just kind of making trouble. And I'll get to that a little bit more in a minute. And June is a, like a star student, I guess you'd say. Her older brother is in the military and he's very well respected in the officer corps. And then one day he's murdered and they think Day did it, so June goes hunting for him. And over the course of that, obviously they fall in love, okay? Like, you're just, you're not going to have this sort of story without them falling in love. And whatever, I'm not going to talk about that too much. And beyond that, they, June starts to see more and more of the darker side of her government since she realizes, you know what, maybe I should be resisting this, maybe I shouldn't just be helping this along, you know, that sort of thing. And then in the second and third books that deals with much more in-depth, like how do we change this system? And it's not just a rebellion is the thing. That's actually one huge positive that I would put in this book's favor is that without getting too deep into spoiler territory, near the second and third books, in the second and third books, things seem to look like they're going to reform on their own, without too much bloodshed, without too much violence. And I think that's great because, one, that's just a realistic way of looking at things, because we see in this government not everybody who is in there is, you know, straight up evil. Some of them actually do want to do good and they do want to fix things and make things better for the average person. So that's pretty great. And then in the latter part of the series, like in the climax, it gets back into like war and fighting and the main characters have to, you know, solve things. So in that regard, it's a little bit, I don't want to say cliched because it is doing it in a different way. And I don't want to, I don't want to harp on it too much as well because it's trying something a little bit different. And I always want to be forgiving about things that at least take a risk, you know? And the main thing though about the series that I didn't like was the climax because, you know, it just goes back into like more fighting and all that. And Day apparently has a brain tumor, which is going to kill him very soon, but he can still like run and do parkour like an expert and it's just kind of dumb. And none of the characters ever really face consequences for the things they do in the final chapters of the book. Like they commit war crimes and they even mention like, yeah, this is a war crime. We're going to get arrested if this ever gets out. And it gets out, but they never face any consequences for it. So it goes out with more of a fizzle than anything. And overall, I would just say the series is fine. You know, nothing spectacular, but it's fine. And I don't know if I can really recommend it to anybody unless the idea of like seeing a story from two different perspectives from the person being hunted and the one doing the hunting in this world, which is admittedly it is better put together than most of these dystopian YA worlds are. Like the Republic of America feels a lot like a fictional version of North Korea in the best way possible. It actually feels like a real place you could go. So yeah, that's good. Other than that, like I don't know if I can recommend it unless you're really looking for something up that alley. So then we have The Young Elites, which was also written by Marie Lou. And okay, so I reviewed the first book in this series about a year and a half ago. And just like Legend, I just said it was fine. You know, there was not much in there worth celebrating but there wasn't much in there worth attacking either.  The only two things that I would say were actually genuinely really good were the villain, Taryn Santoro, who I mentioned in my Top 10 Villains list. And he is genuinely fantastic. And number two was the climax of the first book because it ends in such a way where I was really taken by surprise and I was like, wow, I wasn't expecting that. That was some crazy stuff. And then in the second and third books, it goes in a much different direction than I would have expected. So okay, I liked it. So the story of this one is that it's like a medieval fantasy world and a while before the story starts, this thing called the blood fever goes through the world and kills tons and tons of people. But some of the people who get infected don't die and in fact they actually get powers afterwards including the main character, Adelina. And she tries to run away from home to avoid being sold off by her father but he catches her, she accidentally kills him and then she's about to get burned at the stake by the Inquisition and by Taryn because she's an abomination, demons, all that kind of stuff. But then she gets saved by the prince of her country who also has powers and he tells her, hey, my sister stole my throne, helped me get it back and you get to live and she's like, okay, cool. And so the majority of the first book is just them trying to get that back.  I don't want to just help others out. I want to take this throne for myself. And then without giving too much away, the story goes in a much darker direction and it goes up much more into Adelina's psyche. And then the third book, it's kind of shifts focus again and it's all about like, okay, there's a greater threat now, let's set aside this fighting and try and save the world. And I think that they all float into one another fairly well and I think that Adelina is a good enough main character to hold things together and Taren is definitely a good enough villain to hold things together. Overall, just like with Legend, only to a greater extent, I have to give it props for at least trying different stuff because I was really expecting the whole series to just be about them trying to take back the throne and give it to the prince. But no, it changes focus a couple of times. It goes in directions I wasn't expecting and it does stuff I hadn't really seen before. So even if it doesn't work 100% of the time, I gotta give a credit for trying something different. And the worst part of the series by a pretty big margin is the actual pros of it though because most of it is Adelina's first-person perspective and it's told in present tense as well, which I think present tense works fine when it's first person but then it switches to other characters' third person and it's still present tense and it just feels really, really awkward and it's difficult to keep track of things and I just, yeah, I didn't like it. But basically I just want to say that after reading the majority of Marie Lou's published works, I gotta say I think she's being held back by writing in Young Adult because a lot of her ideas could be much better explored by an older audience I think or if she was writing for an older audience and if she had a bigger page count because Adelina in the Young Elites kinda starts going crazy at one point but it's just treated so, I don't know, it's shown to you so bluntly I guess where she's like literally hearing voices that are telling her to do bad things and that also kinda takes away from the impact of Adelina doing bad things because, well, it kinda gives her an out. It's like, whoa, whoa, the voice is told her to do it. She's just crazy, she can't help it whereas a lot of the other times it actually goes into her abusive childhood and why she would not want to feel powerless like this so it makes more sense and I just feel like stuff like that could be much better explored in a longer fantasy series that was aimed at an older audience. Then we have Railhead which is something that I've really never, ever heard talked about and I can see why. It's not terrible but it's just not much of anything really. The setting of this one is kinda interesting it's like humans have colonized a bunch of planets and stuff but rather than getting between them using space travel they have these gates which, you know, they're like wormholes they teleport you from one place to another and in order to get through the gates you have to be on these specially designed trains which the trains are kinda weird because the way they make them they're kind of alive and they all have personalities and stuff and so, you know, when you're going around the trains will be talking and some of them will be like sadistic and want to kill people some of them will just be really nice and friendly it's kinda bizarre and also beyond that the whole of human space is actually controlled by a group of artificial intelligences which exist in the future version of the internet and I mean, that's... both of those are really cool ideas and then we have the main character who's a guy named Zen and he is... he's just kind of an asshole, you know, like he's a petty thief who rides the rails, goes around to different planets steal stuff and then comes back home to live off of it and he doesn't do this because he's forced to or anything he's not an orphan he is very poor but he has opportunities to get a job he just really doesn't want to because he finds this lifestyle much more exciting and much more rewarding, I guess so right off the bat, we have a setting and a main character that are really really interesting and unique but the thing is that the book never really goes all in on any of that like Zen, for example as the story goes on he just kinda turns into a good guy later on and I'm not saying that somebody turning into a better person has to be a compelling character because it certainly can but the thing is that I liked Zen at the beginning because he was kind of a dick, you know he wasn't an awful person, he was just kind of a dick it would be like if they tried to make a third Deadpool movie and in that movie, Deadpool decided you know what, I don't want to kill people anymore I want to go around and help people and then he stops making such dark jokes and all that okay, maybe it's nice to see him become a better person but you would be losing out on all the stuff that made him a good character to begin with and same with the government structure and the setting of this world is that they never go all in with it, you know it's just kinda like the AI are really just in the background and they tell other people what to do so the real face of everything is an emperor it's just like, it's missed potential you know, and there is one character in here who is really really interesting his name is uh, Raven and he's really cool but I don't think he's gonna play a role in this series going forward because I know there are sequels to this but I don't know if I'm ever gonna read them so overall it's fine, I guess like no, no, that's it, it's fine maximum ride forever so I talked about this one in my the rise and fall of maximum ride video and I'm not gonna go into super deep detail here because I feel like I've already said enough there but basically maximum ride forever is the final book in the maximum ride series and what I do wanna say is that while this is a bad ending it's better than it could have been because originally the series was going to end with Angel which was book 7 and then it was going to end with Nevermore which was book 8 and then it, maximum ride forever came out and that's for real the last one and the thing is if it had ended with Angel or Nevermore there still would have been a lot of plot threads that hadn't been wrapped up properly whereas with maximum ride forever once I got to the end it was bad but I wasn't wondering like well wait, what happened to that guy did people wind up doing or what happened to this place like we knew, we had all the answers to that so that was not, I don't wanna say satisfying but like it's much better than it could have been the only other thing I will say about this book is that at the end of the last one the world got destroyed because the heroes failed to save it and so this one is showing them deal with the consequences of that failure and that is a ballsy move on James Patterson's part I'll give him that the issue with it like I said in my other video is that like it's it makes all their struggles before this seem kinda pointless though because they spent many books trying to save the world and so it just, I don't know it does, it's a double edged sword there but you know it did it did something right and it did wrap up the whole story so I guess it could have been a lot worse but it's still pretty bad and finally I wanna talk about the cheerleaders now I did bring this one up in my response to Elliott Brooks video not that long ago and I'm not gonna get into details here cause I don't wanna get demonetized here too but basically it deals with some really really dark dark stuff that teenagers sometimes have to put up with and it's uh it's not treated with kid loves I'll say that it's treated very respectfully, very maturely and it it did make me extremely angry while reading but it also gave me a new perspective by the end I was thinking like wow that's that's uh that's something so the plot to this if you didn't know is basically just that there's a teenage girl named Monica who five years before the story starts a bunch of cheerleaders all died at her high school including her older sister there were two of them that died in a car crash two of them were murdered and her sister committed suicide and she discovered some evidence that says like hey maybe these were all connected and maybe the police got something wrong when they were investigating so the story is just her going over the mystery of what happened and like I said a lot of dark stuff that's the main reason that I love this book so much because I did give it you know five stars and even with the five stars I will admit that there are issues like every book that I love that much is going to have issues like that and in this case the mystery really isn't that good I mean I've read worse but like the reveal of what's going on is kind of cheesy but also kind of like sad and realistic and you're thinking oh man that I guess that's how life works sometimes there are a couple of little tiny details throughout the book that are inconsistent like for example at one point there's a character who's mentioned to be 24 but then later they say he's 27 and that's not a huge deal on its own but this is a mystery story and when you're writing a mystery everything has to line up perfectly because every little detail could be important and every little detail could be the one that makes the reader go ah ha and figure out what's going on and so yeah little inconsistencies like that are a huge huge problem in a mystery story but I mean at the end of the day I'm not going to be looking back on that I'm going to be looking back at like the character of Monica and how she dealt with a lot of nasty shit that was thrown her way and how she grew up looking at that gave me a different perspective on stuff that happened in my own life and well obviously that's not going to be the same for everybody you know like at the end of the day all reviews are opinion obviously but still like this one I guess if it sounds like a fun mystery to you maybe not fun but if the idea of murder mystery kind of appeals to you go ahead and check it out it's it's fine in that regard but if it doesn't then I don't know if the rest will appeal to you more as much as it did to me so that's all for today there will probably be a part 3 at some point I don't know if there will be a part 4 because like I have a long list of stuff I want to get to but I don't know if it's long enough for part 4 I don't know we'll see but you know thanks for watching thanks to all my patrons including Abhiraj Singh Apo Sevalainen Christopher Hawken David Martinez Joseph Penderraft and Melanie Austin and all the others whose names you see here you guys are great thanks to everyone else who watched I think I already said that whatever please continue watching like comments blah blah blah bye


Welcome to Monet Café. I'm artist Susan Jenkins and very happy to bring you a lesson. I think should help a lot of artists I'm calling this how to rescue a dud. Yes, we all have them So this should be very helpful and here's a little intro from me Hello artists and welcome to Monet Café. Oh, I just love the beginning of a new month Announcing a new theme and especially when it's springtime related. I love flowers I love painting fields of flowers the theme this month and Monet Café is new life now That can be a broad theme. So you interpret that how you like, but I'm going to be bringing you I've been promising watercolor tutorials. They are on the way With some beautiful flowers, but I'm gonna show you in this video a pastel painting demonstration of how you can rescue a Dud and yes, I was just talking to one of my patrons I have duds all artists have duds and it's really nice when you know, you can really repurpose Many surfaces and still create a painting. So don't give up Don't get frustrated if you have duds either. We all do trust me We don't show our duds even the best pastel artists don't show their duds typically So anyway, let's paint these beautiful bright and colorful spring flowers in soft pastel I hope you learn a lot and if you haven't subscribed, please do so we have so much fun here Alright, let's get started and I'm able to keep these free lessons coming because of the support from my patrons on my patreon page If you would like to consider becoming a patron It's only five dollars a month and you get extra goodies and extra content now This particular dud that I'll be rescuing came to be as I was creating watercolor tutorials for this month One of them just did not come out right. It was flat. What did I say artists? Don't show their duds. Well, there's my dud So what I decided to do is to use some acrylic paint a foam brush You could use a paintbrush and some clear gesso now. This is on watercolor paper Obviously, I've covered up all of the other watercolor paintings and I decided, you know I can't paint watercolor back over this So I'm going to do a trick that I do often clear gesso works great to create a pastel surface And I needed to kind of get rid of this background So I had I actually have a whole bunch of acrylic paint that I never use and that's the neat thing about art What do they say necessity is the mother of invention and so I decided let's try some acrylic paint This was heavy bodied acrylic paint probably why I never used it So I shot it with a blow dryer to get it nice and dry and I don't normally choose a yellow underpainting But you know me I love to experiment and I thought this is spring I would like it to be really vibrant and bright. So now here's where the magic happens Yes, you can use a product. I use this all the time called clear gesso not regular gesso It's clear. It's gonna dry clear But what it's also going to do is it has little bits of sand in it so it's like making your own DIY homemade pastel surface and It's really an inexpensive way to create your own pastel surfaces on Watercolor paper again, I have all of my watercolors covered up here And I knew I couldn't put watercolor on top of this So I thought let's do I go back to my favorite medium soft pastel So I'm gonna put two coats of this clear gesso on. I don't always do two coats but in this case I decided to just to get some extra grit and Voila, I have my own homemade Pastel surface and I have restored a failed dud painting. So alright now Let's get to the tutorial in soft pastel and by the way I do have a product review video on Liquitex clear gesso on my Amazon shop I will include a link to that review video in the description of this video and you can click to purchase the product there if you like The reference image is from unsplash.com Which has quickly become one of my favorite little ways to get copyright free reference images It's a great website. You get some really great professional photographers who upload their work It's copyright free so you can use it to paint from without any challenges and here's my profile on there I have my section called collections You're welcome to find me on there and check out some of my collections not all of them are public though So but I do have one called flowers that I got this one from along with all of the Upcoming watercolor tutorials, so they're all in this one album and I find it's really great sometimes just to gather a lot of Photos that you like put them in little files called collections because what happens is sometimes you get in a creative mood to paint and You waste a lot of your creative energy just looking for something to paint So it's really nice if you already have some collections ready to paint from now This particular photo is from Joanna swan and I want to thank you Joanna I actually already sent her a message thanking her for her lovely photo and I like she says she likes telling stories One photo at a time. She has some lovely work The soft pastels that I used primarily for this painting is the Paris collection And this is such a lovely collection by Cinelli a Cinelli a pastels are so buttery and vibrant I love it. This is my breakdown of kind of the layout of how they have them in the case And I thought it was really well designed according to color and value and There is cat hair on my little set there because my cat Somehow found a way into my studio and took a nap on top of my pastels and she's a white cat So she was quite colorful afterwards. I also like how Cinelli a has on the side of their box a reference for every color And every number I always recommend make your own color guide the one I did before that you saw literally I took a photo of the box Converted it to black and white and made a mark of each color on top of the corresponding pastel That's a neat way to do it So I will have a clickable link to this set in the description of this video and by the way It's one of the best values for quality pastels. It's a really good buy now rather than using pencil to sketch I often like to use vine charcoal or willow charcoal. They're just big sticks of charcoal This one was rather thick. I had used up all of my other thinner ones But I find that it helps to keep a real gestural feel I hold it like way down On the stick rather than cinching it up like you would write with a pencil and I just get in some of the general little flower shapes and keep it very Lyrical and gestural because these flowers what I loved about this photo is it felt like they were Trying to peek around the corner of the road I always seem to personify flowers and trees now this product gloves in a bottle is Something that I heard recommended by artist Alan Picard. He's an amazing pastel artist and I don't use it often I forget to use it basically, but when you put it on your hands kind of like a lotion It kind of keeps the soft pastel From being so dusty on it. That's the only way I can put it I don't have to wash my hands quite as much so that also can be found in my Amazon shop I'll try to put a link to that in the description as well. Now. I am Going ahead and getting in my darks. I noticed in this particular reference photo The background was very shadowy behind that field of flowers and behind the road And I'm gonna use often I use a chamois cloth that little square to the left to blend with on this particular Surface you can't use it on every surface, but what I'm using here. You saw me hold up These are packing peanuts that you get in Packages to protect the contents of the package and I found they worked really great on this homemade surface with the clear Gesso I have a whole bag full of them. I definitely gonna use them again now I am getting a kind of a foresty green. It's kind of a darker Darker value green but not nearly as dark as the background and I want you to take note This is all real time by the way. The rest of this is gonna be real time I think with the exception of one little part where I'm adding stems to the flowers But I want you to take note that the painting is going to look a little bit dark for a while. I'm getting in My darker values, and I'm getting in the ground color And I will gradually add lights kind of like I just did to that little background tree I gradually add my lighter values on top and That's the beauty of soft pastel and it's similar to acrylic and oil You can get your darker values down first and layer the lights on top for a nice contrast Oh, this was a nice neutral green that was in that set when things are in the distance color gets more neutral typically So and when I can't wait I've got a video coming up soon on color that I can't wait to share But I wanted to make sure I had enough darks down for good contrast In that background and now I'm just scumbling in the road with a it's kind of a dull Color, it's a little dark. I'm gonna lighten up the road But notice to how so much of that surface is showing through so what do I do? Voila, I get my little handy-dandy packing peanut and lookie there It covered up all of that little space between where it just looked like it wasn't getting good coverage I think that frustrates a lot of beginner artists Especially it depends on the surface as you're working on but when you're first starting out you feel like everything should already be filled in and Resist the urge to oversaturate your painting to blend it but it is nice at the beginning stages to Use a little blending tool like this because you really can get down a good blanket of your color and value and Then start to add your additional layers and you could instantly see when I blended that road How much of an effect it had on making it look like a smooth application? so use blending sparingly though and I suggest usually only in the beginning stages don't overblend you're gonna lose that beautiful color of pastel and And you kind of like crush its little particles that is what gives it the Brilliant color that it has which I think is really more beautiful in color than any other medium And now I'm scumbling in a little bit of the dark around my little flowers that I had sketched in so gesturally And I'm going to use the little blending tool again in a minute. This is a really nice teal kind of neutral cool blue-green and I know that the color is going to cool off a little bit in the back and I'm thinking about what's underneath all of those bright green Leaves other than the flowers There's a lot of leaves and all kinds of this and that kind of grasses and leaves sticking up And I need enough dark for contrast to lay those lighter grasses down on so I'm kind of Strategizing about what colors I want to use. I know I want in some places for things to cool off There's gonna be some shadows down underneath the sides of the road back there The road kind of there was a shadow from that one tree and then the road kind of curved around behind the shadow now Here I am blending again and notice I'm just kind of loosely blending between some of the flower shapes But I don't have to be so careful and I only block off flowers that are quite large I'm not worried about blocking out or sketching in flowers that are small They can just be layered on top now. This was a nice little magenta color that was in the set I think so far every pastel I've used has been in this particular Paris collection set now I'm just scumbling in some of this pretty I wanted to have a road that was kind of like Roads in Georgia if you're from the United States, Georgia has kind of red clay and it's just real earthy and neat And this still looks fairly dark But I know in my mind that all of this is just the initial layers So sometimes I think well, let me stop for a minute. I did want to add in a little bit of the The things on the ground that were little rocks and sticks and things and give it a little bit of texture in just a few places You don't want to overdo this and it's really going to diminish as it goes back into the background But I think as beginner artists We have a tendency to Paint almost like paint by number We look at each particular color we try to find that color and fill it in the teeny little space and If you can realize as a pastel artist the real depth of your art comes in Layering layering typically the darker value and then the lighter values on top of that It also lends more towards the impressionism rather than like I said paint by numbers the best way I can describe it Just filling in all of the little spaces. We're layering those colors and values on top of each other and It really makes it start to look like like life does and by the way I think I forgot to mention the size of this it is five inches by four inches and All of the paintings that are on this big sheet of watercolor paper are all Five inches by four inches or sometimes I turn them the other way and they're four inches by five inches So I have almost all of them were vertical. This one was horizontal and I had one with sunflowers. That's a watercolor one. That's That was horizontal landscape. It's called format and the neat thing is when I'm done with all of these You're gonna get to see the watercolor lessons on all of the other five paintings and At the end it's so neat to pull this tape off. You can see I have masking tape around this one and You just get the nicest crisp clean edge. It's really neat now I'm using that same pretty blue I talked about and I'm I'm cooling off some of the distant grasses They were a little warm and colors Typically cool off a bit in the distance now. You obviously want to consider your subject matter. I mean Even red flowers do cool off though in the distance You go from a warmer red in the foreground to a cool red in the distance But don't get so carried away with that to think you've got to change your red flowers to blue flowers. That's not that cool So hopefully you understand what I'm saying now often with things that are purple. These had some beautiful purple lavendery type of flowers, I don't know what they were but they were just kind of Whimsical and all over the place back there and often I will throw in a real pretty like blue I find that those types of purple flowers have blue as a base and then you finally get to your purple this actual This purple right here was a purple that was in the The set of Sennelier and I really love it. It's a really neat neat purple It's kind of a it's in between purple and blue and that's one of my favorite colors actually But I do get some more of the more lavender colors that I add later once again still working on Dark to light. I'm gradually starting to lighten things up here I even add a little bit of purple that shadow across the road there and I reinforce that a little bit later So as you can see and this is all real time. I'm just scumbling things in And now I'm using that packing peanut again to soften up some of the areas in the distance now What happens to things in the distance? Well, typically they're not quite as in focus, right? You can tell that with your own eyes if you're looking out in nature and by the way I highly encourage that become a student of nature. I remember when I first started painting It was like I started looking at the world with new eyes. I started like oh my gosh some of the things I've been learning is it's really true Things do cool off in the distance like distant mountains and things really do get a lot blurrier in the distance now Those two colors there are kind of magenta colors I didn't have a color like this in the Paris collection set that was this dark It had some pinks in the set, but I knew for some of these pink flowers. They had a really a Darker base to them. There were shadows in between the all the pink petals So this is the typical layering strategy. Let me go ahead and block in The darker value of what I think is the base color the darkest color in those pink flowers And then I'll gradually start layering the petals as the light is hitting them directionally Kind of as they're coming out and how the light is catching the petals rotating around the flower and so it looks a little I don't know Chunky and weird at first. I heard a term many years ago where an artist a really great artist Said that I can't remember who it was. I've looked at so many good artists, but that said that Your painting goes through like an adolescent phase. You know how we're all kind of I don't know a little uncoordinated and whatever as teenagers. I know I was I went through a real height growth spurt I'm kind of tall and I was just as clumsy as I could be But anyway, your painting kind of goes through that too and when you're first starting sometimes you get frustrated with that I did that so much that I would say to my husband. I would be like, oh, this is terrible I am not getting this and he would say you say that every time Susan and then and it starts to come together and So give it some time and just embrace the fact that yeah, it's gonna look a little a little I don't know unfinished at first and I noticed this with There are some artists that I don't know it looks good kind of the whole time Have you ever seen those artists, but I see a lot of really professional artists where it takes a while this Initial blocking in stage and building up stage Does take a little bit of time and then then the fun begins. It's like icing on the cake You know baking the cake takes it's a lot of work at first, you know Well first you got to go buy you got a planet. You got to get a recipe. You got to buy all the ingredients You got to go to the store. You got to put it in your buggy. You got to go home I would say man. There's so much I love cooking, but there's a lot to it You got to take it out. You got to do everything and finally What's the fun part if you're making a cake that you're decorating it's the decorating part So you're laying you're baking a cake You're you're getting all the ingredients together right now and it eventually will come together But let me talk a little bit more about the point of this video one of the points of this video you know my videos I cover a whole lot of topics and But when it comes to creating a dud It happens, you know, I like I said with that watercolor painting some things just didn't work out it was very flat and I decided rather than beating myself up about it You have a couple of options when you create a dud now if you're working on a surface that you don't really have any options to Restore it repurpose it like I've done here One of your options is to throw it away toss it. What do they call that file 13? It's the trash can Toss it and move on and know that you learned something Even with your painting that wasn't one that you would want to share with the whole world, you know But you learned something you learned something with every single painting I have a lot of artwork that a lot of artwork that I've thrown away And what's going to happen too is as you grow as an artist You're going to look back at some of your work that you did a couple years before And you're going to see how you grew You're going to see a painting that you know two years ago You thought wow that was really good and it was good for the time that you did it And then a few years later you'd be like, oh my gosh, I have really come a long way since then So don't get frustrated. And I think that's why I like the slogan That I the slogan on Monet cafe was Art with friends is better, which it is that's the whole thing here We're doing this together guys. We're learning together even though we can't physically hug each other which I wish I could We are together Because of the wonderful thing of the internet, you know But I changed the slogan to live love paint because I think often We get so darn picky about our own work and I've seen artists Really get depressed because they weren't happy with the work that they were creating And we forget that a lot of the joy is just in the creative process I do voiceovers a lot for multiple reasons. One reason is because oh, I need to talk about some of this One reason is because I live on a busy road and sometimes I have to avoid the car sound Um, but another reason is so that I can embrace the creative process. I love to put on some Classical music have my candle burning have a cup of tea. So embrace the moment. Enjoy that part too All right, so now you can see I am adding some of the petals Now can you see how that base of dark? Is starting to show In the little spaces in the little negative spaces of the petals that I'm creating and when it comes to flowers I typically like to get just the basic shape of the flower with my darker underpainting and then I start to look again working dark to light then I start to look at the next Layer or color that I would put down And I just sort of gesturally put them in I squint my eyes I look at kind of where they're at on the flower and then I make a mark Just in the general direction they're going in and gradually start adding lighter Values until I get to the lightest. These are not the lightest pinks. You're going to see those at the end Now you saw me before I added a little bit of that Kind of orangey color and then I go back in and add a little bit of that Lighter yellowy color on top of that and that's the same concept of layering I layered the dark and then I layered the light and I added that dark to this flower It had a large center and now I'm doing that part where I'm I'm looking you can see me pausing there. I'm looking at where these petals are I saw this one was kind of the petals were reaching upwards So there was a more of a shadow on the viewer side But there were also some areas on this flower where they looked like some of the petals were kind of Old so I I didn't want to add too much bright to those petals So kind of pay attention to your reference image. It'll be a great guide for you You don't have to do everything exactly like your reference image I like to say find something that you just it makes you happy. You're like, oh, that's just really I love this This is beautiful and then Leave in the things that you loved and take out the things that are just too busy Or just don't really need to be there But use it as a guide how the flowers are turning And how some of the colors may have subtle differences because of the light and the shadow Now I did have um, this is how you know, I said the flowers seem like they were all kind of peeking around to see What's around the corner of that road? I just love the mystery of roads and I wanted to um, just kind of Personify these flowers as doing the same thing as people do Truly always think of uh creation as As us, you know, I love how flowers turn to the sun and trees reach up to the sun and and it's like life is celebrating our creator And uh, I just I love it. I love that part about being an artist So you can see how I've been just layering gradually now. I loved this This is a color I don't often use. Well, no, actually I use this one a little more than what I'm thinking of There's a type of green that's almost like an artificial green But this one I like this one would be one I would use more in water or in a sky Um, but it really worked well for some of the cooler Little grassy things that were going on Underneath the flowers now now you can see the dark green underneath the flowers That's that's like where the darkest part of those grasses and leaves are and The lighter part is what I'm gradually starting to layer now I saw there was a lot of cool elements going on underneath there Because some of the tall grasses were blocking the sun from some of these that were underneath And I'm going to gradually work towards where I'm adding the bright greens, which is where they're going to be They're going to be on top where the sun is hitting them. So that is coming. Um, and I'm and notice too I'm working the whole I I don't get so caught up in one little area now. I used to and it's very frustrating For one you overwork that area like if I just stayed focused on those two flowers in the foreground And I just worked and worked and fiddled and fussed It's going to lose continuity and you're going to get frustrated. Now. Those are three purples That are terry Ludwig pastels. I don't know if I mentioned that before about the two burgundies. I showed up If they're rectangular like this, these look square because I broke them in a half. They're Wonderful terry Ludwig pastels. I love their pastels. I love their company It's an american made pastel the owners are amazing people and not that I've met them in person But I've communicated with um Jeff or joff. I don't know how you say his name, but he is he's just such a neat guy So anyway, these have some great darks So the purples I use that are really dark and the magintas that I use that were really dark are the terry Ludwigs And I'm just kind of again using my reference image as a guide Sometimes I'll say oh, no, I'd like that flower over there better or I want this reaching out Looking around the road giving my concept, you know more meaning um Now I did take this I liked this purple to make a little bit more of the base Of those lavender flowers there a little more dark down when they're getting closer to the ground And then I'm gradually going to add some of the lighter colors on top Um, so I'm trying to do more real time. I do sometimes take my uh footage after the fact and take out any Span of time. That's a break.  So you're getting just the painting portion Um, I think that that helps Um, so you don't get bored either and also so that the video is not so long to upload Now those are two pastels that are not in the paris collection I'm trying to make note to you guys when there's something else These are just where I was in my general workshop palette of some pinks that I had This one was a little bit not quite as bright as the pinks that I used with those two foreground flowers Now this is a really really neat pink. I think this one is a schminka pastel It was just a little bit brighter than some of the pinks Um, you can see kind of when I put it down on top of those very subtle difference now I'm going to do that trick again on top of the dark that I put in the center I put the orange and then I put the gold and believe it or not You don't cover it all the way up You leave a little bit of the the orange showing through and you get that feeling of depth now I even add here come here comes the icing I even add some of these brights that look super bright right now because I haven't added some of the The lighter greens that are going to really start making this come to life I wanted this I want to shape this flower a little bit more More gestural and a little bigger. So I laid down a little more of that magenta and now I'm layering I'm looking at some of the little The way the light is catching these petals and and I am paying attention to the flower. I let the flower be my guide And and the value I'm looking at the values as well I want to add a little bit more dark value down in some of these flowers just to give them a little more depth And this is where some of the the icing on the cake is going to start happening I'm going to start adding more lights. I do refine some of these flowers But I got to thank you guys those of you who have commented I've mentioned a couple of times that I do get I'd say I get 98 Great positive feedback and comments and by the way, please comment. I love your comments Other people love your comments read your comments and they learn from the questions you ask and the answers that I give Also, it helps this video to Get seen by more people youtube will share this video more as a suggested video If it has a lot of comments and a lot of likes kind of quickly But I've mentioned that I do you know two percent of the time or so You know get some negative feedback, but you know what that's people you never know some people They may have just had a bad day and they're just uh, I I'm a good person to vent They can vent their frustration to or whatever and I know that happens And I try to respond to everything with kindness and wow, thank you that I never thought of it that way But sometimes I'll get comments like boy, you sure do talk a lot or you sure are chatty and um I just like to say well, that's what I'm trying to do here is give you guys Information about how to paint and I also can't help that I am just a lover of life And sometimes my comments might have to do with the lord I am a firm believer in the lord jesus christ. That's probably what I get most negative comments about But hey, I gotta say who I am and why I am the way I am and that's why I just love Painting and our creation so much. So I want to thank you guys. Many of you are like you just talk away That's how we're learning. So god bless you. Thank you so much for that um, I I love the fact that I'm able to give you guys free lessons and You know, most of you are very very tolerant of my craziness now. I didn't see many red flowers in this Reference image, but I wanted to create a little bit of variety. Does anybody know what these flowers are? Are they zinnias? I love zinnias. Well, some of them look kind of like a little type of a daisy But I thought this will give a little bit of interest So on top of the magenta, I layered a little bit of this pretty red And you see how I'm just giving little almost geometric shapes for the petals And then the same concept of the center now also too often flowers are not all pasted on the top of the grasses like, you know, uh, that will look very artificial because grasses do Um and leaves do cover flowers So I'm gonna have a few of them kind of buried when I add my leaves and grasses on top Um, but really a lot of these were you look in the reference image a lot of them were really reaching up There's a few of those purple ones buried down beneath So keep that in mind when you're adding some of your final grasses and layers Is that burying some of them will make it more believable And now I'm just looking for some of those flowers. I've already gotten in a little bit of the darker elements I'm adding little highlights on top of things And uh, this pastel also is not part of the senelier said it was just kind of a medium Pink that seemed nice for some of the uh, the petals on the flowers and notice I have them turning in different directions That's another thing too, even though a lot of these flowers are reaching up Towards the sun and some of them like I said kind of reaching down the road But keep in mind that, uh, you don't always have to have your flowers all facing the same direction And now you can see these flowers were missing something right that we're missing their stems So I used a I did speed that part up. I used a prismacolor new pastel It's a harder pastel you can get a little bit more of an edge to it And this is a purple I often love for shadows Adding some purples to the shadowy sides of the road. I feel like it just gives color interest Um, and now just to keep this video a little small I'm showing some of the icing on the cake part now. I'm adding my greens This is part of the senelier set the paris collection in little, um, Gestural marks of leaves and grasses once again using the reference image as my guide, but not as a strict Photo that I have to follow everything exactly and this is what's going to bring this to life And there's another one of the prismacolor new pastels. I'm using it for some of the grasses And now I've put it back to real time. I added a few more little bits of debris and things on the road that would create shadow I softened up see how neutral this pastel is. It is part of this Uh, senelier set the paris collection I wanted to soften that dark background a bit because it's dark But softening a little bit is going to give it more of the feeling that it's further away So I'm just kind of scumbling it in and um, not making that that dark look quite so black or so harsh And here's that pretty purple again from the set This is where I said I went in and added just some little fun marks of some of those lavender grasses or flowers in the background Um, and also too there's so far away. You want to keep it really subtle I even added it in areas that I didn't see just to kind of harmonize some of the color And now I'm lightening the road again. This is a terry Ludwig pastel once again, and I'm squinting my eyes I highly recommend that while painting Um, what you can do is it allows you to see values better I'm looking for the lighter areas in the road the darker areas are a little more towards the edges But there's a couple of areas that are just a little bit lighter than other areas And so I'm just like I use the word scumbling a lot because you want just Um, general painterly marks You don't have to have anything that is an exact rock or an exact leaf on the ground It's just shapes and values and that's not your focal point. Anyway, so you don't want to overdo the detail Now here's this look at this green. This is the beautiful green from the Paris collection set It is such a nice lime green and I'm reserving this if you look at the reference image There's a few of those that are kind of like that green and they're just on the tops They're not even that much in the foreground, but a few of them, you know Just catching a little bit of the light This color is not going to go down too deep into the grasses at all because the sunlight's not hitting it there Um, and I used this green just to soften up that little looks kind of like a little evergreen tree in the background And here is the final painting of how I rescued a dud I was going to call this video turning a dud into a stud But I decided against that. Oh, and by the way, this painting is available as long as it is available in my etsy shop I just added a lot of new artwork also to if you're a patron of mine You're going to get a few more goodies from this video. So stay tuned and god bless you all happy spring happy april Oh, yeah, and happy painting


Embarking on this NPTEL journey has been an enriching and transformative experience for me. The courses not only broadened my understanding of engineering principles but also provided a holistic perspective on the ethical, communicative and educational aspects of the profession. Whatever I have studied, it felt like that I am studying in IIT, staying outside IIT. It felt like that. It gave me goosebumps. Whenever there was an assignment, assignment was so tricky and I felt like that means it was some other world. Whenever I used to solve those assignments, it felt that I am staying in some other world and I am solving those assignments. It felt like that. And whatever marks, whatever I have got, according to that, I can assume that that much percentage only I have acquired knowledge. If I have got 70 percent, the 70 percent knowledge I have acquired, 30 percent I couldn't acquire in that way because I had so much work also like I am working in a college, get an order instead of technology in computer science and engineering as an assistant professor. So, keeping the work along with doing all these topics is not that easy but I have completed it. I have completed with 70 percent. So, whatever means, whatever I have got, whatever means, I have gained from NPTEL only. I have enrolled 16 NPTEL courses so far and secured a proper in four courses and recently NPTEL recognized me as the NPTEL Discipline Star Motivated Learner and NPTEL Domain Scholar. Courses are designed beautifully to meet the needs of the learners. The weekly assignments are really helpful to prepare for the main examination. The video lectures and the explanations given by the professors and the study materials are really useful for the preparation. It is a great initiative taken by NPTEL for academicians like us to update our knowledge. Whatever I have done in my current research work using machine learning that all started from NPTEL only and I also learned through assignments how to implement the things using Python. I have completed 21 courses in NPTEL and achieved a Domain Scholar in programming and I am being recognized as an NPTEL Discipline Star Motivated Learner, believer, evangelist. In the early days of my career, I struggled to complete a National LGBT Test for assistant professors conducted by UGC. Then I started to study NPTEL courses which provides a deep understanding of all the subjects which I gained confidence to appear for the exam and completed the National LGBT Test. Through this completion only, I have been recognized as an assistant professor to learning has no age. It comes through ages. We can learn anytime and NPTEL has given us that sort of background to us like we can go down and take up any particular course and we can study it by ourselves. We can work through that so that we could gain our knowledge and believe me, sir, it's really great to say that throughout these years whatever I have taken up through NPTEL, it has already improved my knowledge base, enhanced my knowledge base to that particular extent that I can provide students some better outputs, some examples, some numericals, some numericals which are considered to be worthy.


This is Witchspace news for Friday the 8th of November 2019. I'm CMDR Buur. In this week's news, a new generation ship is discovered. Speed Bowl 3 is this weekend and we'll have some notable events and stories from around the community. If you find this video useful hit like and subscribe and remember to click the little bell icon. You can also join the Buur Pit community on our Discord server and if you want to help support the work of this channel you'll also find us on Patreon. Links to everything you need are in the description below. A Galnet news article appeared this week detailing further fallout from the Rockforth Corporation's EX7 fertilizer scandal which brought about the appearance of the crop blight that continues to threaten food stocks across multiple star systems. A paragraph at the end of the item that details the Interstellar Association for Agriculture's ability to track systems that require help as a result of the blight contained an almost offhand comment about a signal anomaly in the Upaniklis system. Upon investigation of the system CMDR Malik discovered that a new generation ship had appeared. The appearance of a generation ship is significant but not incredibly unusual but what is very unusual but now seemingly becoming the norm is that Galnet news has again pointed to something in the game that has turned out to actually be in the game prior to the Galnet revamp this was extremely unusual and not only that but the inhabitants of the generation ship which we now know to be called the Golconda are, wait for it, actually still alive. Up until this point in elite history the only remnants we've had direct contact with from the generation ship program have either been abandoned or have suffered some terrible fate ending in various imaginative flavors of their respective untimely deaths. To talk more about the Golconda and what's happening with it would stray significantly further into spoiler territory but suffice to say it looks possible that the ramifications of the Scourge Interstellar Initiative may not yet be over at the very least I hope that's the case we're all still finding our feet with the new Galnet 2.0 so we'll see where this may or may not be going. To catch up further on what's currently happening head over to the Uperniclis system and download the logs from the ship it's just 200 light years from Sol. A reminder that this weekend sees the third annual Gravity Speed Flight Championships take place in the 61 virginus system it's that time of year again when commanders Halo Jones and Primetime Casual encourage the unwary and the unhinged to participate in the uniquely elite sport of speed bowling. There's a link in the description below to Primetime's latest video on how speeds in excess of 4,000 meters per second are achievable over a high G planet whilst in freefall and this year's competition to achieve the highest possible speed over the weekend is encouraging pilots to not only arrive over a large and busy starport but also to pass between the tiny gap in between the towers in the center what could possibly go wrong speed bowling is huge fun and achievable in even the most modest of ships do give it a go the competition runs from midnight on saturday morning until midnight on sunday night everything you need to get started is linked below and now some stories of note from the community this week notable twitterer and regular streamer commander Mal for the win is celebrating two years this weekend since he first pushed the go live button and started sharing his adventures in elite on twitch.tv to mark the occasion now will be streaming continuously for 12 hours and completing a number of challenges in the game some of the challenges he set himself include touring generation ships participating in the aforementioned speedball 3 as well as attempting the bucky ball perico challenge and driving the promesh ridge challenge the fun starts at 1400 utc on saturday on mal's twitch tv channel which is linked below commander frj released a number of his speculatory ship interior videos this time covering off the viper mark 3 if you've not seen these videos before they are quite a thing and always very well made the good commander takes all the slots that are shown in the ship outfitting screens in game and shows where and how they might fit inside a given ship and finally commander moob omen is leading a mini expedition on playstation 4 this saturday afternoon utc to go from lennard nymoist station in lhs 3006 to the black hole in the mintaka system all you need to participate is a fuel scoop and about 20 light years of jump range to join in contact commander moob omen in game or head over to the inara page for the commander squadron multo sanguis which is linked below that's it for now thanks very much for watching we'll be back later this week with more videos until then oh seven commanders follow the greens on the way out and do keep clear of the toast rack we very much look forward to seeing you next time