#i have a pin design to finalize and these test prints to finish drawing and test print

[shirozora-draws]

First, a new sketch drop! Spent most of the week plotting in detail and sometimes I just really need to draw some plot things out. Kafrene will be a setting and disguises are needed, and drawing helps me figure out if the disguises will work. Chitter chatter led to pilfering TLJ!Luke's look and further googling landed me on an alt. take on Luke's cape/poncho thingy. Then there are thoughts about how Din safely carries Grogu around, and thoughts about Grogu turning his treasured toy into a weapon.

There are a lot of thoughts, but also an unfinished outline. The plot is longer than actual fucking fics jfc.

Fun story! I rearranged a whole fuckton of my room with all-new furniture and now there are blank spaces everywhere, and not for the first time people have talked to me about prints so..... I am looking to do some test printing and, depending on how successful they are, maybe possibly limited print runs for a few of my arts. These two are part of the first test but god, I am so slow and so busy so we'll see how long it'll take.

Time has no meaning and it is definitely not 15 minutes (as I write this) to 3AM on a Monday morning. Yolo and all that.

[fancyfrey]

Castor, the Six Star Hero

an OC centric BNHA fanfiction

Chapter 2

Touma wants to become a pro hero. He trains every day and studies the special moves and techniques of pros and sidekicks alike at his part time job. But there’s one thing in his way: In a world were 90% of the population had some sort of super human ability known as a quirk, Touma was one of the 10% that didn’t. Touma was quirkless, but that won’t stop him from pursuing his dream of working in the hero industry like the rest of his family. This is the story of how Castor, the Six Star Hero became the first quirkless pro hero.

It was a week less one day since the U.A. entrance exam and his anticipation was swelling. He felt some strange mix of disappointment and relief when he opened his mailbox and found nothing had come that bore the school's logo. Shifting through the mail he found only bills and started on his way back home. 

"Hey! Hoshi!" Not a second passed before he felt the impact of a soccer ball knocked him to the ground. He started to pick himself up but a foot landed firmly between his shoulder blades and pushed him into the dirt again. "I think I saw you at that U.A. entrance exam the other day. Don't tell me you actually tried to get into U.A." his classmate Ame taunted him. He could hear Ame's friends jeer at him as they kicked dirt into his eyes. Touma tried to remember if his classmate was there, was he assigned to a different part of the arena? He struggled to get up but Ame ground his heel into his back and continued, "I got 50 points! Those 3 point enemies were easy as shit!" He boasted. "I bet you spent the whole 10 minutes trying to take down a 1 pointer! Hahaha!"

"Hey, isn't there a written test to? No doubt the quirkless scum failed that too! How stupid do you have to be to get held back twice?!" Ame's friend joined in on the verbal attacks."Try as you might, but your mom and money can't buy you talent!"

Touma clenched his fists and started to lift himself up by his elbows. "Leave her out of this!!" Ame's foot stamped down on him again, the force of gravity emanating from his quirk threatened to sink Touma into the ground and crush his lungs. Touma gave up and tapped the ground twice, calling for mercy. 

"I thought so! Some quirkless nobody can't even defend themselves against people younger than him." Ame spat. He lifted his foot off of Touma's back. Touma stayed where he was and hid his face, he didn't want to give Ame any satisfaction by showing his wet eyes. "If you really want a quirk, go kill yourself and hope you'll be born with a quirk in the next life." Ame and his friend walked off, leaving Touma in the dirt. 

"What's in the mail?" Hotari asked when Touma returned home and tossed the mail onto a growing pile on the table. "Touma! What happened to your shirt?" She fretted when she saw stains and wrinkles on his chest. "Nothing, mom. It's fine." He swatted her hand away and avoided meeting her eyes so she couldn't see how puffy they were."It was that Omoi Ame again, wasn't it?" His mother hissed."I'm fine mom, please don't worry about it." Touma said and he retreated up to his room.

Touma barely touched his dinner that night and he didn't get much sleep. Even the peanut gallery kept their comments to a minimum. 

At school, it was much of the same. All his other classmates were excited about graduating, the younger students eagerly showed off and practiced their quirks between classes or during lunch period. The halls parted as Touma passed through.At the end of the day, he found his locker broken into. His note books full of heroes' quirk analyses and blueprint sketches for new gear were ripped and vandalised. His gym clothes were torn and his protein bars were stolen.

Down the hall, Ame and his friends were gathered, watching him. They sprayed the crumbs of his stolen protein bars as they pointed and laughed.

  "How was school today, Touma?" His mother called from her home office when Touma walked through the door.

"Fine." He hung his jacket up in the closet.

"Your karate instructor called, you didn't show up to practice?"

"Yeah I told told her I wasn't feeling up to it today." He kicked his shoes off and flopped onto a couch in the next room. "Can we go out and buy another set of gym clothes some time?" His mother came down, a number of measuring tapes around her neck and a pin cushion and some spools of thread on a belt hung loosely on her waist.

"What happened to your old ones?" She asked.

"I think I forgot them on the train home. Sorry."

"It's fine," she sighed. "I'll let your uncle know." She waved it off, "by the way, something came in the mail for you." She pointed to the table, cluttered with blueprints, tools, a couple small batteries and some loose wires. There, on top of the whole pile was a single white envelope with the logo of U.A. clearly printed on it.

"Do you...want to open it now or later? With me, or alone?" His mother asked slowly in attempt to bring him out of his shocked expression. "Hello, earth to Touma--"

"Now. ---alone." He grabbed the envelope and rushed up to his room. He shoved things around on his desk and found a small knife. With one fluid flick, the envelope was open and the letter was on his desk. 

He quickly skimmed the introductory address, the school's self praise and the explanation of points and the minimum required for admittance. He scanned the bottom where he found his points listed in two columns. 

Enemy Points: 44 Rescue points: 56

What were rescue points? He didn't know about those, but he had a total of 100, much more than the minimum required! He was in! He did it! A spark lit in his chest and his breath caught in his throat. Finally, nearly his whole life of dreaming of working with his family, more than 10 years of training and 2 whole years dedicated to this exam had paid off. He felt tears stinging his eyes the edges of his mouth turning up and digging deep dimples in his cheeks. He jumped up from his chair and pumped his fists in the air. Far away, he heard whoops and applause. 

He wiped his eyes of blurry tears and read the last line of the letter, expecting congratulations, 

We regret to inform you your application to the Heroics Course was rejected on the grounds of using an unauthorised aid.

Touma's shoulders dropped and his heart fell into his feet, struggling to find purchase on his desk, about to fall over. This couldn't be.

'Now that ain't right' a voice sneered in his head, nearly spitting the name of the school.

fekking snake

I'm not surprised though...

He took the letter in both hands and for a second of rage and desperation, thought of ripping it."Don't do anything stupid." A voice scolded him from behind."Shut up!" He yelled. He crumpled the letter into a tight ball and threw it at the wall. The next few moments blurred. He was down the stairs and out the door. He didn't know if the voice calling for him was his mother or the voices in his head. Probably both. 

He somehow found himself on the edge of a marina in a park near his uncle's office. The water below him was a deep blue, but it was calm. Stay calm. Breathe... he sat on the marina and let his legs dangle off the edge, as if tempting fate.

"What are you thinking of doing?" 

A woman a few years older than him with a thick accent he couldn't place, light violet eyes and nearly platinum hair said in a voice dripping with concern.

"Nothing...I just, need to calm my nerves." Touma sighed. He sat cross legged on the marina and started doing breathing exercises.

"That's good. I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to you." The woman breathed, voice calm and cool.

"I wasn't going to jump." Touma said just to dispel any more concern from the lady. She nodded her head and sat down beside him.

"Do you know how to swim?" She asked.

"A little."

"That water looks deep." She said. Touma could just see the outline of sharp rocks near the marina, though they didn't look close enough to the surface that he could stand on them. The blue water grew darker as its depths swallowed up the rocks.

"That's why I'm not jumping. I can't give Ame that kind of satisfaction." He said sternly.

"Is that the only reason?"

'I still want to be a hero,' he thought, but instead he said, "Why are you talking to me?"

"Because, you're like me." she said slowly, looking for the right words. "We've been where you are, because we're quirkless too. And we gotta stick together, right?" Touma looked at her sideways, how did she know he was quirkless?! And then he just looked at her. It was fairly hot outside, but it looked like she was in a damn parka, a scarf and gloves and a hat and thick boots with snow stuck on the tops of her toes and in her soles.

"Who the fuck are you?" He demanded.

"I saw your blueprints and drawings." She dodged. "Did you design that bow staff all by yourself?"

Touma was taken aback, but she didn't seem like she was going to answer his question any time soon. He sighed and answered her, "yeah. With some help from my uncle of course."

"That's amazing. Your mom and uncle, they work for Innovation Enterprises, right?" The lady asked, gesturing to the sweater Touma wore, the Innovation Enterprises logo emblazoned on its shoulder. Touma nodded. 

"I would help out in the lab. Since I was nine, that’s how I spent all my summers. Take measurements, record readings when they did tests. Pass them wrenches or drill bits." Touma said fondly, glad to focus on something else other than UA High. "That's good. That's really good." She picked up a small rock by his feet and skipped it across across the water."--past couple of years I've been tinkering around, making things." Touma shrugged."Like that bow and arrow? That staff?"

"And a few iterations of some gauntlets, boots...helmets and goggles..."

"That's amazing...Is that what you want to do when you finish school?" She sounded genuinely interested. Her Japanese had a strange lilt to it but it felt good having someone to talk to.

"That, or something like it." Touma said.

"That something, being a hero?" the lady asked. Touma sighed.

"Yeah, but there are no quirkless heroes." He resigned.

"Yet. There are no quirkless heroes yet." She pat him on the shoulder for added encouragement but he didn't feel it. "You're a fighter too, aren't you?"

Touma nodded.

"Then, you should know that uh," she scrunched up her face as if she was trying to remember something. "There's this old movie, how did the quote go?" She put on some fake gruff accent and said "It ain't about how hard you can hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward--that's how winning is done!" She exclaimed. Touma smiled. "Do you want to start heading back home?" She got up and gestured in the general direction that he came. Her accent was back to normal. Touma nodded.They walked in silence through the city that was just starting to settle down after a long day. 

Cute! The platinum haired woman stooped over a potted plant in front of a restaurant and pointed to the base, into the small weeds and dirt. A girl about her age with short dark hair picked up a small mouse from the pot and for some insane reason she let it crawl into a pocket on her gym bag

 "What?" Touma exclaimed. She only placed her index finger over her lips in response.

'You forgot a notebook at school. Let's go get it.' A gruff voice suggested in what he swore was German. Touma flinched as he thought he felt hair brush up against his ear. The woman with snowy boots and the dark haired girl nodded. Touma shrugged but decided to play along. 'Let's give Ame what he deserves.' the gruff voice said.

A security guard let Touma in, there were still clubs going on, so getting into his locker wasn't that hard. 'Where's this Ame kid's locker?'

Touma walked up to Ame's locker, but he didn't know the combination. "I can't do anything."

'You can't, but I can.' The gruff voice spoke up again,  it belonged to a blond man about Touma's age. He appeared beside Touma, looked over his shoulders in case someone else was coming by, and carefully started turning the lock on Ame's locker, his ear pressed close to it. He smiled and stepped aside, and presented the opened locker with a flourish. The dark haired girl smiled and let the mouse scurry out from her pocket and into the locker as the snowy boots lady folded her arms and shook her head but was grinning the whole time. Touma opened the wrappers of his stolen protein bars and the mouse started nibbling on them. The blond man nodded and close the door and locked it again. Far off, Touma heard giggling that didn't stop until he got back home.

"Touma! Touma, I've been worried sick!" His mother nearly tackled him once he walked in his front door. She pulled him into a tight embrace and he thought she would never let go. Then she took a step back and smacked him across the face. "Don't you go out without telling me like that again!! You left your phone, I was about to call Mr. Nishiya to go and find you!" She pulled him into her arms again. He felt tears on his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry Touma. That wasn't fair, they should have let you use your bow. Mr. Yamada told me you got the highest score of this year but---"

"It's fine mom..." Touma tried to stroke her hair, tried to calm her down.

"No it's not. Just because you don't have a quirk the administration---"

"I'm over it, mom. I'm not going to let this stop me. I'm going to keep moving forward."

She straightened herself and looked him in the eyes. Her amber eyes were sparkling with tears, the same tears he felt pushing against his own eyes. She smiled. "I'm so happy, Touma. I'm so relieved you feel that way."

She finally let him go and dusted the both of them off. With a deep breath she collected herself and said, "clear the table, I'll go get us something special for dinner, okay? Will you be okay here?"

"I'll be fine mom, thanks." Touma smiled. He started clearing the table and gathered up the mail to set it in her office. As he walked up the stairs, an envelope slipped from his grasp and landed on the floor. When he picked it up, he saw this also had the U.A. logo on it. He dropped the rest of the mail and immediately picked this one up. Carefully, hesitantly, he ripped open the envelope and read what it said.

Your application to the U.A. support course has been accepted.

The next day at school, Ame got quite a shock when he opened up his locker and found a mouse in it. All the notebooks and assignments he'd left in there had been chewed to bits. Touma tried to contain his laughter until lunch.

'I've never used chopsticks before.' A quiet voice said in German when Touma took out his lunch.

I suck at them. Someone else said in heavily accented Japanese. Touma rolled his eyes and put his lunch back in his backpack. He went off to look for another place to eat lunch, if only to escape from the voices in his head and the strange looks he was getting from other students. When he made it to the courtyard, he saw the snowy boots lady sitting on a bench. If there was no escape from the other voices, at least this figure was a welcome one. He took a seat beside her, eating his lunch and sketching new designs for support gear between mouthfuls of rice. She was reading a book in a script he couldn't read but registered as Cyrillic.

"Who are you, exactly?" Touma asked the snowy boots lady.

She rested her chin against her hand, and twirled a lock of silver hair. She pursed her lips and stared at a spot somewhere behind him, like she was tasting the right words to explain herself. Her next words were as calm and soothing as everything else she’d said to him so far, but they nearly made Touma choke on his lunch.

"I'm your quirk." the lady said with a sweet smile on her face.

first

next

[novantinuum]

Jen’s mega list of plans:

Written and posted here purely to keep me accountable, and also bc it’s easier to archive posts than find anything in my thousands of documents on my phone. These are all fan projects, basically.

Gravity Falls

-Draw kiki-kit’s precious flame Mabel, (from the graphic novel), and perhaps a flame Pines Family to go with it. Love her design. It seriously just... is precious <3

-Draw graphic novel like “covers” for @the-ill-doctor and I’s RPs to commemorate our 1 yr anniversary of starting the first RP

-While speaking of RP, push past editing road blocks on The Time We Lost, the Time We Mended so we can finally post TateGate™ (pardon the unintelligible inside joke)

-I genuinely want to continue working on the AU comic I’d churned out a few pages for, and test my ability there more. The graphic novel has inspired me.

-I really want to make a print of that nice piece with three eras of Stan and all the Stan related objects floating over them for myself and hang it on my wall. Simple task, but I know I’ll forget so here I am posting a note to myself. JEN YOU KNUCKLEHEAD, get it done :O

-Just, generally? I want to get more comfortable sketching quick and fast. In traditional. I want to fill up a sketchbook with dynamic poses and expressions and random bullshit and get comfortable getting messy with my art.

-AMVs. Once my brother helps me rip the boxset, I have a special commission to make for @eregyrn-falls , and then after that I had a great, emotional idea for the song Unity by Shinedown.

Trollhunters

-I had a fic I started that I REALLY want to get back into, Death and All That Follows. I just have so many crazy projects rumbling through my head that this is easier said than done XD

-There’s a bunch of dynamic Jim and Toby pieces I have half finished that I’ll prob come back to one day if I’m bored...

-My cosplay prop amulet. Need to get glue and get it all together, plus resin/glow in the dark stuff for the crystal, and maybe paint for some touch up pizzaz.

-Not to mention, if I’m going to cosplay Jim? I need to actually order shoes, a wig, and the jacket. I have a stretch goal for colored contact lenses, but eh if I don’t get there that’s fine.

-I can never draw enough troll Jim, to be perfectly honest.

-I promised @inktheblot that I’d draw Toby in the trollhunter armor at some point and I still aim to do that. I actually kinda have an AU for it too?? So I could prob just make a bunch of sketches for that...

-I also promised myself once that I’d make big two or three inch amulet pins. Mostly one just for myself. But if I had the money to do a small bulk batch, excellent.

-Also mostly just for myself, unless I threw it on like... redbubble or something, I wanted to make a custom Trollhunters shirt with the amulet and some crystals and a quote and shit. Because I’m salty that the only Trollhunters shirts that officially exist are for small children.

AU crossover nonsense

-Write more of A Tale of Two Trollhunters. Probably a given, but I’m behind where I wanted to be. Also, I have a bunch of half sketched out future scene ideas I want to post as one shot snippets bc we all know I’ll never actually get there going chronologically ;D;

-Design troll forms for my changeling Dipper and Mabel

-While we’re at it, make designs for Alex and Gina Pines, my OC Dip and Mab parents who feature in the future stuff for this story.

Other

-Just, in general... develop my OCs more. Make MORE OCs. Challenge myself to just MAKE characters.

-Speaking of that, I kiiiinda wanna make a GF dating sim persona I kiiiinda really do, is it too late for that? XD

So. Anyways. As you might tell from all this insanity, I have a whole hell of a lot I would. Conceptually like to do? I really really love making fandom content y’all, it’s what keeps me going honestly. It’s my one creative outlet in between the stress of trying to pursue a degree in biochemistry, of all the hellishly complicated things I could’ve decided to find fascinating. And there’s genuinely some points where I’m like? What the hell Jen. What the fresh hell, why on earth do you have to give yourself so many project ideas to tackle? Why did you decide to draw AND write AND edit, why can’t you just pick ONE? And I’ve no idea dudes not a s i n g l e fuck. My attention bounces so fast from one idea to the next that sometimes I genuinely marvel how on earth I’ve gotten anything done in the past two years, but eh no matter. Anyways, now I’m just rambling so?

Future Jen. Step your game the fuck up my man. Get some cool fan content done! Stop disappointing your far-too-cool mutuals and followers with a lack of fan content and make something you can be proud of! Be cool, dude.

Be cool.

[quicksilversquared]

A Different Type of Inspiration

Marinette has some of the worst designer's block that she's ever had, and Alya will stop at nothing to find some source of inspiration to get her friend designing again. Right before she (almost) gives up, they see a poster for a very interesting design contest. Will the theme be enough to get Marinette's inspiration flowing again?

(FF.net) (AO3)

Marinette was stuck, stuck, stuck, stuck, stuck.

Sometimes it happened- she got caught in a design slump, usually because she was tired and practically sleepwalking. Sometimes she drew a blank when she was free and had all the time in the world to sew.

But no matter the circumstances, it was frustrating.

"Just nothing. My brain is empty," Marinette complained to Alya. "I've tried designing everything. Hats, skirts, shirts, dresses, jackets, pants, even purses and backpacks! Nothing good is coming to mind!"

"Maybe you should take a break from designing," Alya suggested. "I mean, you aren't entering a design competition or anything anytime soon, right?"

"I'm not, but I wanted to make something new for my wardrobe! And I can't just give up as soon as designer's block hits." Marinette was frowning at her closet. "That's not how the fashion world works."

"Have you looked around the city for inspiration?"

"Of course I have." Marinette gestured to the bulletin board that had appeared on her desk. Pictures from across the city were pinned there, both monuments and people and even storefronts and plants. The pictures looked like they were in serious danger of creating a paper avalanche any second. "And I found interesting things, but they weren't inspiring any designs."

"How about the fabric store?" Alya suggested. "Maybe the fabric will talk to you."

That inspired a snort and an eye-roll from Marinette. "I think you've been watching too much Project Runway again, Alya."

"Well, have you?"

Marinette sighed. "No, I haven't."

Alya perked up. "Field trip, then! Come on, come on, and bring your camera!"

   The first few aisles weren't even remotely inspiring. There were cotton prints in all sorts of hues and prints, and while some of them were gorgeous- Marinette took some photos for future reference-none of them were really inspiring her at all. The next couple of rows were knits and while Marinette spent more time there, occasionally draping things over Alya's head, she didn't come up with any ideas. The sportswear fabrics aisle got passed by next, followed by the brocades, the satins, and the vinyl. By the time they passed through the section of trims, Alya was starting to wish that she had let Marinette go by herself to the store.

"I don't know why I'm even bothering to look through this aisle," Marinette grumbled as they paused briefly by the aisle of leather hides. "I've never been inspired by it before, I don't know why I would be now."

"Why?" Alya asked, pulling a dyed blue leather from near the end of the row off of the shelf and inspecting it. "Does it not drape well?"

Marinette shrugged. "It does, from what I can tell, but I get squicked out by the whole 'it's actually skin' thing, I think. If I could get past that, I could probably come up with some ideas for jackets and whatnot. Jagged Stone has some amazing leather jackets that I'd love to kind of replicate, but..." She shuddered. "Skin. It gives me creative block."

"Okay, fair enough," Alya sighed, following Marinette back towards the front of the store. It had been a thoroughly wasted day, it seemed. Marinette wasn't any more inspired than she had started out, and the only thing that Alya had gotten out of their trip was sore feet. She wasn't going to give up, though. There had to be something out there to inspire Marinette, Alya knew it.

And then her eyes caught on an announcement board at the front of the store. An employee had just finished stapling a new sign up to the bulletin board, and even from here Alya could read the words Agreste and Contest in the title.

Well. That could either be a source of inspiration for Marinette, or it would make her groan over a missed opportunity because her head was completely empty of ideas. Alya decided to be optimistic and she grabbed Marinette's shoulder. "Hey! Let's go check out the notice board and see if anything on there gives you any ideas."

"It normally just has postings about sewing classes and quilting workshops," Marinette said dryly, but she let Alya drag her over to the board. It only took seconds from Marinette to spot the same posting that Alya had. "Mr. Agreste is holding a design contest! Oh, no, this is the worst possible timing! I don't have any ideas!"

"Wait, look at it again," Alya said, frowning as she scanned the announcement. It seemed a bit strange, though to be fair she didn't look at design contest announcements that often and didn't really have a great idea what might be considered normal. "It says-"

"'Outfits must be designed using nontypical fabrics,'" Marinette read off of the flyer. "'No cotton or wool knits/weaves, silk, et cetera. Fastenings such as buttons and zippers are allowed. Contact Bessie Leroy with questions.' That's a lower designer at Gabriel," she explained to Alya. "Mr. Agreste probably didn't want to be bothered with questions himself, and Nathalie is probably organizing the thing and doesn't want to be bothered with a million emails." She frowned as she glanced back at the announcement. "I wonder what he's trying to accomplish with this kind of contest. It just seems super-weird."

Alya shrugged as she peered over Marinette's shoulder. "Maybe he just wants to know what kinds of materials are out there and the best way of doing that is a contest. Or maybe he's just tired of seeing draped silk gowns." They had looked up the past few large-scale contests that Mr. Agreste had held, and three out of the five past winners had been silk gowns. Pretty- gorgeous, even- but hardly enough of a standout design to stand out in a room full of silk gowns. The material had done most of the work for the designer.

This time, the contest would push designers out of their comfort zones. The design would have to stand up on its own and be truly fashion-forward, no using materials that were amazing on their own as crutches.

"That's just going to make it harder to be inspired," Marinette groaned, already turning and heading back towards the aisles. "I never go in the aisle of weird fabrics. They're mostly for costumes anyway."

"Maybe that's what you need to do, then," Alya suggested, jogging after friend even as her feet protested. "Go look at funny fabrics and see where your imagination takes you. Where is this aisle, anyway?"

"Back behind the leather." Marinette's nose wrinkled. "The entire area smells funny because of it."

"...maybe funny smells will spark your creative streak?" Alya suggested, trying not to wince. She was not doing a great job as inspiration cheerleader right now. Hours of wandering the fabric store had worn down her well of inspirational suggestions.

Marinette laughed at that as they entered the leather aisle (which, Alya had to admit, did smell funny). They headed down the aisle quickly- so quickly that Alya almost missed the rolls of rather interestingly-colored leather. Fake leather, it turned out when Alya paused to inspect it. "Leather" made out of cork.

Cork, which would probably be considered a nontypical material.

   Marinette was thrilled.

"Some of these look pretty similar to leather, especially from a distance," Marinette said as she ran her hands over a roll. "And it drapes really nicely too, I'm super surprised." She twisted the fabric between her fingers, testing it. "And I think I could probably sew with it, too, just like normal fabric. I might need the same kind of needle that I would have to use if I worked with leather, but it's not super-thick or anything. It's super-expensive, but Mr. Agreste does reimburse people for the materials that they use to enter his contests."

Alya's eyebrows shot up. She hadn't know that. "He does? Really?"

"It's not a universal thing for design contests," Marinette assured Alya as she pulled the roll out further to drape more of it over her arm. She gave an approving hum and pushed it back onto the shelf. "But Mr. Agreste said in an interview in the past that he doesn't want to miss great designers that maybe just don't have the resources to buy the materials they need to execute their designs properly. It evens the playing field a bit, so that the winners aren't just well-off designers that can afford to buy silk and whatnot." She pulled out her sketchbook and flipped to a new page, starting to scribble even as she continued talking. "It works, too. There's more than a few designers at Gabriel now that came from poorer families and they said that there was no way that they would have gotten Mr. Agreste's attention if they had only been able to work with the materials that they could afford back before they won some of his contests and got hired."

"That's...unusually nice of him," Alya commented, watching a jacket come to life in Marinette's sketchbook. "I wouldn't have thought Mr. Agreste to be the type of person to think that up."

"I think it was his wife's idea originally," Marinette commented idly, penciling in a pocket and cuffs on the sleeves. "And he's just kept continuing it, because it's gotten him some great designers in the past." She finally stepped back from her drawing and considered it before realizing what she had done. "Oh wow. That- actually worked! The fabric actually spoke to me. That was awesome!"

"Now you just need the rest of the outfit," Alya said, peering at the jacket design over Marinette's shoulder.

"I'm going to go look at the weird fabrics now," Marinette said absently, seemingly not hearing Alya. Her kind of floating, out-of-it expression looked curiously similar to the one she had often made when she talked to Adrien near the start of the school year. Alya had not missed that expression, but at least now it was design-related and not boy-related. "I can't believe that just happened. The design just flowed. I didn't even have to try!"

Alya could only nod along.

"I think I'm gonna go with a rock-and-roll theme," Marinette said as she rounded the corner and headed down the first aisle of less commonly used fabrics. She breezed past the vinyls without a second glance. "That jacket just screams Jagged Stone concert."

"Are you looking for more dark fabric, then?" Alya asked, pausing to inspect some lace. It was dark and had a kind of a rock-and-roll feel to it. "What about lace? Leather and lace is a pretty interesting combo, right?"

Marinette made a face. "It's a pretty classic combo, actually. Mr. Agreste would probably dock points since it's already been done."

"Has it really?" Alya had apparently missed that particular fashion trend. Still, she wasn't going to give up. "Okay, then, are you looking for something dark, or a pop of color to offset the jacke-"

"It's perfect!"

Alya glanced over, startled, to see Marinette standing in front of a row of what appeared to be some sort of netting. It came in a huge rainbow of colors, and some seemed to be shining a bit even in the somewhat dim lighting of the store. Marinette was already pulling out a bit of two colors, layering them and examining the effect.

"That looks...interesting," Alya said cautiously as she joined Marinette. She was fairly certain that the mesh was the same kind that she saw on athletic bags, and she had absolutely no idea what Marinette would be able to make out of it. "Wouldn't it be hard to work with, though?"

"Good things don't necessarily come easy." Marinette grabbed another two colors and held them up. This close, Alya could tell what she was doing. The background mesh was offset just enough that its colors peeped through the holes in the first layer of mesh. Some skin would still show through the holes unless there was some sort of backing, but that honestly just added to the whole rock-and-roll vibe.

"What's it made out of? Those ones you have right now are kind of shimmery, almost." Alya reached out to touch it. "I wouldn't expect it to be so soft, but it really wouldn't be uncomfortable to wear at all, would it?"

"It's made for athletic wear, I think," Marinette agreed. "There's definitely a front and a back side to it. That side is a little more shimmery, and the side closer to me is a little duller and a little softer." She reached over to check the label. "And- oh! One of the materials is recycled plastic. So it's environmentally friendly too, just like the cork leather!"

"You could have two themes, then," Alya suggested as Marinette continued playing with color combinations. "Unusual materials and environmentally friendly."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Marinette said a bit absently as she layered a black mesh over a red. It was striking, and instantly Alya's mind went to Ladybug theme. It wouldn't be obvious, but almost everyone living in Paris appreciated a subtle nod to Ladybug. Hell, she knew people who would buy anything as long as it had red and black in it. She herself wasn't that obsessed (or, rather, she preferred to go about her obsession in ways other than buying overpriced clothing just because it was red and black).

"I really hope that this was the sort of stuff Mr. Agreste had in mind," Marinette said a bit sheepishly as she snapped a picture. "Because I already have an idea for how to use it."

"I think that might be the point of the contest," Alya said as Marinette pulled out her sketchpad for a quick drawing. "Because otherwise you might not think to use this sort of stuff."

"I'm thinking minidress with the netting," Marinette said, turning it over in her hands. "I would need a liner, at least for the chest and skirt. But it's got a subtle shine to it that I've seen at concerts and I really think it would pair with the cork leather well."

"You should probably email the contact person and get your fabrics approved before you get too carried away," Alya joked. "And what about the liner? We still need to find something for that."

"Something in matte black would work well." Marinette sighed. "I wish I could go with bamboo or hemp, but I don't think they would count. Keep looking?"

Alya sighed, exhausted after hours spent in the store. Still, if she could help her friend in any way, she would. "Keep looking."

   Once Marinette's materials were all approved, her designing could begin in earnest. Never one to be content with letting the materials do the work for her, she had to make sure that her minidress and jacket weren't special just because of the materials they were made from. She had ended up going with nylon for the lining for the dress and for pocket lining, simply because it didn't add unnecessary thickness to her designs.

At school, Adrien didn't have much to say about the contest.

"I knew it was coming up because I overheard the designers talking about it, but that's about it," he admitted when Alya interrogated him. "I'm not involved in that side of the business at all, and even father is being rather hands-off about it. He has one of his designers organizing it with Nathalie. He came up with the idea and he'll judge, but that's about it."

"What's the prize for this one?" Nino asked. "A photoshoot again, or something else?"

"The poster just said there was a cash prize," Alya said when neither Adrien nor Marinette said anything. "But of course there's publicity as well, and that's always good. Aren't there usually other big designers that come to these things just to scout for talent?"

"There weren't any at the hat thing, though!" Nino argued. "I mean, at least no one said anything if there were."

"That was because it was so small and at a collège besides," Adrien pointed out. "This contest is a big one. It'll be getting designers from all over Paris and probably the rest of France as well."

Marinette winced at the thought. That meant potentially hundreds of designers of every skill level. There wasn't a cap listed on the fliers, so there was no way of knowing how many people she would be up against. It wasn't like the school-wide competition, where there were only five or so other entries.

At least she wasn't going in expecting to win. Participating in this sort of contest had inspired new designs just because she was looking at new materials, and at the actual contest she could see the work of other designers and even potentially get feedback from Gabriel Agreste.

   As the month rolled on, Marinette started working on her pieces in earnest. She did her homework whenever she could so she could have more time to work on her designs. Akumas were defeated in record time as she put her entire concentration into taking them down as fast as she could.

Of course, the sewing could not be rushed. Attaching the mesh layers to each other was difficult and took the longest, since she didn't want the layers to slide out of position and ruin the effect that they were creating. It was also extremely difficult to sew them without the thread showing up where she didn't want it.

Still, slowly but surely, her pieces came together. Marinette modelled them for Alya the day before the contest, and Alya was definitely impressed. Even with her normal pigtails, Marinette definitely looked like she was at least going to a rock concert, if not performing herself.

"I'm calling it now," Alya said as she watched Marinette model the outfit. "You're gonna win, hands down. That is gorgeous."

Marinette snorted as she made one last turn. "You forget that I'm going up against actual established designers. I'd be lucky to even place, but that's not that likely either."

"You're not giving yourself enough credit," Alya scolded. "I'm not exactly an established reporter, but the Ladyblog is still number one on Ladybug. You're just as talented. Just because you haven't had the training for it doesn't mean you're less talented."

Much to Alya's disappointment, Marinette still shook her head. "I still have a lot to learn. Besides, if nothing else, I finally got out of my creative block. I've been sketching some other pieces that would go along with this one if I were doing a line. They're not fully developed pieces yet- I haven't had the time to really polish them up- but I'm not blocked anymore. It's great."

   Contest day arrived, and Alya turned up at the Dupain-Cheng apartment bright and early to help Marinette get her pieces over to the area where the contest was being held. Mr. Agreste had rented out a gymnasium for the day and overnight, his staff had turned it into a gorgeous showroom with all of the efficiency of a well-oiled machine. It was a gorgeous layout, but Marinette still froze the second she stepped into the room.

The sheer number of designs in the room was absolutely overwhelming. It was filled to nearly bursting with outfits, some made by aspiring designers years older than her and with tons more experience. Some of them no doubt knew of techniques that Marinette had never even heard of, and some were even old enough that they had probably been designing for longer than Marinette had even been alive.

That wasn't what gave her most pause, though. She had known that there would be far more experienced and talented designers present. Marinette was more worried about the materials some of the other designers had used. For a long moment, she panicked. Had she somehow misinterpreted the instructions? Was she really supposed to use really unconventional materials? She could spot newspapers and garbage bags worked into gorgeous garments up and down the entrance aisle and beyond. Other non-fabric materials were also present, though in smaller numbers. Things like window shades and magazines and cardboard boxes and hardware pieces...

She was going to look like an idiot with her much more fabric-like materials.

Luckily for her sanity, Marinette had Alya along.

"I'm not seeing a whole lot of creativity with the designs," Alya said, stepping up next to Marinette with one of the garment bags draped over her arm. "Like, that newspaper dress over there? If you envision it in pastel purple, I saw that exact design last week at the mall."

"But they're unconventional materials," Marinette managed in a panicked hiss. "What if that was what I was supposed to do? Just let me turn around now before I embarrass myself in front of Mr. Agreste-"

"I'm not letting you do that." Alya had planted herself in front of Marinette, keeping her from making a run for it. She put her free hand on Marinette's shoulder and looked her dead in the eye. "You got every single one of your fabrics approved. I saw the emails. I verified that they said what you thought they said and that you weren't misunderstanding them. Your parents verified what they said. Your materials are fine. I bet a lot of these designers didn't check first so they just went with the first unconventional material they could find. Look at some of these- I bet they just designed something while watching one of Project Runway's unconventional materials challenges or something and they missed that the description was nontypical fabrics."

Marinette blinked and nodded weakly.

"You have a rocking look that you can actually wear. A lot of these dresses and skirts and whatnot wouldn't survive a walk outside. Who knows, you might get points for that. You will be fine. And even if you don't win or place or anything, you still got a rocking dress that you can wear next time Jagged Stone has a concert in Paris."

Marinette's panicked expression faded as she started nodding. She straightened her shoulders and marched forward into the gymnasium towards the sign-in table as Alya followed. It didn't take long to get her checked in and set up at her station. A standard mannequin and two chairs had been provided for each competitor so that they would have a way to display the look and so they could sit down while waiting for judging to get to them.

It looked like it was going to be a long wait.

   Marinette and Alya had been waiting for over an hour and a half when then suddenly saw Adrien appear through the crowd. He looked exhausted, though he brightened when he saw the two girls and beelined over to them right away.

"You look like death warmed over," Alya said as soon as Adrien was within earshot. "Is your father dragging you around as well? I thought you weren't judging."

"I'm not judging. Father just wants me to get a feel for how he runs these contests. I'm fairly certain I've learned nothing so far, except maybe how to pretend how to be interested." Adrien let out a groan. "There's only so many newspaper dresses I can take before I explode."

Alya perked up, elbowing Marinette. "So there's a lot of people that used unconventional materials, huh?"

"Yeah, unfortunately. Pere's not pleased with most of what he's seen so far," Adrien admitted, lowering his voice so the other contestants nearby couldn't hear. "Unconventional materials are cool to see and all and it's interesting to see how people manipulated their materials to look like fabric, but overall the designs aren't anything new. Besides," Adrien added, voice dropping even lower, "Father was considering putting the winning look into production, and obviously newspaper and wallpaper dresses aren't going to work with that."

Marinette perked up at that. For a moment, she was positively euphoric. Maybe she had a chance at winning after all! Then reality came crashing back down.

Just because a lot of the designers had essentially disqualified themselves didn't mean all of the designers had. There were still probably loads of designers that had materials like hers and quite a few of them were very, very good.

She had entered for the feedback and advice. She had to remember that. Getting her hopes up would only lead to being let down in the end.

"There's also been a lot of vinyl," Adrien added. "Dad hates vinyl. He says it can look cheap too easily, because mistakes show up and it doesn't drape particularly well. In the stuff I've seen, darts seem to be a big issue. There was maybe one designer that managed to make it look good, but then the design was nothing new."

Marinette sent a suddenly panicked look at her dress, even though she knew perfectly well that it was practically impeccable. Gabriel Agreste was a legend, and he would be able to pick out flaws in a second. On the pigeon hat, flaws had been acceptable. They hadn't been given a whole lot of time to execute the look.

But with this contest? They had had a month. There had been plenty of time to find and fix mistakes. She had spent the last few days scouring her pieces for any flaws, but she didn't have the experienced eye that Gabriel Agreste did.

"So did you run off?" Alya asked, pulling Marinette out of her most recent freak-out with a subtle elbow to her side. "Or is you father finally getting to this section? We've been waiting forever."

"Father was taking a break before doing the final set," Adrien said. He glanced around as though looking for his father. "I hope he's getting something to eat. He forgets, and then he gets really grouchy."

"More than his regular grouchy?" Alya asked with a grin, and then she promptly clapped a hand over her mouth, looking horrified. "I mean, I didn't mean to say-"

Adrien snorted, hiding a grin of his own. "He's normally running on pretty little food. I keep trying to get Nathalie to put meals on his schedule so he can't skip them, but she never does."

Marinette's stomach started twisting itself into knots again. Never mind the fact that she seemed to be in a decent position, considering that she had one of the few outfits that, from Adrien's description, seemed like it actually met the challenge's requirements, and never mind that her construction seemed pretty good. A grouchy Gabriel Agreste was a terrifying Gabriel Agreste, and he would no doubt find all sorts of flaws. She was getting so nervous; any questions from Mr. Agreste would probably make her melt into a stammering mess and then she would look like an idiot and definitely quash any miniscule chance she had of winning-

A pair of hands on her shoulders cut off that train of thought as Marinette looked up, startled. Adrien was standing in front of her, hands gripping her shoulders and holding her steady. He was peering at her in concern, and Marinette realized that she had started hyperventilating.

"You don't have anything to worry about, Marinette," Adrien said, voice low and reassuring. "Your design looks fantastic. And Father might be grouchy, but he's only really hypercritical when it comes to the older designers. Like, he'll be honest about any flaws and he won't lower his expectations, but he's much better at giving his critiques and suggestions in a more tactful way. He only really tears apart the older designers that should know better."

And, just like always, Adrien knew just what to say to calm her down.

"And just so you know- him asking questions isn't necessarily a bad thing," Adrien added once he saw that she was calming down. "You would be able to tell if he was questioning a design. But sometimes he'll ask about the design process and if you had other ideas because he likes a design and is honestly curious about how you came up with something. Don't worry if he starts asking questions." He gave her shoulders another gentle squeeze. "It might just mean that he really likes it. Just be yourself and don't overanalyze his questions, okay?"

"You're giving her conflicting advice," Alya joked. "Either she's supposed to be herself or she's supposed to not overanalyze things."

Adrien ignored her, instead choosing to focus on Marinette. "You'll do fine, I promise. Your piece is awesome, Marinette."

And Marinette, her heart pounding, managed a small smile. "Thank you, Adrien."

   Gabriel Agreste had not been having a particularly good day. Inexperienced designers from all over the country had poured in and wasted his time with poorly-executed garments. Decent designers had taken his posting too literally and came with garments made with newspaper and plastic which could have all been avoided if people had actually bothered to ask about using those particular materials.

And then there had been the vinyl. There had been entire garments made out of the stuff. It had been done before, it was tacky, and most of it was poorly made.

"I think I've seen less than a dozen designs that are possible contenders," Gabriel sighed as he paged through his notes in disgust. "How many disasters do we have left to look through?"

"Only about twenty entries left, sir," Nathalie replied immediately. She handed him the information card for the next designer. "Do you want me to take the notes for the other designers, sir? Miss Leroy and Adrien's bodyguard can start sorting them out."

Gabriel sighed through his nose. "I suppose." He sent a look at his personal assistant. "In the future, ensure that the designers get screened first. Perhaps we should have required all contestants to send in their materials list so that we didn't have to waste our time. This is getting ridiculous."

Nathalie nodded, making a note on her ever-present tablet.

"And where did my son go?" Gabriel demanded. "I want him to see the entire process."

"I believe he's hanging out with the next designer." Nathalie pointed across the room. Sure enough, Adrien's familiar blond head stood near the next display. "It's one of his classmates."

   Gabriel did not have high expectations with the first glance at the card. Another student, and only just finishing collège at that. His expectations only rose marginally when he noticed the name.

So the girl had won one of his previous contests before. That hadn't stopped other far more experienced designers from churning out utter disasters for this particular contest, and the kid might be a one-hit wonder. Coming in with high expectations only meant being let down.

And then Gabriel set eyes on the design.

It was rock-and-roll, something he didn't dabble much in, but there was no denying that it was excellently done. Red mesh was overlaid by black, offset just enough that only a little skin would show through. The dress was lined with a black fabric in the skirt and over the chest, making the otherwise edgy garment perfectly tasteful. It would work well as a performance piece as well with only a few tweaks, and the mesh ensured that there would be plenty of ventilation in hot, crowded areas with lights burning down overhead. It had a good design, enough to make it stand out beyond just the fabric, but it wasn't overworked in an attempt to make something completely new. The jacket- cork leather, according to the designer card- was well done as well, with enough detailing to give it a distinctly rocker vibe without being too fussy.

This was exactly what he had wanted to see. The pieces- the dress especially, the cork leather that the jacket was made of just barely counted as a nontypical material in his mind, since it was imitating normal leather- were made out of materials that most people wouldn't have thought to use, but it was completely wearable. His mind whirred, already thinking of other ways he might be able to use that divine mesh layering technique.

This was one designer where he would definitely have to ask what other designs she had considered. It was possible that they could do a whole line with that fabric as the focal point-

He was getting ahead of himself, but it had been a while since he was so inspired.

Gabriel took a moment to make sure his best poker face was in place before approaching. Adrien looked up, stepping back from Marinette and her friend as Gabriel and Nathalie joined the group. He looked somewhat abashed, surely knowing that other contestants might view his friendship with the girls as favoritism.

"Miss Dupain-Cheng," Gabriel said, sticking out his hand. "It's a pleasure to see you again, and in person this time."

"Same." Marinette shook his hand. She was nervous, he could tell, but he doubted that she was going to break down like some of the other competitors had. She had stood up for herself admirably during the hat competition, when many designers would have floundered in the face of having their design stolen from them.

"Tell me about your design, please," Gabriel said as he started circling the piece. It was just as professionally done up close as it had seemed from further back. Marinette started explaining, and it was obvious that she had practiced. Her spiel was short and direct, letting the clothes speak for themselves. It was a skill that even some older designers sometimes had trouble with. He twisted the fabric between his fingers, examining seams and the less obvious features as he listened.

"So these are all environmentally friendly fabrics?" Gabriel asked, impressed. She had limited herself in the range of materials she could choose from but that hadn't had any detrimental effect on her outfit. It could easily be yet another selling point, since environmentally conscious was definitely on trend these days.

Marinette nodded.

"That's a nice touch." Gabriel jotted down a few notes on his sheet. "Are there any changes you would make to the outfit after the contest is over?"

"One. I would replace the lining with bamboo or hemp in place of the nylon, since that would be softer and more comfortable. The nylon gets itchy and needs to be layered so that it isn't transparent. That created a lot of static very quickly." Marinette winced ever so slightly, making Gabriel guess that she had tried on the garment and gotten shocked herself. "Other than that, I probably wouldn't make any changes. I'm very happy with how it turned out."

"Were there other designs you considered?"

Marinette mulled the question over for a moment. "Not really. I was pretty set on this one from the start. I did consider using green instead of red as the backing mesh but it just didn't pop quite as well. But as soon as I saw the fabric, the design immediately popped into my head. There were very few changed that I ended up making to the initial design."

Mr. Agreste nodded. "It is nice when that happens. Now, if you were making an outfit for a male model based on the same concept, what would you change?"

Marinette's heart skipped a beat. This was the approving questioning that Adrien had talked about! She gave herself a moment to think before she started talking.

"I would definitely change the proportions on the jacket," she started, gesturing to it as she spoke. "Broader shoulders, obviously, and maybe a slight tapering down to the waist instead of having it completely square. The zippers would also have a slightly different placement. And I would make the dress into a t-shirt or maybe a tank and probably entirely lined instead of just having portions, since it would look kind of cheap to be entirely unlined and but it would look funny to just have portions done. That would get paired with cork leather pants done in a similar style to the jacket."

Mr. Agreste nodded. Very sensible. That would be a good adaptation. "I might suggest lining the front of the shirt but not the back, if it would be worn under the jacket anyway. That would provide more ventilation, which might be wanted in a hot environment such as a crowded concert hall, but it wouldn't be readily apparent to others."

Marinette's eyes widened and she nodded. "And I suppose in that same vein, a tank top or sleeveless shirt might be preferable to a t-shirt since you wouldn't see the sleeves anyway with the jacket and it would be cooler without."

"Precisely. And I might even suggest having some slits or zippers in the pants that would allow for some air flow should the concert venue get too stuffy." Mr. Agreste glanced down at his paper, though it didn't look as though he was really seeing it. "And if you were to alter this for a stage outfit for a performer?"

Adrien grinned as his father and Marinette proceeded to discuss alterations that could be done to make the outfit really pop enough to be a performance piece. From there they moved on to discussing how Marinette would design a collection around the pieces she had created. Mr. Agreste pointed out elements of the outfits that Marinette might consider reusing in other pieces to tie together a collection and they both discussed how much variation there should be in a collection to have the pieces tied together, but each unique and not a different-color repeat of a previous outfit. His father hadn't shown anywhere near as much interest to any other designer, and it was great to see his friend getting so much advice. With each outfit that they discussed, his father was pointing out small details that a beginning designer might not originally consider- not it a harsh way, but in suggestions of what he might do if he were designing the piece and why. He was good at not making younger designers feel ridiculously inexperienced with his critiques-slash-suggestions, and Adrien only wished that his father could extend that skill to...well, to everything else he did.

Adrien came back to earth with a start when he heard the word "runway" being tossed around. He blinked at his father and Marinette before exchanging an incredulous glance with Alya. They weren't seriously designing a runway right now, were they?

"Sir, there are still more contestants to visit," Nathalie reminded Mr. Agreste before they could get too carried away- or, well, more carried away than they had already gotten. "We've spent fifteen minutes here already and the contest is supposed to end in another thirty minutes, followed by an hour for deliberation and then the announcement of the winners."

Mr. Agreste snorted, but stepped back from Marinette's design regardless. "I will hardly need an hour to deliberate. But yes, I suppose I should go look at a few more newspaper dresses. It was a pleasure meeting you again, Miss Dupain-Cheng. Adrien, come."

The little group left, and seconds later Marinette had fallen back into her chair. Alya started over, worried that all of the pressure from having to answer so many questions might have overwhelmed her friend. But she had no reason to worry- within a second of hitting the seat, Marinette was reaching for her sketchbook. Alya couldn't help the incredulous snort that escaped her as Marinette's pencil started positively flying across the page. She had only just gotten done with what Alya assumed to be a fairly stressful interview-slash-designer interrogation, and she was already sitting down to design? Unbelievable.

"I need to write down everything Mr. Agreste told me," Marinette said without looking up. Evidently she had heard (and correctly interpreted) Alya's snort. "I entered for the chance to get some feedback, and I got way more advice than I thought I would get. Mr. Agreste doesn't seem like the type to give out advice more than once. If I enter another contest of his and don't follow his advice for no reason other than I didn't remember it, then he's probably not going to go easy on me, since I should know better."

"He doesn't exactly seem like the type to give out the kind of advice he did freely, so maybe he does have a heart hidden in there somewhere," Alya said dryly, watching as Marinette finished scribbling out a list of bullet points of advice and immediately moved on to working out preliminary design sketches for some of the outfit ideas she and Mr. Agreste were tossing around. The sound of irritated voices- or, rather, one irritated voice in particular- made her glance over to the next contestant. There, Mr. Agreste appeared to be straight-up ripping apart a design (well, verbally at least). "...or maybe not, it's hard to tell."

   By the time the scheduled deliberation period was over and it was time to announce the winners, most of the designers had already left. Mr. Agreste had apparently made it fairly clear to anyone who hadn't used some sort of fabric that they were not even in the running to win. Marinette was impressed that there hadn't been any akumas created, but then again it probably helped that everyone who entered had come in knowing Gabriel Agreste's reputation and knowing that they could very well be on the receiving end of one of his scathing critiques.

That didn't mean that she wasn't going to have to fight an akuma today, though. Marinette had no doubt that there might be a designer-turned-akuma once winners were announced- and especially if she placed at all. She wasn't blind to some of the looks that the older designers were giving her, especially those who had been near her in the showroom and had seen how long she had talked to Mr. Agreste. Still, she wasn't going to read too far into it. It was fully possible that Mr. Agreste had spent so much time talking to her and giving her advice because she was a student who had more to learn from him and because she was a friend of Adrien's.

"Designers to the front of the room!" Nathalie's voice boomed over the loudspeakers. "The winners of the contest will be announced shortly."

"Here, I'll take the jacket bag," Alya said, reaching out for the second bag Marinette was holding. They had packed up the designs after the judging round was finished and Mr. Agreste had retired to a back room to peruse the cards for the few designs that actually got his approval. That way, they could leave faster after the contest was over and they wouldn't have to worry about someone messing with the outfit if Marinette placed at all.

"I can't wait to see what designed actually placed," Marinette said as she handed the bag over to Alya. She shouldered the other bag, the one containing the dress she had made. "I'm curious about the other fabrics people found now. I've got loads of ideas about what I can do with the mesh stuff and the cork, but there's no such thing as too much inspiration."

"You're lucky summer is coming up and you'll actually have time to work on stuff," Alya said with a laugh as she led the way towards the front of the room. "If this were the middle of the school year..."

"It was the middle of the school year when I started working on these pieces," Marinette pointed out. "And I made the time. It'll be easier without having to deal with homework, though." She made a face. "I will have to deal with Manon more often, though."

"You could just say no," Alya pointed out. They joined the crowd of anxious designers waiting for the winners to be announced. "Madam Chamack could find another babysitter."

"But I need the money for my fabric," Marinette groaned, lower lip starting to jut out in a pout. "And you saw the price of that cork leather, right? The other pieces I've thought of have that incorporated as well, and there's no way I can afford that much of it. I'll just have to grin and bear it... and hope that Manon grows out of her stubborn phase sooner rather than later."

"There's a cash prize for winning this," Alya reminded Marinette in an almost sing-song voice. "And if Adrien was right about things going into production, you would get money from that too, right?"

"I would have to win first," Marinette pointed out, her voice low. It only took Alya a second to figure out that her friend didn't want to attract the attention of any of the other designers around them, and a little too late she realized that her assumption that her friend would win (her very valid assumption, considering how long Mr. Agreste had talked with Marinette) probably looked pretty conceited, especially considering that the two of them were among the youngest people there. "So I don't think I'll quit babysitting quite yet."

The crowd fell silent as Mr. Agreste strode out onto the makeshift stage. A screen descended behind him, presumably to display photos of the winning outfits. Nathalie followed Mr. Agreste out, and they could see Adrien and the Gorilla hovering in the wings.

"Thank you all for coming here today," Mr. Agreste said somewhat stiffly as he stood in front of the podium that had been set up for him in the center of the stage. "It is time to announce the winners of today's contest. It was not as hard of a decision as I hoped it might be, as apparently my announcement didn't make it clear enough that I wanted to see unusual fabrics, not... newspaper dresses."

There were some cringes as the few designers that had made such dresses but somehow hadn't caught on to Mr. Agreste's immediate dismissal of their outfits based on their materials finally caught on that they had no chance of winning. A few of the other designers- ones who had gotten their lists of materials approved- exchanged excited glances at that, knowing full well that their chances of winning had drastically improved with so much of the pool of candidates disqualified.

"Still, I did come across some great designs out there," Mr. Agreste continued. "Now, without further delay, I present our runner-ups: Miss Melanie Derose, Miss Olya Noel, and Mr. Kevin Blanc." Three designs flashed up on the screen. One was a dress, one was a shirt and skirt combo, and one looked like it might be a wedding gown. Alya was surprised that it placed as high as it did because really, who entered a wedding dress in a contest for Gabriel? Gabriel, to the best of Alya's knowledge, did not do wedding dresses.

Polite applause rang out as the three runner-ups went up to go shake hands with Mr. Agreste. They got their photos taken, and then were each handed a gift certificate for a fabric store before they trotted back down the stairs on the stage and rejoined the group still waiting below.

"Third place: Mrs. Brenna Faure."

More clapping as an older woman went up on stage. She had designed a business attire sort of outfit, a shirt, jacket, and pants.

"The materials really don't seem that out there," Alya murmured to Marinette. "Don't get me wrong, it's a nice design and it looks cool, but for a contest with unusual materials?"

"I think the jacket is layers of tulle," Marinette said, peering up at the screen. "That's how she got that gradual change in color and the 3-D kind of look to it. I don't know about the other pieces. It is a very Gabriel look, though. It definitely is more in line with what they normally make than my piece is."

"I thought the point was to design out of the box a bit," Alya grumbled. Still, if that was what had won third place, then Marinette's piece would definitely place as well, right? Surely at least second place would be hers.

"The 3-D effect probably counted as out of the box." Marinette was peering up at the screen, intrigued. "I wonder...could I recreate that effect, but maybe with a night sky or something? I wish I could have seen that piece in person to see exactly how she did it."

"I've lost her," Alya sighed as Marinette tore her attention off of the stage to jot the idea down in her sketchbook. She struggled for a moment to keep a hold on the garment bag she still held, until Alya took it from her so Marinette could get her ideas down before the next winner was announced.

"Second place," Mr. Agreste announced as Mrs. Faure went back down the stairs to join the audience. "Mr. Justin Lacroix."

As the young man ascended the stairs to accept his prize and a photo, a casual outfit appeared on screen. The top was made out of braided fabric, like a braided rug, and hung off-the-shoulder. It was the clear focal piece, with the pants fading away.

Alya sniffed. If Marinette had lost to that, then Adrien's father had well and lost his mind. Sure, maybe it fit in with the brand better, but it was...well, not boring, she could see the appeal, but not as awesome as Marinette's dress and jacket.

"I like the texture," Marinette commented as the man waved to the crowd before bowing to Mr. Agreste and scampering off. "I wonder how he cut down on the bulk that the braid would normally create. You can tell that he just left it for the neckline, that's why it's chunkier, but he did something to the rest of it."

"Ask him later," Alya suggested. "He might not tell another older designer, but you're young enough that he might not mind telling you."

A sharp glare from a nearby designer quieted both of them before Marinette could respond. "Hush! Mr. Agreste is about to announce the winner!" As she turned back to face the front, both girls could hear her mutter to a nearby designer, "I don't even know why he even allows kids to enter these things. Heaven knows that they would never win. They're just wasting his time."

Funny, that's not what Mr. Agreste seemed to think, Alya thought, exchanging a glance with Marinette. Her friend looked highly incredulous. Wonder how much time he spent talking with Ms. Grouchy over there?

Mr. Agreste glanced back out at the crowd and Alya could have sworn that there was a hint of a smile around the corners of his lips, but that was impossible. Gabriel Agreste didn't smile. His face would probably break if he tried. "And now, in first place, for a particularly inspired design using a very interesting material..."

"...may I congratulate our young winner, Marinette Dupain-Cheng."

Even the akuma that popped up six minutes later, raging about favoritism and students stealing wins from real designers, couldn't diminish Marinette's joy.

I know it's perhaps not the most realistic thing to have Marinette win over a bunch of other designers, especially established ones, but the thing is that Gabriel has to actually like someone's aesthetic for them to win. Someone could be a fantastic designer but design things that don't fit Gabriel's personal taste, and even though they have a ton of experience they wouldn't win a contest that's focused on the Gabriel brand. Just based on the show, Gabriel likes what he's seen of Marinette's aesthetic (with the pigeon hat), so it follows that he would perhaps be more likely to pick her as winner.

(....also, he was REALLY inspired by the mesh technique. That may have been an influence.)

(I've been watching too much Project Runway. You can tell by my overuse of the word "aesthetic" :D And, in the story, most of the designers had also watched too much Project Runway and that was why so many went for unconventional materials instead of just unconventional fabrics)

Also re: Gabriel's characterization: I tend to write him kind of like Gordon Ramsey. He's VERY hard on the adults, who should know better, but is more of a guiding force with kids. He seemed to be a bit calmer than we sometimes see him with the bowler hat contest, which was all students, but he RIPPED into Alec (at least SOMEWHAT rightfully) when the TV host decided to trick Gabriel into being on the TV show, knowing full well that Gabriel wouldn't want to do it. It'll be interesting to see how accurate this is or isn't once we (finally) start getting new episodes again.

[kitwallace]

Midi controller for multi-parameter designs

[this post never made it out of draft at the time, but posting it may spur me to finish the interface]

I’ve often thought it would be nice to input parameters which define multi-parameter 3D models in OpenSCAD using physical controls rather than typing in numbers. (It would be nice to have the ability to use on-screen sliders).  

I looked at LaunchControl  by Novation which is great but I fancied slide rather than rotary controls.  Korg nanoKONTROL2  has 8 slide controls and many others, has USB output and is USB powered.  This looks like like the job and at about £45 is just the ticket.

But.. I thought I’d like to build my own.  I found this tutorial from Notes and Noise which helped a lot.  The controller code Dave provides is very comprehensive but the details are tucked away in C++ code, so I decided to roll my own.  

I got six 10k slide pots from RS Supplies.  These have a throw of over 60 mm, a length I think is needed to generate each of the values in the MIDI range 0..127. Also a MIDI/USB converter  (I’m already up to £15).   I already had an Arduino Uno spare to brush the dust off. After too much time wasted getting the Arduino IDE set up with the MIDI library, getting the IDE talking to the UNO, understanding the interface to the great MIDI-OX utility, salvaging an old MIDI socket, and mis-wiring the simplest circuits (late at night), a simple single slider is now working.

Since only changed slider values are sent out, there is a problem with jitter as the A2D values are not absolutely stable.  I fixed this by exponentially smoothing the output code which I  put in the range 0.. 100  for ease of mapping to parameter values (rather than the MIDI range 0..127).  

#include <MIDI.h>

MIDI_CREATE_DEFAULT_INSTANCE();

int potPin = A0;    int lastMidiValue = -1;   float alpha=0.5;  // exponential smoothing coefficient

void setup() {   MIDI.begin(); }

void loop() {  int a2dValue = analogRead(potPin);  int midiValue = a2dValue / 10.1 ;  // to get the full range from 0...100  int smoothMidiValue = midiValue *(1.0 - alpha) + alpha*lastMidiValue;  if (smoothMidiValue != lastMidiValue) {           MIDI.sendControlChange(1,smoothMidiValue,1);      lastMidiValue= smoothMidiValue;  }

Before tackling 3D objects I decided to try the hardware on a 2D pattern generated by JavaScript and SVG based on a  three link mechanism. The mechanism comprises connected three links. The path described by a pen on the final link can be described by 3 connected formula which determine the rotation of each of the links. The formula use nine  parameters so the interface should allow the user to connect the sliders to specific parameters,varying the value over a specified range. 

The test web page uses a couple of slider controls which are attached to two key parameters R the rotation of  the second and P1 the phase angle of the third link.

Most browsers now support the WEB MIDI API.  There is a wrapper script webmidi.js to make it somewhat easier to use.  To update a parameter value and generate the curve,  we only need:

WebMidi.enable(function(err) {   if (err) console.log("WebMidi could not be enabled");   else  console.log("WebMidi enabled!");   console.log(WebMidi.inputs);

  var midi_in= WebMidi.inputs[0];

  midi_in.addListener("controlchange","1",     function (e) {$('#nodes').val(e.data[2]);refresh();}     ); });

Both Arduino code and the JavaScript need generalising to support 6 parameters.

Midi wiring

Midi wiring confused me a bit but I found this diagram helpful where Source is 5V, Sink is the TX pin and Shield goes to Gnd.

Building the slider box.

Having first prototyped the circuit on a breadboard, I stuck some header pins in a bit of stripboard  to make a HAT for the Arduino.  I was struggling to figure out how to neatly mount and wire the sliders until I talked over the project with Tom at Bristol Hackspace. Each slider needs connections for 0V, 5V and the voltage divider wire to go to an analogue input.  Tom came up with the great suggestion of using a piece of copper-backed board, with the copper length wise down the middle to make the 0v and 5v rails with holes drilled out for the third connector.  This way the board is both a mount for the sliders and the circuit board - a nice example of what I heard called the ‘Shanley principle’ by my mentor Michael Jackson. 

“In civil engineering design it is presently a mandatory concept known as the Shanley Design Criterion to collect several functions into one part.” Pierre Arnoul de Marneffe, cited by D Knuth, 1974 . A common example cited is the construction of rockets. In 1940-1945 rockets had separate components for fuel tank, outer skin, body frame . However, Saturn-B had a tubular body that was at once its fuel tank, outer skin, and body frame. 

I initially messed up cutting the stripboard to size, and then read the tip to put the board between two pieces of wood and then cut the sandwich  - obvious really.

I made a template out of a plastic lid so that I could drill holes for the pins in the base board.  To attach the leads for the voltage divider pins, I soldered each lead to its pin and added heat-shrink to ensure it was insulated from the copper side of the board.

All this went well until I tested the board.  To check that the joints were sound, I measured the resistance of each slider between the wiper and one end and was very puzzled by the result.  Instead of varying smoothly between a min of 0 and some maximum, the value increased and then decreased?   I thought it must be a wiring problem but couldn’t see how that could create this non-linear change in resistance.  Finally I talked it over with Tom at the Hackspace who was also initially puzzled. Only when we draw the circuit diagram did it occur to us that the error was due to measuring not just the variable resistance, but this in parallel with the other half of the pot and all the other 5 pots. i.e R in parallel with 10-R + (10/5). Putting this into a spreadsheet created this graph:

Despite this, each pot will still work correctly as a voltage divider which I can test when the circuit is built.

Since I now have 6 10k pots in parallel, the resistance of the bank of pots is now 10k/6  = 1.66 k which will draw a constant 5/1.66 k = 3 milliamps.  Increasing the pots to 100k would reduce that to 0.3 milliamps but I will try these pots first.

Other resources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sopfrr1830 This guy has a similar build, with a printed case with sliders mounted underneath the lid  (much better idea) and uses a special chip to get directly to USB HID using a Arduino Pro Micro  https://coolcomponents.co.uk/products/pro-micro-5v-16mhz  and a multiplexer (because there aren’t enough A2D ports)  See also https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/337

Joe Dusta also recommended the USB HID route but not sure how that plays with MIDI -  another approach to look at.

[movedto-insom-art]

hi!! i just found you while poking around for gobelins students on twitter and i love your art, congratulations on passing!! i was wondering if you have any advice on the written exam or tips on how to prepare for it? i heard that the written exam can be given in english if french isn't your first language...

I’ll try to be very concise about this andmaybe pin it to my profile because I was in your shoes exactly a year ago, andif I made it here I think you have a considerable chance of making it too as long as you’re willing to put work into it. I want totell you what I wish I had been told.

Disclaimer: I’m definitely not the best personto ask. I’m self-taught and my situation may and will differ a lot from yours,but on top of that, bear in mind Gobelins has a ~5% admission rate. During theinterview I shared room with a person who had a stunning portfolio and had been doing two years of prepclasses to get in Gobelins specifically and didn’t get in. I don’t even understand what brought me in, but I will try to at least give you a detailedguide of what *I* did to prepare.

Important: READ THE “MODALITÉSD'ADMISSION” DOCUMENT THREE TIMES AT LEAST. It has so much usefulinformation and so many points you can’t afford to skip. If your French isflaky, ask for a friend who speaks it fluently to help you out. You *must*understand it fully if you want to get in and avoid needless calls to theschool.

Also, keep an eye on the website often. Allthe information I provide here vis a vis dates only applies to a time periodthat’s already gone and I can’t predict if the dates will be exactly the sameevery year, so double check for yourself!

French

If you don’t speak French now start asap, anddo your Duolingo and “Apprendre le Français avec TVMonde” exercisesevery day. The lessons for the 4-year program are in French and while they canbe understanding with foreigners I just strongly recommend for the sake ofcommon sense that you pick up the language, just to make the most of the chanceif you’re given it.

However, you can def do the written exam in English! The exam will be printed and handed to you in both languages, it’s not so much a test to see your writing skills (ironically) than it is to prove your drawing ones.

If you pass that first round, while they won’t require any certification, they *will* test how good you are understanding and responding in French during the interview process of the second round.

I also recommend you take special conversational classeswith a private teacher or with a French speaker the couple of weeks before theoral exam to really gain fluidity, it makes a difference.

Mental Health

Preparing for all this will be sustainedstress over a long period of time. While it’ll be intensive and will demand alot of you, bear in mind that a mentality of “every minute I spend notworking on this is a minute lost” is only going to harm you. It’s alrightto take breaks, have a social life, and space for leisure while you do prepwork. It’s alright to not be drawing every single hour and rest your mind soyou can go back to work with all your might.

Try to be demanding and to pushyourself out of your comfort zone, but do it at your own pace and alwaysleaving space for breaks and stuff that will take your mind away from it whenyou need to, like friends, videogames, or just drawing for fun. A healthy business to leisure ratio is always between ½ and 2/3.

Meditate if you can, too, just 10-15 minutesevery day. I recommend the Headspace app and it has helped me keep my coolduring really tense moments.

Open Days

Go to the open days at Gobelins in January ifyou can! I took a plane for the weekend just to go, it was expensive but Ireally, really do not regret it. Here’s why:

DONOT MISS THE FIRST DAY. They hold portfolio reviews and while you may not haveyours ready just yet, it’s the perfect chance to get an insider point of viewof how well you’re doing right now and how far from your goal you are. Make aprovisional one (or do like I did and just make a tumblr blog and throw inwhatever you’d want them to assess) and arrive early to ask for a spot at thequeue.

Youget to talk to other first-year students, who will showcase their portfolio andanswer all your questions about the admission process, the school and whateverother questions you may have.

Youget to attend conferences where they explain each of their programs in detail,and the head of the department will also answer all yourquestions.

Admissions usually open right in the middle of the open days. By all means grab a seat at the computer room and save yourself a spot in the exam process asap.

Also,if you’re a foreigner like me, you should totally go to the international classand see if you can spot somebody from your same country (or who at least speaksyour language) to hang out with for a bit.

Site note: That international class is adirect entry to 3rd year specifically for English-speaking students who alreadyhave animation experience. I didn’t apply for that so I can’t tell you muchabout it, but it’s definitely worth checking out if you want in, they say it’seasier than the main track, too.

Preparing for the written exams

First off, draw every day. Even if it’s notprep work or studies all the time, you can indulge in your OCs, OTPs, whatevermakes your heart race, but draw it and do it every day. It doesn’t have to beideal or finished either, but what really matters is that you get used todrawing a lot and make a habit of it. Quantity, consistency and speed areimportant skills for animators to have as I’ve been told and they will be looking for it since one of the parts of the inteview includes evaluating how much paper you’ve filled in a year.

Grab all the exams you can get a hold of fromthe Gobelins site and do them in the specified time (they’re on the Concepteuret Realisateur de Film d'Animation class page). When you’re done with that do themagain. Ask for feedback from your teachers and improve on them. Take aperspective book (I recommend “Perspective for Comic Artists”), take a gesturedrawing book (“The Vilppu Drawing Manual” or “Gesture drawingfor animation”), take a storyboarding and character design class (I tookSchoolism’s, which are 15$/month per class, it’s very affordable) and that’llgive you a good frame of reference. And when you’re done with the exams andknow them by heart, make your own exercises. Then do the exams again. Andalways ask for feedback, critique to train yourself against every weak pointthat you don’t want the jury to catch you doing when you do the actual exam.

Sign up for figure drawing class right now,with or without teacher (I signed up to an art club without one), the soonerthe better, and go there frequently, once or twice per week, to the short posessessions (up to 15 minutes per pose, 2 to 5 minutes would be ideal). Don’tbother doing portraits or long poses because again, what you want is to producea lot, fast. Put a lot of focus on gesture drawing, movement and speed. It’llnot only be a big chunk of your portfolio if you do pass the first round, butit hones your draftsmanship like no other exercise. You can additionally trainat home with websites like QuickPoses or the New Masters Academy figure drawingvideos, but I’d really want to stress that live models work so much bettersince they force you to interpret a 3D person.

Go to your local zoo as well, once a week oronce a fortnight, and do animal studies. If you can bring a friend it’ll help alot making it more fun but try to get used to drawing shapes that are nothuman. Understand their anatomy and try to apply what you’re learning aboutgesture from the figure drawing classes.

Draw in the street, in museums, go to a placethat inspires you or that you find curious and draw it. Draw the people topractice your characterization and caricature skills. Draw buildings to showyour perspective skills. And just whatever catches your eye. Environments and perspective are important and I strongly recommend you start by drawing from observation.

If you have a cool idea in mind or find agood exercise on tumblr to try that isn’t this, do it! The teachers appreciateinterest in several fields and if you can showcase that you’re a curiousstudent with plenty of interests they’ll consider you more seriously. I didconcept art and digital painting on the side and it ended up being a mainthing of my personal project.

And finally, go to @gobelins andraid it for advice, it’s a great point of reference to start with as well. Goto the current @crfa20 and past CRFA blogs to see what the students are up to if youwant inspo and check their profiles too.

Do this for the whole year.

Admissions open inJanuary and the earlier you can sign in the better (especially if you are aforeigner like me, you must get the equivalence with French studies recognizedofficially asap, it usually takes a while to get and it’s necessary).

On a side note, for the written exam, simplifyyour tools. You don’t have much time to elaborate or fix your mistakes so Iwould recommend you do your practice with pens (so you get used to not erasinglines and being confident with your strokes) and pencils (especially if you canget both regular, mechanical and color pencils to layer your drawings forcomplex exercises like perspective). During the exam don’t even think aboutbringing pens in case you do make mistakes you need to erase though, they arejust really good training.

Side note: if you can, all this while, make space for personal projects.Nothing that you must finish, but just produce a lot of your own content. Pick apodcast and do visual development for it, do fanart, iterate on a movie’s shots, developyour own stories through visual storytelling, do character design, storyboards,comics. Steal ideas if you must to get the creative juices flowing (but don’tpost it or pretend they are your own :V). Get acquainted with projects, explore a fewideas so that the moment you’re out of the exam room when you’re done with thewritten exam you not only have a deck of projects to choose from but are alsoacquainted with the process of carrying one forward (and also have a littlework already done).

Preparing for the oral exam

The oral exam consists of 3 parts.

A first part in which you’re not present, andthe jury will judge your portfolio, sketchbooks and demo reel without you for 30 minutes.

A second part, where you must introduce thejury to an original personal project of your own made for the admissionprocess, and defend it (in French).

A third part, where the jury will just ask youquestions (they’re usually very friendly) and judge your viability as a futureclassmate. Just be yourself!

The portfolio should just have your best, besweet, short and to the point. There is a limit of 40 pages including coversand the personal project so choose your best pieces from between your projectsand your practice. It should also cover three main points

Your skillset, which should be covered byyour studies, schoolwork, observation work and partly (but not mainly) the rest of your artwork.

Your capacity for creation and personal vision(aka what your interests are as an artist), which should be covered by the restof your artwork and other projects of your own.

Your capacity to convey and develop ideas, messages andstories through visual narration, which should be your main, personal project.

I recommend you throw in both sketches andunfinished stuff along with your most detailed and refined pieces so the jurycan have a good idea of your process, your way of solving problems and how faryour skills go. Storyboards, animatics and comics will always be a positivesince you’re aiming to study a medium that is sequential.

Also, if you can, pick other students’ portfolios for reference. They don’t need to be Gobelins or even students though, if you find a good philosophy to build your portfolio around, by all means go for it. It’ll give you a good idea of what needs to be there and what can be left out.

Lastly, while they stress that you *don’t* need toknow animation to get in since that’s what you’re applying to, you can bring ina 2-minute demo reel. I made mine with an animatic and a few animationexercises on my own, but I want to repeat what they told me, the intentionisn’t to show how good you are at it already (then what can they teach you?)but to show that you’re interested in the medium and are eager to learn.

Final note

You’re applying for an animation school, keepthat in mind always. An animator is not an illustrator or a concept artist(even if they can easily become one), and what sets them apart in my opinion is the focus on speed, gesture, quantity, and most importantly, making drawings that feel alive andthat tell something. Understand the craft, ask other animators, read books onanimation, anything you can get your hands on will help.

One of the points that I feel are the mostimportant about all this is included in the Modalités d'Admission text, whichsays that they look into a quality that would literally translate to “opennessof spirit”. I think that speaks for how open minded you are to new ideas,to working with others, to learning and to considering new points of view.

Again I don’t have all the answers, but if youare “open of spirit” and really make an effort to dive into theanimation world, look for resources and friends in this world I’m certainyou’ll find them.

[sanctumslider]

Glass Houses, Interlude 6

Summary: In an alternate universe where all humans are empaths, Kurt Hummel is the odd one out. Registering at a mere 0.5 on the Hawkins Scale of Empathic Sensitivity, Kurt has resigned himself to a lonely life, empty of touch or true love. That is, until the mysterious Blaine Anderson transfers to McKinley, and everything Kurt thought he knew was changed. But finding love is never easy, even in a world where everyone’s emotions are shared. This is the story of the boy who could not feel, and the boy who felt too much.

[Go to Chapter 1]

[FF.net] [S&C] [AO3]

“Morning Tom,” Fiona yawned, leaning against the reception desk, picking up her stack of files for the day. “You got anything interesting for me?”

The duty nurse looked up from his computer, and there was something in the way she felt him measuring his words before he answered her. There was a weight there. She set down her coffee and looked up. Tom reached over to her pile of folders and selected one with a green tab, placing it on top. “You’ve got a handover from Dr Gregory, tested last week.”

Fiona blinked. “Okay,” she drew out the word, not sure she was quite getting it. She was relatively new to work at the Columbus Sense Clinic, only recently moved from Chicago to take up a permanent position, following years of gruelling but rewarding sense training. “Why is Gregory passing the case to me? I’m on the initial test run, if the kid’s been tested already…”

“He’s over 4 on the scale,” Tom said soberly. “And Gregory’s six years from retirement.”

Understanding dawned, and Fiona glanced down at the neat little file, a name printed carefully on the front.

 BLAINE DEVON ANDERSON.

Blaine. The name of the child she would solely be responsible for, until her services were no longer required. A polite way of saying until the child died.

National law required any child diagnosed over 4 on the Hawkins Scale to be assigned a sense doctor for the course of their lives. And Blaine would be her first child in that range.

She took a steadying breath, and opened the file to read one little number.

Her stomach plummeted.

00000

Anger crashed, rebounding, fuming and hurt. Fiona kept her hands still in her lap as she sat in the middle of the floor, letting herself bend but not break against the howl of chaos.

“I hate you! I hate you I hate you I hate you!” The little whirlwind of a seven year old overturned a crate of coloured bricks, a horrible cauldron of confusion-fear-anger spilling over into the room. Fiona glanced over at Emily Anderson, who was desperately struggling to remain impassive and contained as her son raged on.

It had been the older brother who had triggered Blaine this time. The storm had been building for weeks, and Fiona had warned the parents to expect an incident. And by a small mercy, the tipping point had occurred in their weekly session.

Cooper was a sweet kid, but he was also a teenager, and naturally prone to misplaced and out of proportion bursts of self-centeredness. Unfortunately in this case, his projected emotions regarding his baby brother had actually mirrored Blaine’s.

Always getting Mom and Dad’s attention, they never even look at me anymore, why is Blaine so special?

 Mom and Dad will never love me like they do Cooper, Cooper’s so normal, Cooper’s not a freak, Cooper’s the son they wanted.

And now they were dealing with the fallout as it sent the little boy into a confused spiral where he couldn’t tell where his surliness ended and his brother’s began.

Finally deciding she had let Blaine continue for long enough, Fiona asked, “Where is the hate, Blaine? Is it outside or inside?”

The question confused Blaine enough to make him pause, angrily swiping over-spilling tears from his cheeks as he glared at his doctor. He sniffled, “Everywhere.”

Fiona tentatively reached her senses out to Blaine. By now, she was intimately familiar with how Blaine’s emotional print should feel. And right now?

 Scared, out of control, full of something not quite right.

She projected a tendril of warm calm and safety, designed to stabilise. “What did we say to do, when you weren’t sure whether something was inside or outside?”

Blaine scowled, the effect of his sullenness ruined slightly by a hiccup as he started to run out of steam. “Draw a picture in my head.”

“And?” Fiona prompted.

She felt Blaine faltering, coming down from the waves of scared anger. He bit his lip and shook his head, a swamp of confused guilt starting to squirm as he wrapped his arms around himself.

Fiona nodded to Emily to break her vigil, watching in buried relief as the harried mother crossed the room in an instant, kneeling in front of Blaine as the little boy reached up and wrapped his arms around her neck, saying quietly, “I’m sorry Mommy, I don’t hate you, not really.”

Emily enfolded Blaine in her arms, glancing at Fiona over Blaine’s head, her relief plain as she replied, “I know you don’t baby, I know. It’ll be okay.”

“You did really well today Blaine,” Fiona praised, her voice exuding confidence.

She made it to the break room before she fell apart. Nothing in her training had prepared herself for how hard this was going to be.

00000

She had been finishing off some late night paperwork when Tom burst into her office, “Fi, you need to come, now!” Her normally controlled and jubilant friend was spilling urgency and worry, “Blaine Anderson just got brought into the emergency room with a grade four E-E!”

Fiona was on her feet and out the door in an instant, hot on Tom’s heels as he frantically swiped his keycard and dived through the doors that led into the staff corridor connecting the day clinic, test centre and ER within the Sense Clinic.

They burst through a second set of doors into chaos.

Entering the Sense ER on a good day required doctors to brace themselves against an onslaught of sloppy sense control and projection. A detached part of Fiona was glad there didn’t seem to be too many other patients that evening, because those few who were present were already being tipped over the edge by the sheer hurricane of poisonous emotion that was flowing out of Blaine right now, and there were only so many staff on call this time of night.

“The EMT tried to give him a sedative in the ambulance but he kicked him in the face…” Tom filled Fiona in, gesturing helplessly at the scene unfolding before them.

Cooper Anderson looked completely out of place in dress pants and a shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows as he fought to keep hold of Blaine, who was kicking, screaming, biting, clawing, bucking against the arms fastened steadfastly around his waist.

Blaine’s tux had seen better days – jacket, tie and shoes long gone, shirt torn – and Fiona remembered with a sinking heart how excited Blaine had been. Only last week he’d been telling her how he and Amy were patching things up and would be going to their school’s Sadie Hawkins dance together.

What the hell had happened?

Fiona ran forward, “Everyone back up, give them space. And someone get these other patients out of here unless you want a full scale sense incident on our hands! Move, now!”

Her colleagues scrambled to her commands, grateful for someone to take control of the situation.

“Tell me what to do!” Cooper yelled at her over Blaine’s struggled screams, voice cracking. Tears were tracking their way silently down the young man’s face, but his jaw was set and determined.

Fiona took a step forward, only to have Blaine kick out, pressing his back into Cooper’s chest, his head thudding against Cooper’s shoulder as he recoiled. It was then Fiona realised that Blaine wasn’t struggling to get away from his brother, but rather was pressing himself as close as possible, struggling away from anyone else who came near. Cooper was just trying to keep Blaine contained.

That explained the bare arms. The older brother had done the only thing he could think of, offering skin to skin contact to try and anchor Blaine.

Fiona quickly changed tact. Here would have to do.

“Can you get him on the floor? Someone get me some gloves and 10mg of diazepam!”

Cooper gritted his teeth and pulled Blaine closer to him as he attempted to kneel, mostly just falling backwards as Blaine’s struggles unbalanced him. His grip dislodged for a moment and Blaine’s hands immediately went to his head, violently clawing at his scalp with bloody torn nails, until Cooper managed to wrench them away and pin Blaine’s arms again.

Cooper bent forward, desperately pressing his cheek to the top of Blaine’s head, “Come on Blaine, it’s okay, you’re safe, I’m here, it’s okay, it’ll be okay, I promise. Come back to us Blaine…”

“Hold him as still as you can, Cooper.” Fiona instructed, moving behind the brothers to avoid Blaine’s kicking, pulling on the heavy-duty gloves that would allow her to touch Blaine without causing an immediate reaction.

A sudden wave of terror flooded her senses for a second before she could get her walls up tight enough. Cooper choked brokenly, the full force of it drowning him. He still didn’t let go.

Fiona knelt quickly, reaching around Cooper to unemotionally tear the sleeve off Blaine’s shirt. A wretched scream shredded Blaine’s throat as he tried to pull away from her, but Cooper held firm, still repeating a mantra of useless placations and pleas.

Pull off the cap, jab the needle into muscle, press the plunger…

And finally Blaine began to quieten, his head lolling to the side after barely a minute, slumping bonelessly into Cooper’s body, screams finally dying to a horrible, echoing hush.

Cooper took a shuddering breath, and without Blaine’s projected storm, Fiona registered just how close to completely falling apart the young man was.

“Get a gurney out here. We’re going to need to keep him under until we know what we’re dealing with.” Fiona gestured at one of the ER resident doctors, “Harris, I want a full blood and Blaine booked in for an MRI. I need to know what’s going on in his brain. Dr Singh, can I trust you take point on this until I’ve got background from Mr Anderson? I’ll join you as soon as I can. Tom, can you call Blaine’s parents for me please? Let them know Cooper is here as well?”

A chorus of ‘right away doctor’, ‘of course Dr Monroe’ and ‘sure Fiona’ rang through the ER as Blaine was carefully lifted onto the gurney and wheeled away.

Gently, Fiona led Cooper to one of the exam rooms. Not only to afford him some privacy, but also because she was seriously considering calling a second gurney for this Anderson. He sat down heavily on the chair, silently accepting the paper cup of water Fiona offered him as she sat next to him.

One beat, two. Breathe in, breathe out.

The cup fell to the floor innocuously. And Cooper fell to pieces, sobs shaking him as he finally let his emotions spill out.

Fiona didn’t tell him it would be okay.

00000

Flicking through the chart, Fiona felt ill. She nearly hadn’t come, she could have emailed the document, but she knew she owed it to Blaine. Technically as Blaine’s registered sense doctor, she remained on the books as Dalton as a consultant, but his day to day care decisions were out of her hands.

How had it come to this?

Blaine had barely recognised her, his emotions sluggishly drifting in a sickly way so unlike the brightly sparking sense patterns she was used to feeling from him. The cocktail of drugs the doctors had him on was bordering on the extreme to say the least, but from what Dr Hargreaves had explained to her, they had been a necessary evil.

Sometimes, in her darker moments, Fiona wondered if she was too close to Blaine to be objective. Because as soon as she had seen Blaine in that room, she had wanted to yell, she had wanted to scream, she had wanted to pick Blaine up and take him out of there.

Everything her training taught her said that Blaine was getting the absolute best care. She knew the doctors and teachers at Dalton had made all the right calls, had done everything by the book…

So why did this feel so wrong?

“Blaine’s sense buddy, Wesley? What do you plan to do with him?” Fiona asked Dalton’s headmistress, Dr Miranda Hargreaves, leaning forwards to place the chart back on the desk between them.

Miranda sighed, “As yet to be determined. If Rosen had her way, Wesley would be out on his ear already, but really… the boy’s heart was in the right place. He was just incredibly misguided, and that cat was the final straw. Blaine has suffered for it, but that’s for Dalton to account for, not a young student like Mr Montgomery.”

Fiona hummed, non-committal. It started as a niggling thought, but quickly grew until she knew she couldn’t leave until she asked, “Would you mind if I spoke with him?”

There was a drift of bland surprise underneath the projection of too-quiet the headmistress maintained. “I have no objection,” she said. “You can use my office, I need to do the rounds anyway. I’ll send him over.”

The headmistress departed, and Fiona leaned her elbows on her knees, fingertips massaging her temples. Tomorrow would be the end of it all. Tomorrow, she would sign the paperwork, a messy scrawl, right next to the one belonging to Dr Hargreaves, and the pair from John and Emily Anderson.

Tomorrow, she would sign Blaine away to end of life care, and her responsibilities would be ended.

It wasn’t as if Blaine was her only kid over 4 on the scale anymore. She now had five in total of varying ages and intensities. She shouldn’t be this invested.

But Blaine was Blaine. Blaine was her first high-ES child. She had learnt with Blaine, she had put her heart into that family, had given them over a decade of dedication and love. And now it was broken, and she couldn’t help feel like all she had gotten out of it was a sucking sense of abject failure.

How many times had she told Emily to be aware of the risks, how many times had she reminded John that any time with Blaine was a gift, because they didn’t know how long they would have?

Turns out she hadn’t taken her own advice.

“Hello..?”

Fiona shook herself and turned to see a tall Asian boy standing in the doorway. He wasn’t wearing the typical uniform of a Dalton sense buddy, a silent marker of his suspension. Considering he couldn’t be older than eighteen, Fiona was impressed at the boy’s sense control. He was a little wary, but very self-contained.

“Hello, you must be Wesley. I’m Dr Monroe, please…” She gestured to the empty seat next to her.

Wes paused for a beat longer before taking the invitation. “You’re Blaine’s sense doctor,” he stated.

“I am,” Fiona confirmed, waiting to see if the boy had anything else to add.

“I won’t apologise,” Wesley stated calmly, a righteous fire burning within the teenager as he folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t care what Rosen crows on about, Molly was the only thing keeping Blaine together this past week. If we hadn’t smuggled her in, Blaine would have crashed and burned weeks ago. I don’t care if this costs me my place in the program, I’ll never regret helping Blaine the way I did.”

“Dr Hargreaves seems to think Molly’s presence was causing Blaine to withdraw from the school more and more. She theorises Blaine became so reliant on the cat that it made his time with the rest of the student body even more difficult.”

Wes laughed hollowly, “That’s a load of crap. Anyone who spent two minutes watching Blaine with Molly would tell you that.” He glared at her challengingly.

Fiona smiled sadly as she finally voiced her opinion, “I couldn’t agree more.”

A thrum of tilting confusion slipped through the teenager’s tight controls as her answer completely wrong-footed him. He quickly recovered, “Well then why haven’t you told them that? Make them give Molly back! The teachers just freaked and pulled out the drugs, but Blaine doesn’t need that, he doesn’t! We just need Ku-” Wesley abruptly cut himself off, but Fiona had got the gist.

Frowning, she asked, “Kurt? The low ES boy who went to Blaine’s old school?”

“Blaine’s boyfriend,” Wesley admitted quietly. “It’s complicated.”

Fiona recalled a long conversion with Emily Anderson in the hospital not too long ago, following Blaine’s panic attack scare. It had all come spilling out. Kurt, Blaine, a spiral into the unknown.

“I’ve got that impression,” Fiona sighed.

A burst of anger, and then the boy snapped coldly, “Why is everyone so quick to assume what’s wrong is wrong, and what’s right is right? Molly helps Blaine stay grounded, she helps him stay him, but the teachers say, nope, that’s not proven, that’s not right, and they take her away! Kurt loves Blaine, and Blaine loves Kurt, but sorry, Kurt’s low and Blaine’s high so they can’t possibly be good for each other? Isn’t it a good job we’ve hidden poor Blaine away from the nasty little empty kid?”

Fiona’s heart wrenched in her chest as she watched the carefully contained tempest of a boy in front of her. Sadly, she reached over and squeezed Wesley’s shoulder. “And there’s the biggest lesson you’ll learn in your career, probably the only one you’ll take away from your time at Dalton. Sometimes the rules are wrong, but there’s nothing you can do about it.” She swallowed tightly, “Thank you, for everything you were able to do for Blaine.”

Except that wasn’t it. Tomorrow never came. Blaine disappeared, and it quickly transpired that Kurt had been involved.

Was it wrong to be grateful, when everything her training had taught her was that this could only end in tragedy?

00000

When she hung up the phone, she cried for a good few minutes. A whole week of pent up not-knowing simply burst out in disbelief and hope.

Gathering herself, she quickly checked in with the Sense ER night shift staff to make sure she’d have the test centre to herself. Mutterings and rumours were immediately rife – even those staff members who hadn’t got to know Blaine over the years had caught up by following the recent news coverage.

“Talk about an assault on the senses…” A clear and confident voice sniped, and Fiona exited the back office to meet the new arrivals, taking everything in with one glance.

The man and woman with an irritatingly perfect projection of professionalism would be the agents from the Sense Protection and Incident unit. There were John, Emily and Cooper, looking tired and drawn, but shining with the kind of energy that could only come with the sort of news the Andersons had received tonight.

And there was Blaine. He looked far from healthy, but no thinner or gaunt than when she had last seen him at Dalton a week ago. And this time, his eyes were bright and clear, and his emotions although threaded with apprehension and edged with rawness, were contained. And next to him, keeping a tight hold of Blaine’s hand, a small cut blooming into a bruise standing out on one pale cheek, was the one who had criticised the décor.

Kurt.

“I guess they didn’t think of runaway teenage boys when they decorated,” Fiona said, catching everyone’s attention.

Kurt Hummel was nothing like Fiona had expected. She had seen pictures on the news of course, and as a sense doctor she knew what to expect when faced with someone sub-1 on the scale. But none of that captured the determination, stubbornness, love and strength that practically exuded from the taller boy as he stood at Blaine’s side. Fiona didn’t need any kind of sense-ability to see that.

Carefully keeping one sense on Blaine’s ebbing and flowing emotional state, Fiona introduced herself to the agents, greeted the Andersons, and shook the hand of Burt Hummel, Kurt’s father, as he joined them.

A sweep of panic, and Fiona began to feel Blaine unspool on the edges of her senses. She was prepared to step in any second. Despite her private hopes, if Kurt turned out to be in any way damaging to Blaine, she would remove him immediately.

The ribbons of fear spiralled outwards, but they were tempered by a quiet, certain love. Fiona was just listening to Agent Miller explaining the details of Blaine’ apparent episode, when-

Blaine was gone.

Fiona whipped her head round to look at the boys, mouth ajar.

Her eyes could see Blaine, her eyes could see Kurt. There they stood, arms wrapped around each other, Blaine leaning back into Kurt as the taller boy rested his forehead against Blaine’s temple. The picture of harmony.

In all her years knowing Blaine, she had never known his emotional print to be quiet.

For him to be silent…

“Boys,” Agent Miller said exasperatedly. It sounded like this wasn’t the first time she had tried to get them to separate.

Fiona’s brain couldn’t process her thoughts fast enough, watching with fascination as Blaine slowly came back to himself, his emotions flowing calmly around him. Their eyes met, and the Blaine she saw there was someone she thought had been lost long ago.

Sometimes the rules are wrong, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

But that’s not an excuse. And Fiona was done pretending it was.

Chapter 32

[electronicproductdevelopment]

New Post has been published on Quality, Manufacturing & Product Development

New Post has been published on http://quality-manufacturing.org/optimize-cost-designing-manufacturing-pcb-pcba/

How to optimize cost when designing and manufacturing PCB - PCBA

When developping an electronic product a substantial part of the cost comes from electronic parts. PCB usually weight a not very high proportion of the bill of material but still there are some good practices which can be implement to limit cost on manufacturing pcb. Below is a list of few points which directly come to my mind when considering PCB design cost consideration : 

Reduce the number of layer on your PCB

Try to optimize PCB thickness and number of layer as much as possible as the more layer you will have in your PCB the more your cost will increase.

Ask yourself : Can I draw my PCB on 4 layers instead of 8 by spending a bit more time to optimize spacing.

Every PCB designer know the importance of placement before routing as it got heavy influence on the needed spacing to route parts on the pcb, hence influentiate spacing requirement.

Avoid blind and buried vias

As you much as you can, you should avoid blind vias and buried vias. Normal "trough hole" vias are manufactured using mechanical drill processing which is the "normal way" to generate via on printed circuit board. If your design include buried or blind via, drilling process can not be used to create those vias, instead laser cutting is used to do so. This process is usually more costly because it require special machines. So, the less buried and blind vias you get on your layout, the more you save on your manufacturing cost.

Avoid tight dimension and tolerances

In the domain of PCB manufacturing, everything which is small and tight requiring more accuracy and precision always involve processes which are more expensive because it require some more efficient machines. For examples, you should particuarly watchout to :

The smallest via hole diameter dimension

The smallest distance between two traces

PCB manufacturers usually got limitation with their machine on accuracy so if your dimensions are too smalls, they will need to use more accurate machine which are usually more expensive to use.

In short, you will always pay more and extra for accuracy and precision. So, if you can, try to avoid designing your layout with very high tolerance and very tiny dimensions.

Select PCB materials and finishing properly

PCB finishing have a high influence on pricing due to material use.

Optimize selected material for PCB manufacturing such as finishing or plating of the trace and vias.

Ask yourself: Do you really need a gold plating finishing on those normal pad or can you do without while not compromising quality of your product.

Select components properly

When you design a circuit, some components are highly critical and some are less. Sometimes, a circuit may require a component which the value (e.g resistor or capacitor) to be given with high accuracy and tight tolerances. On the other side, some other components may not be so critical.

On those components which are less critical and influence less your circuit performance, you may easily save a bit some costs if you choose an asian equivalent by swaping this components. Quite often, chip manufacturers will supply reference design with some western components which the cost are usually high. If you open a the BOM of certain reference design at Texas Instruments, you will find out that most of time capacitor and resistors are usually coming from big brands (Vishay, Murata, etc...). Those components are rather basic and since they are, asian manufacturers have no difficulties to produce some equivalent at ultra low cost.

In sort, you can choose asian components for non sensible components for your circuit.

Avoid double side components PCB

Try to get all your components on a single PCB if possible. I have seen in the past some client designing their system on several PCB then linking them together with some connectors or flex.

Unless, you have no choice due to spacing, compliance, radio frequency or thermal constraints, it is always better to avoid double sided component soldering PCBs designs because it involve to perform all the soldering process twice (one on each side of the pcb). One side of the pcb need to be cover with solder paste, then component have to be placed on this same side with a pick and place machine, then the pcb will need to be baked in a reflow oven, and finally components soldering will have to be inspected (normally both with an automatic optical inspection machine and then also manually).

If you have a pcb with components on both side, then you will need to perform this process a second time, have a second set of laser net for solder paste deposition etc..

It also add up complexity (hence risk of quality influencing manufacturing yield) on PCBA manufacturing process because when you have a double sided PCB, one more problem is occurring: gravity. Indeed: you solder SMD components one side and they are maintained by a solidified solder paste which liquefy on temperature rise. When you do the second pass on the other side of the PCB, you will bake again the PCB with side having components being placed in a inverted way upside down on the conveyor of the reflow oven. Hence, under the rise of the temperature, if the process is not perfectly controlled, then components being placed upside down may unsolder due to solder paste liquefaction and gravity.

If not only the process has to be done twice and inflate cost this way, it also indirectly increase unit cost due to PCB defective rejection related to yield.

Don’t place components too close to each other 

Unless you are designing a HDI PCB with very high spacing constraint, you better avoid having your components too close to each other. There are several reason to it. First, you will have to respect pick and place tolerances. Second you will have to respect silk screen tolerances. Third, if you reduce the tolerance for placement, then you may need machines more accurate to perform your manufacturing process. If you need more accurate machine, then your process will cost you more. So, if you can avoid to place your component too close to each other, then do it.

Make testing process to be easy and quick

For those who are not used to PCB manufacturing, an essential part of this process is testing being done at the end of the manufacturing process. One of the most easy way to perform PCB testing is by using test point on the PCB by placing some pin (such as pogo pin) on those testing point to test the circuit. The test point directly connect to a certain node in the circuit allowing to connect directly to this node.

Most of time a fixture / jig is created for pin placement so the pins place themselves almost perfectly and automatically on the testing point, after what series of test is performed to verify the functionalities of the PCB. To avoid any problem related to testing, try as much as possible to place those testing point in easily accessible area and if possible grouped together so that your jig pin area is also reduce.

To accelerate the testing process and reduce cost, a testing software should be prepared in advance to perform the necessary tests once the testing pin are connected to the testing points. This software should be simple to use and quick. The more complicated and complex the test, the longer it takes, the more costly it is.

Respect IPC standard

For those who don't know about it, IPC standard allow components manufacturers, engineers/designers and pcb manufacturers to align on best practice for design, engineering and manufacturing of PCB boards. Those standards have been established by a pool of professionals who have decades of experience in the chip and pcb design and manufacturing. Those people mostly know all the tricks and constantly helps the IPC organization to give guidelines about how to design components, and PCB in the best optimized way.

IPC is for PCB(A) design and manufacturing what is ISO for organization management system. There are plenty of standards which state how PCB should be design and manufacture. So, if during your PCB design phase you align on those guidelines and standard, and if your PCB manufacturer also align on this standard, then the failure and quality issue occurrences will be lower, hence the yield higher, hence your price lower.

If you are employing a designer or engineering company to design your PCB, I invite you to ask them which kind of standard do they use to design their PCB. You should do the same for PCB manufacturers. If they don't give you quickly an "IPC related"  answer, you should better avoid working with them because it will increase the chances to get trouble on design or manufacturing phase due to non standardization.

Get your components being delivered in tray or roll

Components can be supplied by components manufacturers in several different ways. Take the example of SMD switch. You can buy them in bulk bag or you can buy them in tray.

If you want to reduce cost and lead time, you will need to use a pick and place machine to place components on your PCB in an automatic way. Those machines use roll (for small components) and tray (for bigger flat components) as feeders. Typically for roll, the machine will unroll the roll to pick the component directly from the roll, for tray packaging a sucking device will move on X and Y axis to pick the component

If you buy components in bags packaging, it will not fit the pick and place machine requirement so you will not be able to use a pick and place machine to place components. Hence, it will need to be done manually, which means: slow process, non accurate, random and non repeatable placement with risk on quality. It will increase processing time, will reduce yield and adequately will influence your cost in the wrong direction.

So, you should always buy your components in roll or tray and never in bulk unless you have a very specific reason to do so.

Make sure components are cleaned and not rusted

Sometimes, you may send your components to your PCB Assembler so they can process your PCB assembling using the parts your purchased. I usually do so, so that I am sure the parts which are used on my PCBA are the one I have decided for and not some decided by the manufacturer.

Yet, when between the time when they receive those components and the time when they assembly them on PCB, sometimes several days, weeks or even months may occur. In China, the air is highly humid and temperature is usually warm. Components are usually sealed in their roll but some of them are stored in tray where sealing may not be optimized or sometimes after a first batch being done, some inventory remain, are stored for the next production batch. In this case, considering that components got connectors in metal it may happen that those connectors start to get rusted, hence making pad to component legs contact on soldering unefficient. In this case your components will become useless and you will have wasted a lot of money.

Hence, when choosing your PCB manufacturer, perform a quick supplier audit to verify how do they store your components. I have seen in the past, some PCB assemblers fully aware of constraints related to humidity and temperature, in this case they may store some particular components in some chamber where they control temperature and humidity

Make sure solder paste quality 

Solder paste is as an essential element of PCBA manufacturing. For those not aware of what it is, the solder paste is a material which is deposited on the PCB pads using a net. When this paste is heated up, the paste transform into liquid which is used to solder component "legs" on PCB pads.

There are different type of grade of solder paste. Some of them contain lead and you better avoid them for compliance constraints. Some of them contain mix of tin and lead in different proportion. The more tin you have the better the connection between the component and the PCB. To optimize your PCB cost you can play a bit on the selection of this solder paste (but not too much!).

Avoid through hole components 

If you choose component which are trough hole types, then placement of those components on the PCB will have to be done by hand.

Indeed, today there are no machine doing placement of trough hole components in an automated way. If placement is done by hand, it will increase the cost of your PCB assembling and will also increase the risk of defects. In order to keep low cost, never use trough hole components unless you have a serious reason to do so (usually for easy maintenance reasons).

Avoid exotic components

If you plan to use some "exotic" component which are difficult to procure in China then you might need to import them first. If you need to import them, then probably you will have to pay some extra taxes on them and it will inflate your bill of material.

On the top of it, if you use some exotic components you may need to plan much well in advance your procurement strategy to avoid lack of supply.

Did I forgot anything ?

[liam-springthorpe]

Scene two props.

Before I could start animating scene two I needed to make all the props the characters would interact with. This includes a couch, a table, a TV, a sink, a baseball bat, a cupboard, a door, a remote control and miscellaneous jars and bottles.

I made the bookshelf and Table out of waste wafers of foam that Product Design throw away. By measuring, cutting and sanding these into shape I could very easily make believable furniture. A lick of paint as a final touch finalised the furniture. Originally, I was going to draw the contents of the cupboard on Photoshop and print the drawing off. Then I would glue it to the front of the cupboard saving me time. When I asked Mario for feedback he told me that it would be best to make the contents, as a drawing will look flat in the shot. Therefore, I turned the cupboard around and added a piece of foam in the middle to make shelf. Another thing from the feedback was that the furniture might be a little shiny, so I should get a matt finish spray. I got the one Mario suggested but in the end it did not really do much to the overall shine. After this, I got a craft knife and added slices to the furniture. I needed the furniture to suggest wear and tear so the chips and grazes in the old wood worked well. Finally, a little bit of black dye finished them off.

I found the TV I used in the animation cupboard, it was a part of a previous students work and I asked Mario if it was OK to reuse it. All I has to do was spray-paint it black and it was done, saving me a lot of time.

The couch was tricky but I got it to a standard I like. It’s made out of the cheap blue foam I own that is too poor quality for much, but because I covered it in fabric, it is all good. After I got the general shape I wanted (and after I tested my characters on the couch to see if it would work), I used a hammer and cut up paper clips to pin in cotton buds. This added a nice amount of plumpness to the couch. Next, I covered the couch in fabric using a hot glue gun to stick everything together. I took care to ensure the fabric folded the right way and that there were no gaps. In order to fit in the set the couch needed to look worn, so to achieve this look I did three things. The first was cutting it up with a pair of scissors then pulling some of the cotton wool through the holes. The second was using a craft knife to pull up small tufts of fabric. The third thing I did was slightly stain it with dye, mostly around the parts you sit on with a little brown. The final thing I did was glue on a metal plate to the bottom of the couch, allowing me to hold it to the floor magnetically. This will hold the couch down during animation and allows me to get shots that are more dramatic. 

The sink was the most difficult but by far the best part I made. Using a block of plaster I found in ceramics (that I made sure no one was using) I used a saw to slice it in to a square shape. Then I sanded the ends to a rounded rectangle with a file. I asked the technician in the workshop if I could drill in to the block of plaster and he gave me a wide drill bit. With this, I hollowed out the inside and because the sink was finished, I went to get Feedback on it. Mario thought I should make the sink less deep, which I agreed with. As I did this, the sink shattered and I had to glue the broken pieces together. This turned out for the best because the cracks look nice, and when I added ink to stain it the cracks really showed up. After a while of staining, I left the sink finished.

The baseball bat was fun to make, first I found a piece of wood the size I needed and I chopped it into the length I wanted. Then I used a sanding machine to smooth it over and sand paper to get a nice finish. Using a hammer and pins, I nailed the pins into the head of the bat to get the dangerous look. The final changes were gluing fabric to the handle and staining the bat red for blood. This bat looks fantastic and its uneven shape from the pins warping the wood really works well.

Next, I started making the contents of the cupboard and the remote control. The remo0te control was easy to make, just some foam cut and shaped then spray painted black. As for the contents of the cupboard, there were two types of items. The first were tiny jars I had bought from Hobby Craft and filled with things like tea, sugar and spices. They look amazing on the set because the jars look high quality and by using real sugar and spice, the jars are more realistic. The rest of the items were all made using the air-dry clay I had bought for the mouth shapes. I created different things like tall glasses, mugs, salt and peppershakers, coasters and even an ashtray (which I put on the TV table). When the clay dried I spray-painted them using blue, red and white to help stand out, and to add more colours to my film.

Second last thing to do was the door, which was originally just going to be the same type of wood as the first door glued onto the wall. The problem was that the wood was actually quite thick, and it would look weird standing out so much from the wall. Mario suggested I take a high quality photo and print it off to glue on. After a lot of trouble, I eventually got the door printed off and Mark suggested I stain the door to fit in with the set. With this, I got the piece of wood and stained it with the inks. The wood was not absorbent so I had to use a heat gun to evaporate the water. This actually burned the door a little with the heat, setting it on fire, but the burns really add to it. With this, I redid the photo process, scanning it in this time to save time, and I printed it. With the picture printed, I glued it to the wall and remembered the door handle. I did not want to go and remove the handle from the first set but time was pushing so I pulled it off, stained it, and glued it onto the second set. Because of the staining, it looks different enough to the original handle, and even if people did notice it is the same, they would not care.  

Finally, there was just a few more final changes.  I glued the sink and cupboard to the walls making sure that I knew exactly where the walls joined up beforehand so everything had enough room. I also added more ink on the wall with the sink to look like splashes and drips. With this done, I stained some of the skirting board from earlier, cut and glued it on, and then I sanded the corners to a 45’ angel so the walls fitted together well. I stained some of the wall around the skirting board, particularly around the door where it looks like it snapped off. This made it feel like there were layers of grime building up over years. After this I scratched the rat marking into the wall like the hallway in scene one. I did not do the small scratches because people do not pass by inside a flat so those little scratched would not build up. What I did do was I sized up the rat scratches depending on the shots, this way as the film progresses the marks get larger and larger, hinting to the end of the film. In order to make these scratches look different and not just bigger I made the smallest scratches stained with ink to show how long they have been there. The middle-sized scratches had some stains but not a lot and the biggest scratches had no ink to show how new they were. I did this to try to show that the rat is growing bigger and bigger. I went onto Photoshop and drew out some things to glue onto the middle wall (plus the TV screen). These included headlines from newspapers based on a killer, a ransom and even police evidence in the form of a map and photos. To make the police evidence I created hundreds of little boxes of text, then I stained them in three different ways using tea bags (no stain, little teas stain and lots of tea stain). With three types, I then collaged them into an arrow like the one I wanted. As for the map and photo arrow I added string and red thumbtacks (foam I had cut, sanded and sprayed) to the printed of photo’s/map to create the arrow. These arrows in the film are used as as a part of a visual joke. With this, the walls are complete and I could start animating the second scene.

[weblistposting-blog]

New Post has been published on Weblistposting

New Post has been published on https://weblistposting.com/8-bit-breadboard-pc-is-up-to-8-hours/

8-BIT BREADBOARD Pc IS UP To 8 HOURS

[Ben Eater] posted some films of an 8-bit Computer and not using a CPU chip that he built absolutely on a breadboard a few years ago. After being requested for schematics, he ultimately admitted that he didn’t have any. So, instead, he decided to rebuild it and preserve a video log of every step in the manner. You can see his kickoff video, underneath, but You could additionally locate 30 more current motion pictures covering subjects from the ALU layout and troubleshooting to the decimal LED show. He even uses an Arduino to the application an EEPROM that he uses to update numerous logic.

BREADBOARD Pc 

Breadboard Basics

You probably want to wait until you have a few unfastened time as there are around eight hours of movies to date. The videos start off with a simple 555 timer and work up from there. Every piece gets a test cut loose the entire, so with success, you gained have an not possible activity seeking to troubleshoot the entirety at the end.

Initiatives like this are decidedly impractical, however in case you ever need to truly understand how a CPU works, building one is a wonderful manner to expand that know-how. We’d advocate learning Verilog or VHDL and constructing on an FPGA, but the breadboard Laptop has a sure street cred and simply has a pleasing array of blinking lights.

The CPU design follows a design in the ebook “Virtual Pc Electronics” so in case you were severe approximately recreating this, you may follow alongside that, too. The e-book is out of print, but nowadays finding out of print books isn’t very difficult.

Styles of Prototypes: Basic Records

A prototype translates industrial thoughts into a tangible reality. A crew of highly skilled experts takes the specs of your entrepreneurial concept and the use of the present day CAD generation they caricature your thoughts. Then, with the help of Laptop simulations, those CAD drawings are translated right into a prototype that’s an exact copy of the final product.

Prototyping will assist you to get a correct and perfect operating version of your innovation, enabling you to weigh some exceptional alternatives, tweak them and subsequently provide you with a faultless design.

Industrial Prototyping

business prototyping produces absolutely practical prototypes fast and fees efficiently. This method may be used to produce a huge style of small and huge components utilized in industrial programs. business prototyping can reduce design time, trying out time and price. It offers higher visualization of products further to drawings and Computer fashions. This technique lets you keep away from assembling issues within the later ranges of manufacturing.

Rapid Prototyping

speedy Prototyping makes use of Pc technology to turn designs into three-dimensional gadgets. This technique is used for designing models in addition to prototyping components from an already drawn plan. This method can accelerate product development and make sure and faultless merchandise.

Breadboard: Breadboard builds a Primary running model of the final product. The Forms of prototypes crafted at this level may be used for speaking your design concepts to ability version-makers or producers so they get a higher idea approximately the appearance and sense of your final product.

Presentation Prototype: Presentation prototype creates a duplicate of the very last product which could paintings as a promotional material. This stage will display the functionalities of the product, but won’t be a genuine replica of the final product.

Pre-manufacturing Prototype: Pre-manufacturing prototype gives you a precise reproduction of the final product, enabling you to examine each component of the product in detail and discoverability design troubles earlier than launching the very last product. The drawings or photographs of this prototype may be used in brochures, mailings, pamphlets and advertising.

The finished prototype is a useful masterpiece. It is able to provide you a complete understanding approximately your actual product and assist you in discovering and correcting any problem that might arise at the later tiers of manufacturing.

The three-dimensional fast prototyping strategies will provide you a feel of truth and You can use them to sell your ideas to internal stakeholders. All the above-cited Kinds of prototypes can also paintings as powerful advertising and marketing gear.

What is Arduino? A Brief Observe the Arduino Platform

Desktop PC

Arduino is an open-source, programmable microcontroller and software program primarily based on the ATMega chip. Despite the fact that the Arduino is designed as a prototyping platform, It can be utilized in diverse electronics Initiatives whether brief or embedded. The Arduino board can be programmed the usage of the Arduino software. The syntax for that is similar to C/C++ and Java. It’s miles designed to be easy and easy to apply and can be operated with the aid of all people, from beginners to professionals alike.

As Arduino is an open supply platform, You could get preserve of the supply code and schematics for it. This indicates You could delve as ways into it as you want, even growing your own Arduino boards. There may be additionally a massive network at the back of it, and You can discover many tutorials and Initiatives from all around the global on line.

What can I do with an Arduino?

Quite much something you need! It has been utilized in such a lot of one of a kind approaches as the options are really unlimited. Beyond Projects have covered robots, artwork installations, in-car computer systems, MIDI controllers, cocktail makers, human-Laptop interfaces, Fb ‘like’ counters, advertising shows, clocks, tune tool, custom mouse and keyboard, domestic automation… The list goes on and on!

The primary capabilities of an Arduino board are its capacity to study data from sensors, to ship and acquire Virtual alerts and might connect through serial for your Computer. You may control much stuff, from LEDs and LCDs to automobiles and relays. You can also examine values from sensors together with potentiometers, mildly structured resistors (LDRs) and piezo.

The Digital pins on an Arduino can help you study or write 5v values. You can use a pin to turn on an LED (with a resistor). You can send a sign to a relay to function higher voltage home equipment like televisions and house lighting. You could ship messages to automobiles to show on and off. You may test to peer if a button has been pressed. You can even send and receive serial records, parallel information, and Virtual pulse width modulation. Essentially something that may be controlled via a bit of modern can be used.

The analog pins let you examine an incoming voltage between 0v and 5v. This will be the way you read from sensors. There is a mess of sensors available, from simple hands-on pressure sensors and rotary potentiometers to surroundings sensors together with stress, fuel, temperature or even alcohol. If you have, as an example, a slider set to exactly half of its range, it has to output a voltage of 2.5v. The Arduino can then read this and use the price to control something else.

You do not forestall with just controlling digital circuits. You could send statistics again to the Pc to manipulate software program which includes Processing and Max/MSP. You can send the records over USB with most models. some fashions have Bluetooth and Ethernet ports, and with additional shields (like an upload on the unit) You may communicate via WiFi and other protocols.

What cannot I do with one?

Bit meaning

The Arduino does not have lots of processing strength, so Pretty plenty any principal extensive mission is out of the query. You might not be capable of procedure, report or output video or audio (Although You can output pictures to TFT or Liquid crystal display screens). It is not like a Pc. You may not be capable of hook up your webcam or keyboard to it. There’s no operating system with a GUI (like a Raspberry Pi). It’s miles a completely unique beast.

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FAHITON TEXTLE

I’ve been thinking about what i want to go into lately and i’m really torn on what i to do, Fashion Textile i passed aside at first but i’ve been asking about and apparently you can do a more print based study which is what i’m into because i like to screen print my own clothes and sell them so i’m excited to get more of an idea over the next two weeks.

Monday: 

  In the morning we used the wallpaper we was meant to bring in and had a skate magazine brought in because i chose Eccentric Explorations which is one of the theme they asked use to work on and research, i chose this theme because it had something to do with skateboarding in the description so no surpize with me i chose skateboards. I started by cutting out some skaters with a scalpel to make it look they are skating the flowers on the wall paper i had.   

i also cut out some of the flowers and put an advent that was just covered in stickers and skate photos so stuck it under the wallpaper. 

Tuesday: 

I didn’t spend much time in the studio today because i was doing workshops all day. the morning i was doing research in the library but the room we normally do it in was taken up so we just sat around looking at some books of wallpapers. after lunch I went to fashion textles room to do some heat press printing with Jenny. The process uses special inks that very unsaturated so when they go though the heat press they come out bright! you paint the inks on to paper and then put it down onto your material and put a piece of paper on top of it then press the heat press down this makes the inks burn onto the martial to make a print on it! you can put diffrent things under the paper with the inks on to make interning shapes and patterns i done this with a net and button but it melted one to the fabric. I done a two colour test with funny and shapes and objects and two prints of some skaters.     

Thursday: 

Today i was only in for the morning because i become unwell over Wednesday so i was only in for the Uni 9Carrier talk but though i’m interested in fashion the only way i see my self working in fashion is for my self making my own clothes and selling it, i have no intrest for working for someone else in fashion but it did help if i do change my mind! 

Friday: 

i took friday off because i became to ill to go into college, i feel i didn’t miss much though as when i got back on monday nothing seemed like i didn’t miss much but that we was in a new room than the normal studio. 

Monday: 

Today Rob who we’ve met before right at the beginning of the course and he came to help with the fashion project because he just finished London Fashion week so he was keen to help produce our own pieces of clothes just like he did/does. He started us off with making 4 collars for a garment and he’d come round and help us develop an idea out of them, i was a bit dazed and confused so i just stuffed things round the neck of my manichean but Rob seemed to like some of my fidley ideas and designs with one of them and help think of how i could use these ideas for a pair of shorts i wanted to make like saying i could use a collar design for a belt loops and a belt etc. in the noon i had a induction on how to you use the sewing machine which is good but i’m still terrified of them, after that i started to design my shorts.   

here is the original design for my shorts, they was going to have a checker lining down the side with a little button on the bottom and a clip just above the knee so when you roll them up they stay up when you skate etc, they was also going to have checkered back pockets.

Here is my second design after talking to rob about my last design he said they was look for more of a shade change if i was going to use the old jeans i had so we came up with a way to change the shape which was too cut the seam up the sides and sew in a checker material underneath to make them flare out, this design also has checker pockets and checkers belts loops.

On tuesday i cut the side seams and fucked up on of the legs so it would look really unprofessional if i done the second design on both legs which bring us to:

Thurdays: 

The final day to make the garment so i got straight to work though panking and crying in side. I went to the sewing room and sewed up the leg i fucked up on so it goes with the third and final design: 

 the leg i fucked up on will have a extension made of the same checkered material as the rest of the garm so after i sewed up where i went wrong i put together the extension and sewed that on to the leg, i got help from April who showed me the right way to put the right things together with which is inside out! once that leg was on i made the pockets by picking off the original jean pocket drawing around it on the checker and cutting it and pinning them then i sewed them all the way round and sewed on the shorts! i wasn’t very confident on the sewing machine at first but as i went on it got better and better. i did sew part of the shorts together where i didn’t space out the shorts much so they started getting bunched together but i just unpicked it and carried on. so with the leg that unpicked well i folded in the seams so they look flush with the checker and i just sewed them together easy and they came out looking great! after my shorts were basically done i spoke to wendy and she said i should try add a print to my design. i remembered when i made my prints i had a arrow next to some checkers because i thought it was a cool design so cut an arrow shape out of paper painted it read with the heat press ink and heat printed it on to the extension of the leg. i was running out of time so i quickly took off my belt and cut a piece of checker to meet the size and folded it and sewed it together so i’d just tie around though the belt loops like skaters do with shoe laces. and BAM DONE. 

Friday:

Today we have the photo shoot so i just sat around and waited for my turn thursday night i couldn’t go home because of  a storm so i couldn’t get to style my self probably so i stayed at a friends house and borrowed a white knee high sock and a black one which was the best i do. after the shoot we packed up the room we was in a headed back the studio and so it was done.