Photoshop Flailing: What famous movie characters are up to these days

This week's Cracked.com photoshop contest asked readers what famous movie characters are doing today. I was happy to oblige, and was able to come up with the following. Click any of them for a higher res version.

This was the role Anakin Skywalker was born to play!

Wait until you hear him sing "It's a Hard Knock Life"!

Once a pirate, always a pirate they say.


Though sad that this form of piracy lacks the adventure of the good old days, Jack is warmed to the fact that he has access to limitless porn.

And lastly, I was thinking really hard on how I wanted to use Robocop in a photoshop. Suddenly, the answer dawned upon me like a zen master coming to enlightenment:


The only reason Robocop hasn't joined Daft Punk is because scientists are worried that the universe would then implode on its own awesomeness.

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The Pen IS Mightier...

This evening I was trying to do something productive with my new Bamboo tablet. You know, to kick the tires. I decided to use this week's Cracked.com Photoshop contest to see how it impacts my ability to use Photoshop. The theme of the contest was "Everyday objects as designed by M.C. Escher".

I have to say, working with a tablet is immensely less frustrating than the mouse. Granted, I'm still a relative novice at Photoshop, but the control and flexibility of having a pen on a surface was liberating. I dare say it was fun to be able to add so many little details to an image so quickly - details that would otherwise be a chore. Touch-ups, surgical erasings of layer parts, extractions, even layer manipulation just felt natural, allowing me to accomplish in seconds what used to take minutes.

One thing I still need to get used to is the tablet pen itself. It comes with 2 buttons on the pen, right at the level where I keep my thumb. If I'm not careful, my grip (which I find changes as I write) will accidentially hit one of them and screw up what I'm doing at a given moment. This is more of a minor setback than anything, and one I'm confident I'll avoid entirely with more practice.

While this was only a dry run, I'm really happy with the tablet and expect to use it more in the future. The resultant image of this dry run:

Yo dawg, we heard you like Swiss Army Knives...

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Shotgun Content 5

Every so often, I have some things I'd like to post here at The Unwind, but can't really justify making a whole post out of any of them.

• An old friend of mine, "Danger" Dan Robinson, and I are starting a podcast call Fair Use Law. We're still working out when we're going to actually start it (with Thanksgiving coming up and all), but it should be a weekly podcast of everything and nothing all at once. It's essentially doing what we always do, only we'll have a microphone in front of us recording it.
  
  More details to follow, but to give you some insight into my future colleague, here's the intro theme to it that he wrote and created. It's delightfully whacked-out, and I wholly approve:
  
  http://www.carlandsons.com/fairuselawtheme.mp3



• Steam has been a huge pain in my butt today. After I updated my client, I've had issues logging in all day that are still unresolved. I need to kill me some zombies, Valve.



• From the "why the hell can I not look away" files, I wanted to share MiniKiss, which I originally found out seeing them in a random sports bar some time back with friends. MiniKiss is a coverband of Kiss... played by dwarves.
  
  Yes, it's all the Kiss hits you've come to know and love - like "Rock and Roll all Nite", "Strutter", and "Detroit Rock City" - played by people half the size of the original. We're talking pure, concentrated 80's here.



• Lastly, this week's Cracked.com photoshop content is "creative ways to break bad news". Only really had one idea for it:
  
  

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Shotgun Content 4

• I will be the first to tell you, I am not a gear head. I don't know the first thing about cars. But if I were going to "pimp my ride" or whatever kids these days call it, this is how I'd roll. 20" wagon wheels. Big enough for some serious street cred, yet bizarrely excessive enough for me to actually want to do that to my car.



• Some guy in Pennsylvania ate a 15 pound hamburger in less than 5 hours. I was literally brimming with American pride when I read that. Other countries may be starving, but this guy wins money for eating more than a human should in a sitting. Good luck with your, quote, "burger hangover", you American hero!
  
  Actually, I have to give him some credit... that burger looks incredibly threatening. Unless there's some kind of camera trick involved, it looks to be as wide as the dude's torso!



• This has to be one of the funniest things from The Onion I've seen in a while.



• Yesterday's post was inspired by my lone submission to cracked's reader contest. This time, they asked that we MS Paint what the current election would look like to a 5 year old. I only made one submission because I realized that I don't like to draw with a mouse, and I don't like MS Paint.
  
  
  
  And if I were to actually market the (fake) Terror Wrists product, I'd likely need to go on a Terror Wrist campaign. I'd set-up local Terror Wrist organizations, fan clubs if you will, which would carry out Terror Wrist activities.

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Photoshop Flailing: Ways to improve the presidential debates

Another week, another cracked.com reader photoshop contest it seems. This week's theme is coming up with ways to improve the presidential debates. My entries are below, but you can find all the other entries here. If some of the resolutions seem funny, click the image for the full view.

Randy and Paula liked his performance, but Simon was a prick as usual.


This is an apt metaphor. People claim to be interested in NASCAR, too, but secretly they're hoping to see some serious wreckage.


LOL.


Diabeetus vs. Puddin' Pops. The ultimate debate.

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Yatta!

I got #4 in the weekly Cracked.com photoshop content. You can see all the selected entries here.

Not only that, it turns out they used mine as a header. A link to the screenshot can be found below:

http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk43/TheUnwind/2008%20-%20October/crackedhomepage.jpg

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Photoshop Flailing: The most awkward moment of all time

These weekly reader submission photoshop contests from Cracked.com are really addicting for two reasons: One, I really want to win one of these... or at least appear as one of the selected entries. Two, they already choose a subject for me to practice and ply my photoshop skill.

You can find all the entries here, but the theme of this week's contest is "the most awkward moment of all time".

This one is awkward because the boom mic guy ruined some otherwise great footage:

"That's one small step for man... one giant- DAMMIT, GARY, GET OUT OF THE SHOT!"

Here, Santa finds himself on the naughty list with Chris Hansen on an episode of "To Catch a Predator".

Have a seat.

With sincerest apologies to Thích Quảng Đức and his ultimate protest, this would be pretty awkward:

She didn't even bring enough to share!

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Photoshop Flailing: How to stay in business after the meltdown

Decided to partake in the weekly reader photo submissions at Cracked.com. They've asked people to come up with ways companies can stay in business after the financial meltdown, and I've been more than happy to oblige.

The way I see it, you can either substitute cheaper goods, thus reducing the cost of your product...

I bet no one will even know the difference.
Offer less services for the same amount of money...

This freaking thing would still cost $500 and be sold out on launch day.
Or make your product even that much more irresistible.

Great, now it's even MORE addictive.

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