Andrew loomis has a pretty good series. It’s old enough that you can find free scans online; or find a print edition in your local library. Or buy a copy new or used. Figure drawing, and head and hands are good primers, especially if you’re just learning the anatomy.

Found a leather sectional sofa for like $69 at habitat. One piece closer to being liveable.

Take ii on that earlier concept. I had a shorter truss laying around, and wound up remaking the camera carriage, and remade the lens cone shorter by 4” which should mean it’s possible to focus at infinity now. To dark to test for sure.

Got a new tripod. The old Majestic all metal type. They’re really sturdy, and were intended for 8x10 or cine use. Needs new rubber feet, but otherwise in good shape. Just needs a deep clean. I failed to realise this thing extends up to like 12-14’ when fully expanded.

Good news: the dallmeyer 36” rig is coming along Bad news: i made the lens cone too long, so now I need to somehow take 2-6” out of that assembly to get it to focus at infinity.

It’s an RCA or Marconi studio camera. I think an RCA TK60, circa 1963 ish. I believe its a black & white only camera, one of the last RCA would build.

I have too much of a library. Too many references and other texts I need to haul around for work.

(They actually did it twice, with the east side airlines terminal, but the 42nd street terminal looked better imo)

Reminds me of the crazy way NYC tried to do a manhattan based airport terminal. The 42nd Street Airlines terminal, right across the street from Grand Central. You went in, bought tickets, checked in, and then took an escalator to the bus that drove straight to the airfield.

Went to a thing. Will post scans whenever i get around to it.

So what are they doing to make it all metal unibody? Their marketing language in the footnotes leads me to think they’re doing metal injection moulding. Die casting. Which is maybe the most fascinating change. It means different alloys, different finishing process. Maybe less corrosion resistance.

Sketches from today that were going nowhere. Not happy with the geometry of the head.

Also part of my big worldbuilding project, i keep coming back to the commandos/expeditionary company from Cerak which turns up in manhattan in the last act of marooned in manhattan. Trying to design a uniform that echoes 20th century stuff but isn’t based on anything specific. Except the gasmask.

Haven’t talked about it much, but in my big dumb worldbuilding project; i have ‘yet another’ book concept set maybe 5-10 years after the main 3, and takes place in a highschool setting in the PNW. Protags are 4 seraf or hybrid boys in like junior or senior year. Still fleshing out ideas so very wip.

One of these day’s i’ll finish this. Need to blow off the dust. And make some executive decisions on the size of the ears, building out the cheeks, and trying to get is as even as possible.

Not a lot to shoot rn with that long of a FL. Though maybe the vista down into DC from the crystal highlands. I also just got a 300mm equivalent. But I need to build a fixture to actually be able to use it. I may also need to disassembled it to mill a slot to have smaller apertures…

This shit sucks. The pickaxe was neccessary to break up the snowcrete.

So the 36” dallmeyer is going to be a chore to mount. It focuses like, 24” away from the film plane (i was expecting 18” which is ½ the F.L. which is the norm for telephoto designs). But to retain enough bellows capacity for near focus, i’m gonna need a 16-17” lens cone. Total truss/rail ~40”.

Plotting continues. Still figuring out how everything will go together in a more substantial way than my previous solutions. IE, designing a solution that will hopefully be interchangeable with my 20” this 36” and maybe a 40” or others in the future.

This is what a period typical nicer case would be like, and this is likely what I’m going to copy.

This is what a typical case would look like for the (series B, C, D, RB auto) graflex. Usually room enough for the camera and a mag or two. The larger ones sometimes have a lens pocket.

So how do we get that much illumination: flashbulbs. Lots of big flashbulbs.

The recent pattern of my life is feeling rather absurd. Came back to my hotel only to have to navigate the fire stairs in the dark because the power was out.

Sometimes kodak did incredible feats of engineering because they could.

But yeah it’s medium format, so it’s a fair bit bigger than your average camera. But i have big hands, so it works out to be in the range of comfort for me.

Its actually huge. (I jest of course, that’s just a giant model they made for camera shows and it wound up on television)

I need to use the chevron more. It’s such an oddball camera.

Success

Cleaning tech pens is s nuissance. But even more so when you leave ink in them for a year or two and it turns to shellac sludge.

I used the technique a lot in my older ink work. Though there is some challenge to getting consistency, particularly between sessions.