Outer Space - Blog Posts
The Boogeyman Nebula and Tarantula Nebula
since I haven't reblogged much space lately
Here ya go <3
Alright ladies and gents! NEW MARS IMAGES
Check out brand new photos of the small moon Phobos! Mars Express Captures Stunning Image of Phobos, Olympus Mons, and Mars’ Atmosphere
⚠️remember to click on photos to view full 4k quality.
1200 Megapixel
⚠️Remember to click on photo to view in full hd quality
Jupiters moons rotating! Look at those spinning clouds! Thanks to Cassini
Planetary Nebula NGC 2440
Planetary nebula NGC 2440 is a relic of a star once like our Sun that has cast off its outer layers of gas, forming a colorful cocoon around the star's remaining core.
I can't tell if these are all real but they are all so gorgeous!!
Orion
My photo
Our Moon in stunning 8K
NGC 6914 - 14.5 hrs SHO w/rgb stars
Hexagons are the bestagons
Saturn's north polar hexagon (November 27, 2012)
My favorite most beautiful planet in the solar system! Jupiter!
Keep looking!!! I'm uploading more
A piece I did today, I’m planning to print it for myself in the future
I've said before that I always want Cyber Monday to be cooler than it is, to be neon-soaked and punky...
In short, Cyberpunk Monday.
Well, what's more punk than forgoing the big corpo sites and buying straight from creators and small businesses? Supporting art and artists directly, adding value to the ecosystem of unconventional stories that don't follow the traditional sales model.
So, I'm trying something different this year... I'm going to run a 20% off sale through noon on Dec. 3. It's an automatic discount site-wide on colorofamirror.net (including all versions of the novel, plus the vinyl soundtrack). The only exclusion is the already-better discount of 25% off for the Full Moon Bundle, which doesn't stack with this sale.
This will likely be the only sale I run during the year, so if you've been interested in picking up a copy of the book or you have someone in mind for a holiday gift, this is your chance.
A noir science fiction story, COLOR OF A MIRROR is written, designed, published, and sold by me (and can be found in a couple independent bookstores in the New England area). It has received "Editor's Pick" from BookLife Reviews and a "Get It" verdict from Kirkus Reviews. I don't sell on Amazon/Kindle or B&N, and the e-book is DRM-free so you can read on whatever device you choose, making this a perfect Cyberpunk Monday offering.
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This weekend, whether you're shopping local bookstores on Small Business Saturday or finally picking up that bespoke item from a favorite creator, let's support those that are making the art we love... not the big businesses trying to turn us into dollar signs.
Can’t think of a much better way to celebrate one year of this project, than by getting to see a review for COLOR OF A MIRROR in print for the first time! And in the indie section of Publishers Weekly no less!
Written, designed, published, and sold by me.
Thanks to BookLife for the review, and thank you always to the Kickstarter backers who helped make this possible (and to everyone who’s picked up the book since then).
colorofamirror.net
About a year ago now is when Josh McCausland and I first wrapped production of the Color of a Mirror soundtrack, and sent it off for pressing! (The above photo is an abstract shot of the first test pressing sleeve.)
After the post the other day about the Full Moon Bundle (containing the limited vinyl release) I wanted to take a moment of special mention for this soundtrack and what it means to me.
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One of my biggest loves (and frustrations) of a show or video game is the music. When it’s done right, it’s one of those things that gives you chills, and you can’t wait to return to that universe, can’t wait to hear that title card music at the start of the next episode. (Like launching the original Mass Effect and hearing that menu music.) On the flip side, it can derail the whole experience for me… or at least make it far less memorable, because music often sets the scene for me.
This extends to when I’m writing, as well. Depending on the mood or the emotion, I’ll find different songs that fit that character or scene. And then lots of times, I’ll have that selection on repeat for a few days. Haha.
So being able to collaborate with a composer on the sound of this dark cyberpunk universe I’d been writing for a handful of years, trying to pull on all those ambient/sci-fi/industrial influences but also create something that felt new, something that could be listened to while you’re reading or on its own… it was really an amazing experience, and I couldn’t be prouder of what we came up with!
It all started with just two images that I sent to Josh; I said, “This is the vibe.” (He hadn’t read the book at that point, and I was thinking he was just going to make a single promo song for me.) When he came back to me with about ten different options, making it super difficult to choose, I knew the project had to be a full album. Iterating back and forth with him and seeing his process, taking some of those initial hooks and tying them together… so much fun!
The title track “Color of a Mirror” was one of those original concepts that I just couldn’t get enough of. The sound for the rest of the album was really born there, I think.
All in all, it’s such an honor to see my vision of this novel through someone else’s skill and expertise in an entirely different discipline. Such a pleasure, and I cannot wait to work on Vol. 2 together!
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Check out the soundtrack on Bandcamp to give Josh some love:
(Also available on major streaming platforms.)
And if you want to check out the book as well, head over to my website.
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Thanks for reading!
-Daniel
Full moon today... looking up at a full moon is always one of those times when I feel the scale of the solar system and planets more acutely, and naturally it gets me thinking about science fiction and outer space. For those in the northern hemisphere, we're also a month into very warm summer, which has me dreaming of somewhere dark and cold more often than not.
Put these two things together, and we have the first ever sale bundle for my debut novel Color of a Mirror and its accompanying soundtrack! Set on the moon in a subterranean cyberpunk city, it's the perfect antidote to too much heat and not enough jacket weather. Add in the dark ambient soundtrack, and it's as close as you can get to actually being there.
And so... The Full Moon Bundle.
If you purchase the Hardcover Novel, the Vinyl Soundtrack, and the E-book all together, you automatically get 25% off all three! No sign-ups or anything necessary; just go to the purchase page for any of those three items, and you'll find an option to purchase the bundle.
If you want a psychological noir sci-fi mystery that Kirkus Reviews called "intricate, next-generation cyberpunk, with a head-spinning finale," check out the link below! There's never been a better time to wander into The Dive.
Main Title Design: Lesson 3.
For this assignment, we were tasked with creating six narrative frames with typography using only a limited set of 40 images. The film is a documentary about the Apollo mission. I used only 6 of those images, in my effort to create a set of modern minimal titles.
Instead of going for the sepia-faded, old-film look, I really wanted everything to have a strong black level, to make it feel more modern, (perhaps more like how the movie Gravity made me feel about outer space). However, I didn't want to completely do away with a nod to the past, to the "Golden Age" of space exploration, so the opening frames are very warm as the sun breaks around the edge of a hidden planet. It evokes a more mysterious energy, more like a sci-fi movie, speaking to discovery and unknown worlds.
As we begin to pan across the planet, we see the Command Module hanging in orbit around the planet. It's moving towards us slightly, even as we pan further to the left of it. As it grows larger in our field of vision, preparing to pass by on the right side of the screen, the camera pulls back through a window, and we realize we are in the Lunar Module, seeing through the eyes of one of the astronauts.
The camera pans away from the first window, settling on the smaller "approach" window. At first the view through that portal is blurred, focusing instead on the numbers on the glass. But once we move beyond that glass, the moon is passing by, filling our vision, until finally, we settle on the final frame. This last shot mirrors and inverts the first frame, contrasting the warm glow of exploration and expectations of 1960s space exploration with the colder, harsher reality that is outer space.
As for why I chose the "side" view of the moon, instead of putting it at the bottom of the shot... simply put, it's not a view we see as much in film and other media. And the truth is, there is no up or down in space, so the views aren't grounded in the planet's surface being beneath your feet.
The font is "Impact Label Regular." I chose it in an attempt to replicate the old-style label machines that created the raised labels for technical systems and buttons back in the 60s and 70s. The font also evokes the feel of classified documents, riddled with black redaction marks. The Apollo missions were all part of the space race and NASA's battle with the Soviet Union (not to mention the strong undercurrents of the Cold War). The science and research documents behind the rockets and computer systems were highly classified materials, and so I wanted to make sure to include an homage to this atmosphere.
(via Homework - 3. A Controlled Experiment)
@ashthorp
Working on the most recent lesson for Main Title Design taught by Ash Thorp, the homework was to create a title sequence for a documentary about the Apollo missions. In the process, I came up with this title card. Not exactly the vibe I was going for, but it speaks to my glitchy, sci-fi, cyberpunk side.
Perhaps, if this were an Alien-esque horror movie, I could get away with it.
Shadow of the Sun.
Simple Circle Shadow Another one I really like...
Paperhatober Day 18: Space🪐
Space Screenshots (Backstreet Boys) Part 1
Warning: Terrible Shots
