Researching Snakes and Ladders

Firstly, an explanation. The Snakes and Ladders board game is a metaphor that Ruth and I have used for our lives together. It featured in our wedding - the cake was designed as a snakes and ladders board and I used the board on a plate that I designed earlier.

Ruth has had serious mental health issues, I have depression. Early on in our relationship we were talking and the conversation went along the lines of "I wish that at that point I had..." The real point is, of course, that we are no longer at that point. Rather we are at where ever we are.

Hence the Snakes and Ladders board. Doesn't matter in some ways if it's a snake or a ladder, you have to start at the square that you are on - or where the inevitableness of the situation is going to take you.

Why I am doing this.
Two years ago I started doing an illustrated book on our experiences, combined with those of other people. It was based on a small showing of pictures that I had done in Bath's annual Fringe Arts Bath (FaB) show. But last year it stalled. I could tell it was going nowhere and I had to regroup. The ideas were still good but there was no focus. I tried a comic book narrative. Then a week ago it went full circle, a board game is often similar in layout to a comic book and I already had a board game in mind.

Stuff I've found
In no particular order here are some images and links that I've found. Interestingly, it appears it's not the first time that someone has used the game as a metaphor for life. In course of looking at images I found this: "The timelessness of Snakes and Ladders" by Doug Bierend, which looks at the moral issues behind the game.

Here's a description of the game, just in gaming terms. I did a board where you could decide between a snake, several snakes or a snake or a ladder. Ruth said that defeated the purpose. I think it makes it more like real life as you have to look ahead and and balance the risks either way.

Several sites, like this one, use the game as an entry to coding. here's another version from DataGenetics.

Sandra Dodd writes a history of Snakes and Ladders from an American perspective, where it is known as Chutes and Ladders.

Of course some motivational speaker has to get his oar in...

 Complete with small children getting chastised.

Here's a version of the game based on the journey of two people using trains. It's in a games museum here. They have many other variations.

This is an Indian version, used to teach morality and the effects of vice. A destiny over which you had little control. Note the ladders all go to a heaven of sorts. Wikipedia had a full article form which this was taken.

Common kids version



















Vintage version on an antique dealers website.
















Can't find an attribution for this one...

Once again, with moralistic overtones, funding by the clothes I would have thought 1930s. Found on Vanished Eras website

Australian, 1901, teaching virtue and the sadness of ignoring good advice. Snakes and Ladders of 1901 provides an old-fashioned moral view. Players slide down the snakes of anger, pride, depravity and vanity while they climb the ladders of forgiveness, penitence, pity and faith. Found in Australian National Archive.

This is from the blog of another Steve, who recounts his encounter with the game. Looking at the game and the blog it struck me that the counterpoint to the snake you've just fallen down should be the next ladder. 
















Modern morality and health advice.












Here it is used by Hisperian to illustrate the disposal of toxic waste.
















Carbon zero planet use it as a way of explaining environmental issues.

3D snakes and ladders




































Finally a person sized version.

Quick Tutorial in Photoshop Masking

Here's the screenshots from a Tutorial I did yesterday about Masking in Photoshop. Incidentally, if you see a mistake, please let me know in the comments!

 So what is masking? This is a layer mask.

The mask consists of an additional channel to the  layer.

For my demo I supplied the files, but to make this work amy image will do.

I filled this with a colour. If you use black or white then you won't be able to see any mistakes.

Any normal brush. Try novelty ones for something different!

See if you had used a black fill and you made a mistake - you wouldn't be able to see where you had gone wrong

For the avoidance of doubt that is HIDE the layer.

here's a demo using some sample files.

Great thing about a mask. Nothing is actually deleted. Make sure you save in Photoshop format. (PSD)

Colouring nearly done.

Four hours gone and I have painted the rocks and 245 carrot noses. There's still some pencil shading to be done and a look by the cool light of day for bits I've missed. The major elements to be done are a sky; which I'll paint separately and drop in, and I will hue shift the brown mountains to an indigo blue colour.

Right now I could go on all night, but common sense says "Quit while you're ahead"

Ink and colour tests.

Tried a number of different blues/pens. None of them gave exactly what I was looking for - a waterproof blue. Also tried pencils but not happy with finish. Considered drawing in brown then doing a hue shift. But that would rule out paint. However I have done a hue shift in another posting.

Us. Including cat.

Of course we're here. Although Ruth looks like she's got a beard. That will need to be fixed in post production.

This isn't the finished version, just a quick fix. You can see the hue shift working for the background. The brown has been changed to blue. I thought this worked rather well. 

Christmas cards cometh...

That's nearly all the drawing down. Quicker than last year, only two days down there at the moment, but the colour and digital work still to come.

This is just a bit.

Lytro, nice idea for stereoscopic pictures, but no cigar....

I got quite excited at the idea of one of these cameras for 3D shots, especially when the original cameras are going for less than £100 at the moment.

What attracted me was the chance of using them to produce 3D shots from the information captured and using the newish Lytro software.

I downloaded the software and also download the Lytro sample files. This is the one I chose, because if it could show the background through the rain drops it would be impressive.

Unfortunately the 3D conversion, that seems to rely on a generated depth map didn't produce what I had hoped for, although I expected the card boarding that comes with the narrow interocular .

Looking closely at the pattern of rain-drops, it appears that some thing has happened.

Whether this is bad retouching, or a side effect of the Lytro software I'm not sure.

Here's the image in three dimensions.