Delve Into Lunacy

This was a joke / tribute to a guy that I work and race with who has the last name of Vos. I went with the Porsche Boxster since he used to own one. I’m just assuming that it was pink and covered in daisy graphics.

Overall it was a fairly slap-dash design that only took about 30 minutes to do. I did realize from these pictures that I need to move the flowers on the sides down some. I thought the bottom of the stems were at the bottom of the car, but the shadows are more pronounced in the game so I couldn’t tell for sure.

Porsche Boxster (PI: U999)

If you are the type that plays little internet based word games on sites like Yahoo! Games or MSN Zone then I highly recommend that you check out a new site that Microsoft recently brought online called Live Search Club.

Currently there are only about 8 games on there, but the cool thing is that as you play you earn what they call tickets. These tickets can then be redeemed for a variety of prizes. The good stuff such as the Zune and the Xbox 360 package of course require quite a few tickets, but if you are playing games anyway you might as well be getting something for it I think.

Anyway, I’ve created an Excel document to help with some of the games that provide a decent number of tickets.

The first is Chicktionary. The spreadsheet contains a database of valid words that can be used for each set of letters. Enter the letters, hit enter (or tab or an arrow key) and it will pop up the words that have been verified as being accepted for that particular game. You can use Anagrammer.com for this same thing, but there are so many words that get returned that this saves you from constantly scrolling and also doesn’t return words that the game won’t accept.

The second game I’ve covered in the spreadsheet is Seekadoo. This game is a word search but they don’t give you the words. I’m good at word searches but suck at finding things when I don’t know what I’m looking for. In this version of the spreadsheet I just have it so you can enter the letters from the grid and then by clicking on a given letter it will display all the possible letter combination in each direction starting with that letter that you selected. It won’t give you the answers, but it should make it easier to find stuff when you’re not trying to see if you can find a word that might be spelled backwards or what not. In a future version I might put in the answers but we’ll see.

If I find other games that would benefit from this type of helper I’ll add them as I go along. I’ll also be updating the spreadsheet with new Chicktionary solutions over time so check back every now and then for updates.

** Update 10/3/07 ** I’ve added the ability to get Red Carpet Reveal solutions.

** Update 9/29/07 ** I’ve added the ability to get Search Queries and the Missing Links and Star Shuffle solutions.

** Update 7/30/07 ** I’ve added the abiltiy to get Clink and Crosswire solutions. I’ve also added a statistics page to the spreadsheet.

** Update 7/28/07 ** I’ve added the ability to get Dingbats, Flexicon and Seekadoo solutions to the spreadsheet at this point.

Here’s the spreadsheet: Live Search Club Helper  (Current version uploaded on 12/1/07. Includes 350 Chicktionary, 110 Clink, 1 Crosswire, 350 Dingbats, 17 Flexicon, 53 Red Carpet Reveal, 26 Search Queries and the Missing Links, 335 Seekadoo and 5 Star Shuffle solutions.)

Note: The document is in Excel 2007 macro enabled format. You’ll need to enable macros when opening it for it to work correctly. If you don’t have Excel you can try using the Excel 2003 Viewer with the compatibility update for Excel 2007. I’m not sure if the viewer works with macros or not but it’s worth a shot.

Problems downloading? If the link gives you a prompt to download a ZIP file you’ll need to change the file extension to XLSM. Not sure why this is happening, but that’s the fix.

I wanted to do a US flag car but I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it in the same way that I did the British flag since it’s not symetrical. Last night I decided to just start slapping stuff on a car and this is what I ended up with. Overall it turned out better than I expected it to and I’m fairly happy with it.

Dodge Viper Comp Coupe (PI: U999)

I figured that since I was buying a Vauxhall anyway it was a good time to go ahead and try a paint design that would cover every side of the car. Initially it seemed like doing something that’s all straight lines, such as the British flag, would be pretty simple and actually the first few steps really were.

I started by creating the design on another car that had larger flat surfaces. I looked up the actual dimensions and what not of the flag so it’s as accurate as I could get it (including the offset of the diagonal red lines). Once I had that complete I saved it as a vinyl group and then pasted that to the roof of the Vauxhall. A little resizing and then the top was complete.

It’s at this point that the project got ugly. Basically, trying to make it look like straight lines wrapping around the corners of the car is a serious pain in the ass. None of the angles even remotely match up and once you think you have it looking right from one angle it looks like crap from another. This is why the corners come to a point like they do in the pictures. I’ll probably mess with it some more later on, but for the time being I am thoroughly irritated with working on it.

Vauxhall VX220 (PI: U999)

*** Update: I’ve added two more photos of the Charger and also the photos and info on the VW Golf. ***

Well, I’ve started playing Forza 2 Motorsport on Xbox 360 and I’m already addicted to the painting tools within it. It’s more time consuming than I expected it to be, but due to it’s addictive nature I’m okay with that. Below are some of the paint jobs I’ve done so far.

Acura VIS Integra (PI: S995)

I didn’t make a huge number of changes on this one since the VIS Racing logo, along with the red and white stripes, were already on the car and can’t be modified. I did add the Acura logo to the front bumper, the white stripe around the bottom and back and also the Anorexic Panda logo on the license plate area and roof (not visible in these images).

Dodge Charger (PI: U999)

This was the first car that I did a little more extensive painting on even though it’s still fairly minimal. I’ve added the gray border border around the base of the car which is separated from the lavender top with a gradiant white line. I’ve also added little waves in a combination of transparencies. The waves continue around the front of the car but not the back. I’ve also added the Anorexic Panda logo to the license plate area and to the roof.

Volkswagon Golf (PI: U999)

This is the first car where I tried wrapping something besides a straight horizontal line around various sides of the car. It would seem simple enough but since each side of the car is a different section in the editor it can be a bit tricky. The angles of the images completely change and it can require some fiddling to make it look consistent.

Anyway, I didn’t get too fancy here. I added the white diamonds that wrap from the hood down the side of the car and they have a dark gray shadow beneath them. I added the red lines to help fill up the empty area on the hood. I also threw on the now standard Anorexic Panda logo on the roof as well.

Lil’ Peter Griffin Project

For this I wanted to recreate Peter Griffin as he looked as a little kid. You can see the image I’m working off of and where I’m at so far with it. It’s incredibly time consuming so I’m only working on it off and on. The car in this image won’t be the final location of the graphic, I’m just using it since it’s a fairly large and flat surface. I’ll add more pictures as I get further along.