Simon's Sketches

Post by **Omphalos** » 09 Jan 2009 01:54

Actually only dead ones. JFK and Marilyn. And yes, they're doin' the hokey-pokey.

GamePlayer · Post by **GamePlayer** » 09 Jan 2009 11:32

That guy is fucking crazy!

A Thing of Eternity · Post by **A Thing of Eternity** » 09 Jan 2009 12:14

I love that guy, his website reminds me of an old buddy of mine.

TheDukester · Post by **TheDukester** » 09 Jan 2009 12:21

A Froot-Loop of the highest order.

Post by **Omphalos** » 09 Jan 2009 12:34

DN sure does draw them in, doesn't it?

GamePlayer · Post by **GamePlayer** » 09 Jan 2009 15:02

It reads like one of those christian fundamentalist you're-all-going-to-hell websites. The kind of site we all laughed at when we explored the novelty of the internet for the first time at the school library.

"I'm tellin' ya, if we don't find a way out of this soon, I'm gonna lose it. Lose it? It means go crazy...nuts...insane...bonzo, no longer in control of one's faculties, three fries short of a Happy Meal, WAAACKO!!!"

Post by **Omphalos** » 09 Jan 2009 16:11

Take a look at that first blurb. Who the heck are Bob's "students?" Wouldnt that be a fun class?

and I looked through Bob's nuthouse and found this picture of him with Mrs. Clinton:

http://www.commonsensecentral.net/csc_2 ... lary_1.JPG

I always thought Bob was an old man. Look at the front of his T-shirt.

Here is the story about how Bob made Hillary Clinton hop-to with some dastardly government cover-up. Thank god for Bob and his sticktoitiveness!

Post by **Omphalos** » 09 Jan 2009 16:27

Ah! I spoke too soon. Here is a link to Bob's computer science class syllabys. Notice the Mars link. Bob apparently tries to inspire his students to love Mars the way he does. Here is evidence of his influence.

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 09 Jan 2009 19:26

I haven't checked to see if it's still there, but he used to have an account on the site about how he was dismissed from his former teaching position at a college for injecting too much of his wackiness into his classes. Naturally he pays it up as a battle over censorship of free inquiry/intellectual freedom, with himself as the brave warrior defending the Truth. Look for a link about his disagreement with such-and-such college.

(Thread derailed again.)

inhuien · Post by **inhuien** » 11 Jan 2009 07:38

Omphalos wrote:I always thought Bob was an old man. Look at the front of his T-shirt.

He surely has one of those scary intense faces.

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 20 Jan 2009 09:31

Simon wrote:

It seems Simon's vision/version of the Navigators now has a bit of competition, in "the art of jorge alegria" as posted by the (self-effacingly monickered) "superartist".

superartist wrote:I want a navigator to be something you do not want to be around. What I have in mind is a combination of several things: beta fish, deep-sea creatures, starved prisoners, mummies. What I imagine when you walk up to a navigator, you only see a decorative, glass-like tank of melange gas. Then the glints of black-blue eyes piercing through the spice gas...

Yes...quite.

Read the fucking books.

FH in DM wrote: Scytale looked at the Guild envoy. Edric swam in a container of orange gas only a few paces away. His container sat in the center of the transparent dome which the Bene Gesserit had built for this meeting. The Guildsman was an elongated figure, vaguely humanoid with finned feet and hugely fanned membranous hands—a fish in a strange sea. His tank's vents emitted a pale orange cloud rich with the smell of the geriatric spice, melange.

... "Are you one of us or not, Scytale?" Edric asked. He stared out of tiny rodent eyes.

... "Was it to bandy platitudes with a humanoid fish or dispute with a fat Tleilaxu Face Dancer?" Scytale asked.

... Scytale shifted his gaze from Irulan to the tank, inviting the Princess to share his viewpoint. She would, Scytale knew, see Edric as a repellent figure: the bold stare, those monstrous feet and hands moving softly in the gas, the smoky swirling of orange eddies around him. She would wonder about his sex habits, thinking how odd it would be to mate with such a one. Even the field-force generator which recreated for Edric the weightlessness of space would set him apart from her now.

... Oddly, the Steersman recoiled in agitation, threshing his limbs like some weird newt. Scytale fought a sense of loathing at the sight. The Guild Navigator wore his usual dark leotard bulging at the belt with various containers. Yet...he gave the impression of nakedness when he moved. It was the swimming, reaching movements, Scytale decided....

... Again, the fish-man was agitated.

FH in HoD wrote:"Outside humanity," she said. "What a curious idea. Are Guild navigators also outside their original humanity?"

He thought about this. Guild navigators diverged widely from humankind's more common shape. Born in space and living out their lives in tanks of melange gas, they distorted the original form, elongated and repositioned limbs and organs. But a young navigator in estrus and before entering the tank could breed with a norm. It had been demonstrated. They became non-human but not in the way of the Bene Gesserit.

FH in CHD wrote:Navigators were forever bathed in the orange gas of melange, their features often fogged by the vapors. Lucilla could visualize the Navigator's tiny v of a mouth and the ugly flap of nose. Mouth and nose appeared small on a Navigator's gigantic face with its pulsing temples.

Personally, I find Simon's version—even with its "distortions"—preferable to superartist's toothy monstrosity. (Although I do like the blue eyes of the latter.)

I suppose we really should go through all the books and compile every reference to the Navigators' appearance and form. As a guide for would-be depictors?

(The above quotes are the result of searching only for "Navigator" and looking a bit at the surrounding text.)

inhuien · Post by **inhuien** » 20 Jan 2009 09:50

^^^ Wat you mean like this, Guv'ner?

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 20 Jan 2009 10:34

Oh MY! Isn't HE the looker?!

Mmm...mmm...mmm. Hot.

And if an INTERESTING monster can't have an INTERESTING ... um, v-is-for-vagina-shaped mouth wedged between ... nasty-looking spongiform cheeks ... WELL! I just don't know what the worlds are coming to!

Sole Man · Post by **Sole Man** » 20 Jan 2009 16:39

V FOR VAGINA.

Remember, remeber the penis of November...

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 20 Jan 2009 18:35

Stupid.

Go practice being clever a bit longer over on Dumb Novels, how's about?

GamePlayer · Post by **GamePlayer** » 21 Jan 2009 00:38

I like Simon's interpretation of a navigator. Especially the hands, feet and head. It looks humanoid, but not human, which I think is the point of the navigator descriptions in the Frank Herbert books. I suppose variations exist for each artist which would test the boundaries of how non-human a navigator can appear before becoming completely non-humanoid. I do like the style and surface details of the dark, squid-like navigator interpretation found on the DeviantArt website, but that creature would appear better if it was brought back into a more humanoid shape resembling simon's work.

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 21 Jan 2009 01:09

Simon's is definitely the better of the two. (Will have to check for any mention of the long claw-like nails, though.)

I think superartist's problem is that he sees the Navigators as monsters in some way. They weren't.

They may have been misshapen, even repulsively so, but they were still human beings gifted with incredible mathematical skills and prescience.

They weren't starving zombie mummies.

Post by **Freakzilla** » 21 Jan 2009 09:07

I don't remember any claws.

GamePlayer · Post by **GamePlayer** » 21 Jan 2009 13:13

Well, I haven't seen superartist's version, but the trick is definitely to create something that's not human in appearance, but still humanoid enough that we can recognize it as starting out as human before being changed.

That's why I think artistic interpretations of the Navigators need more subtlety to work best. The thing I liked about the DeviantArt picture was the skin color, the skin texture, the subtle muscle differences and some subtle fins and folds. What I didn't like about the character design was the loss of a humanoid appearance.

I think "thin" can be interpreted fairly as either "gaunt" or "slender" within varying degrees. Doesn't really bother me either way. Stuff like the Navigator in the Lynch film is just way out there, though the creature effects certainly were impressive for the time. The Miniseries Navigator was okay, but I think again the designers fixated on "alien-ness" rather than an altered/mutated form of human being. In any live action adaptation, a Navigator would work best as a Gollum-like creation. But I'm not speaking of the appearance, but rather the "process" of how the Navigator would be created and performed.

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 21 Jan 2009 16:17

Here are the URLs for where the images are hosted. (I won't go ahead and put them url tags to display here since I'm not sure if it's his site or not. Not that such stops me other times.

)

http://blueworlds1000.com/Edrikthumbnail.50.jpg

http://blueworlds1000.com/navigator.jpg

http://blueworlds1000.com/NAV300Bboard.jpg

http://blueworlds1000.com/NAV150wip.board.jpg

Post by **Freakzilla** » 21 Jan 2009 16:45

I can't imagine there would be much need to clip your nails if you spend your life floating in a tank of spice gas. On the contrary, that spice gas probably gives you lots of boogers and the long nails would come in handy.

Who cleans the inside of the glass in those tanks?

GamePlayer · Post by **GamePlayer** » 21 Jan 2009 18:19

Ah, thanks my chigga.
I don't get it, didn't the Frank Herbert description say a "small mouth". This one is actually far, far larger than any human mouth could become and appears uglier and monstrous.
I agree that this thing from superartist looks like a Ghoul, not what was described as a semi-amphibious mutated human in the books. Actually, it looks a lot like that Alien-Human from that awful Alien: Resurrection sequel

simon's interpretation is way better, nails and all.

SandChigger · Post by **SandChigger** » 21 Jan 2009 19:03

Freakzilla wrote:I can't imagine there would be much need to clip your nails if you spend your life floating in a tank of spice gas. On the contrary, that spice gas probably gives you lots of boogers and the long nails would come in handy.

Who cleans the inside of the glass in those tanks?

^^^ Spends WAY too much time with people under 10 years of age.

Actually, it looks a lot like that Alien-Human from that awful Alien: Resurrection sequel

YES! That's it! I knew it reminded me of something familiar but I just couldn't place it. This is why you are DA FILM MAN!

FH also described a "flap of a nose", not a gaping nasal hole.

Feh.

Sole Man · Post by **Sole Man** » 21 Jan 2009 20:07

GamePlayer wrote:that Alien-Human from that awful Alien: Resurrection sequel

Don't Don't mention that thing, don't mention it ever again!

I...I can't...Oh god...

*Rocks back and forth while holding head in hands and making sobbing noises*

Post by **Freakzilla** » 22 Jan 2009 10:02

I've watched that a few times.

It appeared to me that the alien took part of the DNA from whatever host it gestated in. For example, in Alien III(?) the one that attacked the dog looked like a dog.

So it seems the original Alien was a human hybrid to begin with.

J A C U R U T U

Simon's Sketches

on Naviagotrs

on The horror of mere being