Today's JSVB post features some mature(ish) science fiction content. If you are fine with seeing that, then scroll down to find out more.
This day exactly one year ago, I published JSVB Post #143: the original Happy Birthday To Me message. I've decided that every year that I run JSVB, I will give myself the gift of "Geekcake", which is some kind of geeky cheesecake girly extravaganza.
I was working on another project when I decided that what I was working on could be adapted to fit my Happy Birthday To Me needs. The origin was a discussion among my friends and I about women using blade weapons in popular culture. My personal feeling is that most times giving a female character the ability to brandish a sword is a stereotype cop-out. The author has taken an obviously male character and swapped it for a female one, usually without any more thought than adding boobs and a skirt. This is not to say that women cannot be adept at swordplay, especially in the real world. What I mean is that fictional characters become cheaper if they are given roles based on what the author thinks would titillate the audience. Beyond that, I also feel that women with blades also tread on shaky ground with respect to Dr. Freud.
It has been pointed out to me that there are exceptions that prove the rule. Sexy exceptions! I was going to call today's post "The Uhura Exception", since my friends were quick to point out the electrifying effect that Star Trek's Lieutenant Uhura had on viewers when she wore a skimpy Mirror Starfleet uniform and thrust her dagger into Sulu's face. I thought highly enough of my friends' collective opinion on the matter to make a painting of Ms. Mirror Uhura:
It took me considerably longer to paint this out than I thought it would. At least I did not paint it from scratch, otherwise I would have missed my June 10th deadline. In the time-honoured tradition of pin-ups, I took a pre-existing body and repainted it. I was lucky enough to stumble upon a copyright-free nude with a figure similar enough to Uhura's, although she was white. See "Reclining Woman" ("Femme Couchee") by Gustave Courbet (1866). There are lots of photos from Paramount Pictures of actress Nichelle Nichols, so I painted the head and face using brute force. I painted the costume, gold accents, and the dagger manually as well. Ms. Nichols uses some characteristic hand poses in her acting, but I ran out of time to make the adjustments I wanted to the hands.
I used Photoshop and Painter to create the red bedcloth texture using free high resolution texture samples from Hosking Industries Australia.
I also used Photoshop and Painter on the copyright free image of a beehive. Originally, I was going to paint the hexes in by hand, but when I saw the photo (and that it was free!!), I grabbed it and monkeyed around with the pixels some. The original image is Apis Florea Nest Closeup 2 by Sean Hoyland.
Lieutenant Uhura (Mirror or otherwise) and related imagery are the property of Paramount Pictures.
Please click here to see last year's Happy Birthday To Me gift to myself.
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