iHack and iShoot

Over the last couple of months I've noticed an increasing interest in the iHack and iShoot wallpapers that I made a while ago. As far as I know, they're not linked anywhere on this site anymore, but that never stops Google. I don't believe I ever gave these wallpapers the proper introduction in my blog so here it is.

One day, I was stumbling around this internet thingy looking for Cowboy Bebop pictures specifically, Radical Edward. For the uninitiated, Bebop is one of the best and most popular animes to date, and Radical Edward is a borderline primary character, usually more of a plot device than anything else. Anywho, Ed is an extremely cool hacker kid so naturally, I wanted a wallpaper like every other fanboy on the planet.

I've always been partial to this charcoal sketch that appears in the Cowboy Bebop intro sequence. I usually have this one centered on the desktop with a black background. Very classy. However, I like change. So I wanted a new Ed wallpaper. I came across this spoof of the infamous iPod ads and loved the idea. But I hated the color, it was in GIF format, and it was only 800x600. I have fairly high standards for the quality of my desktop images; I don't like to see blocky images or skewed aspects when I wake up in the morning.

I set out to make this wallpaper better, stronger, faster! With some Photoshop magic, some taste in color, and the resolution of my PowerBook's display, I created a revised iHack wallpaper that suited my own needs. It was sweet. I had created this wallpaper and a larger, more subtle colored one for my 20" Apple Cinema Display because I liked the first one so much. I just happened to create these a week or two before I moved to RIT, so I turned a lot of heads when I opened up my Powerbook.

But that wasn't enough, my sister asked me to create a Spike wallpaper for her Dell Inspiron in the same style. I knew I wasn't the original artist of the first one didn't know if I had the raw skills in Photoshop to accomplish such a task. As I quickly found, it was a piece of cake. I decided to spice it up a bit with a new phrase to match Spike's personality a bit better, and I also fit this one to the resolution of my sister's laptop.

So, months later I see that I'm getting tons of Google Image Search hits on these images, as well as being hotlinked from a couple of message boards. It appears that this month I caught the attention of somebody at Rooster Teeth Productions, the creators of the infamous Red vs Blue. When I realized that other "cool people" were interested, I decided to throw this post up here and bring the images back from the dead link grave. When I've got some time to kill (perhaps finals week) I'll probably take a stab at creating a wallpaper based on Faye. I'm going to stay away from doing one based on Jet because he just doesn't look that good in silhouette.

# iHack and iShoot

I've always been partial to this <a href="/pictures/wallpapers/ed1b.jpg">charcoal sketch</a> that appears in the Cowboy Bebop intro sequence. I usually have this one centered on the desktop with a black background. Very classy. However, I like change. So I wanted a new Ed wallpaper. I came across <a href="/pictures/wallpapers/ihackorig.png">this spoof</a> of the infamous iPod ads and loved the idea. But I hated the color, it was in GIF format, and it was only 800x600. I have fairly high standards for the quality of my desktop images; I don't like to see blocky images or skewed aspects when I wake up in the morning.

I set out to make this wallpaper better, <strong>stronger</strong>, <em>faster</em>! With some Photoshop magic, some taste in color, and the resolution of my PowerBook's display, I created a <a href="http://runemonkey.com/pictures/wallpapers/ihack1280x854.png">revised iHack wallpaper</a> that suited my own needs. It was sweet. I had created this wallpaper and a <a href="http://runemonkey.com/pictures/wallpapers/ihack1680x1050.png">larger, more subtle colored one</a> for my 20" Apple Cinema Display because I liked the first one so much. I just happened to create these a week or two before I moved to RIT, so I turned a lot of heads when I opened up my Powerbook.

But that wasn't enough, my sister asked me to create a Spike wallpaper for her Dell Inspiron in the same style. I knew I wasn't the original artist of the first one didn't know if I had the raw skills in Photoshop to accomplish such a task. As I quickly found, <a href="http://runemonkey.com/pictures/wallpapers/ishoot1280x800.png">it was a piece of cake</a>. I decided to spice it up a bit with a new phrase to match Spike's personality a bit better, and I also fit this one to the resolution of my sister's laptop.

So, months later I see that I'm getting tons of Google Image Search hits on these images, as well as being hotlinked from a couple of message boards. It appears that this month I caught the attention of somebody at <a href="http://www.roosterteeth.com/">Rooster Teeth Productions</a>, the creators of the infamous Red vs Blue. When I realized that other "cool people" were interested, I decided to throw this post up here and bring the images back from the dead link grave. When I've got some time to kill (perhaps finals week) I'll probably take a stab at creating a wallpaper based on Faye. I'm going to stay away from doing one based on Jet because he just doesn't look that good in silhouette.