Kalashnikitty

The Kalashnikitty is a .22 caliber AK-47 lookalike that my brother and I painted with a Hello Kitty motif. It was a Christmas present for my mom who, needless to say, loved it.

The rifle is an Armscor AK-22, a strictly semi-automatic rifle that fires high-velocity .22 LR rounds. Even after the painting, it's still a fully-functional firearm.

The painting itself was done with Lauer Custom Weaponry's DuraCoat, with two layers of white covered, in places, with four more layers of pink. The flowers and kitties are stickers glued to the stock and magazine.

We got the idea from both an AR-15 painted in a similar style and an actual AK-47 painted a la Hello Kitty but in a much different style.

Final N900 Project

For whatever reason, my web space on the UVA directory is being finnicky, so I'm posting the stuff for my final project for Computational Photography here.

Text:
These images were taken with a program written for the Nokia N900 smartphone. The program is designed to distort the color and intensity of the image while still leaving its general shape and contours intact. It does this by taking the value for each pixel and multiplying it by 3, then, if it's outside the acceptable range for a pixel (0-255), it reduces it modulo 256. If after the multiplication it isn't out of range, though, the program simply divides it by 3 to return it
to its original value. In addition to creating a visually unique image, this leaves the subject matter of the image recognizable, albeit in a distorted form. The artist is left with a stunning, colorful image that also challenges the viewer's normal perception of the world around them by presenting it through a filter they've probably never before seen.

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