Iron Banner has great rewards that drop up to 400 light level. Want a boost to your Iron Banner rank? The Guardian.Services PVP team consists of professional players that can quickly get you the wins that you need.
Our Iron Banner service is charged per match. Simply select the number of games that you want us to win for you. You will be kept at your maximum light level to get the highest rewards.
Our Iron Banner services are done by account recovery only. Please fill in your login information at checkout so that we can work on your account. We will try contacting you directly to your PSN/Gamertag and Email 15 minutes before we sign onto your profile.
This service was better than I ever thought possible. Purchased the service at 4:58 AM, and they were on my account at 5:26 and completed all of the bounties in three hours. This was my first time and will not be the last time, was blown away by the professionalism and service from the staff, and was not expecting a summary at the end of the service detailing every drop that was received. Can't wait to use them again!!
Great service as always, highly recommended.
Excellent service! I'm glad they are around to help me finish activities I just don't have time to finish. I've always been happy with their speed and honesty. I'll always consider them when I don't have time. Thanks!
Superb service as alwasy~ Finish less than 3 hours!
As always quick and reliable.
great service as always, placed my order then boom got a text and it begun.
great service as always, never had to wait.
Got me my 200 coins plus completed out all of my bounties in a few hours. Excellent service as usual.
As always, they get it done!! Excellent and professional!
As always, this team delivers! Placed an order and received completion notice within 3 hours. Premium boosting service!
Cannot fault these guys in the slightest.
Professional as always, put in my order went to bed woke up completed.
They logged in and grinded 10 packages worth of tokens when I was gone, greatly appreciated. Thanks!


text:
#23 Building big ben, part Two
The work volume in my studio had always fluctuated from zero to overwhelming, and never predicable. For years, though, I had regular industrial customers that seemed to show up almost daily with projects and problems, most of which I would do immediately, often priced at time and materials. It made a great baseline from which to do the crazier projects and live some semblance of a normal life. Still, a project like Big Ben is a 1500 hour elephant dropped into a small life. Things get a bit weird, customers get stalled, holidays put off, friends ignored. Heady times.
After blowing up the photo to life size, I traced the outline onto a couple of sheets of 6mm plywood, joining the pieces with a few strips of other wood. The point of the construction was to make it all capable of being burned out, as this was to be cut into pieces and cast in lost wax. Where possible, I glued wood together.
Adding extensions to the silhouette. I made new silhouettes of the legs to include internal joints, then fastened these to the extensions.
I next built a rolling stand that would allow me to move the whole master up and down, and tilting forward and back to allow for work on detail without a ladder. I joined the plywood silhouette to the stand to allow for some movement.
My studio was only 2000 sq ft, with room required for machinery and lots of other activities, so the rolling feature is something I add to everything possible in the studio. At the time, I had access to an adjoining empty room, so, in short order, I could swing all my storage and work benches into that room, leaving a blank space of about 600 sq ft with windows two sides. It's been great, working every day on the bank of a lovely, treed river, high enough up to catch breezes.
Roughly the view from my studio, down the Nith River, in the heart of New Hamburg, Ontario. The river will rage at times, and sleep others.
Another view of the internal structure, showing that roller base that allows the whole thing to be raised or tilted.
My cutout taken directly from the photo was my standard edge. I knew that, regardless of the third dimension, that all details had to match this pretty closely. It took a lot of staring at photos, a lot of measuring, to determine how far to offset the legs, establish hip bone placement, and even the width of the head. I roughed these dimensions in and mounted the legs onto the extensions. Now I could start gluing on Styrofoam. I don't know how many boxes of hot glue I used. A lot. I had two guns on the go at all times.
Most of the styro has been glued on. The plywood cutout is buried along the edges of the styro. If I cut into the wood at any time, I'd be cutting off part of Big Ben. I'm starting to use my recipro saw.
Did I mention that this was fun? It really was, building a horse. It probably took no more than a few days to go from the outline to the rough volume of Big Ben. It feels great to create this size of an object as directly as possible.
Next step was to grab saws, an electric chain saw, a recipro saw, and my 4 ½" grinder with 20-grit discs. All kinds of effort with large muscle groups, a few brain cells engaged, styro beads everywhere, especially in the corners of the eyes and in the underwear. Lots of noise, of sturm und drang. Some pauses, staring at photos, wondering what the heck was happening between skin and bone.
Big Ben tipped over to allow me to get at the back legs. I'll bet there are a few farriers out there that would love to have this feature built into real horses.
I didn't pause very long to consider how I was going to learn equine anatomy in a week. Not knowing is a kind of special skill. I just blasted away until I couldn't see any more what was going on. At that point, I melted a pail of cheap wax, hoping that a more reflective surface would reveal the true Big Ben lurking somewhere. It didn't. It just made the studio smell bad for awhile.
I needed a miracle, I guess. Without knowing what I needed. One arrived.
Or two.
Continued in Part Three.
#22 Building Big Ben: a life-sized equestrian statue
PART ONE: THE CHALLENGE
It used to be that the culmination of a sculptor's career was his chance to do full-sized horses in bronze. Since Roman times, every Tsar, Archduke and Admiral has placed himself on a horse on a pedestal. It's a meme, I guess. Just something you have to do when you control the lives of millions. Here are a few examples. There is a great slideshow of similar sculptures here.
The town of Perth, Ontario population 5840, was put on the map of international show jumping when Big Ben and Ian Millar started winning every prize available. Some years after Big Ben's death, Tony and Lynne Hendricks, local business people, organized the resources of the area residents to erect a life-sized bronze of Big Ben. They hired Artcast in Georgetown, Ontario, and Artcast hired me to create this piece.
Although I had heard of this pair, I would not have been able to pick them out of a lineup of any 3 horses. I was amazed when my buddy Bart riffled through a stack of horse images I'd downloaded and picked out a couple of Big Ben. It was my first bit of understanding what the equestrian world might look like. Still, not knowing what I didn't know, I forged ahead, hanging out with horses, sketching, studying, oblivious to the idea that some artists spend a career just studying equine physiolology.
The challenge, as I saw it, was the pose. The townspeople of Perth wanted Big Ben in full flight over a jump. This meant making a tonne of bronze fly. And a 'horse on a stick' was not going to fly.
Historically, equestrian sculpture has been limited by the weight and strength of materials. The older works featured horses with all 4 feet on the ground, or, perhaps supported by some unfortunate slave being trampled for the sake of supporting a lot of stone or bronze. In later years, internal structures could be built into the bronze shell to support a rearing horse.
I carved a quick little model of the pose and layered photos of it on top of a digital image of the jump. It took some weeks of conversations between the customer, the foundry and myself. Here's what the process looked like:
I had planned to support the sculpture on 1" diameter stainless steel rods welded to substantial pipe that represents the jump. Marcus at Artcast has long experience with this kind of engineering, and he gave the design the thumbs up.
A photo was available, one that caught Big Ben and Ian mid-flight over a jump, just what I needed to get a really accurate model for scaling all parts of the project. It's a very mechanical process at this point. Any deviation from the photo was going to be 'not Big Ben'. I was indebited to photographer Shawn Hamilton for supplying this photo. I would have been lost without it.
Big Ben, photo by Shawn Hamilton
Finally, I blew up Shawn's photo to full size, about 12 feet long (3.6m) so that I could get started. More in part 2! Whew, a bit tired just remembering. In the heat of the moment, though, on a project with this kind of visibility, there is no fatigue. Fear, excitement, focus, bewilderment, but no fatigue.
Taping a number of tabloid-sized printouts together to make one big horse and rider.
#21: sometimes easy: simple projects, happy customers
I have this long list in my "hall of shame" file, a hazard of custom work. There are many days, though, when the job simply gets done, no fuss, no great challenges. These are pleasant, the bank manager is happy. Challenge gets me out of bed, though, so there's a happy medium, somewhere. Since I'm working towards a 7 1/2 foot tall bronze man project today, I'll describe a happy, easy project.
For some time I've been a supplier to a site called Custom Made. They supply a place for the listing of odd projects of any description. Makers like me get listed as trusted suppliers. We look at job boards and quote on work. The site takes a small percentage to handle some of the trust factor, but the whole transaction happens directly between customer and supplier.
Shawn Broaddus, an interior designer and furniture designer near Atlanta, GA , wanted some custom cabinet pulls made for a credenza that she was building. She wasn't sure just what she wanted. She sent me a photo of a rough version of her project, and I sent back quick images from Rhino 3D:
I have overlaid an image of my first proposal of door pull. We went back and forth a few times on the design to get it right.
a first design
The job simply flowed along as if we'd done this for years. I sent a few more variations on this design, and it was set. Custom Made has a quoting system that works pretty well. I made the master pattern, got it cast, finished the castings, threaded the backs for holes and supplied brass bolts. Easy. I sent photos to Shawn:
Within the hour I had full payment via Paypal, and shipped these to Atlanta in about two days. Shawn sent back this photo fairly quickly, a happy customer.
Custom cabinet by Shawn Broaddus, of B Design in Alpharetto, GA.
One of the great things about Custom Made is that the customer reviews are public, so prospective customers can see unbiased comments on projects, along with photos, etc. It all helps!
..., and, whew, not all projects are this easy. Hardly a day goes by when I'm not researching some technique or gizmo to help save my bacon. Today I discovered a pretty good looking 3D printer. I've tried to avoid expensive tools, preferring to job out this work, but this is getting tempting. I wasn't that long making the master pattern for Shawn's job, but this would have reduced the work to a few minutes. Hmm, maybe I have a few minutes to spare. Perhaps I love the smell of fresh wood, and don't love the smell of burning ABS?
#20: official crests, adding detail that only crickets will see
I have done quite a number of official crests in low relief, all the way from the Canada Crest, to the RCMP, to family coats of arms. I will be given a drawing like this to work from:
I generate one leaf, copy it a number of times, then cut the copies up to fit around the circle. I carve the various elements like the deer and crown and add them to the pattern. The whole thing, perhaps 16" high, is to be cast in bronze. I have to keep metal thicknesses down to around 6mm, or 1/4". Not thicker. Not thinner. The letters are metal elements that I buy and stick on.
I spend lots of time with strong closeup glasses on, getting all the detail I can into the master. The pearls on the crown are cut into my copy mould.
I have done so many crowns! For years I saved all the moulds, hoping that one day I could reuse one. I never did. I threw most of them out when I downsized my studio a few years ago. These days, I would just draw one in CAD and get whatever size I needed cut CNC.
If I had just known where this sort of work was going, perhaps I would have simply fudged some of this detail. When I found the plaque online, it appears to be on a giant sign in the middle of a field.
You see the bronze crest, right? This does seem to be visible only from perhaps 150 metres. Sigh
The entrance to CFB Shilo near Brandon, Manitoba.
I love the prairie! Endless skies, the Balm of Gilead poplar, even the razor-edged cold. But my bronze work here, with its great permanence, seems simply lost. Oh well, I guess I know that that delicate deer is playing somewhere in the plains with the antelope.
a bit of margaret atwood, some bronze tiles
Hmm, this might have to be rebranded as a name-dropper's blog. Sorry.
The town of Richmond Hill, Ontario built a new park, themed to Margaret Atwood's book Alias Grace.
They wanted to include a series of 6" bronze tiles, to be set into stone features. I submitted 12 sketches to represent various items mentioned in the book.
So, my father used to work for Margaret Atwood's father. I grew up like Ms Atwood. My dad was an entomologist too, though not an academic. He as a farm boy with a PhD. For my first 5 summers we travelled to join my dad in south-central British Columbia where he monitored his test plots, part of his job researching biological control. We lived in old log cabins, and played in junkyards, perfect for little kids.
My dad didn't especially care for Dr. Atwood's taste in cars. My dad was a big Detroit guy, and Atwood was a Volvo man. I suspect this coloured my dad's whole view of his short career at University of Toronto in the middle '60s. Biology was his work, cars his thoracic exoskeleton.
Still, my Mom was proud of this tenuous connection to Margaret, inspiring me to read everything Atwood for some years. I was a great fan of her early, more biographical work, losing interest when she ventured into the speculative fiction genre, not my thing.
6" bronze tile: Beets
When this bronze tile project came along, I was happy to get involved, happy well beyond just getting another project. Margaret was practically family, according to my Mom.
Needle and thread. I'll have to re-read this book to find those references.
Some of the subjects were a bit dodgy, it seemed. Peony? Potatoes? Beets? Well, I thought the beets came off pretty well. Not the potatoes. Modelled the potatoes, cast, finished, shipped, while singing a happy tune for distraction.
Not going to show the potatoes. Sorry.
I did model these in clay, with some 'looseness', a rare event, as most of my customers are looking for some precision in their work. These got cast and polished and shipped. Like most projects, I'm done at that point. it's rare to see the final work installed, even if it's as close as Richmond Hill. I guess I'm just on to the next thing.
There are lots of great bronze tiles out there. For a blurry moment I considered designing a 'product'. But I have a long and semi-lustrous career of producing products that beg to be ignored. There seems to be lots of custom work out there, and it's fun to do.
I sort of dreamed for some years of approaching Margaret Atwood at a writers festival and introducing myself, you know, as distantly related. As I get older, more mature, even, that distance fades far into the haze.
I can just see Ms. Atwood giving me that freezing fish eye, raising an eyebrow and turning away, leaving my smile to melt like a smear of chocolate on a sunny wall. No thanks. I can get people who really love me to do that for free.
not quite almost job: with the Fairbanks family in hollywood
Yes, I worked in Hollywood, with Douglas Fairbanks Sr and Jr, but not until they had gone to the big sound stage in the sky.
Hollywood Memorial Cemetery housed the remains of many of Hollywood's elite in the 30s and 40s. By 1994, however, the place had fallen into great decline, made much worse by an earthquake that year. A family from St. Louis, MO bought the cemetery and set about to restore it. They renamed it Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
A year after the death of Douglas Fairbanks Jr.'s death in 2000, I was hired to carve his portrait, one that was to match his father's portrait, carved by this sculptor.
the Fairbanks memorial. That's the old Paramount Studios in the background.
The idea, or Mr. Fairbanks Jr.'s widow's idea, was to remove Fairbanks Sr's portrait from the central panel, add marble panels on the left and right, and put up a matching wreath and bas relief profiles of father and son.
The Fairbanks memorial today, almost exactly the way it was 70 years ago. Almost.
I was flown to LA, given a rather sportif red coupe, and put up in a pleasant hotel about a block from all those bronzes in the sidewalk. I felt a bit grand, perhaps, and a bit far from my small town in frozen Ontario. This was early March. I could have been skiing instead of trying to look famous in Hollywood.
At the memorial site workmen were busy prying off the wreath, using wedges to bust the anchors loose from the marble. They had wedges in place to pop the portrait off, too, but one of us stopped that operation. You can see the remains of the wedges behind the portrait, and the outline where the wreath was.
I used a bunch of masking tape and a stick to establish thicknesses and measurements, taking photos from many angles. I was supposed to match the original bas relief.
I took the wreath into a little room in a kind of tower on the property to make a copy mould. I'd bought materials online from a California store and had them shipped to the cemetery. The mould was made in pieces and sent via courier to my studio back home.
I was nicely treated by the owner, but I suspect he was surprised to find such a famous sculptor with such a shiny car to be so boring. It wasn't me who oversold me, honest.
The wreath in the tower:
So I had a free day to drive around, hiking the
Will Rogers State Park (pretty cool. I called my Mom on my mobile) and driving up past Malibu and on up the coast. It was the ocean, the dry hills and the many friendly Mexican workers gathered at the exits to Home Depot that I'll take away from Hollywood.
the wax ready for casting, rubbed to make it bronze-y
And... no fanfare, please. I did the portrait and the wreath. It got cast and shipped. We heard, eventually that the widow either did not like it, or that the cost of changing the marble elements of the memorial was going to exceed the California debt. At any rate, after all these years, I have finally found out that they put the wreath back and simply carved Jr's name below his father's. Er, and put Jr. with his dad. At bit awkward, that thought. Bet they were never that close in life.
Another almost-job, except that I got the Hollywood tour, met a few characters and got to feel famous-y for a bit. Oh, and I got paid. Whew, that's great praise in small town Ontario.
learning to work in bronze
In 1980, after a few year of carving wood, wanting to be some extension of Henry Moore, and mostly starving, I realized that I lived in a foundry town. I had a jeweller friend who showed me how easy it was to get work cast.
Being a sculptor in wood meant spending hours with wood enthusiasts explaining my process, my tools, and spending no time at all talking about art. That's just how the medium affects people: it's like those party people that dominate the conversation with their endless chatter about their grain and smell. I had been making figures, little families using interlocking forms of wood, spending a few minutes thinking and drawing, and a zillion hours carving, sanding and polishing.
The idea of getting work cast in bronze was instantly appealing, especially as I could get it cast locally and very cheaply in the industrial sand foundries. My first effort was a seated figure, carved first in wood, cast, then high-polished on external surfaces. The one copy I had made was bought by the director of the Goethe Istitut in Toronto.
My second effort was built directly in fibreglass, as I remember:
This piece "Two Sisters", is 36 cm high. I always liked interlocking forms. I have stacks of photos of stone forms taken from the islands off the mouth of the French River in Georgian Bay, my kayaking home. These two forms reflect that sense of connection I have to both people and stone, if that makes any sense at all.
I think the stone base came from the stream bed in Short HIlls Park near St. Catharines, ON. It took a lot of effort to match these castings and get them mounted on the stone base. Still, I think I sold a few copies of this. We still have this version in our livingroom, where it sits both quietly and passionately by the piano.
A law office in Dallas, TX wanted a custom bronze door pull for a board room. Working with the interior designer Kathleen Mowry, we came up with an approved design for double glass doors, splitting the logo in half, and figuring out size, weight, finish and mounting hardware of the design.
I use Rhino 3D v5 to generate designs, weights, centre of gravity, etc. Once the design is set, I can render it in Rhino Flamingo for illustration. The finalized design was sent to my CNC guy to create the beginning of the master pattern. This is the rendering to show context:
and this is the casting, finished. Note that I added a 'hammered' texture on the surface. I carved this into the master, as there is no Hammering 6mm bronze!
I do hope to get a photo from the installed work in the near future.
Green Man in Bronze
A fellow in Missouri saw my Green Man masks in bronze that I made in the early 00's and asked if I could make something similar. Once we determined the design, I sketched this out in clay, full size at 38cm (15") high. He wanted a few berries added, and I knew he liked bees, so we wound up with this:
About 5kg (11 lb) in bronze, with mounting holes top and bottom.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
<?php

namespace AppBundle\DataFixtures\ORM;

use AppBundle\Entity\Courier;
use AppBundle\Entity\Region;
use AppBundle\Entity\Schedule;
use Doctrine\Common\DataFixtures\AbstractFixture;
use Doctrine\Common\DataFixtures\OrderedFixtureInterface;
use Doctrine\Common\Persistence\ObjectManager;

class LoadScheduleData extends AbstractFixture implements OrderedFixtureInterface
{
    public function load(ObjectManager $manager)
    {
        $startDate = new \DateTime('2015-06-01');
        $endDate = new \DateTime('now');

        // генерируем записи в массив
        $scheduleList = [];
        for ($i = 0; $i < 15; $i++) {
            /** @var Courier $courier */
            $courier = $this->getReference('courier_' . $i);
            $departureDate = clone $startDate;
            while ($departureDate <= $endDate) {
                if (!rand(0, 1)) {
                    $departureDate = $departureDate->add(new \DateInterval('P1D'));
                    continue;
                }
                $schedule = new Schedule();
                /** @var Region $randomRegion */
                $randomRegion = $this->getReference('region_' . rand(0, 9));
                $schedule->setCourier($courier)
                    ->setRegion($randomRegion)
                    ->setDepartureDate(clone $departureDate);

                $travelTimeOneDirection = $randomRegion->getTravelTime();
                $travelTimeTwoDirections = new \DateInterval('P' . 2 * $travelTimeOneDirection . 'D');
                $departureDate = $departureDate->add($travelTimeTwoDirections)->add(new \DateInterval('P1D'));

                $scheduleList[] = $schedule;
            }
        }

        // сортируем записи по дате отъезда
        usort($scheduleList, function ($scheduleA, $scheduleB) {
            /**
             * @var Schedule $scheduleA
             * @var Schedule $scheduleB
             */
            return ($scheduleA->getDepartureDate()->getTimestamp() - $scheduleB->getDepartureDate()->getTimestamp());
        });

        // заносим записи в БД
        foreach ($scheduleList as $schedule){
            $manager->persist($schedule);
        }

        $manager->flush();
    }

    public function getOrder()
    {
        return 3;
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Emma Roberts Wows On 'Cosmo' Cover As First Pregnant Star, Talks Fertility Struggle
By:Jaclyn Roth
She's glowing! Emma Roberts stunned on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine as the first pregnant star and detailed her fertility struggles.
"At 16, I thought, 'By the time I'm 24, I'll be married with kids,'" the 29-year-old told the outlet. "And then I was 24 and I was like, 'Remember when I said I would be married with kids by now?'"
Due to the American Horror Story star's crazy schedule, it wasn't easy for her to set aside time to start a family — and she wasn't sure she'd be able to get pregnant quickly either. A few years ago, Roberts learned that she had endometriosis. "I was told, 'You should probably freeze your eggs or look into other options,'" she said.
SEE INSIDE EMMA ROBERTS' INSTAGRAMMABLE LOS ANGELES HIDEAWAY: PHOTOS
The Nickelodeon alum did end up freezing her eggs, which she said was "a difficult process," but felt like she wasn't in a good head space. "When I found out about my fertility, I was kind of stunned," she explained. "It felt so permanent, and oddly, I felt like I had done something wrong."
The blonde beauty ended up talking with other women who were experiencing the same types of issues, which made her feel better. "I was so grateful to find out I was not alone in this," she said. "I hadn't done anything 'wrong' after all."
Now, Roberts is expecting her first child with her boyfriend, Garrett Hedlund. "It sounds cheesy, but the moment that I stopped thinking about it, we got pregnant," she admitted.
PREGNANT IN A PANDEMIC! CHECK OUT THE CUTEST QUARANTINE BABY BUMPS
The actress announced the news via Instagram in August because she knows "things can go wrong when you're pregnant."
"So I kept it to myself, my family, and my partner, not wanting to make grand plans if it wasn't going to work out," she said. "This pregnancy made me realize that the only plan you can have is that there is no plan."
On Wednesday, November 11, Roberts posted the stunning snaps on social media. "✨So excited to share this with you guys! Thank you @cosmopolitan for having me as your first pregnant cover ? words by the incredible @smdanler & photos by the ever talented @sashasamsonova ✨," she wrote.
As for how Roberts is doing during this time, she revealed she is "hungry and tired."
PEEKABOO! THESE CELEBRITIES DID A *VERY* GOOD JOB AT HIDING THEIR PREGNANCIES
"Food and sleep do not abide by the normal laws when you're pregnant," she said. "But I'm healthy, which is the thing I'm most grateful for. To see my body change inside and out so drastically has been a wild experience. Surprising and beautiful. Then again, some days I feel like I'm being hijacked by something."
'Fake News': Megan Thee Stallion Slams Reports That Tory Lanez Charges Were Dropped, Says Her Story Is 'Not Changing'
'Saved By The Bell' Star Dustin Diamond Begins Chemotherapy For Stage 4 Cancer, Will Undergo Physical Therapy
EXCLUSIVE COLUMN: Geraldo Rivera Recalls The Day He Spent With Serial Killer Charles Manson — 'He Threatened To Kill Me'
Parole Model: College Cheat Mossimo Giannulli Demanded Prison Release Him On First Day Behind Bars
Despite Strict COVID-Safety Protocols In D.C., Jennifer Lopez Shares Maskless Photo With Her 16-Member Crew
Pillow Talk! '30 Rock' Star Jane Krakowski Reportedly Had Secret Romance With MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell
Family At War! Thomas Markle Reveals He Leaked Meghan Markle's Letter Because He Felt 'Vilified,' 4 Palace Aides Will Now Testify In Her Court Case
Another Dig At Kim Cattrall? Sarah Jessica Parker Finds Fourth 'Sex And The City' Member: Masked & Mittened Bernie Sanders
'Bridgerton' Officially Renewed For Season 2 At Netflix — Find Out Who Is Returning, When Filming Begins & More