20080924.OscarWilde

Okay, you're all lucky. Why? Because I'm introducing you to cool. Cool in the form of Hey Oscar Wilde! It's Clobberin' Time!.

This one guy has an extensive art collection of various comic artists interpreting their favourite literary figure/character/author. There is some pure awesome in there. Here are three that I like, but be sure to check out the real thing.

20080826

I've been wanting to spotlight one of my favourite young artists for a while now. So I will do this thing of which I have just spoken. Forthwith.

Lois van Baarle is from the land of Dutchness. I'm gathering that she's relatively young. For one there's her style. For another there's the fact that much of the work of hers I've seen is from school projects. And for lastly, there's the fact that her birthdate hails from the icy climes of 11 October 1985. Which puts her at younger than 32.

That was math for those of you unacquainted with the concept.

Anyway, I've been following Ms. Van Baarle's work with heated anticipation via her DeviantArt account (where she goes by loish). The heated anticipation to which I refer is reserved for notification of whenever she has decided to post a new piece on the devilish website. What reminded me that I wanted to spotlight her work was this recently published composition of Eve, the first lady.

I really envy Ms. Van Baarle's choices in composing her pictures. Line weight. Flow of figure. Even clothing choices. It's all so liquid. I'm guessing that her background in animation informs some of this. I can't really pick out her other influences though. There does seem to be a touch of manga exerting itself in her designs. As well, there's some of that European comic feel governing certain elements.

(Okay that sounds stupid. As if a whole continent would have a discernible style. I guess I just wanted to say that ... uh, nothing.)

Anyway, here's a rolly montage of her stuff. clicking on the thumbnails will take you in all but one case to her DeviantArt shop where one might purchase prints if one is so inclined. Additionally, I hear that there is a 116-page book featuring the work of her and three other artists. (I smell Christmas).

Anyway, that's just a bit of her stuff. I wholly encourage you to enjoy more of her work at either:
Loish.net
or
Loish's DeviantArt Gallery

20071024

In an act of prescience common to my station in this spinning, whirligig called Planetos Earthena, I predicted the recent firestorms (and their source) with both an accuracy and alacrity that should, quite frankly, alarm even the best of us. And perhaps even Boy Scouts - to hit the other end of the spectrum.

It was the birthday card thing that did it. Peggy brought in a birthday card to sign for Bryan, but expressed some disappointment and trepidation at just how "girly" the card was. For some reason built into the culture of her youth I'm guessing, she felt that a card with delicate lyricism featuring a young girl looking demurely into her basket of roses was too—and I quote—feminine for a man twenty years my senior and four inches my taller.

I know, huh? To each her own, huh. That's what I thought too. But then I thought about it a bit and decided that Byran might be from Peggy's culture as well. So I did what I could to man up the card while maintaining the sentimental flavour, letting him know that even if he is a rampaging terror and blight upon society, we still respect him and count him as a blessing to the working environment.

Little did I know that a mere two days later, the world would be in flames, lit up by an arsonist. An arsonist who is, I think we may conclude, a hunnerd-an-twelve foot tall girly escaped from her role as the flower girl at a recent wedding in the Land of Giants and Marmots. Oh, I hope the police catch her. We can only take so much more.

20070904

Pulling once again out of the old art archives, here's a three dimensional piece I did in eighth grade, so get out your 3D goggles and have a good old time. And yeah, in 1987 and 1988, I was all about the third dimesnion. And yes again, 3D glasses will actually work on this (red on your left eye, blue on your right). Oh, and as always, click to bigger it:

Can I Has Carnivals?

My spirit is crushed. Well, not really. In fact, I'm a little bit stoked. As it turns out, I'm a little bit to edgy either for kids or for the parents of kids.

I can't figure out which.

I was asked to create a quick flyer for a kid's carnival my church is hosting in a couple weeks. I didn't have a lot of time, so I threw something together that I thought would be fun. Something I might have liked in my imaginary childhood. The result of my labour was this:

I delivered the art Friday night so it could be printed for Sunday morning. Upon viewing the flyer Sunday morning, I noted several distinct differences:

I was told that they were nervous that my flyer wouldn't go over well and that it might be too much. It was suggested that it might be more suitable for a youth event. I admit that I was sad to put work into a project that would never see the light of day (I was up til 1:30 Friday night working on it), but I must say that I'm gratified to know that I am too hip for church flyers for elementary schoolers. Also, capitalizing on recent fads, I even developed a zeitgest version

Things I Like, Vol. 1

Near my office, on the corners of a particular intersection, there are four works of public "art." There is nothing particularly artistic about them. Nonetheless, I find them to be awe-inspiring. And rad. I love them. I love my special chia effigies.

And yes, these photos were taken while I waited at the stoplight after picking up a cinnamon role on the way to work.

Randomocity

Thing One:
Why do feminists have to hate fish so? Why can't they just leave their poor bicycles alone?

Thing Two:
This is the cover for the mixtape CD I'm making for our CD club.

Thing Three:
I love/adore the antics of fringey Bible people. Missler would be proud?

Thing Four:

EVE's mired in the space equivalent of a world war. After the JumpGate story broke, all but a few of the big alliances in the game declared war on BoB, the alliance who benefited from the cheating devs. BoB controls the southwestern corner of the map, and they're defending pushes from the southeast and northwest. They've committed the majority of their forces up north, so their strongest ally in the south, Lotka Volterra, is getting crushed by a RedSwarm attack. I'm just doing my part, zipping around in interceptor-class ships during 200-man fleet engagements and leading small groups behind enemy lines to harass supply lines and the like. It's pretty fun, kinda like raiding in WoW, only you're always moving and the things you do have an impact on the world around you.

—The Escapist

I find this stuff utterly fascinating. I played EVE Online for a week once on a free trial they offered and found it to be a gorgeous game that I'm sure wouldn't have been all that boring if I persevered and become a rad space pirate or something (unfortunately, I didn't continue with the game and only content myself with reading about all the crazy stuff that happens in it).

EVE is fascinating because it's one of the most truly boundary-free games I've ever heard of. It's got PvP play like PvP play should be. It also encourages the building of huge corporate structures by which players can truly make their mark on the game. EVE also exists in a persistent environment, and one that can be affected by its players.

So, currently, in this online space-game involving battlecruisers and mining ships and whatnot, a recent scandal involving the in-game mega corporation, BoB, has caused other megacorporations to declare war on the entity. Now, BoB is just made up of regular joe players like me or you (if we were playing EVE and more than slightly addicted to it). So are the members of the corporations that are declaring war on BoB. And this is the thing, if BoB loses and is crushed by these other groups, their assets - I guess - can be stripped and stolen from them just like in real life. That's what fascinates me. It's kinda like real life - only with 200-man space fleets.

1. Lesson: PvP stands for Player vs. Player and is used especially to describe those online games in which one person has the ability to challenge other live players.

2. Lesson: Persistent environment means that the game never stops running and continues even after you've logged off. If you leave your character off floating in space, he'll be right there when you come back; but he may not be in one piece if some ne'er-do-well came across him while you were out.

Pumpkin Carving 2006

I hate to knock down the Christ-figures post a notch (especially as its finally getting some comments), but hard work must not go unrewarded and since I just spent three hours carving, sliced open my left thumb, and inflamed the other (my right thumb is the one that houses the tendon that I so lovingly tore nearly two months ago playing frisbee - and it's now about 15% larger than my left thumb). And so, in all it's pumpkin glory, this Halloween's* carvation!

[UPDATE: I noticed my pumpkin art section was a touch out of date, so I fixed it up and you can check them out here]

*note: I still have another pumpkin for carving this year, but in light of how badly it hurts the thumb on my drawing hand, I'll probably hold off for Thanksgiving. Pax out, y'all.

ATCard #7: Robots Dream of Electric Corn Dogs

One more of the ATCs in my collection. Ideally based off of a Phillip K. Dick story. I think I pulled it off better than Bladerunner did. But only because Ridley Scott is a hack.

Hm, I wonder if Bladerunner would have been worthwhile had it been filmed by Richard Linklater. And rotoscoped. And featured the Tustin Marketplace.

ATCard #2

Going Against the Flow with Schrödinger's Cats

For lack of anything better, I present you with one of the ATCs I made some time back.