Abandon All Hope of a Normal Blog

Pointy elf ears are pointy

2008-07-15T07:24:53Z

Seriously people. If you need to draw elf ears that extend past the head and could function as daggers in close combat, maybe you're leaning a tad too hard on a single elfen trait. An elf is more than his ears, you know. Give him his dignity.

Now on to a totally unrelated topic--

I can't remember if I've ever mentioned wanting this product before, maybe in a past entry, but I do. Yeah I have an exercise ball and I can even sit on it without carooming off the walls or smashing my head against sharp corners. And all that after only 6 months of ball ownership. One day I'll be able to actually work out with it, but I wouldn't want to rush things at this stage. Technically then I don't need The Bean because isn't a ball similar? Probably the ball is better because you use more muscles keeping your balance than you would with something that keeps you stable. The Bean has really nothing special to offer me in way of fitness goals. It does, however, have other attractions.

I would like all of you to now click on the little video clip on The Bean's main page. Never mind the spiel. If that bothers you, turn off the sound and watch. You'll note that the principle position shown is that of an especially buff man or woman rocking back and forth on his/her back. A kind of sit up. When I first saw this, on TV, the very first thing that crossed my mind wasn't 'wow, I could really get into situps if I didn't have to lay on the floor' or 'neat! Now exercise will be easier than cutting toenails!' My thought immediately upon seeing those Speedo-clad washboard-ab'd men thrusting up and down was 'If I was on top, I could help him 'exercise' but they'd never accept the video as customer testimony in future ads.' I learned that The Bean has a weight capacity of 600 lbs. Plenty of wiggle room to allow for sudden downward thrusts. It's also plastic and therefore washable. Plus it's only 2 easy payments of 24.95. But wait! There's more! Act now and they'll throw in the all-new Bean Vibrating Pad and Heating Gel, worth $6,000 in popular retail outlets--now yours FREE! Call now! Operators are standing by! Ask about are Bean There Done That special!

Best thing of all though? It doesn't LOOK like what I want it for. I can leave this thing in the living room in front of company and no one would be the wiser unless they came upon us while working out on it. That would be embarrassing, but would likely result in a sudden spike in sales for the company. ;)

barlidoc @ 2008-07-07T18:12:00

2008-07-08T01:33:57Z

Name that Chicken!

My sister hatched 3 baby chicks 2 weeks ago and they need names! Dad's already suggested Crispy, Extra Crispy and Original Recipe and pretty much everyone who was at my sister's house on the 4th came up with chicken dish related names. What can you come up with?

All 3 chicks are going to be pets and providers of fresh omlettes and all are hens. Probably roosters would piss off her neighbors.

barlidoc @ 2008-06-30T23:55:00

2008-07-01T07:37:14Z

A couple months ago I participated in a digital painting exercise and the assignment was to paint an apple, so this is what lurched out of my lil' inkless pen. The idea is to get away from the temptation to blend with a soft brush, which can result in a painting that looks flocked--like a 60's love den.

And my second--I did that today. What's wierd about using a hard brush is when you first begin to blend away, you're thinking 'No fucking way is this going to come together without looking all streaky' It looks streaky at first. To marry two colors and make them get along and not file for divorce the next day means you have to repeatedly lower the opacity as you go and if any one out there wants more details, I'll put up a mini tut next time.

My art right now is mostly pissing me off, but not in such a way as to make me want to quit. I want my figures to stop resembling Andrew Loomis ones and start resembling my own and I'm finding this whole thing a 'two steps forward, one step back' proposition. At least I didn't piss you guys off by forgetting the cut. The second painting is pretty wide, like my ass. I gauge my visual posts that way in fact, cheek to ever-loving cheek. Not by pixel width like most people. When I consider using a cut or not, my caboose is my guide and measure and it's a pretty accurate judge of whether you guys will have to sidescroll or not. However, if I keep eating Ben and Jerry's, I may need a new template as well as a new chair. Well maybe I can add baby carrots to my Heath Bar Crunch.

Pianos and a walkathon--now with fresh paint!

2008-06-02T20:46:35Z

What a busy weekend we had! There's Beth and her baritone getting primed for the end of year concert this Wednesday and then a friend of hers invited her to take part in a charity walk-a-thon for juvenile diabetes (friend's brother has it) at Pt. Defiance Park. While she did that, hubby and I went to my aunts to pick up a piano and if you guys have ever picked up a piano from anywhere you know it isn't a casual kind of action, like loading up a La-Z-Boy into the truck. Pianos need strategic planning. In this case, this was a piano my grandfather, dad and two aunts all played on at one point, whether by choice or by force. Dad says Aunt Carolyn always had the wicked habit of starting a song completely over if she made any mistake along the way, so much so that 'Fur Elise' is permanently ingrained in his head as if Beethoven drove a horse cart through his brain. But Aunt Carolyn no longer plays so she asked me if I wanted it. I did. I miss playing and have a whole shelves' worth of saved sheet music to prove it, including one of those ubiquitous 'Hits of Today' songbooks from the 70's. There's also some real gems from older family members such as '40 Negro Spirituals' dating from about 1920, 'Scotch Songs' and 'Boogie Woogie'.

You guys need to come over once I get my musical chops back, you hear? I finally found my Bach songbook and we're ready to PAR-TAY! Bell bottoms and tie die optional. Minstrel acts and bagpipe performers please use side entrance. Thank you.

Anyhow the move. Pianos are basically large chunks of wood with wholly inadequate caster wheels mounted on the bottom corners. These wheels are the right size for an ottoman and, on an ottoman, facilitate the easy movement of such a small piece of furniture. Not so on 400 pounds of hardwood and strings. You might as well use tooth floss to pull a pig out of a wallow; in the end you have to bust out the heavy equipment and do a lot of bribing and cajoling. But before we could get our pig out, Dad and Richard had to go buy and adapter for the trailer we borrowed and while Aunt Carolyn and I waited, she suggested pulling up the section of fence near the front porch so the men could back the trailer to it. The fence sits in brackets. At some point, my now-dead uncle must have feared a tornado coming along because he also added a few nails here and there and as this was 30 or more years ago, the nails were rusty and cranky. The claw on the hammer my aunt handed me couldn't get purchase so I asked for pliers and yanked those S.O.B.'s out like rotten teeth. When the guys got back we pulled up the section and watched as Dad backed up the trailer as planned. A variety of swears were swapped back and forth but the piano was at last wrestled into place and now it's in my family room.

Oh and I started painting the kitchen.

I told you I've been busy!

Last time I did any painting, I kind of jumped the gun (only funny if you know the circumstances in which we moved from the townhouse) and painted before we got most of the furniture in. When we moved to this house I held off just in case the neighborhood showed a dark side or the house itself decided to self destruct. Now that we're sure we want to stay, I'm ready to get rid of the bland white walls. White walls are bad for me. I keep thinking of them as giant sketchbook pads and, yes, I have had to sheepishly erase pencil drawings I've idly drawn on them. One was a Lucius, done in a fit of withdrawal. I think walls done in 'Starfish' will repel me. Starfish is the color name and it's sort of a golden biscuit color. It makes me a little hungry for fresh scones and since I'm not inclined to doodle on either scones or starfish, the walls should be safe.

Draws!

2008-05-23T21:54:44Z

Upholding an American tradition

2008-05-19T20:09:39Z

That is I purged my excess household bloat upon the world in the guise of that great institution; the Garage Sale. Or Yard Sale. In my case, so perfectly poised between yard and garage, more like a Driveway Sale. I went out Saturday morning, heaped 4 tables full of stuff, set Beth to guard the loot and then stapled signs to conveniently placed stops signs that would instantly draw strangers to our home to paw through our rejected junk. The day was hot. Nearly 90 degrees in places, such as wherever I happened to stand at any given moment. Our neighbors woke up and ran sprinklers, then walked over to see what kind of taste I had in knickknacks. Actually a lot of it was unopened gifts I'd received quite recently. Gifts you get people when you stop paying attention to their current interests/sizes/passions and have to grab something generic off the center displays in stores like Wal Mart and Fred Meyer. You know, the boxed glove sets and slippers, the gift bath sets and fancy soaps. I can't stand that shit. So I just set them aside and finally their quantity hit critical mass. Out they went. I had several cannisters of body butter out there in scents like 'brown sugar' and 'pomegranate' and 'peach fizz'. I suppose if combined all of them and stood in that sun for a few hours, I'd turn into a peach cobbler and people would come up and lick me--which I probably could have charged money for. Hell there was even a Peppermint Body Lotion someone got me over the holidays, so I could have offered an after-dinner mint to cleanse the palate.

Mom also had some stuff she brought along, which was why I needed 4 whole tables. Most of her stuff was so overpriced as to be comical. For instance she had this Walkman (from the 80's no less) with no headphones and no battery, for 3 bucks. She also had an ancient mixer for 15 and half the stuff hadn't been cleaned, so I spend a long, frantic time wiping her stuff down and hosing the nasty sugar crusts from a pair of cracked canisters she should have given away. Good thing is she was willing to negotiate.

One thing I had out there was a brand new Gameboy SP. Reason why I was selling it, unopened, was because we bought that darn thing for Beth at Christmas without knowing Dad already bought her a Nintendo DS. Dad and I talked and agreed the SP was the superior system, but we forgot to take back the Gameboy and there it sat. Well little Orlando from across the street had his lasers aimed at this thing from the moment he casually wandered over to scope out our junk pile. He wanted it. He craved it. He would die without it. The free world would surely come to an end if he didn't find a clever way of procuring it, short of blatant theft, or murder. He began to bargain, frequently taking little breaks to go back home to his sisters to regroup. First he offered his older Gameboy as trade. Even trade, my new GB for his used one. Well the kid's only about 9 and might be a little ignorant--or just obsessively determined. He tried again and again, all morning, asking if he could have it for a dollar, pestering me for not just giving it to him. He asked if he could have it if I hadn't sold it by the end of the day and since all the quality stuff I didn't sell is going with me to the swap meet, I said no. He employed puppy eyes, but I'm immune. I stuck to my guns. He trotted off to do some more hard thinking. His sisters turned on their sprinkler system and he stuffed a running hose down his swim trunks, to better help him think. All it did was make him more redundant. And drippy. So now this kid is not only getting tedious and pathetic, he's dripping on my mother's doll furniture. Again I tell him the price and that's what he'll need and by the way where's mom and dad? At this point I really wanted their interference because he's started to bring all his littermates with him, as reinforcements. 4 sisters and a brother, all puppy dogging me and circling the end of my driveway like vultures waiting for their prey to die already.

Then disaster struck.

An old man arrived and picked up the coveted game, turning it over in his hands. His cell came out and he spoke to someone, quoting my asking price. Orlando hovered anxiously in the background. His little brother bit his lip--he'd been promised a turn at the game. The old man made an offer. A real offer. I sold it. Orlando stood rooted to the spot, a victim of that old chestnut 'Money Talks, Bullshit Walks'. My Mom thought I should educate him of that phrase. I figured he'd just learned it on his own.

Oh and someone stole our 25 cent basket. Not the kids, but someone did. Maybe I'll see the items for sale at some other garage sale, huh?

barlidoc @ 2008-05-13T11:41:00

2008-05-13T18:47:22Z

I always wondered how poor Luce fared after Sirius kicked his magic ass and flung him across the DOM and against the stone wall. Poor baby! Don't you want to kiss him and make it all better?

He has a neck brace but HIS HAIR IS STILL SCHMEXY AS HELL

barlidoc @ 2008-05-12T19:55:00

2008-05-13T03:23:58Z

Guess what? We got a free lunch yesterday! Took mom and stepdad with us to her favorite restaurant, Olive Garden, and they got fucked up in the kitchen or something. Don't know how exactly; in the vast crush of orders from the Mother's Day Mob, something got lost in the translation from waitress to cook. At any rate, we were waiting a long, long time and the manager came over to our table and said 'Your dinner's on us tonight!'

Um . . . YAY. Olive Garden might be sliding in the direction of Denny's as far as quality, but I can't complain about service. Kudos to the Olive!

Yeah not a rant so I kept it short guys. Who wants to read about happy thoughts in LJ? I could think of a rant if I wanted to, in place of the art I'm no longer posting. I'll could rant about Burne Hogarth's 'Dynamic Anatomy' book and the exercises therein. I could rant about missing drawing Lucius. I could rant about the price of gas. I could rant about my hubby's gas. Anything really. I could also rant about getting advice to work on my perspective, because the person who pointed out obviously knows I've been studiously avoiding perspective and, you know, it's probably about time I tackled it. I'm in denial. I can draw a goddamn cube! I don't need no stinkin' perspective! Just because my drawings lack a constant horizon does NOT MEAN I DON'T KNOW perspective! Amen and halleluah! Loomis had some lessons on it that I handily avoided in my quest to learn anatomy. I'll work on it tonight. Honest.

barlidoc @ 2008-05-09T20:46:00

2008-05-10T05:11:20Z

Mom's Day is a comin'. No one knows that better than Lucius, who gets rather sentimental this time of year when he thinks of his sainted mother's futile efforts to get him to stop getting into her hair volumizing potions. She tried. She failed. He acknowledges motherhood the best way he can now that she's dead and gone; by picking flowers for me and promising all kinds of twisted, sick, perverted gymnastics once the lights are out.

He looks a bit distracted, no? Like he's already wondering how best to employ the combination of that tub of leftover strawberry glaze, the pastry brush and my old Saturday Night Live record album. He's very resourceful that way. Stayin' Alive is about to be crosswired in my mind with lascivious food porn. I'll mentally put Lucius in polyester slacks and pump my hips to his groovy moves on the spotlighted disco floor while white mirrored shards of light whirl around us. Ooo Ooo Ooo OOOO stayin' aliiiiive . . .

As a Mother's Day gift? Works for me. Where's that pastry brush?

From there I will naturally make the logical connection of topics and discuss my opinion of the Specialty Merchandising Corporation, or SMC. Yes. The chain of thought is as follows. Mother's Day, Lucius, porn, food glaze, John Travolta, disco, sex, polyester!Lucius, sex, mirror ball, SMC.

And by SMC yes I mean that one on the infomercials that used to star Happy Day's Tom Bosley (Mr. Cunningham) but now is hosted by some generic warehouse fatty. It makes sense that a mirror ball leads to SMC because this company has been around for just about forever and isn't so much a 'get rich quick' scheme as a 'get kinda well off at a reasonable pace' scheme. Which makes it less of a wart on the public backside I guess. In that respect it's less odious than the 'nothing down' real estate infomercials or the 'internet business in a box' ones. They put up these infomericials so that nightowls like me have nothing else to watch at 3am and last year I gave in to the SMC one and got all excited about selling the shit in there at a local swap meet. At the time, I wrote about how hubby and I drove out to investigate the 'meet only to find it closely resembled a Mexican market, but without the Hollywood actors speeding through the rickety stands to knock over home grown fruits and vegetables. I didn't get started. I think a lot of SMC newbies fail in that regard. I think they get scared. I got to thinking. The SMC folks send you a sample of 5 types of catalogues, including the main one. Most the stuff in there is home decor. Most of it is also polyresin. Pretty polyresin, I'll give them that. But plastic is plastic, right? There was also some nice stuff, really nice. Made of real materials. Wood and glass and metal. But only about 5 percent would be suitable at a swap meet where the potential customers are looking for the biggest, baddest discount they can find so they can gang up around the chalupa booth(yes there is one) and brag to all their buddies about how they pwned them all with this 600 set of socket wrenches, slightly used, for only 5 bucks. A polyresin dragon chess set does NOT appeal to such a mindset, no matter how pretty it looks or how skilled the handpainted, red blazing eyes came out. So I put aside my plans for the summer of '07. Now it's '08, May, and the idea of making extra money this way appeals once again. Hubby and I went out last Saturday to see if anything had changed. Not much has.

Except there were two young men out there selling, guess what? yes. SMC crap! 100% SMC crap. I talked to them. They've paid for a months worth of weekends and when I arrived, not a single shopper bothered to more than glance at what the guys had on their tables. Possibly 500 bucks of merchandise on there and no bites. Ouch. They had a dragon incense burner. Very attractive to someone into dragons cause it smokes and looks real cool. There was a medieval chess set and with this thing, you have to price it high to make a profit. They had the cheapass garden tool set out there, a thing I could tell was shit from looking at it in the thumbnail sized photo in the catalogue. Don't get SMC tools or electronics. It's all offbrand and shittily made. Stick with the decor. So anyhow, there these poor saps are and I thought of the diabolical way the SMC 'coach' you get sort of pushes any idea of using OTHER wholesale suppliers out of your stewed little brain. It's very subtle. They aren't coaches really, but hard driven salesmen determined to get you to buy all the extras. You have to step back from the cloud of obsession they build up around you just to conclude that, 'hey, I can make SMC ONE of my suppliers, not the sole supplier. I can diversifiy!' This thought was what made the idea of trying my luck at the swap meet appealing once again. I figure I'll put about 2 or 3 SMC items on the table at most. The rest will be from other sources.

So do I think SMC is a ripoff? Kind of. It engages in far too much hoopla and confuses the hell out of their new customers, making them a kind of slave to the company whether they know it or not, a loyal SMC sales rep who wouldn't dare consider selling Dollar Store type products alongside the polyresin dolphin sculptures and birdhouses. It doesn't offer half the selection of most warehouses I've investigated so far, nor offer as good a discount. A metric ton of SMC members have gone into sub-wholesaling online, flooding the market with the stuff. It's everywhere. Ebay is drowning in their merchandise so the attraction of having an online storefront has died. Even the slickest of their 'coaches' couldn't convince me to buy one! Oh and the coaches are fucking rude too. I told one off last year for failing to even listen to my plans--all he wanted to do was upsell me. I wanted to discuss the various differences in flea markets across the U.S. and how best to target particular markets accordingly. He didn't give a shit about that; he wanted to discuss my spending 600 bucks on a website template. He shut me down and cut me off. I cut HIM off and then hung up. I never called my 'coach' again.

So I'll pick a few favorites for my booth and focus my attention elsewhere.

To my great happiness, I managed to find the wholesale dealer that supplies Archie McPhee's delightful Devil Ducks, Deluxe Rubber Chickens, Nunzillas, Zombie Finger Puppets, Pirate aprons and the one and only Albert Einstein action figure. If things go well, I might give these a try. They'd be a lot more fun than batteries and hair scrunchies, that's for sure! I mean who can't use a rubber chicken for God's sake? I know I can.

Lucius arrived today!

2008-04-24T06:05:43Z

And promptly hid under my doormat . . .

Funny. People seem to always knock when I'm on the potty and this time was no exception. I opened my front door some five minutes after the knocking stopped and, lo and behold!, Lucius himself was trying his best to surprise me by crawling under the doormat. The door hit his ass, I pushed him aside and picked him up, then brought him inside to check out his package. It was hard. Very hard. Hard enough to make it a challenge to see if his robes came off or not. So hard and smooth my hand slipped--but that might have been excitement.

You guys wanna see him?

Luce and the Martian Popping Thing engage in epic battle. Magic fails, but using cane as spear saves the day! You da man, Lucius!

Air guitar LUCE!!! With DE mask head on. As you can see his little Snakey comes apart too.

So now I not only have a Lucius with a stick whose head is removable for my pleasure, but Lucius himself has two heads, one of which could be used as a fun little pencil topper OR put to other, less public, uses for those lonely afternoons when the family is out and I'm very bored AND very desperate.

I don't recommend eating out with me from now on

2008-04-17T03:52:21Z

Today I reached a milestone on my way to senility. It happened while I was at my local McDonalds and after I ordered my quarter pounder with cheese and bucket scoop of fries. The guy behind me stepped forward while I waited for my food so I was standing roughly three feet to his right. Guy was about mid twenties, dressed in an off the rack suit that was a couple sizes too big and what made me pay attention to him at all was how he was talking to the cashier. He started off by harrassing him about his speed, saying 'Hey now, you guys are supposed to be fast, right?' The cashier--and the cashier by the way I felt sorry for before the suit got in his face. Cashier was wearing a black shirt that read 'It's what I eat and what I love' with the McDonald's logo in the center. It didn't help that the cashier was on the chubby side and I'm sure when THIS uniform change landed on his lap he submitted applications elsewhere that very afternoon.

Anyhow, back to the suit.

Like I said, I watched the interaction at this point and the cashier nodded and went on quickly assembling the guy's order. Then the suit said 'Come, come on time is money man! Chop chop!'

Until then I didn't think anyone actually ever SAID 'chop chop' to ANYONE, EVER. I looked to see if maybe the suit and cashier knew one another and the suit was just joking around, but the cashier was getting embarrassed and trying not to show it. That's when I thought 'Damn, what an arrogant pusbag,' as I grabbed additional ketchup. But here's where the senility factor comes in. Cause I didn't JUST think those words. Those words left my lips and landed right on the suit's tiny embryonic ears. They also landed on the cashier's ears, who blinked at me. The suit had one of those really florid complexions that show blood flow really well and the blood in this man's face started rising from the neck up. I expected verbal armagedon. I expected shouting. But, hell, this is a new age and in this new age, people like the suit are too stunned that anyone called them out in public; the only thing left in their worthless mouths is the cat that's holding on to their flapping tongues. I got my order and left, sat down. He got his and left the building.

I hope that cashier had a better day from then on. ;)

barlidoc @ 2008-04-14T18:12:00

2008-04-15T02:04:30Z

I was looking at some art recently, just casually noodling around various places I like to catch the efforts of others, whether straight anatomy studies or fanart or something someone posted at random--and most of the time the artist wanted feedback, which is cool. Then I go to their site or comments page and see that others have praised the work to Kingdom Come, dumping enough asspats to swell even the hardest of egos (my metaphores . . . Christ on a cracker . . . do I need sex or what?) I just laid (there I go again) eyes on a piece that might have been quite romantic and even erotic--had the artist realized that the human frame is not twelve heads high, but 7 or 8 on average. Honest to God they looked as if they were making whoopie in an automatic taffy puller, yet the feedback was 100 percent 'oh man that's hot!' and other choice phrases. I wanted to point out the work's many flaws but who wants to be the first to bust someone's bubble? Who wants to be the one who wields the spanking paddle among the asspatters? It's safe enough to be honest and even a little tactless, on Concept Art, but what about the rest of the online world? For all I know I might stir up another Snapesnogger (well known drama addict on DA) simply by suggesting they've got some serious work to do and so I find myself saying nothing.

Think about it. In my constant search for new and sexy Lucius art, I'm a member of a couple Harry Potter fanart communities where very little of the art is even approaching humanoid, never mind lickable. The artist may be the age of my own daughter with the requisite tender ego and dying wish that his/her art earn them favorable feedback. There are also some unstable adults whose sense of self worth stands on a teflon-tipped hairpin and for God's sake you don't want to breath wrong around them. All this tends to lock me up when I'm poised to give my opinion.

What's my point anyhow?

I dunno. I'm just flapping my gums. My journal. Deal.

I think I'll change the way I go about this. I see an artist I really love, I'll add them, post a comment saying why and watch their art in my flist rather than the community. I'm not much of an active participant anyhow, for the above reason. The other way I could go, if I felt like taking the time, would be to drop crit bombs at random and hang the consequences. Yeah, I'd be tactful and honest, but I wouldn't hold back either. I'd get a reputation as 'that damned asshole' who 'destroyed my will to live and/or draw' lol. A lot depends on mood. There'll be days I want to take the 'add friend quietly' route and others I yank out the knives and start slicing. What do you guys think you'd do? Slice or nice?

If you're an artist on my flist right now, how do YOU want me to crit, if at all? Some of you get deservedly high praise but if I see flaws, would you fall apart if I was the only one to point them out? Even though I'm no expert myself?

Just something that crossed my mind today. Back to hand drawing practice :p

Contract with Hallmark coming up!

2008-04-12T23:27:00Z

After they see the Get Well card I just spent an entire hour and a half making today, I'm a shoe in for a permanent assignment to design the kind of sentimental, heartfelt greeting cards that are Hallmark's, well, hallmark. Last night I learned that my stepdad's blood pressure medication backfired on him, giving him a continuously bloody nose that Mom couldn't get stopped no matter how hard she tried. They rushed him into the hospital and stuffed tampons up his nose until they get his mediation balanced out again and are mostly watching him to make sure he doesn't go off. At one point Mom said the bleeding got so bad blood came out his EYES. His eyes! It backed up the tear ducts you see. Poor guy. But Mom was telling me how the nose packing stuff sticks out and a nurse remarked that he resembled a warthog.

Cue drawbunny!

Enter stage right!

This carefully rendered interpretation of my beloved stepdad illustrates our loving relationship to an almost maudlin degree. I hope it isn't too mushy. I really hate to think I've gone over the top and made him cry. To be honest I'm not sure when the two of us started with the sticky sweet nicknames like 'Bonehead and 'Baldy' and 'Omar the Tentmaker Fire Sale Special' but it's an old tradition. It's customary for us to start insulting one another as a form of greeting, which speaks volumes about our respective maturity levels doesn't it?

On the subject of sickness, hubby is much better now. Yesterday he felt kinda funky and slowly got better and his fever dropped too. Good hubby. I've escaped this plague and so has Beth so all is well around here--oh and hubby got the kite down too! It scooted close to the house and he was able to climb on the roof to snag it. No brain cells were fried in this undertaking.

barlidoc @ 2008-04-10T14:20:00

2008-04-10T22:06:14Z

I better get interesting or something. Since I stopped posting Lucius fanart, comments have been heading southward from folks pining at home from my past announcement that there'd be no Luce for a while. Ha! Like my ego is so big I'd think for one minute my artz are that good! Still, this is a public journal damnit and I owe it to my tiny public to give 'em a piece of my life they can laugh at and say to themselves 'shit, better you than me Ann.' I'm getting boring. Booooorrrriiiiinnnnng. I bore myself. I'm yawning at this very moment, though that could just be because hubby and his sinus cavities kept me up all night and believe it or not it wasn't the really loud snores that did it. It was when they quieted down to a kind of burbling sound, much like thinner mucus doing a little waltz in his throat. That sound is so utterly revolting and worse, made me keep wanting to clear MY throat out of helpless irritation and sympathy. It's the same way when someone with a hoarse voice (and not the good hoarse, as in a result of being sexually excited) talks to you. At one point I turned my back to him, folded my arm across my face and stuck a finger in the ear not pressed into the pillow. Right now he's sleeping with the cat on his legs. Nurse Cathulhu. And hubby's worse. I upgraded (downgraded?)his condition from cold to flu cause of the fever and patheticness. Maybe I will sleep on the couch after all. eep

Houston, we have a problem.

Guess who flew her kite yesterday?

Any suggestions here? I'm not really terribly enthused about reaching up there with a metal rake or hoe to drag it down, tell you the truth. Maybe I'll shoot it down with the .22 instead. But what about a kid makes them want to fly a kite under power lines, as it's about to downpour and when there's scant wind around? She said she meant to keep it on a short string and was just killing time until I got ready to take her to the store. Short. Yeah kid. You did that good! Now we no longer have a kite, but a sort of floating lawn ornament or even a hangman's noose for any burglars that happen across the yard on the way to robbing us blind. Tomorrow morning I'll find a pair of intrepid thieves strangled at the end of that line or maybe a brace of partriges dangling from the kite's tail, all ready for supper. Partridges, pfft! Crows maybe, but who'd eat those?

Poor hubby

2008-04-10T05:10:13Z

The darling has the WORST cold right now. He's a sniffling pile of abject suffering who's been wandering from room to room with his Mickey Mouse blanket draped over his shoulders like a fuzzy black and white cape. I fed him the chicken soup. I fed him honey lemon tea. I tried getting NyQuil down his gullet but he crawled into bed before I could and now I'm kind of afraid to go in there. I might as well not bother. I mean, he snores on a normal night, but when he gets these little ailments, he sounds like the garbage disposal repeatedly being switched on and off, on and off, on and off ALL FREAKIN' NIGHT LONG. Sleep? Hell no. Not with five pounds of gellied mucous rambling around in his sinus cavities visiting long-lost relations, saying hello to germs and microbes they haven't seen in months and who have been nagging the snot to come around and say hi every now and then.

But we wives go in there anyhow. Yes, we go in and sleep with the plague victims we've come to love and honor in sickness and health. So I'll open the bedroom door tonight and lay beside him like the foolhardy creature I am. I can't sleep on the couch. I won't be sleeping in bed. I can't stay up all night cause last night I got no sleep at all. Chances are I'll nod off despite myself and wake up to his moaning that he needs more honey tea before he dies. Poor thing.

barlidoc @ 2008-04-04T17:31:00

2008-04-05T02:30:30Z

Hey I'm back in! Chat that is. I sprinkled some magic pixie dust on the CPU, did a rain dance and worshiped a few minor deities for extra insurance, which is what any tech support guru will tell you if you ask the right way if you can punch through the pea soup thick accent. I didn't have to call tech support though. I just went for the magic mojo on my own. Talk about initiative huh?

One of those things is an attempt to weave rib bones and a fancy schmanzy muscle group called the serratus magnus, an exercise that ended in my right eye crossing and getting stuck for several minutes. I felt as if I were basket weaving with flippers at one point and I'm seriously thinking of making all future drawings either too fat to let the ribcage show or always clothed or with objects stragicially placed. That means I have to feed up Luce real good and put some meat on his bones, get him plump on all that rich food he can so easily afford but only picks at. Spoiled S.O.B.

All this drawing for improvements sake is touching off drawbunnies though. You know how if you try to abstain from something you get kinda obsessed with it? Yeah. That's happening. I get these twisted ideas for drawings and not always what you'd expect i.e. Lucius. The other day, for instance, I was listening to the radio and that ad for 'The Total Transformation Technique' came on. If you've never heard it before, it's the one promoting some kind of method for handling difficult children. I hear it so often I mostly ignore it, but yesterday I asked myself 'well, what do you get in the mail when you order the system, anyhow?'

It's these questions that spawn the lulz.

The ad boasts that it will let you handle everything from defiance to backtalking to 'problems with ADD and ADHD' among other ills AND do so within minutes. Minutes eh? What's in this package that could railroad your brat's screaming fit mid-rant? Oh the images! I'll have to thumbnail a few ideas, but I've sure got plenty of 'em brewing on that ad alone, all of which combine various forms of weaponry with a very convincing sales pitch plus one hell of a liability release. Seriously though, all amusing cartooning ideas aside, what could that little system possibly contain? It also promises 'no tears, no frustration.' On behalf of which party? The kid? The parent? Maybe it's so old-fashioned, it seems new. Like a nineteenth century approach to parenting. The instructions inside (or tape or DVD) might instruct the parent to do something like this:

Kid: *refuses to clean room*

Parent: 'Clean your room.'

Kid: 'NO!'

Parent: *consults Total Transformation manual* 'What did you say?'

Kid: 'I said no! I don't wanna!'

Parent: *pulls out included hickory stick* 'WHAT did you say?'

Kid: 'You can't do that! Teacher says it's child abuse!'

Parent: *bends child over knee and whacks according to diagram* 'Welcome to the new millinium kid! Boy this is fun! No wonder my great grandma could put up with eight kids in a 12x24 log cabin all winter! God bless you, Total Transformation Technique!'

Kid: 'Jig's up! Waaaaaahhhhh!'

All in all the whole thing sound fishy. Like those 'eat all you want and still lose weight' systems that bind up your fat and carbs, grease your poop chute and ensure you can never be more than ten feet from a bathroom ever again.

barlidoc @ 2008-04-02T16:58:00

2008-04-03T00:20:59Z

Anyone who's been lounging around the FM water cooler the last couple days might have thought my behavior pretty strange lately. I've been logging in, then mysteriously never speak again. Well the truth is chat has been unhappy with me for whatever reason or maybe the servers feel my time is better spent at the drawing board, but logging in is about all I can do right now. Damn, I must have picked up one big ass virus. Said virus sneezes me out of chat the moment I get in, before people even get a chance to say hello! So until I work out what the trouble is on my end, I'm stuck on the outside. I suppose if it goes on a few more days I'll ask Mar if she has any suggestions. And here I thought I had all my computer's shots updated.

Artz!

Here's a fraction of the anatomies I've been practicing:

Said anatomies are posted on CA and include nekkid bodies even more distorted and wonky than these! For this lesson I'm supposed to draw poses from imagination after getting the gist of the major muscle groups so basically I drew about 16 poses from the Loomis examples, then I was left high and dry to fend for myself with only a partly sharpened pencil for a weapon against artistic madness. The next series of lessons covers more exact studies of the bones and muscles and how they work together. After that I do another series of 'from the hip' drawings but with these advanced principles. So my art will either get better or just wonkier--but with more lumps.

Online learnings. I haz them.

2008-03-15T07:15:28Z

Go here for laughs and Photoshop skilz. I'm posting this so none of you think I ate myself into a coma or anything like that. I'm just busy. I'm also on a diet of sorts that has nothing to do with how many Snackwells I can scarf in an hour and still call myself 'good.' The diet is far more torturous than that. More hard core. More cruel and demeaning. I might even make up a point system for it, the way Weight Watchers participants do, numbered one through five, say. Said point system would reward in much the same way as a regular diet; chiefly for showing willpower and not by showing daylight into the freezer where the Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia lives. This diet is just like any other in that it demands I possess the self sacrifice and discipline of Ghandi, so take pity on me. Ghandi never had to deprive himself of drawing Lucius, so what does he know?

Yes. I'm on a FANART DIET. That is NO DRAWING LUCIUS or other FANART. Not even ETERNAL BLOOD.

*pause to sob brokenly*

I'm OK--really. All this means is I'll concentrate on progress instead of getting Lucius's hair to fall just right over his tight, naked . . .

*pause to change jeans*

Someone on an art forum said something that kind of hit home and it has a lot to do with this. The person enjoys drawing art from several fandoms and posted a Photoshop painting for critique and since the forum was Concept Art it was happily torn to shreds, but one of the pros there appealed to the artist's stated wish to impress his Deviant Art watch list. The pro said 'Why not put the fanart aside for now, concentrate on getting your anatomy and perspective issues straightened out THEN you can not only impress, but blow them away.'

I'm far enough away from the 'blow them away' phase not to kid myself that I could wait that long to draw Luce again, but I'd sure like to get a few basics nailed before I think about doing another fully rendered piece or comic. It's an ongoing process. My long term goal is to be able to mesh humor with really great drawings for that double one-two punch. Right now I have humor but not always the skill to bring off the full effect of what I'm after. So diet time. Boring anatomy time. Andrew Loomis 'Heads and Hands' time. Loomis's BORING AS FUCK straight faces to draw again and again. God I swear all his male heads look like preppies. Like the boy next door. Like Ward Cleaver or Father Knows Best. I crave expression and I want you know I'm really suffering for my craft right now, peeps. I need sneers and distorted facial gymnastics. I need a face in the throes of high drama. Tragedy, hilarity, violent dry heaves, fury and terror. Today I drew a still from Monty Python's 'The Meaning of Life' just so I could face another page of square facial planes and gently smiling middle class gentlemen with clean thoughts and short haircuts. I need, let's not put too fine a point on this, perversion. I'm motivated to get through this stage so I can draw a new, improved Lucius with every muscle and boner just so, his skin the right combination of values and texture so his glorious platinum hair will . . .

*pause to run cold shower*

What sucks more than the Loomis stuff is knowing that progress as a writer or artist comes in small increments. I don't want increments. I want to put something up and have it go 'BANG HOLY FUCK THAT'S GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!' and I want that now.

Now for the point system. And by the way, you guys can help me with it! I post everything in my sketchbook on Concept Art, even the foulups and stuff I'm embarrassed to show because the big deal with keeping an ongoing sketchbook is of course the long-term record of progress, so it's kind of cheating if I use creative editing to erase the fuckups, right? Anyhow, the point system is from 1-5 as follows:

Give me the following points according to the presence or lack of fanart in the CA sketchbook or LJ post, wherever you find it:

1 point = A full page of nothing but Lucius or any fully rendered (finished and colored) comic or panel

2 points = Some Lucius drawings among 'serious' studies but no color drawings of him

3 points = One Lucius on a page

4 points = A suspicious number of long haired models in a single post but no blatant fanart

5 points = Everything on page is purely academic without a doubt

This means nothing much is going into DA is there?

barlidoc @ 2008-03-06T15:42:00

2008-03-07T00:42:36Z

Lucius is Disapparating.

After only 6 months in my care, he's leaving. He's had enough. I guess having his sexy mug on a t-shirt wasn't good enough. God damned snobby bastard. Here I thought he was happy, too. We had some laughs, shared my pillow, drank some wine and enjoyed major lulz when hubby asked me to please stop licking Luce when he came out of the wash. But 6 months might be all I can hope for with a Cafe Press shirt. I don't know. Luce is on 3 black shirts and one white. He's sticking to the white like it's rice so no complaints there, but all three black shirts are showing definite signs of wear (and NOT because of the licking or general molestation so hush). Like I said, he's Disapparating. More and more black shows through and less and less Lucius. By summer, you won't even be able to see him unless I simply refuse to wash my shirts from this day forward and rely on Febreze as my chosen pit deodorizer.

Cafe Press you SUCK donkey balls. Donkey balls dipped in rank poi with a side of rotting chum.

I have 4 shirts instead of only 2 because I finally gave up on you getting the image right on the black, then I can't even keep what I have for half a year? Despite gentle washings and not wearing the shirt day in and day out? These shirts look like I throw pebbles into the washing machine before dumping the detergent in. God, I'm glad I didn't opt to actually sell these things. I'd have major drama from pissed off customers right about now and it's too bad because I've always toyed with the idea of selling t-shirts, though not with Lucius on them. I don't want J.K.Rowling's attorneys on my doorstep, after all. Ah Cafe Press. How I would have loved that tiny profit margin gleaned from your overpriced shirts! How I would have clung to the false hope that someone would find my hand-drawn designs among all the clip art submissions and actually BUY one. Yeesh.

barlidoc @ 2008-03-03T17:07:00

2008-03-04T03:04:36Z

As if I needed another excuse to stick my nose to the computer screen even one minute longer than I already do, I had to get involved with yet another art pimpage site. I already have Deviant Art and this here LJ so isn't that enough? I mean really. How many asspats do I need here? How many more people need to see my spastic drek? But I did need just one more spot, honestly. Lemmee 'splain. I have the LJ for everything my mind spews out, including art. I have DA for art. And now I have Concept Art for posting 'serious' sketches and getting and giving crits. I now have a place to unleash my pent-up arty fury for when I don't feel like pandering to an artist's sensitive nature. I can sez it like it iz. Oh yes.

You can't do that on DA. Not without losing a nose.

I'll give you an overview of the differences with a hypothetical example. Suppose I post that fun little drawing I did spoofing 'Eternal Blood' The one in color, of the 'track lighting.' I post it in both DA and CA. Hypothetically let's assume the same number of viewers respond. This is roughly what would happen:

In DA, the comments would generally run like this:

Cute!

lol!

I dont get it but I like it!

?????

I can't read the writing

u have a grate style!

omg I love the horses!

I like it but how come there's lights?

So now I post the same thing in CA and, from what I've seen of similar quality works, I'd expect something like this:

Lose the hard round brush when rendering natural backgrounds and study horse anatomy. Clearly you're trying for a semi-realistic drawing on the horses but they need work.

Your spots don't always line up with the light source

It's OK, but the horse on my left seems to be emerging straight out of the woods instead of turning down the path and I really don't like 'itchy' lines in a cartoon. Clean it up a little and use long strokes. Minor nitpick--can't read the dialog very well.

What dpi did you set for the final color? I see a lot of pixelization and you lose detail so the facial expessions are muddy . . .

OK you get the idea. Art of the quality I currently produce will get mercilessly dissected on CA, especially if submitted to the 'Critique Center' over there. Sketchbooks can swing both ways. They get praise for progress and hints for improvement. A beginner who mistakenly submits art to the 'Finally Finished!' section is asking for it, big time, because that's the pro/high intermediate level thread. So there's quality control and I like that, big time. The focus of the site is art, not social networking or pageviews. You go into the forums and all but a couple of threads are art related. On DA, it's the reverse. There, fanart gets the raves and so I'll continue to post my fanart there as I always have. Lucius loves the asspats you know. Can't get enough. He's been asking me 'well why not post me in CA, love?'

He don't get it.

Not that fanart isn't welcome, but if it's got flaws--and you know Lucius doesn't like to think he has them--people will let me know. For now, I'll protect his tender ego until I've done more anatomy studies, poor bloke. I mean can you imagine how he'd take it if someone suggested his hair was 'strawlike' or 'resembles spun wax'?

He'd die. Honestly. He'd simply die.

So that's all well and good, but while I was getting familiar with the place I explored an intriguing little thread called 'The Worst of CA' and I figured it would contain bits of wank and so on. I was half right. There's wank a-plenty, but it's specific wank. If I had my way with the title, I wouldn't call it 'Worst of CA' at all, but 'High DA Pageviews Doth Not a God Make'. Many of the links are past threads where an extremely popular artist in DA moseys over, posts art in the 'Finally Finished' section and is either moved by mods to the 'Critique Center' or torn apart on the spot. Torn apart lovingly, of course. With the very best intentions. The wank part comes about when the artist takes said help poorly and whines that he/she is a veritable King or Queen on DA so nyah. This seems to be the signal to attack. This is the smell of fear that tickles the nostrils of the wolves and the bleeding cut that tells the shark it's suppertime. For a while the crits simple get more insistent, more adamant in tone, then when these aren't heeded and the crittee refuses to see sense, the enlightening blades of fury start slicing and dicing, mincing pomposity and julienning self-importance. Inflated egos are popped and should the recipient of said popping possess a really ace repair kit and a battery operated air pump, they are eventually asked to leave until they're mature enough to take criticism.

What I like best is being part of an art community that frowns on empty praise. I also love being able to give my opinion on someone else's work without reserve, because it's expect of me to be honest. I can just say 'Hey man, that just doesn't work for me' and not fear someone at the other end reaching for the nearest razor blade. Usually I hesistate to give art crits of any kind, say in the HP art communities or DA, unless I (1)Know the person and/or (2)Know they can take a real critique without falling apart.

But I've got a sketchbook started over there if you want to look me up. I'm 'Maridius' there just like I am in most of my other places, except here ;) If you dont' want to, go behind the cut and take a peek at my nudes.

NEKKID MENS AHOY

Oh and did you know that the very first pic in your sketchbook page, by default, becomes the thumbnail for your sketchbook? I didn't know this. So how many of you can guess which drawing is standing proud as the graphic symbol of my art? Hint: drawing is in profile, is male, and doesn't stop at the waist.

*thwack* the pains of being a nOOb.

King of Boof--in color!

2008-02-23T07:54:22Z

Lookin' vicious there, King! Go get 'em!

Sketch dump

2008-02-21T05:20:49Z

Tested Photoshop Elements (that cheap version that came free with my Intuos) and you know I like it better for sketching than my old standby Paint Shop Pro--there seems to be more responsiveness and less fuzziness. Fuzziness is a technical term. It means when a line looks like the artist had his/her glasses off when they declared it good and sharp and clean. It's also easier to transition from a thin line to a thicker or lighter to darker-- and I can even sketch with the opacity set at 100%--something I can't do in PSP without a black, black line. What can I say. I have a light touch and PS seems to appreciate it. So I sketched some shit.

Next sketches will be more organized. So what should I work on next? Anatomy or textiles?

Because if the pain doesn't end for me . . .

2008-02-19T01:25:37Z

it doesn't end for you either.

Today's drawing inspired by the following quote from 'Eternal Blood':

'A half hour later they were riding through the forest, relishing each others company. they had not spoken much as there didn't appear to be a great need for words. The horses were running together side by side along a well kept trail. The trail had track lighting along the sides.'

OK I know the horses aren't running but give me a break--I've never drawn horses before now. And Gareth is clearly thinking about page 107 already. Hope he brings a cloth to wipe his love lance with!

barlidoc @ 2008-02-17T23:09:00

2008-02-18T07:36:36Z

Ah inspiration . . .

Now that LaVerne Ross is back in the saddle (as one V. Graham this time) and is once again in the capable, yet long suffering, hands of crevette, we can look forward to a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the worst of the worst. If you've forgotton, it was crevette who reviewed 'Night Travels of the Elven Vampire' a few years back. Back then, I enjoyed the snark along with everyone else in pretty much the typical way--by laughing my ass clean off and then by telling her that I'd laughed my ass clean off and I was sending her the bill for its reconstruction.

But that was years ago.

I show my appreciation a little differently now.

Firstly, I read crevette's first chapter opinions, read the snippets, read the snark, laughed at the snark, was poised to express my approval of said opinion and said snark . . . then it happened

I got drawbunnies.

HOLY HELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A thousand images flashed through my mind, each yanked into being by every single snippet I read. Some sentences spawned 500 or more. There is not enough time for all of them and I truly wish I was more experienced so I could draw more in a shorter span of time--or stand a chance at keeping up with the massive vats of Ross sludge swilling around at my feet right now. No shovel made today could cope.

If you haven't read either the first review, back in what? '04? Yeah '04. Go here to read the 'Elven Vampire' and here for the first chapter review of 'Eternity of Blood' which is basically a rewrite of 'Elven' and longer. Then come back here and feast your eyes on the first and, as far as I know, only LaVerne Ross fanart in existence. Don't look at it unless you're up to speed--you won't get it, 'k?

barlidoc @ 2008-02-14T22:37:00

2008-02-15T06:56:29Z

Valentine artz! Lucius wants just one thing for Valentine's Day. What is it? Click and find out!