Okay, I’m no photographer, but I like taking pictures in the hopes I might get something good. This ALMOST looks good! (Can you tell I’m in the midst of Pop•Tart fetish?)
INSPIRATION: Pop•Tart II
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TV THURSDAY: Dexter (Season 1; 2006)
INNER DEXTER: Season 1 of Dexter is already seven years old, so if you read this and get all huffy over spoilers, go to Hell. You had your chance.
OUTER DEXTER: Be aware that there may be some spoilers below! Continue reading
Indiana Jones and the Frozen Drink (24×18)
24×18
Here’s my latest painting. I don’t remember how I thought of swapping out the idol from Raiders of the Lost Ark (2nd-best Indiana Jones movie, obviously behind Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) with a Slurpee, but here we are. (I’ve got other similar paintings with the Silver Surfer and Two-Face in the works.)
If you’re interested in hanging these types of things on you wall, it’s over at Etsy.
Here’s a ringing endorsement from 7-11 itself:
SOME FUN INDIANA JONES TRIVIA Continue reading
DESIGNS: 2013 Area 51 ET Full Moon Midnight Marathon
Last August, I completed my 6th marathon in as many states (going for 1 in each). It was the Area 51 Extraterrestrial Full Moon Midnight Marathon, a mouthful and a lot of fun.
As far as marathons go, it can’t be any more different. A midnight start, I probably only had 3 training runs in the dark, let alone an actual race. Runners were bused from Vegas hotels to the middle of nowhere two hours away to run down the highway. (It was more like running UP the highway. The first 13 miles was a steady incline.)
I was injured and considered anything under four a hours a win. I finished 4th in my age group, 15th overall (out of a paltry 197), and wanted to die. But what an experience.
While I zigzagged across the US on a couple planes, I was so overcome with a burst of creativity energy that I had to sketch my ideas onto some Delta napkins. I polished those rough drawings and submitted a half-dozen ideas for race medals for the 2013 Midnight Marathon.
The race organizer loved my ideas and assured me she’d be in touch in the spring when it was time to get going again. That was last week, and now I can check off “design a marathon medal” from my bucket list. Quite frankly, the idea that will be this year’s finisher’s medal is so simple, I’m surprised no one’s done it before:
The logic behind the design: Quite frankly, I figured this would have been the very first medal of the ET Marathon back in whatever-the-first-year-of-the-race-was. It seems so obvious. Having received 8 finisher’s medals thus far, a common problem I’ve noticed is they are SO BUSY. Some of them work, some don’t, but in both cases, tossing in sponsor logos and a shitload of colors is never a plus. So here we have some clean simplicity, and close to a standard, classic Olympic-style medal. (I bit an Olympic gold medal in Vancouver. It belonged to a Canadian women’s hockey player.) If the produce these to glow in the dark, it will be the greatest medal of all-time.
Another of my medal concepts (my obligatory busy one) will be added to the back of the tee:
Back of tee
The logic behind the design: The road with the mountains in the distance summarizes your scenery on the race through Rachel, NV. Keep an eye on the sky, and you’ll see more than a few shooting stars. And obviously, since the race goes through Area 51, I had to include the flying saucer. Normally, I’d go with more detail for something like this, but since I designed this as a medal, I had to keep it simple. If the shirts are distressed, I think this will look pretty sweet. (I’ll post pics when I get mine.)
If you want to run the 2013 Area 51 ET Full Moon Marathon (or 51K, 10K or Half-Marathon), go here.
MUPPET MONDAY: Gonzo
12×12
Think of every major life event you could possibly go through during adulthood. I’m juggling three right now: a wedding, house-hunting, and… I’ll let you guess the other, but it’s a happy thing. Still, lotsa stress.
Throw in the minor details that my roommate mistakenly rented out my room a month early, and I have no time or place to regularly paint right now. I had a productive cram session in my old room and in the backyard at my parents’ house over the weekend, and this Gonzo acrylic was one of the things I finished during the impromptu visit.
Fitting that I got around to this classic Muppet during the most chaotic time in my life since I got arrested, worked at the Olympics, quit my job, left my new job to work on Kevin Smith’s Red State, went back to lifeguarding, and ran my first marathon during the span of January–November 2010.
It was one of my favorite ones to paint, and all but officially wraps up my personal favorite characters. If you’ve got a favorite Muppet you’d like to see me paint (to simply look at on your computer or, better yet, for purchase – one of these 12″x12″ portraits is only $50, plus shipping!), drop a line in the comments.
CEREAL SUNDAY: Krave
I’m the king of cheapskates when it comes to everyday things. I mean, you need them everyday, so why overpay? I stock up on toiletries, soup, and cereal, to name a few, when they’re on sale, and ONLY then. It was one of those situations I ran across two for $4 promotion for all Kellogg’s cereal at the grocery. I had to snag a Krave. Ever since I had free samples at the New York Comic Con, it’s been a lingering addiction. The following morning, I ate half the box for breakfast. The Squirrel called me later in the week and said she had eaten back-to-back bowls herself, which is saying something, because the tiny girl eats like a bird.
So I vowed to eat no more Krave. I mean, if its so addictive you don’t even have time to admire and take pictures for your weekly cereal review, it’s hardcore smack, right?
Less than a month after I swore to NEVER buy Krave again, Rite-Aid tricked me into shelling out $4.99 for a single box! The sign said: KELLOGG’S CEREAL $1.97. It did not say EXCEPT KRAVE. So when I finally worked through an overcrowded line to pay, I got a case of mild sticker shock, and it was too late. I was shamed into buying the damned box. I’ll get you Rite-Aid, if its the last thing I do!
And that box went down for the count in THREE HOURS. I hate myself. Krave is a marshmallow-less s’more. You can’t go wrong with graham and chocolate. It has good milk absorption to soften the crunch a little, but the aftermilk doesn’t have much extra flavor… which only means the flavor stays inside the tiny morsels of sinful glee. I have to take points off for that, because like I said, I hate myself for loving this cereal. This is what sharks must feel like when they get a taste for human blood. SAVE YOURSELF! DON’T EAT KRAVE!
FINAL RATING:
REVIEW: Super 8 (2011)
J.J. Abrams’ pitch probably went something like this: “Okay, m’man. Think Goonies meets E.T. and Close Encounters, m’man, but, like, with more gravitas and an emotional wallop. You feel me?” I don’t know what the hell makes think J.J. Abrams talks like that, but he definitely loves Steven Spielberg.
Seriously. Look at this promotional poster. If that’s not Spielbergian, I don’t know what is. Continue reading
PRETEN-D: The Mighty Thor
I used a still from the new Thor: The Dark World trailer to put this faux 3D digital piece together. I don’t think it’s as good as the Iron Man I made last month for two reasons:
1. It’s not taken from original artwork/photography. Sure, I completely made a pre-existing thing my own, but I take more pride in creating something for virtually nothing.
2. Too much of it is filled with color, rather than a lot of line work, so the 3D effect gets lost in the overlapping purple color. Le sigh…
Here’s the trailer, if you haven’t already seen it, which is a borderline federal offense:
TV THURSDAY: Spider-Man Unlimited (Season 1; 1999)
FINAL RATING:
No secret I love comics and animation. Tag team those twin passions with a free month of Netflix and I’m vegging out to gather source material and inspiration for some new paintings and projects. (Can you say Spider-Man 2099, Galactus, and Thanos?)
But it’s not all peaches and cream.
Case in point: Spider-Man Unlimited, a series whose title describes the amount of terrible ideas incorporated into a mere baker’s dozen of episodes. The lone season of this abysmal program was tough to get through, and for long stretches, I was working on other artwork while half-paying attention to the screen.
And in the tried and true method of “Show, don’t tell,” I bring you assorted screenshots of this abomination to the Spider-Man multimedia mythos. (Yes, its worse that Tobey Maguire as emo-Spidey in Spider-Man 3! I still want to punch that guy in the face for that.)
It looks I drew these guys after running a marathon and during a bender. AKA the TERRIBLEST.
The series occurs on Counter-Earth, a copy of our planet on the other side of the sun (its dumber than it sounds) and features the High Evolutionary’s Knights of Wundagore. This one, Ursula, found little career success after Tale Spin.
This redseign for X-51 is so-so. THE PURPLE IS RIDICULOUS. And why would you put a robot on the bed?
I repeat: PURPLE. ROBOTS.
Don’t get me started on this awful Counter-Earth version of Electro.
Legalities with Sony prevented the use of the classic Spidey costume. This mash-up of the Scarlet Spider and Spider-Man 2099 is actually one of the cool things about this show.
The comic book captions were the other cool aspect of this otherwise kill-me-now TV series, mercifully ended after 13 episodes.
STAR CARS: Wayne’s World AMC Pacer
THE WORK:
THE INSPIRATION:
THE BLABBERING:
I haven’t seen Wayne’s World in years, and I bet most of its fondness is based in nostalgia, but that was a good time, once upon a time. After painting Garth’s AMC Pacer, I’m torn between whether I give Noah’s Arcade another go, or let bygones be bygones, and not go out of my way to ruin my adolescence.
