Digital Thursday

Not much to show for Digital Thursday. It is even more lackluster when you realize that I am posting at 9pm. Oh well.

First up is a finished piece highlighting the Wonder Twins from the late 70’s and early 80’s classic cartoon The Superfriends. I tried, albeit a bit unsuccessfully, to give them a serious edge like they had to go rescue Gleek or something. There is some wonky anatomy going on and some truly ridiculous footwear, but other than that I am overall happy with how they turned out.

Second up is a work in process of a Wonder Woman piece I am working on. Think that you are looking at her just after she has knocked you on your butt. You are looking up at her uncoiling the lasso of truth after kicking your ass. Why she kicked your ass in a forest is a different question entirely. I don’t know what it is about me and odd perspectives these days. I guess it is because I never even attempted them as a kid.

Oh well, that’s all I got. I was going to whip up a barbarian named Webinar, but that just wasn’t in the cards today.

To Recap:
The company is having a hog roast for lunch tomorrow
My company confuses me
I need to clean up the kitchen some
Orapred is in full effect
Have a great weekend everyone

Digital Thursday

I did not get the chance to draw anything last night so Digital Thursday this week shall consist of the 2 pieces I mentioned yesterday and a map that I worked on a few months ago.

Namor: I tried to fix some of the most egregious errors associated with this one. Worked with his right arm tons. This is the 4th version of this piece so far. I am not sure I will revisit it again any time soon. I am lost as to how to fix the other issues that I see in it. Maybe some space away from it will help. Comments and crits are welcome from anyone who wants to take a stab at it.

Apache Chief: Oh, I am quite pleased with this one. If I could draw someone with their head thrown back and chin raised, he would have been getting larger instead of smaller. I am very happy with how the coloring on this one came out. The line work could use a good scrubbing, but I feel that the coloring is pretty much spot on. Inuk-Chuk baby! Inuk Chuck!

The map was for a public involvement meeting in Kentucky about 2 alignments for a new roadway. I consistently rail against clients insisting on using aerial imagery as a backdrop for maps like these. The imagery makes the primary information hard to find. It would be like writing a novel about whale hunting and devoting 4 chapters to the biology of whales. Cumbersome and un-necessary. Just because one has the data or knowledge doesn’t mean that the knowledge and data helps to tell the story.

To recap:
Slept last night instead of drawing
Blame Wifey, she made me go to bed
I need to draw something Star-Wars-y again
Original trilogy and Imperial
I also need to whip something digital up for the Wonder Twins
Shape of a grumpy pterodactyl
Form of a Wedding ice sculpture
Gleek!
There are about 10 of you out there picturing the scene I just scripted
You know who you are
Have a great weekend everyone

Digital Thursday

Okay here we are at the second Digital Thursday. What do I have for you lovelies to look at today. All images are clickable for embiggination.

There is a comic book art forum that I have been frequenting as of late that has different challenges every week. One of the things I am trying to do is to enter these challenges.

First up we have a challenge that called for a robot and a kitten. I was assured it could be a robot and a kitten, a robot kitten, a robot made of kittens, or any combination thereof. I went with an ex-robot and a kitten.
And then I made it into a bad LOLCAT with some "stoopid" text. It is a scanned copy of sharpie on a sketch pad. The text was added in Photoshop.

Second up is a digital challenge wherein the subject of the matter is where an average person takes down something super.

In this instance I made it a member of the 101st Airborne taking down The Red Skull. The image is built from 5 separate images with a few other images used as texture maps and color palettes.

Last up is something I worked up for my freelance portfolio.

This graphic depicts two mock-up cards for a non-existent collectible card game. I figured since I am a published artist in the gaming world now, I should attempt to get more work there. This one is done within Illustrator.

Comments and crits are always welcome.

To recap:
It is wet and yucky here today
I am still rather sleep derived
The ‘Rents will be in for dinner tonight
I hope they have more topics than their financial situation
I still needs me some new bands to look for
I also need an iTunes gift card to snag some downloadable content
Mmmm… downloadable content
The Columbus Crew plays LA Galaxy this weekend
It was supposed to be “The Beckham Game”
That is not the case now
Oh well, it will still be much like a playoff atmosphere
Both teams must win to get to the play-offs
But there is a good chance that neither team will make it
Have a great weekend everyone

Digital Thursday

It is official. Thursday’s from now until I get tired of it (and I mean really really tired of it) will be Digital Thursdays!

Here it comes

Number 1:
Updated Dr Doom stuff. I reworked some stuff on this one. I think the piece is stronger for it as well.
(embigginable with click)

Number 2:
Prince Namor (Pencil and some colored pencils) this one turned out a bit too muddied without any real style to it


Number 3:
So I digitally reworked it. I think it works better I still need to clean some of it up though.

(Embiggin this piece
One click will do it for you
More Namor Goodness)

Number 4:
This is a sharpie drawing of Namor swimming. I stripped him down from the gladiatorial idea I had in the previous pieces. It is an odd pose and I think I almost pulled it off. If I had stylized the drawing more, this could have worked, or if I had tweaked the pose a bit it could have been stronger.(Click for embigginage)


Number 5:
Electric Utilities in the Northwest Ohio US 30 Corridor

(When clicked, will embiggen)

Comments and critiques are quite welcome.
Did this work for folk?

To recap:
Steak for dinner
I am hungry, but I am waiting for the steaking
Mmmm steaking
Allrileyedup: Theoretical Thursdays are all you
One more evening until parental unit touchdown
Geeking it out tomorrow
Don’t ask
It does involve multi-sided dice
And character sheets
And general geekiness
Have a great weekend everyone

D: 4 of 26

Here we are at week 12 for the Alphabetic Randomness of SRH. This week, the letter D comes to us from a foam ball lobbed toward my work computer’s keyboard. The ball actually typed “dewr” and reformatted my hard drive, but that is beside the point. The letter D is the 4 the letter of our English alphabet and today’s blog post.

D: Big D, Little d, David Donald Doo dreamed a dozen doughnuts and a duck-dog too.

Since I have already waxed eloquent on my love of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, I think it would be irrelevantly redundant to have D be about “Doughnuts,” (Personally, I prefer the spelling of “Donuts” but that is not what this post is about.) so it was necessary for me to come up with another D-word for this post. D is a pretty large section of the dictionary, so I did not look through the D section and decide on a word that way. I thought and thought and thought about what D-word would be significant to me. Then it hit me in all my arrogant wonder. The word I shall hold near and dear to my heart that starts with “D” shall be “Dullard.” Oh, where would we be without dullards? Oh, where would we be without rhetorical questions?

Anyway… some background. Whilst we were forced to dwell in what can only be described as Alabama, Capt. McArmypants (then he was merely NoRank McOppositionally Defiant) and I would play The Dullard Game tm. It was a simple game with simple rules that we and we alone knew. The game was born from our sense of intellectual superiority that can only be attested to our unchecked arrogance. We were asses, what can I say? (The past tense of the “to be” verb is only being employed because these games took place in the past, I don’t want anyone thinking that I am precluding myself from currently being an ass.)

The mediocre captain (he ain’t “The Good Captain” by any means. Definitely mediocre at best) and I determined, and rightly so, that the term “Dullard” has the correct level of derogatoriness to it. Dumbass, idiot, moron, dumbfuck, cretin, dimwit, and most other derogatory terms for the less than intellectual just seemed to miss. We paused on the word “twit” but eventually decided it was too British for us to genuinely use it being decidedly non-British and all. The Dullards in Alabama were fairly easy to pick out and sadly all too prevalent. Eventually we took this game on the road, but we had a difficult time determining who was a dullard in England, Scotland, or Germany. The cultural contextual clues were so different. The typical American signs just were not present, but this is not the meat of this post itself.

What I am using the term Dullard to illustrate is that many times the most derogatory term that one can use is not necessarily vulgar or inherently racist. Calling someone a dumbass, a dumbshit, or a dumbfuck is crass and the person receiving your dispersions on their intelligence disregards this due to its commonness. Now, the word “dullard?” Oh, that word infuriates it intended target. It is haughty, it is pretentious, and it is inherently comparative. Calling someone a Dumbshit does not preclude you from being a dumbshit yourself. Calling someone a dullard insinuates a certain level of superiority. One cannot call out others for being a dullard, if one is a dullard.

If you take anything useful from this post, I will be monumentally surprised. Wait, let me start that again. If you take anything from this post, please let it be my underlying point: If you can find the correct word, you can debase someone without resorting to cursing or racial epithets.* Thank you and good night.

To recap:
D is also for Darth Vader Reference pic can be found here
I love the Wacom Tablet that Wifey got me for Christmas!
I have started drawing more
I am really happy with how this one turned out
It has severely cut into my World of Warcraft time
I don’t mind so much though
I am not sure I like my new phone ring tone
I should have thought about the D word longer, shouldn’t I?
I could have made some crap up about dirigible
Who doesn’t want to read about airships?
Instead I write a post that makes me seem like a pompous ass
Who’s the real dullard now, SRH?
Who’s the real dullard now?
This post boiled down to “Fear my massive vocabulary!”
Or rather “Quake at SRH’s gargantuan lexicon!”
Sweet Jebus! I am a vainglorious ass!
Have a great weekend everyone


*I know there is at least one other who agrees with me.

Mama! Papa!

Monday night after all the stories and all the good night kisses, after turning on the fan and “Monkey, ” after making sure Little Man has leopard (his lovey), after Wifey and I have left the room so that Little Man can go to sleep, I hear “Mama… Papa… Come here.” I ignore it because, well I am killing Defias Highwaymen and harvest reapers in Westfall trying to get my hunter up to 20 so I can dual wield… ummm… I just went into a bit more detail than I should have about my WoW addiction, didn’t I? Let’s try again.

I ignore it because I am playing my online game and really, he has already had kisses, he has leopard, and Jack Johnson is serenading him already. Yep, that was much better. My toon is a little over halfway to level 20, and if I just grind out the exp for a bit I can hit level 20 in about 30 minutes. I probably just crossed the “Too Much Info” line again, didn’t I?

Little Man’s cries for attention get more insistent. “Mama! Papa! Come here!” Wifey is down stairs reading. Each of us have our own way of stress relief. Wifey’s typically involves a historical fiction book and tuning me out, and mine revolves around (as we refer to it in the house) The Game. So Wifey is absorbed in her book (she gets on to me for not being able to have a conversation with her while the TV is on, but sometimes when she is ready something she really likes, I have to physically touch her to get her attention. It is cute.) and I am ignoring Little Man’s more insistent cries for attention. Mama! Papa! COME here!

Anyway… I am about to level up when Little Man really turns on the volume. He starts shouting MAMA! PAPA! COME HERE! NOW! WHY WON’T MAMA, PAPA, COME HERE NOW?!?! MAMA, PAPA, MAMA, PAPA, COME HERE NOW! I finally hit the goal of 20 and start the process of shutting down The Game, when Little Man starts really laying into it. MAMA! PAPA! MAMA! PAPA! COME HERE NOW! with the implicit meaning of If mama and papa don’t come here right now he will die the death only brought about by rabid wolves or snakes. Ah, the joys of parenthood. Before I head downstairs, and to quell the insistent rugrat, I go in and see what he is yelling about.

What is going on Little Man?
Come here NOW!
What’s the matter?
Goodnight, Papa.
What?! You just wanted me to come in here so you can say ‘goodnight’ again?
Good. Night. I start to leave…
Kisses! I kiss him on the forehead and start to leave...
Leopard kisses! I kiss leopard on the forehead and… I’m think I am actually going to make it out of the door this time
Good. Night.
Goodnight to you too, you insufferable little scamp. And with that I am finally allowed to go downstairs to help get his bags ready for pre-school.

On a side note I also just posted this on the Drawing Board. It feels good to get my drawing chops back up to speed. They aren’t where they were in college, but what about me is?

To recap:
My hand cramped whilst drawing Mr Freeze
My right shoulder is really starting to hurt I don’t know why
Often Little Man wants us to bring him some water in a paper cup
He is a demanding little cuss
My public gets nasty, uh, I mean antsy when I wait to post until after 2pm
Shut it, coworkers!
I am slowly coming up with Christmas gifts – not good ones, but gifts
Zane’s preschool Christmas program is tomorrow.
He’s supposed to sing “Jingle Bells” and “Rudolph”
Chances of him actually singing are slim to none
Maybe in the car on Saturday we might get some Jingle Bells
He will be wearing a button down and khakis
Oh, there will be many a picture taken

Biper

So yesterday evening previous to the evening ritual with Little Man, he asks for a “Biper.” Now, before everyone goes all anti-diaper/pro-potty training on my poor butt, let me ‘splain where we are in the whole potty training continuum. Honestly, there are not enough words that require the “uu,” but I digress. Anyway… Little Man is at the point in his potty training process where he typically will pee in the toilet or potty, but he is not about pooping in receptacles not strapped to his waist. So after he asks for a “biper” we ask him if he wants to use the potty or the toilet (“potty” being the cheap plastic thing his size and “toilet” being the porcelain god we make daily offerings to. That God is a bit unhappy with our gifts, but again that is beside the point.), he will adamantly refuse to use a “proper” waste receptacle and instead insists that we strap a poop-catcher on him. Now I know there are some people out there who think we should force the little tyke to use the facilities, but I know how willful this particular little cuss can/will be, so to keep this from becoming a battle of wills instead of a natural healthy evolving progression, we do not force him to make himself constipated.

Anyway… typically about 15 minutes after applying the poop-catcher, Little Man will find something handy to hold onto whilst bending over a little bit, standing on tip tows while rotating his right knee inwards, and “concentrating.” This hand hold could be the arm of a couch, the shelf for the DVD player, the train table, or occasionally Mimma. So he courches over and concentrates for a couple of minutes and then proclaims himself “Dirty.” Not Miss Aguilera’s kind of “Dirrty” mind you, he is only 3.1 years old.

I wait a couple of minutes because, who knows if he is actually done or not. Then I get the washcloth and start to approach him about cleaning his butt. I enter the room with a warm wet washcloth and he immediately backs up to the TV saying, No change biper! No change biper!

Little Man, we have to change your diaper, it is poopy and it isn’t good to have poop up against your bottom. I said “we” like there was someone else in the house. I do like to think of myself as the king of my domain, so maybe whilst Wifey was gone I was pretending to be the ruling monarch of Castle De SRH. Anyway…

No change biper! No change biper!
Little Man, we have to get you clean. Maybe I was really approaching it as a collaborative effort between he and I and as a King to his subject?
No CHANGE BIPER!
I am going to count to 5… Oooh the big guns. He comes over and lays down in front of me, and I commence the wiping procedure.

Okay, you might be asking me, “Why the heck am I reading about you changing your kid’s diaper?” Well, nice reader, the back story was necessary for the punchline of this particular anecdote.

About 15 minutes after “forcing Little Man to get out of his own filth” Little Man crawls up on my lap and looks at me expectantly. Papa sorry?
No, Papa is not sorry for cleaning your little butt.
Papa sorry.
Papa is not sorry. Sometimes Papas and Mamas have to do things that have to be done even when you do not want them to.
Papa SORRY!
Papa is sorry that you did not want to get out of that dirty diaper.
He gave me a curt nod and said satisfactorily, Papa sorry.

To recap:
Exercising sucks
I hurt worse today
Much worse
And I have to do it again… tonight!
Goodness I wish he would poop in the toilet
I posted something on The Drawingboard’s superhero section today
This was a big leap for me
Now I just need to start drawing regularly again

Burn baby burn

So today at work I had to create a graphic for my boss’s boss as a talking point for some presentation he had with some clients today. Here is a piece of the graphic I had to make. These are sheets from some kind of design workshop that I did not attend.

I call it “Still Life in Paper.” You see, I don’t actually do work, I merely document others’ work

The rest of the graphic’s components are also stuff I did not do.

I am not too happy with the final “look” of this one because, well, I was given a whole 30 minutes to find/create the elements for this thingy. Ah well. This and another graphic are why this post is so short and work related.

Anyway… on Thursday evening I burned my right index finger on the oven rack removing a delightful faux pizza from the oven for the evening meal. On Saturday the blisters from the burn finally “let go” and left me with the open wounds of Sunday.

I have had much worse, so please don't think I am complaining about so trivial of burns. I did not have them bandaged on Sunday so they could dry out and scab over, so all day yesterday Little Man would poke me in the finger and say “Papa hurt.” I still do not know whether he was identifying the burns or giving me an order.

To Recap:
Not sure what will be for dinner
20 Questions Tuesday will be about High School
The burns do not hurt so bad right now
Probably because there is not a 3 + year old poking them
I think I am healing up quite nicely
Ow! That hurts Papa! Is not as strong a deterrent as one might think
In fact, Ow! That hurts Papa! Seems to induce giggles and more poking
Wow, I am really image intensive today
I am sure of it, Breath Right Strips have saved my marriage

Signs

Earlier this week (when the Asthma DEFCON was not soooooo dominating my thoughts) Wifey and I happened upon a sign in a local shopping strip’s parking lot. This sign looked much like this…



Now, this is not necessarily a surprising sign. Who wants a bunch of “skate punks” messing up a good old fashioned parking lot? And no one and I do mean No Frikkin One wants to deal with the insidious character known as a solicitor, but what got me about this sign is the syntax (not the “sin tax” that is a completely different subject that will have to be chatted about at a later date).

This sign seems to be addressing 3 distinct groups simultaneously. It targets skate boarders, solicitors, and their lesser known subset the skateboarding solicitors. Are skateboarding solicitors that much of an issue? I mean really. Truthfully there is probably a very good reason for the sign to be worded this way. If it said “No Skateboarding and Soliciting” grammar aficionados would still be able to skate or solicit, as long as they did not do both simultaneously. If the sign said “No Skateboarding or Soliciting” people in that parking lot might mistake soliciting as the punishment for skateboarding. It would be a really easy way for “skater punks” to get a job, and no one wants that. Damn kids need to earn their job, not have a job given to them as some sort of weird punishment. Back in my day kids would get shot with a shot gun full of salt if they were caught skateboarding where they weren’t supposed to. Not given a job in sales!

Why wouldn’t it simply say…

There is an elegance to the simplicity of using 2 separate phrases. People really should use me as a better resource than just making transportation planning maps.

To recap:
We are at Asthma DEFCON 2 and shifting to Asthma DEFCON 3
Wifey and I are completely exhausted
Having dinner with the ‘rents tomorrow
It should be a blast
We will probably go to California Pizza Kitchen
I need to get my car into the shop
It is making a whole heckuva lot of noise when I brake
I have a meeting to get to in less than 30 minutes
Have a great weekend everyone

On Maps and Mapping

If anyone ever wondered what it is I do, I make maps. I make maps within the transportation planning department of an engineering/architecture firm. Most of the maps I make are for public involvement meetings where the client (usually a DOT) unveils a proposed design to fix some transportation issue. If the map and graphics I make are not associated with a public involvement meeting in some way, shape, or form, it typically has to go in some report or document for the client and/or interested parties for whatever project it is.

The documents where we are allowed to actually put some real effort into the aesthetic of the maps we produce (I supervise 2 cartographers as well) are the proposals that we ship off to prospective clients. It is on these pieces that we truly try to differentiate ourselves from our competition. These maps are more marketing pieces than traditional cartography. They are intended to be informational while still having a certain level of “eye candy” appeal to them. These are the products where we try to push the color palette. These maps are typically more enjoyable to make. They are more exploratory, because we have not fixed anything about their presentation as of yet. They are transient because we may not get the job we are going after. All in all, they just tend to be more interesting.

Today was the completion of one such map. This map is to be included in some way, shape, or form in a the interior or the cover of a proposal for a job in central Kentucky, just south of Lexington. The graphic designer who is assembling all of the other graphics associated with this proposal (he oftentimes posts here anonymously) and I decided to go with a more granite/marble color scheme for the project hovering around white, with deep blues and sea green for the details.

I am pleasantly surprised with how the final version came out. (I am not entirely sure how well Blogger will let you view the image. The original image is about 8” 8” (20.32 cm x 20.32 cm) in size. At that size everything is nice and legible. If you cannot see detail associated with the map, I apologize, but, really… It is all Blogger’s fault)



So, that, in case all 2 of you were wondering, is one of my tasks as a modern day cartographer.

To Recap:
Weekend was pleasantly boring
Tomorrow I will be out of the office, but still publishing my 4th weekly installment of 20 Questions
The color palette and style are attempting to give a sense of history within the context of current day modernity
I aced Introductory Art Appreciation and Art Histories I & II in college
Being able to write crap like “The color palette and style are attempting to give a sense of history within the context of current day modernity” is a direct result of those classes
I wish I could say that there was something in my daily repertoire that I use from my theory of Calculus classes Introduction to Analysis I & II
I got nada from those classes
Not a darn thing

Signs...

So on the way to work this morning I ran across 2 signs that just puzzled me greatly. Since I do not carry a digital camera with me at all times, and since it is not really all that wise to snap off pictures whilst driving, I do not have any photo evidence as proof of these 2 signs, but I will do my best to relay them to you.

Sign 1: This sign was in the alley that runs behind my house. It was a sign made from a card board side of a box with its message written in ball point pen. The sign reads “Free” and is decorated by some stars. The text of the sign is made legible by the repeated scratching of the letters and stars over themselves until readable by a passing car. Nope, no markers are being used for this sign. Anyway, the issue is not so much with the construction of the sign as much as it is for the pile of crap that the sign was referring to.

The sign was referring to a pile of trash that was waiting to be picked up on this coming Friday (our current trash pick-up day). It was trash that the previous owners felt that someone might want. Thank you very much, but I do not want your discarded pizza boxes and/or empty 40’s.


Photoshop Rendering (not actual sign)



Sign 2: This sign was again on the remnants of a large card board box that had been heedlessly torn and stapled onto a telephone pole. The cardboard was that light yellow colored cardboard and the crappily penned message of “PitBull 4 sale” sprayed on in light gray spray paint. Quite eloquent in its simplicity, really. It is a straightforward message with no areas to question. There is a pit-bull terrier for sale somewhere within this area.

There was no contact information associated with this hastily scrawled advertisement, so if one were in the market for a pit-bull one would find this piece of cardboard really more taunting than helpful.



Photoshop Rendering (again, not actual sign)



This advertisement does bring up some other questions. Torn cardboard with poorly written sales pitches using light gray spray-paint without any contact information does not a registered breeder make.

All in all the viewing of these particular marketing devices has led me to ponder about them all day. In a way, I guess their marketing campaigns are working, in a fashion…

To Recap:
I think I could help them in their marketing campaigns
Just with my Photoshop skilz alone
I cannot believe that Little Man will be 3 this Tuesday
That is plain scary
The Cleveland renderings are raising their ugly heads again
I have a hang nail
It hurts
A bunch
The poison ivy rash is still there
On my forearm
It is annoying, but it doesn’t hurt
Pancakes and sausage for dinner
Mmmmmm pancakes
But that is how it looked
I even wrote more legibly