Bad Pick-Up Lines

Do you work at Subway? Because you just gave me a footlong.

*beckon the person over with your index finger* I made you come with one finger, imagine what I could do with the rest.

Hey, did you know I'm an astronaut? My next trip is to Uranus.

Are you a fan of Pokemon because I'd love to Pikachu.

I'll give you a nickel if you tickle my pickle.

If snowflakes were kisses I'd send you a blizzard!

You have 209 bones in your body... do you want another?

Do you work at UPS, because I swear you were just checking out my package.

Do you want to see something swell?

Wanna come over to myspace and twitter all over my yahoo until I google all over your facebook?

You must be a parking ticket because you have “fine” written all over you!

I'm like a rubrics cube, the more you play with me the harder I get.

I'm 5 foot 9 inches. Now enough about the five feet, lets talk about the nine inches.

How heavy is a polar bear? ...heavy enough to break the ice!

That shirt is quite becoming of you. If I were on you I'd becoming too.

- - - - -

Back in 2003 I burned a disk of my computer files. It was a good thing too, because that computer and its hard drive is long gone now, and I had a lot of art and stories that I saved that way. The best part was the mass of old art files I found on there, a lot of them almost painful to look at now. However, there also was an image I once considered to be the best picture I ever made. I still think it is quite good, especially since I made it when I was about 13.

Larger Image Here: Click Me!

I still like that image a ton actually. The only downfall is the color blemishes on the lettering, which I messed up with white-out and then had to try to make presentable. Oh well, art is just like that sometimes.

Sonnet

So, I have this online poem class I'm taking right now where once I week I have to write two poems and send them in. It's pretty easy and kind of fun, since I've never seriously wrote any poems before and the atmosphere is so relaxed I can just plop down whatever I want and not have to worry about it. This week I had to write a sonnet for one of my poems, and I actually think mine is pretty sweet so I'm going to share it. (If you need a brush up on what a sonnet is, it is a 14 line poem with an iambic pentameter meter. That is, an unstressed-stressed pattern, and there needs to be five of those in each line. Confused? Yeah, me too!)

So, anyway, here you go!

Trans Fat

What is the use of a mere onion ring,

Dripping with oil and full of gross fat?

Who in the world would eat such a thing?

Taste and shape not even fit for a cat!

And yet sometimes when I order some fries,

I peek inside and what do my eyes see?

Amid the sticks of potatoes it lies,

A round deep fried product of greesery!

"What is this monstrosity?" I exclaim!

With a finger and thumb I fish it out.

"An onion ring?" I say with clear disdain!

Looking at it my mouth forms to a pout.

But after a moment I plop it in,

"It's not that bad," I say with a small grin.

I seem to like silly poems, hehe. :D

Also, I had a project due for my drawing class this last Tuesday and of course I didn't start until the day before. I was feeling a bit crappy just in general about life, (I feel a lot better now, it was a weird funk) and so I just used that to pump out a big charcoal mess. My favorite is the little dude in the upper right:

Otherwise, I'm thinking for my final painting project I might get a little ambitious and try to pump out a short little animation... I dunno though, that's a lot of work. Corey has inspired me though and I'm always trying to work up the motivation to make an actual hand-drawn animation, so maybe this is my chance!? We'll see....

I'm actually feeling quite good today.

Do you ever feel like the stuff you care about is something that no one else really understands? I mean, really. No one cares to see it, or look for it, or even think that it's worth caring about. They're more interested in making what you're interested in into something that they already like, or persuading you to move away from it, or trying to tell you that its dumb and obviously not as important as what they care about. I mean, shit, I do that all the time so just typing it out makes me feel a bit hypocritical. But at the same time, there are days when I just feel weary and wish I had more little "Sara-groupies" to keep me inspired and wanting to pursue the things I like. In general, I'm just lazy and devolve into this strange fleshy doormat that agrees with profs and peers and whoever about how my stuff sucks. And hey, sometimes they have great points and great insights so I love that. But other times I think, "can't you just try to like this? I like it. There are things in there that I know are worth liking." I think the fault in all this comes in my timid nature. I am not always the best in articulating what I think, and honestly it makes me nervous. So I devolve to this safe place, this comfort zone, where I don't try to explain what I was going for in a piece of artwork or whatever creative vision I may be working towards. I just agree with what people say and don't try to fight it... why would they care about something when I'm not showing them why they should care?

Hmm, this reminds me of how I go about stating opinions. Very similar really. Arguing for an opinion is way more difficult though, for me anyway. Though I'd venture to say my sense of right and wrong is persuasive, my logical explanations of said rights and wrongs leave me feeling very dissatisfied. Most of the time if I get to the point of explaining what is on my mind, what people mirror back to me is not what I was trying to say, and other times I just get poked in the logical holes I created for myself. Our world is such a logical place, and I know that all people have strong logical sides if only they'd let them out. I strangle mine and kill it with fear, and so it struggles and gimps along and leaves me with exactly what I try so hard to avoid: rejection. How ironic!

It occurs to me that maybe people don't preform as well as they wish they did not because they can't, but because they stop themselves. They have all these abilities but they are hard to those things, they fear rejection and failure and so they try to "toughen" themselves in order to avoid the unavoidable. Life, I think, is important because of rejection and failure. And if you think about it, rejection and failure are not bad things. They're sort of like getting a cold. No one likes getting stuffed up and sick, but the reason your body is doing that is to save you from death. Not that rejection and failure is that extreme, but I think they serve a similar purpose. They're uncomfortable and unwanted, but they are not bad things. And maybe, in an ideal world, they would not be quite so uncomfortable and unwanted. Maybe they're so feared because we try to harden ourselves to them, to stop them from happening. Maybe colds wouldn't be so bad either, if we just opened ourselves to them and allowed our bodies to fully and completely fight whatever is making us ill.

Or, maybe not. :)

Storybook Project... Take 2!?

So after seeing "Where the Wild Things Are" this past Monday (I really liked it by the way) I've been once again inspired to work on my storybook project from last year. Though I loved where the project was going, the images were a bit sloppy and generic (in my opinion) and the way everything unfolded deserved to be fine-tuned a bit. Anyway, it's been on my mind so today during painting class and drawing class I did a shit-ton of doodles, basically redesigning the main creatures. I liked all of their basic shapes (besides snake, which looked terrible imo), but the original impression I had of them was lost in the execution of the assignment. So, I tried my best to hold on to what I wanted them to be and then just experimented with different looks.

Bat was first. I always saw him as a more sleek creature then I originally designed him. I also figured he would be pretty shy, and would use his multiple wings to hide behind. I still wanted big ears though, and I wanted the mouth to still be huge when he actually opens it. (Think of those anime cats that have cute small faces, but when they yawn or whatever their mouth gets REALLY BIG! Like that.) I'm also thinking of changing it to a she... hmm.

Dog was second. I actually liked Dog's design a lot, but kind of wanted to incorporate a little bit of turtle onto him. I'm not sure why, I thought it'd make him even cuter or something. :) (Plus, people seemed to really like the first design so I didn't want to change it that much!) Anyway, now he'll have a spiky shell-butt for his lower body, think like a Map Turtle: http://www.redorbit.com/modules/reflib/article_images/11_6a7a9731fef1787b7556bf9fe3b301dc.jpg

I did a fair amount of work on Tiger (who might now be named Cat) but I couldn't quite get expression down I was trying to go for. The biggest thing about Tiger (Cat?) is that he has fingers that are constantly touching things, sort of pressing in to himself and twirling about themselves. That plus a lanky look was hard to pull off, but maybe I'll have more luck in a few days.

I also wrote a lot of stuff about what I find interesting in my own artwork, just so that I could understand why I like to draw I guess! I want to post that here too, but it'd make this blog too long so I'll just slap it up in a day or two instead. Otherwise, enjoy, and lemme know if you have any suggestions of your own.

Cockroaches. Yes, cockroaches.

So, you know that time in your life when you want to breed little insects as food? You know, like crickets? But, as you research what you have to do to make your own colony, you realize they're smelly, loud, and can escape their cage like no tomorrow? So then you go searching, trying to find if there is any alternative to crickets. Something meaty, not really tough, you know, something docile that won't do anything but sleep and eat and make babies?

Well, I've found it. Cockroaches. Tropical cockroaches. And after a month of troubles with ordering them (turns out it was just a simple misunderstanding), they've arrived. *deep breath*

THEY'RE CUUUUUTTTEEEE!!!

So the adults get about an inch to an inch and a fourth long; that's a picture of me holding a female while it just chills out on my hands. They remind me a lot of big fat ants to be honest; their head (which you can only see if you look underneath them) looks exactly like an ant head, although they lack any sort of little mandibles or anything. To be honest I don't know how they survive so well in the wild. They can't really climb, they can't bite, and they're afraid of pretty much everything including sunlight and slight movements. They also can't tolerate cold temperatures and if it gets below 70 degrees they refuse to make babies, so essentially if one gets loose it'll just scavenge around for a while and then die.

The males look a lot different then the females and they're not quite as fat; as you can see they have some big wings but no worries, they can't fly. In all truthfulness they are pretty much foolproof in terms of raising them, just keep them warm and give them food and they'll poop out babies with no trouble at all.

I hear that if you keep the conditions right they'll make more babies then you'll know what to do with, so maybe I can use that as an excuse to get another pet... *cough* beardeddragon *cough*

Oh gees, otherwise, a lot has been going on. School has been kicking my ass; I have a few cool art projects I want to get uploaded to DA though as a result so that should be popping up soon. I do have a few rough previews of what I have waiting, most of it is still in the works but here are a few crappy phone pictures anyway:

This guy is something I've been working on between painting projects; sometimes I think the assignments are retarded so to vent my frustration I work on this since I actually like it. Very controlled, pretty normal; for some reason a girl in my class really likes it, heh.

Also unfinished, and I'm not sure what I think about this guy yet. I'm not going to lie, it's like 90% taken from that flying machine monster in the movie "9." That bad guy made the movie worth seeing in my opinion... but you all know me and flying critters.

This one is actually complete, just not properly scanned or anything. Very different then my normal stuff, and I did a ton of color layering. I tried to do that thing where you slap on a lot of different colors and have the end result actually look cool, and I personally think it worked out. The picture obviously does not do it justice, but hopefully my final DA scan will be closer to what it actually looks like.

I have more stuff I could say, and I could go on another thought rant no problem, but I'll save that and maybe update again next week sometime. For now, I'm gunna go play with my buggies!

Dungeons and Dragons Strikes Again

You know, D&D is one of those nerdy things that never seems to get anywhere, but never really goes away either. It's different, fun, and always hilarious, but in terms of actual plot and normal RPG style progression, nothing really happens. You kill some baddies, sometimes you die, every session comes with a slew of witty jokes, bathroom humor, and awkward roleplay. And, nearly every campaign has a fight that ends in a truely awesome way. But, eventually, people get busy or lose interest or something goes wrong, and the campaign drops off at a strange spot and

never is picked up again. However, sure enough, a month or two or three later someone says "HAY GUYS, lets play D&D, I got some suh-weet ideas!" and the process starts all over again.

It occurs to me that there are a few things that have taken on this "on-off" cycle throughout the years. Starcraft, obviously the best game ever (in my opinion), is one that always seems to make a comeback and delivers fun times. Diablo 2 appears now and again, and usually we'll all play halfway through Nightmare or a little bit into Hell before we realize how much of a pain in the ass the game is and move on. Magic has swelled and receeded, never really dissapearing completely but always sort of in the background; the game that fills up the boring times between other events. And, of course, World of Warcraft, a game that sticks around primarily because it is so damn addictive. There are other things too, like Smash Bros and nightly walks and other (less nerdy) things that come and go as well.

It makes me wonder what it is about these activities that makes them cycle in and out. They are all extremely fun, but I suppose that without variety even the most refreshing of activities can quickly become stale. So you need to boot them out and then bring them back in order to keep getting enjoyment out of them. I guess this is a pretty obvious conclusion... but it was on my mind. I think there would be a lot more activities that would take on this nature if people were able to participate in them. Especially "kid things" if you know what I mean, like playing at a park or who knows what. (Not that you can't play at a park now, but people would look at you pretty wierd if you did.)

You know, if adults were allowed to play in playgrounds, I think there would be a lot less fat people in the world. And why can't they? I mean, playgrounds are fun, and healthy! But think about it, if you saw some 30 year old man crawling around on top of the monkey bars (yes, you're not supposed to be on top, but everyone did it!) it would probably wierd you out a bit. There are a lot of things in the world that are like that. I mean, I'd love to go and play pretend out in the woods with some toys like I did as a kid. But it's just... not acceptable I guess. And because of that I'd feel wierd doing it too. I really think if there wasn't such a stigma attached to

adulthood, where you "need to grow up" and "stop doing kid things" people would be a lot healthier in general. They could just go play pretend and enjoy simple things sometimes, and you know, that makes people feel good. Sometimes you just have to go play pretend, or climb on top of the monkey bars.

Uuuh, wow. This post got out of hand.

Anyway, I've had the next panel of Adventures in D&D nearly finished for a few months now, so I should probably get on that and continue with it. It really was a great fight, and extremely hilarious at the time, so I should finish what I started! Here is a teaser in the meantime:

This time the Ent is the one freaking out....

The main reason why I should finish this strip is to make way for future strips. D&D always has funny moments just begging to be illustrated, you know? :)

10 things about ND that are different than MN

1.) "Can I have a sack?"

I'm not really sure where this came from, but at least fifty percent of the people who come into my work a call bags "sacks." It is more common among older folk then younger, and definitely more common among people from other states like Texas and Montana. I just wonder where the name came from, because "bag" seems to make so much more sense to me then "sack." Oh well!

2.) Fat Chicks

This is probably more of an area thing then a problem with all of North Dakota, but the percent of fat chicks is much larger here then it is in Minnesota. (Male obesity rates seem to be about the same.) I'd say about nine out of every ten women are very large, which seems wierd because most of the people around here are involved in farming and oil working. Perhaps oil workers make so much that their wives can just sit at home and get fat? I'm not even trying to be mean here, it's just true!

3.) Box Burning

In Minnesota, most cardboard boxes are unrecycleable or else they need to got through an entirely different system in order to be re-used. In North Dakota? Just burn those sons-of-bitches! I guess in Minnesota it is illegal to burn boxes, which is absurd (in my opinion) because they burn clean and stores get so many of them, and it's not like they're hard to make. Oh well!

4.) Gun Laws

I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with the gun laws in Minnesota, but when transporting a firearm in a car you must have it unloaded and in a gun case. North Dakota is almost completely opposite. If you have your guns cased, they have to be in a place in the car that is easily visible. And, it is not illegal to have them uncased and loaded. Shooting prairie dogs out of the window of your car is probably one of the most hilarious things I've done while I've been up here, and in Minnesota it would be completely impossible.

5.) Cowboys

I'm going to be competely honest here; I really didn't think cowboys existed anymore. Not in terms of the profession, because there is obviously enough free-range cows around to warrent the existance of cowboys. I'm talking the dress style. Tall leather boots, the signature cowboy hat, plaid shirts nestled underneath a stylish, fringed leather jacket? Oh how wrong I was. On a side note, however, it is a pretty attractive style on skinny young guys, so I suppose the fact that it still exists isn't really a bad thing. :)

6.) White Trucks

Is white a very interesting car color to you? I didn't think so! But I guess in North Dakota it is. Again, this could be just a regional difference, but the amount of white trucks in this place compared to other colored trucks is at least 2:1. Why are there so many!? I really have no idea. One day I held a count of how many white trucks I saw while going about my normal business, and I made it well up into the forties. I just don't get it!

7.) Montana Tax

"Uhm, yeah, I'm from Montana but I'm in North Dakota so can I just skip your tax and have mine instead?" Yeah, I know it sounds dumb, enough that when someone asked for it for the first time I just laughed at him. (Not a very good idea for a cashier to do, and he wasn't very happy about it.) But, apparently, in North Dakota this is actually possible! If you're from Montana and you buy over $50 of anything, you can take off the North Dakota tax and have Montana tax instead. What the hell? Too bad I'm from Minnesota I guess....

8.) "Sorry, you're not old enough to look at booze."

In North Dakota, liquor stores tend to be in places that you don't really expect them to be. Like, latched on the side of a Wal-mart, or nestled in the back of a convenience store. But, what's even more surprising is that you can't enter one unless you're 21. Period. I found this out the hard way, by following my dad into one after a day of shopping. Once I told the lady at the counter my age she gave me a huge buggy-eyed stare and pointed towards the door, complete with incoherent babbling that I didn't quite understand. What I want to know is why? "Oh no, I've been in a beer store! I'M GOING TO DRINK AND HAVE LOTS OF SEX NOW!" It's just wierd, I guess this is a law I don't quite understand.

9.) 24-Hour Stores

You know those stores that are open 24/7, like Walmart or Cub Foods? In North Dakota there is a law that says that every 24-hour store must be closed for at least 8 hours a week. This kind of defeats the purpose of the 24 hour label wouldn't you say? At least they close Sunday mornings most of the time. Who would want to go to Walmart that early in the morning anyway?

10.) Drive-Through Subways

This is something I've never seen before until I came here. Maybe they exist in Minnesota, but if not, I wonder, why not!? Subways in North Dakota have a drive through option! It'd be a little more complicated then ordering a burger at Hardies, but also a lot more convenient for people on the go! I was pretty surprised when I found out about it myself, and my coworkers seemed pretty amused by my excitement. I suppose I'm just easily entertained or something. :)

Also, here is a WTF doodle that is not related to this post at all:

Aaand, me and Chad beat Diablo 2 last night. I took a screenshot as proof! Pretty cool huh? (My character was a summoning druid that attacked with a bow [hence the name PewPewDrood] and his was a concentrate barb that used a lot of warcries. Kind of a wierd combo but we ended up kicking ass.)

A Confession

So I have a confession to make. I've never been a huge fan of music. I like music, it's not something I dislike, but keeping up with it and learning about it and collecting it has never been something I've been interested in or have wanted to spend my time on. I also love silence. When I go for too long of a time with constant noise, I just get irritated! I need time where I can just listen to the normal sounds around me, devoid of music and TV and other inturruptions. I don't know why this is... I never made the choice to detatch myself from music and the music community. It's just an interest that never really developed within me, and continues to be low-key and uninterested.

Anyway, that said, I have a very interesting dilemma. As many of you know, the only thing I can multitask with (as far as I know) is drawing. I love drawing and painting in silence, or having a TV playing in the background, or talking with someone while I draw; it's like while my eyes are focused on creating my ears and mouth are free to focus on other things. While working on traditional peices I can sit for hours and hours just drawing and listening, whether there is silence around me or otherwise. However, when I'm on the computer this focus for some reason crumbles. I have such a strong desire to create digital work, but I just can't keep up the focus for it to happen. The internet distracts me, or my mind wanders to a thought so interesting that I break from my work; often times I can only draw for a mere 15 minutes before dropping it altogether. That is, unless...

You guessed it. Unless I'm listening to music.

There is this artist that goes by the internet name "Neon Dragon." She often does live streams of herself drawing in photoshop, complete with a musical track to suppliment her work. Her stuff is popular and decent but not fantastic; she created the common "How to Draw Dragons" artbook that I'm sure you guys have seen at Borders and Barnes and Noble. Anyway, whenever I find her streaming I often don't even watch her; instead after five minutes I really want to draw so I open up photoshop and get to work while her music streams in the background. Guess what happens? Well shit, I can't stop drawing! My mind is satisfied listening to her music while my eyes and hands are busy creating.

This leaves me in an interesting predicament. Do I go through the trouble of collecting a music library for my own artistic purposes when my actual interest in the process is low? Or do I just keep on doing what I'm doing? Hmm.

Anyway, this is a lot of text and no pictures. Here, have a dinosaur update: (Bigger image here: http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y120/Rikkoshaye/Rex-Half-Color.jpg )

Not so sure about the collar, but I'm afraid people might be too daft to get the connection without it. Also not so sure on the tree coloring yet. Any input?

So, Yttrium is changing into an adult salamander.

*deep breath*

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!

His eyes, which were flat against his head, have started bugging out, and his tail fin has been getting much smaller. His gills have been shrinking, and he walks on his little legs more like a salamander does, with his elbows stuck out instead of laying flat against his sides. Xenon has been shedding (salamanders shed, did you know?) and his belly is lightening up quite a bit. I think that means he will be changing soon too! Zinc is still quite small so I think he has a ways to go. :)

I've been moving along on my T-shirt design as well, but I haven't been able to work on it as much as I'd like due to work and retarded coworkers who just quit without letting anyone know.

It's not nearly close to being finished but I fixed some of the anatomical problems and I'm playing around with the markings. Since Blogger didn't allow people to click on the image before, here is a link to a larger version of Rex: Click Me!

Any suggestions from you guys? If anything looks weird just let me know and I'll see if I can play around with it. :)

Otherwise, just a short post for right now I guess... 13 more days until I can come home! :D

Animal Personalities

The fact that animals have personalities has always been something that is very interesting to me. If you've observed a few animals for more than 5 minutes it becomes obvious that no two creatures are alike; they all have their own actions and quirks that are unique to them, much like humans. Assuming that animals have no sense of self (something that seems true but no one really knows for sure) it's pretty cool that beings that primarily react to the world and their bodily needs still have room for uniqueness. It shows that not all personality traits come from what us humans posess; perhaps our quirks are meerly amplified by our sense of self and do not originate from that part of us? Anyway, I digress.

Because I've had my salamanders for more then 10 days now, their personalities have been appearing! Zinc, the little guy, is the most active of the bunch. He zooms around the cage and bumps into the other critters, and likes to park in the corners and swim up and down with his nose against the glass.

Xenon is definitely the most intelligent. It only took him a few days to realize that "the big pink human" is the thing that gives him food. Whenever I come close to the cage he swims up to the side of the glass and looks at me, and when I put my hand in the water he'll swim up to it and push his nose against my fingers looking for food. This of course doesn't happen if he can't see me, but most of the time he does. :)

Yttrium is the most antisocial. He generally hides behind the fake plants a lot, and sticks to the back of the cage. However, when Xenon was busy exploring my hand today he did come up to explore as well; I'm sure he will become more friendly as time goes on. What silly pets. :)

All three of them like to swim against the current in the aquarium (created by my bubbler as it pours water into the tank) and they all seem to enjoy parking themselves on top of the plants and just sitting there. (Especially Yttrium and Xenon.) Unfortunately they all like taking nips at each other's tails as well, and Zinc has a chunk missing so I'm not so happy about that. Hopefully if I feed them enough they won't do it too often though! I'm also not sure of their genders yet, though once they mature it'll be easy to tell. So, even though I'm calling them all "he" right now they could all very well become "she"! We'll see what happens. :)

I'm also working on another T-shirt design. This one is sort of a play off the dog name "Rex." It's far from finished but here is the outline so far (you can click on it for a larger version):

It is going to be holding a tree in it's mouth and I want to make the expression more confused then it already is. Also, T-Rex feet have an additional back digit so I'll have to fit that in somehow... anyway, that's about all.

Only 20 more days until I come home! Who wants to hang out? ;D

Rage Quit

Today things have just not been going my way. After spending a decent chunk of time working on the image above, I just could not seem to get it to look how I wanted. The bats are supposed to be locked in mid fight, the upper one swooping in on lower one. But the legs and claws of the critters looked wrong no matter how I placed them, and the back wings just refused to look good in any position. Who knew some simple WoW fanart could become so complicated?

Anyway, after rage-quitting that I quickly ran into some problems with an MMO I've been trying to play around with. It's a game called Istaria, and you can play as a dragon which peaked my interest. It's not free but there is a 14 day free trial, so I naturally went to check it out. But after hours and hours of downloading, I was only able to get into the game for 10 minutes (10 awesome minutes) before the game lost its connection to the server and refused to reconnect. Naturally by this time I was ready to choke a bitch, so I went outside to go climb some hills and vent my frustration. The result was oddly refreshing.

I crawled my way up some pretty steep hills to see as far as I could in these pictures. When people come up to visit there are plenty of big places to climb that I hope to show them. :)

I also really liked this dirt/rock thing. I'm not really sure how it was made or what exactly it is, but for some reason it's visually appealing to me.

Anyway, now I feel pretty worn out, so now maybe I'll try my hand at that bat image again. Or even better, finish the next panel of Adventures in D&D! I only have one more background to color before it is finished, so I might as well wrap up what I started. It's turning out to be even worse then the third page... I think people will enjoy it. :)

W.I.P. 2

I have a big final project that is due in my Drawing class this Friday. I more or less need to have an entire children's book finished, story and all. I did some more work on it tonight, fleshing out the majority of one page and a little bit of another. The finished pieces will be up on my deviantart account sooner or later, but for now here are the works in progress.

"The blackness moved, and oozed, and Zoe grabbed onto Dog who was growling and barking. Whatever this thing was, sleeping at the top of the mountain, Zoe knew that she would not be able to go home until she got past it. She knew that with her new friends she could do it, together they could fight back the Nightmare once and for all!" (Forgive the cheesiness, but it IS a children's story!)

Yes, the Nightmare is then vanquished by sunlight. I still haven't worked out how exactly Zoe and her critter buddies are going to defeat the monster, but it's going to happen, I promise.

Velociraptor Seeks Your Life!

Here is another photo of my bone velociraptor from painting class. Unfortunately my camera phone is not good enough to take a super detailed image, but until I get a better picture this will have to do. Me and my painting buddies decided that this could quite possibly be the most awesome painting I've ever done. Oil paints and big brushes didn't make it easy, but it's pretty badass in my opinion so that's okay with me.

I figure a picture like this can't exist without a story to go along with it, so if you are so inclined, here is the destruction of a city via a bone velociraptor (and told through the eyes of some religious old guy.) Ho shit.

- - -

"I never did believe it until I saw it. Nope, not until I saw it with my own two eyes. The earth was a-rumblin', the sky was dark as coal, and yet none of us folk could quite wrap our heads around it. We packed up our belongin's, sure, and stashed away a good ol' mound o' food. But until that shiny white head popped itself over the top of my own house, I didn't believe a word of it. Bones don't just get up and move, no they don't! And certainly not those dino-saaur bones, whatever them be. But sure enough, as real as the sun above our very head, that dino-saaur came lumberin' over my very own house! I could barely believe it, but I saw it and I think it saw me. And then it opened it's mouth and made this sound, a sound unlike nothin' in the world I tell you! It was like a train crashin', and a tornado whirlin', and a thunderstorm all wrapped into one long screech! It screamed away my own hearin', and then it crushed my house, yes it did!

Now me and my brother and sister started screamin' and runnin', but I don't think the big monster noticed to be honest with ya. That creature, born from Satan let me tell you, walked right over us. I ain't never seen nothin' that huge before! No creature on God's green earth could have done what that bone thing did; it was evil, pure evil! Now we all kept runnin' even as the dino-saaur walked over us. There was smoke everywhere, people screamin', some dead and others dyin'. And I thought to myself, 'We isn't gunna make it, are we?' But I was lucky I thought that, let me tell you! I got so scared that I locked right up, and that big bone monster swept it's tail down right in front of me! None of us three were hit, but the buildin' beside us was, and before I could move even an inch the thing fell on top of my brother! I cried, 'Sam, Sam!' but he didn't ever respond; my sister cried and cried and I did too, or so she says. I was so damn angry at the time that I don't rightly remember; all I could see was that demonic monstrocity, killin' and destroyin' and swipin' it's tail and death claw all over the damn place.

Me an' my sister scurried off then, to somewhere dark an' secluded. I led the way but I didn't really know where I was goin'; there was so much rubble and smoke I couldn't see hardly anythin'. Wherever we went to we were safe. I watched until the big white dino-saaur disappeared, and waited until the rumblin' was gone too. When we finally came out o' the darkness there wasn't much left to see; damn creature leveled everythin' and then went on to some other city. I never was sure how it died, some bomb or missile or somethin'. I just hope you young people never have to see anythin' like it. That screech it had, something straight from the devil, let me tell you. There ain't nothin' about that event that was natural, nothin' at all...."

Works in Progress

Because I often have multiple art projects going on at once (some of which never get finished, others that do) a blog is the perfect place to show these unfinished and in-progress pieces. Today I have four to show, all of which are at different stages of development. Though some have been just sitting around for a while now, I do plan to get back to all of them at some point. Perhaps posting about them will help motivate me on the few that I haven't been focusing on? Either way here you go, some eye-candy for now.

A bone Velociraptor I am painting in my painting class (there is a city burning in the background):

A fire-starting skull from one of my stories (it's name is foxy):

My progress on the third panel in Adventures in D&D:

And, finally, a strange trilobite-like creature. I want to experiment with a new coloring style in this picture, but it is strange and kind of difficult so it's just sitting around at the moment.

That's all for now. Hope you all like seeing my scribbles and unfinished projects.