Wednesday, February 29, 2012

AppleCup

I've always got things I should blog about, but I often delay and then they go away. I have a post (with no images as of yet, probably I'd just web source 'em) about a couple of really good burger places I've recently come across. Just last weekend was my boy's birthday celebration, it came together pretty well, and that one I do have a few good pictures of (but I missed the one I wished I got).

Anyway, here's one that I've had for a while that I've been meaning to do. Not long after I came up with my OC I did his cutie mark on my cup, leading to the rather lengthy explanation. Even people who didn't get the back story liked the art. My older boy did a link to that particular post on his tumblr, so a lot of the bronies got a chance to check it. One of his circle was complaining about everyone making up alicorns, and my boy asked him, "Even my dad's trollicorn???" and the guy responds, "No, that one's awesome!!!"

I've got some of Applecore's back story worked out in my head, and I can picture a comic of him telling his story to the cutie mark crusaders...

Second shot here, I saw in a parking lot a few weeks back. I LOLLed, Manther was one of the cats we used to have. Full name Samantha, but as that name is too long, it was naturally shortened to Manther. She was mostly black fur, so Manther the panther. That reminds me, the older boy was taking some pictures of our cat the other day, wonder if they are on his tumbler now???

Sunday, February 19, 2012

The Frickin' Lions...

As alluded to on an earlier post, here's a shot of the lion casting I had been doing some work on.

Actually, the first shot is one of the beam being shot up into the sky. Not a great shot, but it came out pretty cool, seeming to split the clouds it's shooting into. Nice intense beam, huh???

And, of course, the second shot is how I pictured the lion shooting the beam from it's mouth. Dr. Evil would be proud... "The frickin' lions, with the frickin' lasers shooting out of their frickin' mouths!!!"

Monday, February 13, 2012

Happy Valentine's Day

I've had this picture saved for years, and somehow I always seem to forget to use it on Valentine's day!!! Ferrets to you!!!

Found the first couple of images on I Can Has Cheezburger. The last one, I don't remember exactly where I found, but it's been one of my favorites.

Googling the text at the bottom of it didn't help figure it out, but adding "kinky" to the end of the search did come up with some interesting images!!!

Thursday, February 09, 2012

Aurora

Happened across this on NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day site, and found it too cool not to post!!! I would love to see this with my own eyes!!!

Aurora 2012 from Christian Mülhauser on Vimeo.

Saturday, February 04, 2012

512 to the Shirt!!!

So, I finally did it!!! Years ago I came up with this 512 logo, along with a few other variants. I've seen it put onto beanies and hoodies, as well as having put it on many of my cups at work, but up until now I've never had any of my own gear. That was one of the things I had asked for for Christmas was some fabric paint and a dark green shirt. My wife got some paint (not fabric paint, though) and a nice green polo shirt. I'd picked up some foam from my work (the same kind I made the Minecraft Diamond Sword out of, I should give some detail on how I made that, it seems to be a popular search) and I cut it into a stamp of the logo. Of course, I also exchanged the paint, as well as located a T-shirt. I actually had enough foam left to make a small one, that I was going to use on one side of the polo shirt, and possibly on the upper back of the T-shirt.

That was what I tried to do first, but unfortunately the shirt was rather coarse and absorbent, so it came out very thin. In attempting to add onto it and thicken up the design, I smeared through one of the numbers and proceeded to rinse it off as well as I could. It may still come together. A few days later I put together the T-shirt version seen here. It also soaked up quite a bit of the ink, but I've left it pretty much like that. Perhaps a more porous foam would do a better job??? To keep the paint from soaking through to the back, I had used a piece of cardboard box inside it. I hadn't counted on the flap seam coming across the print, just a bit above the equator, and leaving a distinct stripe. The actual inspiration for this whole idea (I'd had the idea to attempt to do actual silk screen for years) came from one of my co-workers. One of her shirts has a series of multi colored dinosaurs down the front. Having seen it several times, I finally asked her when we were working together if there was any significance to her shirt. She replied that she had the fabric paint and the shirt, and that the dinosaurs just happened to be the stamps she had. Inspiration struck.

The cool part was wearing it to work. I got a lot of responses to it, and everyone knew what it was!!! The semi-weathered appearance of the paint soak was universally regarded as a good look.

When I got my camera out to pose for the picture, I also dug out my Mind Expandy Smurf shirt to get a shot of it for this post. Right on top of it was the tree shirt that I'd gotten as one of the last three random shirts from Woot (along with the robot-skyscraper from Big and the 8-bit Princess Bride shirt for my younger) and thought that it would be good to get a shot of here, too. I don't know what it is about that shirt, but everybody LOVES it!!!

I took a few of the stars and orbs from around the Smurf and added them around my own head for effect.

I notice in the three shots of me, my head goes progressively higher and to the right...

Of course, for the last shot, here's what a cat looks like in a dress shirt and bow tie. I was amazed that he stood still for this!!!

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Where Is Everybody???

There was a picture of this Roy Lichtenstein painting in the paper today. I love it!!! I can imagine someone looking at it hanging on a wall and going, "... HEY!!!"

I'd totally get this and display it, but not at the price that it sold for last year, $43.2 million!!!