Tale #11 - The Tale Of Time Traval

Hi, all!

Well.... today I haven't got much to say except to post the daily sketches. Well... today's sketches aren't so much sketches as it is what I've DONE to them.... or what I've done to my sketchbook that is. So what exactly did I do? I painted it! OBSERVE!



Ta dah! See? I painted it! Before this point, my sketchbook was entirely black and it frequently got confused with my sister's sketchbooks. So to tell them appart, I painted mine. However, I have yet to decide what to paint on the back of it, though. I might do some 50s style retro logo. The image painted on here is based off an old vector graphic I did in 2006. Here's the original....



Anyways as a note on this graphic, I did this for a friend on a now defunked project. The Mauna Lua is an actual restaurant in the 50s. It was extremely popular back then. I think it burnt down or something eventually and the owners lacked the funds to rebuild so now all that's left of it is the foundation of where it once stood. While it was in buisness, it had this major tiki/beach theme. So this vector graphic is a new retro-modern take on the old Mauna Lua restaurant.

And now, boys and girls, time for a bit of time traval with today's post! Now as you all may or may NOT be aware of, computer graphics have been a major part of my life since I first introduced to digital graphics when I was a little kid in the late 1980s/early 1990s. What I had back then was this huge tablet that plugged in to your TV set. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember for the life of me what it was called. I also wish I hung on to it too. Anyways, about 1997 was when I got my first tablet which was the Wacom ArtPad II (it also came with another program called Dabbler II. Although, I still believe that Dabbler is the old precursor to Corel Painter. There's just way too many similarities between these two programs!) It was when I got it did I ever make the major leap in to the computer graphics scene. Since then, I've been rocking out the pixel-box and learning whatever I can about the strange(ly awesome) world of digital media.

Yeah.... you could also argue I was a wee bit of an oddball growing up. Here I am interested in media while everyone else was interested in Barbie dolls and G.I. Joes. Er.... wait... actually, when I wasn't geeking out, I did play with Barbies.... only not in the typical way you'd expect a six-year-old girl would. All my Barbies were actually these superheros and they were always battling the forces of evil in the form of an evil tennis player. So uh... I guess you can strike the Barbie part from the record because I did have an interest and did play with them.... but not in the typical play-house sorta way. But anyways, at those times, it wasn't typical for a little kid to be toying around with graphics. But here I was, toying with graphics weither they'd be on the TV screen or on the computer. XD

So now that we've got that bit of history outta the way, here's some artwork I dug up from days past!



This is Herbie which I digitally painted in the year 2005. I wanted to try my hand at realism again and Herbie was one of my favourite classic movies, so I created this. This was done in ProCreate Painter (Before it was Corel Painter) using my newer Wacom tablet - the Graphire 3!



This was also from the year 2005, a vector graphic of Huge Laurie. This was done in illustrator entirely by hand. The blue eyes were there so you'd be looking the graphic "in the eye" like you would for a living person. It also catches you a bit off guard too since it's the only thing in colour.



This is a rather old (And horribly out of proportion! Ick!) and silly super villian I came up with called "The Puzzler." Now this strange character pays a bit of homage to the origional Riddler from the Batman series only with a twist. The Puzzler is a strange little man who loves Crossword puzzles or any of those word styled puzzles you're likely to find in your local newspaper along with The Funnies section. As you can imagine, he has equally strange weapons for dispaching his foe. This includes the poison pencil in his hat which has REAL lead in it along with a deadly medly of other dangerous poisons. His other weapons include, a giant pen in which he writes something and it comes to life. (As you can imagine, he's a very fast writter!) and "The Crossword Book of Mystery" in which it's full range of attacks and powers are mostly unknown to everyone else except The Puzzler himself. Some of the rumored powers include, toxins storage and Crossword Wraps (Which jump out of the book and bind it's target to tightly that he/she can't move and are rendered immobilized). He was created in early 2006. Like I said before, the proportioning is horrible and it looks quite bad, but as for the colouring and the crazy retro-vector styling, it looked good. What can I say? I love the retro look! ^^

So that's a quick look back in time with me and my geekyness.

Now speaking of time trips and what we were like when we're kids, it's often an awesome time to get in touch with our inner child. Having a sense of fun about you (especially in the media arts!) is something you should never lose no matter how old you are. I mean I'll still play with RC cars and action figures from time to time and even someone like John Lassater has pictures of him with a few toys flying through the air like super heros. So you all, do yourself a favour and don't lose that sense of fun. If you lose your inner child, it's only then can you ever truely grow old.

So this is a perfect sagway in to some funny interesting and really goofy items I've found on the internet. Here's what I've found that gave me a bit of a giggle!

http://www.perpetualkid.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1669&dc=shoppingcomtrack
(An Actual banana phone! Yes.... they DO exist! Also... perfect if you're an inspector Gadget in-training.)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/science/81e6/
(A desktop catapolt and war stuff to fling paper balls with)

http://www.perpetualkid.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=864
(Your very own army of ninjas!)

http://www.perpetualkid.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1155
(A rocket pen. I guess THIS was what the astronaughts were using to write with in space!)

http://tinyurl.com/257a4e
(I actually own one of these. They call them keychain cameras but I prefer the term "Ninja camera." )

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/rc/934c/
(These things are cute as they are cool. They're palm-size helicopters)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/cubegoodies/8fce/
(A floppy journal. I'm going to see if I can make one of these.)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/cubegoodies/80fc/
(It's an Atari keychain. It's cute and geeky!)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/science/9617/
(This falls under the catagory of cool stuff if anything else. It's a build-your-own game consol kit. )

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/warfare/8a0f/
(If trebuchets aren't your thing, plug this in to your Mac or PC and let the fun fly.)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/japanfan/9116/
(Okay... this is a doomsday device. Use with caution!)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/japanfan/87cc/
(RC SUMO DUDES!)

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/rc/8b7b/
http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/rc/924e/
http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/rc/8698/
(I think it's no supprise that I also like RC things too. ^^)

Well.... that's my list of interesting internet geek finds. I had a few more, but I misplaced the links. oh well! This should be enough to tide you all over! XD