SABREWINGS (collaboration)

My friend Karla takes these amazing pictures of sunsets, and I really wanted to use one as a background for a spaceship shooter-themed poster. I'm not totally happy with it, but all that means is it's getting a revisit at some point. 

READY

So, on my Tumblr (and to a lesser extent on my Flickr) I've started this thing of taking pictures of cups of coffee I have when I go out. Sometimes there's an accompanying pastry, but I'm a bit strapped for cash, so only coffee this time. Originally, I was going to post the one photo (on the left), and then later post the other with some comment like, "recharged." That's when I started thinking about the Mega Man games with "Ready" at the start of each level. I don't do as much game-themed artwork as I'd like to, and this seemed like a fun little gag to throw out there, get used to more complex layouts (compared to my normal stuff). 
ENMAX is a reference to Thexder, a really neat old-school platformer from back in the days of Tandy (Radioshack's old internal brand of personal computers). It was developed by Game Arts, best known for the Grandia series of RPGs. Thexder NEO is a remake released on the Playstation Network and what I've been playing more recently to get me in the right mindset for another somewhat gaming-themed work I'll hopefully have up in the next day or two. 

Note: The coffee didn't cost 0.50USD, that's only the tip.

Blue Nazca Four

This one was fun. I don't work with much color, and I wanted to challenge that here. I knew I wanted the line to be orange (because yellow really doesn't "pop" against blue as well as you'd think), but I wasn't sure how to do it. There was no way orange marker was going to show up on blue, and that would have been really tedious to paint around, if not impossible. I tried a color exchange in post, swapping the blacks for oranges (this was on One, since I hadn't finalized the linework for Four), which seemed to work, but not as well as I would have liked. I tried doing the line in a vector program so I could add it over the background in post, but the only vector program I'm really familiar with is the one in Google Drive, and that was really hard to work with. Finally, I decided to scan the background, invert its color (which would be more orange since it's a very light blue), layer it behind the second scan (now with the line work done in ink), and set the blacks to transparent. So, it's not only a nice, orange line, but it's got a texture to it.

Blue Nazca Zero and One

Felt like making something blue, but not another version of Goodbye, Blue Skies, not yet at least. The numbering is because Zero turned out a bit darker than I meant for it to be and originally I wasn't going to post it at all (or put it in the Scraps folder on DeviantART), but the scanner washed it out a bit, making it a tad more presentable. Could never quite settle on the line pattern, so if there's another one in the future (which will be called Four for a laugh), it'll go for a kind of middle ground. 

..::UNTITLED::..

Not exactly what I wanted to work on, but maybe what I needed to work on right now. I may revisit this as a practical item, with the red done as liquids in a clear tank like I did for White Cloud. In fact, I got the idea from an article about Jaws 3, referencing how surreal the poor matte work makes the floating fish head in the beginning. I'd remembered seeing that opening years ago, but didn't realize how flawed the effect was.

Royal Mother's Karibbean Key Lime Pie

Made a Key Lime pie today, specifically from a recipe my mom got from a chef on the Royal Caribbean cruise lines. I would imagine it's fairly stock, but adding "Royal" and "Caribbean" makes anything sound exotic. 

It's a small slice for a reason. I've only had Key Lime pie once before, and it was not exactly a pleasant experience. I was very young, and between my tastes not being very well-developed and having absolutely no idea what to expect from something called "Key Lime pie," the term "acquired taste" was apt. It was extremely tart, not actually sour, but a kind of sweet I was not prepared for. I remember not being able to eat any of it and avoiding it thereafter, even in yogurt flavors. In other words, I was confident I could handle the flavor now, but I wanted to be sure. 

I went back for seconds. 

Next time I'll try making a meringue topping with the egg whites instead of using them in a batch of botched peanut butter cookies.

Tactile Response Controls

This happens entirely too often. In my defense, it's off-center because some lamebrains think laptops need built-in number pads on their keyboards. Who the heck needs to do 10-key entry on a laptop? 

Sunday

This photo was the only time I took out my phone the entire time I sat at the booth. I had my notebook, and sketched out a little stick figure comic I'll clean up later as I waited for my coffee and cinnamon roll. I shouldn't have to fight for moments of peace like this the way it feels like I have been lately.
Gratitude is something I think about a lot and wonder how much thought others give it. There may not be a right or wrong way to think of it, but I wonder what kind of values those people have when they think about it.

You Found Me

Looking for some...body?

BaRoW Card 28 & 29

The Sword Card.

The Jewelry Card.