The blog of a person....yeah that sounds good.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Me An Da Cooney Creature Takes A Trip

NATHAN'S NOTE: today's blogpost is by famed blog commenteer HillyBilly McGee who was kind enough to leave his personal info and a flock of abused hens on my doorstep
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So one ol day in teh earls of maytime, me and da wifey were scoopin oop sum hay in da yard and da chillins were a scurryin underfoots. But wait I say to Wifey, dem aint no chillins dem dere a flock o hengeese. Oh and sure lest and beharld, it was true and da hengeese start pickin at mah pantaloones and I say, "Hengeese you gone get on outta my pantaloones dis instant les i git mah big ol geese blaster and turn you inta a fine sooper dat da wifey can stew in her big ol pot over in da nightime hour and den serve you oop on da table wit some seasins we gone done get frum da ol pond out back dere!" Da hengeese was a scared off frum my lon speech, and it wuz right around dis instant dat I gone done saw a big ol cooney creature lookin at me all puffy eyed and i leaned down towards him, but den da wifey say" Get outta down dere by dat cooney creature may have been growin bees down in his scully-hole and you don now wanna git bit all oop and have me put on da butter to sooothe da achin pains!" and den I say "WIFEY YOU GOT NO DAMN OPINION OVA MA TOUCHIN O NOT TOUCHIN COONEY CREATURES, YOU GONE GIT ON OVA INTO DA KITCHIN AND MAKE ME SUM STEWY BEANS!" So she went and she made me sum stewey beans. As for the cooney creature, he was still a gazin on oop at me like a little poor orfan chilin. He look sumthin like dis:

Oh he was a cutsy naw wusnt he. Anywho, I say, hey...da wifey is stewin oop sum beans, and i gots nothin to dew cuz i aint got no job or no obliogations or nuttin. I means, i jus like to sit and maybe shoot a possumy creature or a squirrly creature o two out on da back porch and sip me some fiiinne bverages. Anyway, so I say, i say, "Cooney creature, how bouts you and me we gone go down to d river and take ourselves a trip on an ol raft?". He dont say nuttin so I give him a good grab and drag him on down to da ol river. So, I got sum sticks and made ourselves oop a nice ol raft(da cooney creature didnt help but who can blames em, he is jus a cooney creature afta all). Da raft me (and da cooney creature, i give him credits anyways) made look sumthin lik dis:

Pretty ol rag tag and stoof, but i blames that on da cooney creature since his motor skills and slackin were drivin me chrew da roofs! yall know wut i mean, yall know. So me and da cooney creature start sailin on down da reever. We see sum dem trees, some more o dem trees, and den we see some kin o log. Den we finally cam upon da ol village o dem eskimos and whatnot and i say, "Hey dere you eskimos how bout you get on gettin me some seal hides bc i be gettin mighty cold hea on dis raft." Dey gave me an da cooney some kind of blank stare, and it was about at dis tyme that I realize, hell, dat ain no eskimo village dat dere is a big ol grizzly bear. And I say to da cooney, "sunnunva gun cooney, we best get on outta hea lest dat dere bear makes us into his ol snacky cakes for da evenin supper." Da cooney creature seemed to agree since he gone done shat himself profusely. I gone done follow suit and dat smell drove dat bear far as Kansas city yall hear! KANSAS CITY! Me and da cooney were wet and soppin from our mighty shat and so we decided to go on home and feast on whateva da wifey prepared. So we paddle our raft back on oop da river and get on back to da ol cabeen wit da wifey waitin. An she says "Get dat ol cooney creature on outta hea before you gets to eatin!" And I say, darn cooney creature, she is right, wouldnt want you spoilin my hands befo i feast. And right about now i realize, dat hey...that aint no cooney creature, dat dere is Bobby Darin, da ol crooner frum da olden dayz. So we had a good ol laf and a chuk chuk, but it wuz about dat time i realize dis man was an imposter. He look sumthin like dis:

An I say, get on outta hea and den da wifey starts hittin um wit da ol broom and da ol pans and he run off nice and scared like. Den i remember dat mah bum has inside itself a mighty itch from mah grand shat earlier, so i gots to go and wipe and eat my dinna. De End.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Another day to live through. Better get started.

I love rain. I love it I love it. I love the sound it makes, I love how much the temperature drops. I love the grey hue it bathes all in my sight in. I love the smell it leaves behind.

I dont love lightning. I find it terrifying that a beam of light can explode out the ground and kill me instantly in an explosion of sound and fire. And down here, it's everywhere the rain is.

I dont love wasps. When it rains, the wasps that have no homes to return to, choose this one instead. Hanging inside the patio. Clinging to the front door. Sitting on the window. Clutching the belly of nearby leaves.

Its been bad especially dealing with these flying nightmares, because its been raining ALOT. I came here to chew gum and squirt wasp-spray, and I'm all outta wasp spray.
So to publix I went where I purchased a small tank of wasp poisons to douse the creatures. And douse them I did. And die they did.

And as I breathed the fumes and watched their squirming bodies lurch toward me, intent on punishing me even in death, I thought "Why not draw all the different kinds of wasps that live here in Tampa?"

And so I did

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

It's not about money. It's about sending a message.

Harvey Dent is dead, people. Nolan has officially said it. Twoface is dead in the movie.
So all the debating about whether big bad Harv survived being hurled off a 3-story fall can end now.

I'm glad to have closure, but of course, alot of speculation was that Twoface would be the main bad guy for GOTHAM which would be part 3 of the Batman Begins trilogy.
And Heath is still dead.

So all we have left right now is Cilian Murphy as the Scarecrow. I'd love to see him have a big role in film 3. Perhaps as the main bad guy again. That'd be nice. The bloke oozes creepiness. And seeing as they made him some sort of anti-vigilante for The Dark Knight, they could probably write more interesting stories with him.

Of course we wont know til years from now.
anyway uh

there's no point to this post except for two things

a decent picture of mike finally got online on someone's flicker account

so here is Mike in his costume of the merchant from resident evil 4 which cost him alot to put together and lots of frustration to his frazzled brain to get it working.

click to enlarge

and here is a zomboid i painted today
enjoy

Sunday, July 20, 2008

I'm not wearin' hockey pads

So I am back from Metrocon. As I said in my last post, I was going to attend but only for one day, whilst my friends Mike and Raphael attended all three days.
And it was pretty amusing.

We arrived early at about 12 and quickly helped Mike into his cosplay costume. He went as the merchant from Resident Evil 4. His costume was very complex and required alot of preparation to get ready. Full of bags and pockets he got off ebay, clothing parts his aunt had to stitch together, and props that he, raphael, and I spent a couple of nights putting together.

It was glorious. Easily one of the better and most accurate costumes there. And even luckier is that Mike can imitate the merchant's voice quite well.
So we went up the escalator, got registered, and set Mike up. And he was very VERY popular.
He must have gotten 100 or so photos taken of him and a few videos as well.
I stood next to him in case he needed help adjusting something or for me to run downstairs to get him a drink.

Sadly, noone as of yet has uploaded any photos of Mike to rising sun or any other metrocon forums, so I dont have any photos of him to post. Luckily, someone on youtube made a slideshow of their favorite costumes at the convention.

Skip to 1:32 to see a rather blurry photo of mike.

Hopefully better photos will be up soon so you can see the detail we put into that thing.

While Mike basked in fame, I took the time to look around at the other costumed people. There were some great Dark Knight Jokers who looked spot on. A deadpool. A ganondorf complete with a harem. And as usual alot of hilariously poor Bleach and Final Fantasy costumes which gave me and raphael a hearty snicker. Eventually the two of us broke away and went to the artist alley. The snafu comics (aka bleedman) people were there. And a few other odd things I'd never heard of.

We went downstairs. There was a game room where many competitions of DDR, Smash Brothers Brawl, Guitar Hero, and Mario Kart Wii were being had. I hadnt played Mario Kart Wii in a while, but after a bit of practice was kicking ass as Boo the Ghost yet again.
There was also a Lan room where many computers were hooked together playing Halo multiplayer matches while a few others were all watching Gotham Knight. In the main room (the room you are paying to see, basically) was alot of japanese imported knick knacks and whatnot. I grabbed a kirby and a megatron and then wandered about. Its amazing some of the things that wind up there. Sony's old defunct WONDERSWAN handheld systems, soundtracks to Sega Saturn games, embarrassing human chess, bootleg DVD's, japanese nintendo games, plushes, figurines of kid robot and video game characters. And a few shirts meant to enrage non-weeaboos featuring chibi gundams murdering bugs bunny.

Around 5 we helped Mike downstairs, got his costume off, and then walked across downtown Tampa. It really is a beautiful city, despite the nonstop rain. I went inside the Ice Palace (now crappily known as the St.Pete Times Forum; a far inferior name) trying to find a place to pee.
Eventually our electronics wizz and expert hacker friend Alec met up with us and we jogged down to Channelside.

Channelside, much like Centro Ybor was set up right next to the Florida Aquarium in the hopes that it would attract tourists and partygoers. It took years but eventually it became quite popular.
We ate at a place called the New York Police Pizza or something where I had a delicious pizza with pesto as its sauce. (fuck I LOOOVE pesto). Afterwards we went to coldstone creamery, and then to the Channelside IMAX where we watched THE DARK KNIGHT.


The Dark Knight was, without a doubt, incredible. Much like Scarecrow in Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan in his unending genius of finding ways to freak you out, has made the most frightening superhero film ever. Every moment with Joker is scary as hell, fun to watch, and riveting. Heath turned in an amazing performance which only makes it all the more sad that he's dead. I dont even think Depp or Giamatti or Crispin could turn in a performance as amusing and terrifying as Heath did.
Aaron Eckhart was also perfection as the kind-hearted but frustrated Harvey Dent whom, through some of the most nerve-wracking and saddening scenes in cinema, is destroyed both outwardly and inwardly and becomes the infamous (and grotesque) character known as Twoface.
Brilliant film. Everything I was expecting. It just saddens me that I dont think they'll be able to top this.

At the beginning of the film was the trailer for The Watchmen. It was shocking how good it looked. Zack Snyder might have another winner. It looks exactly like it should. And made me feel much better after seeing the trailer for THE SPIRIT again.

After the movie we went back to Metrocon, most of the people were hustling upstairs to go to the rave. I had no interest in that so I played Mario Kart Wii for a while, and then had a nice long nap before going home.

A pretty good day. Not worth the 50 bucks I spent that day, but a pretty good day.

In other news, Camp North is finally up. The 4 of you who actually read this horrid blog probably already know what Camp North is, for those few who got here by accident, here's a link.
http://campnorth.tv/
A large site full of artists who mostly all know each other and can talk freely about things. http://campnorth.tv/profile/zekey thats my profile where I put alot of my old forgotten art from years ago that was worth keeping.

In somewhat related news, after much inner turmoil and much deliberation I have accepted a sponsorship from Newgrounds. Basically it means that when Polypeptide gets finished, I get some free money. I dont know how much but I assume its somewhere around 1,000 dollars, which is how much an acquaintance of mine received when he too got a sponsorship. This will be the first time I've been 'paid' for doing a cartoon since 4 years ago when a website gave me like 60 bucks to make them a full length cartoon, some clips of which I put in my demo reel (which I need to redo).
The main reason I accepted the sponsorship is because had it not been for Tom Fulp of newgrounds, I would never have won anything in the halloween contest, and thus would never have gotten a tablet PC, and thus would still be using a mouse and would never have made any of these: http://www.mytoons.com/artwork/list/3365?per_page=30

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

If it hadn't been for you I would be now in someone else's digestion

So when the teaser for Frank Miller's film adaptation of Will Eisner's great comic book "The Spirit" came out, I was nervous. Very dark, very stylized. Two things the Spirit was not. It looked, basically, like Sin City.
So I have been cautiously awaiting the full trailer for the film.
And now its out.
And holy shit does it look bad. This will be one of the rare times I use this mode of expression but it really does look like a bad drug trip. Characters are glowing and flying and shooting lasers and there's weird colors flying off things. And Samuel L Jackson is playing the Octopus and you can see HIS FACE. Which you cant see in the comic. And they've dressed him up to look like some sort of clown thing and he's firing plastic toy guns into the air.
WHY DOES THIS EXIST

Batman on thurday. Will it live up to the hype? Probably not. Will it kick lots of ass? Oh I'm sure it will. Show Hellboy and Hancock how a superhero movie is supposed to be made. Not that Hellboy was bad or anything.

There is a comic convention with weekend.
Metrocon. Right here near Tampa. I havent been to a con in years literally. I always found them fun but very much on the creepy side. Hanging around with people who really wish they had been born in japan just because of cartoons. Otakus. Listening to bad live J-Rock bands.
But seeing as my love for anime has rekindled into a bright flame over the last few years, I figure I'll go, watch some cool stuff, see some game competitions and pick up some swag.

Swag for me, is usually independent comic books that look interesting to me. Last time I went to a comic convention I grabbed a lovely book called The White Elephant. A wonderful psychological comic about a man who's troubled past literally BARGES into any social gatherings he has as a large white elephant.
This is it here if you're interested.
The company that published the comic originally was from Florida I think.
I should research them. There's alot of things I need to research. Like this whole Internal Astronaut thing that I've been trying to figure out.

Hmm according to Wikipedia the publishers are in Gainesville here in Florida. That's right nearby. Oh and they are still around too. BAM.

At Metrocon my friend Mike is going to be cosplaying. He usually cosplays as characters whose costumes are easy to assemble (and often unrecognizable). For example he once went as Dib from Invader Zim. Not much of a costume there.
So this year he and I and a few others brainstormed about what he should go as.
Originally I suggested he go as the mutant parrot from the first few episodes of FMA that kept calling out Rose's name. Only because a man in a costume where he is basically a giant immobile green feathery beanbag with a floppy fake parrot head attached would probably be the funniest thing to see.
But he didnt do it.
So instead eh is going in a very accurate and elaborate costume of the Merchant from Resident Evil 4. It's a pretty great costume, and he can imitate the guy's voice quite well.

WHAT ARE YA BUYIN

WHAT ARE YA SELLIN

OOH I'LL BUY IT AT A HIGH PRICE

EH HEH HEH HEH HEH THANKYA

But that should be most amusing. I tried to convince him to have Joey dress up as a table with a black oldschool typewriter on top, but he refused.

I'm going to Metrocon this friday. Hopefully it will be fun. It better be considering the price it costs to get in.
Maybe there will be some bootleg dvd's of some rare stuff. Like the Guinea Pig snuff film series or something equally as fun. Maybe I will wear my newgrounds or polypeptide shirt. I probably wont though.

Speaking of Polypeptide, here is a brand new screenshot of some run cycles I've been working on.


The E3 press conference for Microsoft was this morning and I of course watched it. They showed off lots of new trailers to things. New Portal game coming out. Gears of War 2 looks fucking incredible.Then they showed off some Mii-ripoffs, and some rather poor looking party games. Definitely trying to take a bite out of mad Lord Wii's castle. And Xbox now has Final Fantasy. A final kick in the teeth to Sony.
Very amusing.
Hopefully tomorrow Nintendo will pull something godly out of its ass. Not like they have to, but it'd be nice. They have the largest share of the market yet seem to be taking their sweet time getting good game out. A pikmin 3 would be nice. Or a new F-Zero.
I think tomorrow will be most important for Sony. The PS3 needs SOMETHING to generate people's interest in it again. Metal Gear clearly did not. So hopefully they will unleash holy hell, but I get the feeling they will not.


The other day a website I frequent was having a contest to make WackyRacer/DeathRace vehicles.
Cars that fight each other.
this was my entry



big bad harv.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Seems like my advice had no effect. Suffer, like G did.

Cartoon Network is going to show SUPERMAN DOOMSDAY. I'd love to see them show it uncut like they did with the Iron Giant. But I doubt it will happen.

So the shitty bloated district manager called our store a few weeks ago and told Colin he was moving to another store. Colin had no say or notice. And the next day he was at a store much farther away from his house full of an unruly asshole staff who are well known for purposefully getting managers fired. But of course the district manager can't see that.
So in Colin's absence, we have been given John. A big bald fellow who loves video games. According to other employees he is a suckup to higher-ups. The night I closed the store with him he seemed friendly enough.
Only time will tell.

So whats happened as of late. Got contacted by a greeting card company about a potential job. I fucked up. They stopped talking to me. Mytoons.com (whom host my art since my deviantfart ban) contacted me saying they wanted to thank me for putting my art there (i dont think they're really thankful and this email arrives automatically when you upload a certain amount of files). Either way they said they were gonna send me a free shirt. I told them my shirt size.
Weeks passed. Shirt arrived today. Wrong shirt size. I need to find a local midget who can wear it so I can look in that midget's eyes and pretend I'm looking in a mirror to a fantasy world where I have a shirt that fits me.

Saw Wall-E (again) on July4th with my father and his ladyfriend.
Continued talking to my friend Hans about a large epic western-cartoon film series we're planning on making with a few other animators. Sadly he is going to Scotland soon to teach film school.
While he's gone more than likely I will storyboard my cartoon.
His I linked to in an earlier blog post. I'm more than likely going to use the "Green Hornet" theme song for my cartoon.

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I think it's frog season.
As me, mike, eric, and raphael exited the green parrot pub our feet were overrun by hundreds of small black bouncing creatures. At first I thought these were crickets. But upon close inspection I realized they were an army of tiny black frogs hopping madly across the parking lots and over the medians. Joining them was a baby toad (roughly the size of a cashew) whom I rescued from being stepped on.

I would continue with this story but I just got the worst news I've heard in holy fucking forever while I was typing about those frogs. Seems an old rival of mine who got the dream job I'd kill for is making more money a month than I've made my whole life. And brags about it! WHEEE!

Boy I wish I was back inside the pub again.
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In happier news time is being spent once again on polypeptide
here is a hard-to-decipher screenshot

lord I want this thing done.


HEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY



I JUST REMEMEBERED

Some wonderful yet horrible person saw a prescreening of the new batman movie and took photos of twoface! I'm sure Warner Brothers is trying to get these deleted off the internet as soon as possible.

So I am probably going to get my dick sued off by posting this. But I've lost mah mind
I'M CRAAAAZZZYYY

so here it is


dont click the tiny image if you dont want batman two face spoiled. ok? ok.



And there you go. Enjoy. I like that he looks like classic twoface with one big gleaming eye and less like the grotesque "oh dear lord rated R" zombie-like twoface concept art that florked all over the internet a month or so ago.

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