Monday, June 30, 2008

The Ninja




Its a maquette I made. Sculpey, wood, and fake grass. Oh, and acrylic paint.

Briefcase.


This picture might provide some valid social commentary. Might not. I was bored, alright?
edit: Can you see the little man inside? Inter'stin eh?

Some older stuff











The lower one is of a man coming out of a wall, and as the text says "T'is wise to fear the Chameleon," it can be logically assumed that he was camouflaged there. It's photoshop over a drawing I did while bored in one of my math classes, although when I drew it it looked more like he was coming out of the shadows, which was my original intention; it's also the first time I used layer masks in photoshop. The top is my one and only entry for an activity of the week for Conceptart.org. The prompt was "Heart Harvester," for the creature of the week. I can only claim responsibility for the color. The sketch was done by one of my friends.

Couldn't be a Bear

Seems that my postings are getting progressively older. But fear not! I've run out of typed, old writing, so we're good. Now then, this was something that I wrote after walking around the city of Fullerton at 11:30 for about an hour and a half. What can I say? My mind wanders.

Now, the first thing that came to my mind was, There is no effing way that there’s a bear hiding in there. ---Right? But if not, what made that rustling sound? The second thing that came to my mind was, Why the HELL am I standing next to the road at 11:30 at night doing lopsided roundhouse-kicks that could not possibly help to fend off an angry bear (or equally dangerous potentially rabid squirrel) as the occasional passing driver stares at me like I’m on some kind of narcotics?
There’s an old cliche that states that, rather than age, disease, or car-smooshing, a curious disposition led to the demise of the metaphorical feline. Would that I did not possess the same inevitably (eventually anyway) fatal flaw. I told myself that walking into the largish patch of three-foot-tall brush beside the road was a bad idea; I mean, there was every possibility that there was a newly awakened hobo in there waiting to knife me and make off with my shoes... but none of us is better than our nature.
And so into danger I did go, trusting to luck and my astonishing reflexes and standing not ten feet from a fairly major road and expecting the next passing headlights any minute now. And without warning I did trip. And fall. Face first.
In my defense, the brush was rather thick, and almost to my waist, but I’ll admit that I had no business hunting grizzlies and rabid squirrels at 11:30 on a school night.
So I put my hands out to stop myself from landing nose-down in the bear-scat that I imagined coming up to meet me, because well, it’s what anybody would do, right? My hands met the brush, and kept going, down towards the ground, and I followed. I slid through the spindly-tall grasses and the dry stalks lightly scratched, among other things, my now tightly-clenched eyelids... and I kept going.
Now, there was no falling through a dark nothingness, no feeling of vertigo, nothing like that. I tripped, and then I regained my balance; the only problem was, somewhere between point A and point B I should’ve come face to face with this little thing known as the ground, because I before I even closed my eyes I’d passed the 45 degree mark with nothing to catch me.
When I finally forced myself to pry open my eyes and remove my stiffened arms from their defensive position in front of my face... well, let’s just say that no shortage of those cliche’s came to mind but damned if I wasn’t looking out for Dorothy and a flying house.

A Summer Wind, the Picture.




This is the picture that inspired the writing, even though the writing was posted first. In case you were wondering, the text at the bottom reads "I am he who signs nothing for the simple reason that I cannot decide on a suitable signature."

A Summer Wind

Yeah, it's also the name of a Frank Sinatra song, which can be heard in the movie Matchstick Men. I have a friend who uses song names and lyrics for all of the titles of his blog postings. I think this'll be the only one for me.

There was a man who thought of nothing but the pale Moon, so he built his house on the highest hill that he could find. This house was very tall, and from the roof the man could see the entire world spread out beneath him, but try as he might he could not reach the pale Moon.
It came inevitably to pass that this man ran out of materials with which to build, and though he asked and asked, the people below would sell him no more, envious of his magnificent view. And so, in defiance of the laws and physics that held his house atop the hill, he began to dismantle the lower stories, in order to continue his work. It seemed that the house was as defiant as he, or perhaps it was held up simply by the force of his will, because soon enough nothing remained but the upper half, topped now by an alien but beautiful tower.
Seeing this, the people below believed that the man must be some kind of dark sorcerer, and unable to reach him with the traditional torches and pitch-forks, they began to pelt his house with all manner of large, dangerous looking rocks, in hope that they might knock his house from the sky as it bore over the world below.
These rocks were not returned, for the man, determined as he was, had once again run out of materials with which to build. He kept the rocks, and thanked sincerely the people of the world, who thought simply that he taunted them, glorying in his majestic abode.
Those people are gone now, and the throwing of rocks has long since ceased, but their children, and their children's children look up to the sky each night, filled with stars in all the colors pastel, telling stories of the man who finally slept, content, beside his friend, the pale Moon.

Boomsticks.

This is one of my fairly recent... well, I suppose you could call it a short story. Or maybe you couldn't. I don't know. Anyway, enjoy.

Although my watch had stopped working about four days ago, I guessed by the position of the sun that it was probably around five in the afternoon. This meant of course that it could have been anywhere from noon to midnight, but I took comfort in the knowledge nonetheless. As my companion and I walked along the old dirt road we came upon a moderately well-sized wooden cart that looked like it had seen better days, but was having trouble remembering exactly when they had been, or for that matter what a better day might have looked like. At the front of the cart was a mule, healthy and strong in defiance of his surroundings, idly chewing a mouthful of dry grass and pointedly ignoring us with the air of one who does not deign to gaze upon those inferior to itself.
The sign atop the cart proclaimed the owner to be a purveyor of Fyne Qualitie BoomStickes, though my companion and I were at a loss as to what a boom stick actually was. As it turned out, a purveyor of boomsticks looks much like an old farmer might if he had spent his life lighting fires in close proximity to methane deposits, and was accordingly missing several fingers from his right hand.
The old man's brittle, shoulder-length white hair was singed in places, and his straw hat boasted a large hole in the brim just above his right eye, ringed with a dark scorch mark. I began to wonder if perhaps a boomstick was some kind of firework, and if, perhaps, someone had set one off directly under the man's hat. The rest of his clothing was equal parts scorched and burned, and I guessed that hit shirt might have been yellow at some point, but it now ranged from black to a dingy brown. All of this I saw from over the counter of his cart, which, now that I thought about it looked to have been set on fire several times during its weary lifetime.
"Excuse me," I said to the man, who, sitting on a rickety looking chair near the rear of his cart had, much like the mule, pointedly ignored our presence until now, "but what exactly is it that you're selling here?"
Lifting his head and tilting it slightly to the left, he fixed his right eye on me sharply, illuminated now by the hole in his hat, and said simply, "Kent ya reed, boy?"
"Well, yes," I said, somewhat apologetically, "but my friend and I were wondering--" I broke off, searching for some more tactful way to put it and finding none, "That is, we wanted to know just what a boomstick is."
"Ahh," he said, lifting himself slowly from the chair, his hands on his knees providing most of the support, in that purposeful way that old, tired men are wont to do, "then ye've come to the right place, for here ye'll find the finest quality boomsticks anywhere, and that's a fact."

Test!




My newest work. Done with PS over a sketch done while on vacation. Hope you like it, internet!


edit: Jeez, I've gotta learn to get this right the first time. Anyway, this picture was inspired by a scene in a book I just read by Raymond E Feist. Can't remember the name, but it's from "The Darkwar Saga," and I believe it's in the book before Wrath of A Mad God.. the uhh.. second one. He never said it was a homunculus, but I made an executive decision. Hope he doesn't mind.

New Beginnings.

As of now I will be posting here any of my creative endeavors I deem worthy. Fun fun!

edit: you may note, though it is small, that my avatar is, in fact, an unfinished picture of a frog; this is intentional, as I believe it says something about me. Specifically that I have trouble finishing things.

ps. The frog's name is Algebra. Perhaps I'll finish it one day.