Hourly Comic Day!

As previously seen on BlueSky! This year Hourly Comic Day coincided with The Superbowl!  Click for big, as usual:

And a special bonus epilogue comic!

My Botober Shenanigans!

 The older I get, the less inclined I am to do daily drawing challenges.  But it turns out if they're funny, I cannot resist.  Thus, Botober!  Created by Janelle Shane, who asked a neural net to create a set of drawing prompts and wound up with this:

Because I so dearly love it when humans play along when computers ask for silly things, I have generated drawing prompts for #botober2021!

I've managed to get GPT-3 to follow themes. Here's "animals".https://t.co/eJM6abeEdR pic.twitter.com/9llXqeV1Hc

— Janelle Shane (@JanelleCShane) September 12, 2021

As you can see, all of these are hilarious. Here, collected for your enjoyment, are my Botober drawings.

A big catch-up page:

Another catch-up page:

The New and Improved Christmas Movie/Special Bingo!

Happy Night Before the Night Before Christmas everyone!  I have a very special present for you: an actually usable version of my old Christmas Movie/Special Bingo game!

 Click here to play right in your browser!  Happy Holidays to all!

25 Weird Days of Christmas Bonus Feature: Holiday Special BINGO!

UPDATE: Go use this instead.

Inktober Day 13 - A Day Late?!

Yes, a day late, and here's why:



I have a very inconveniently timed cold! Those are cute cold viruses partying inside my faceholes!  So far I haven't felt utterly miserable, just really tired and -er- leaky.  Anyway, today's Inktober drawing should be up in a minute or two...

Inktober Day 12 - Happy Columbus Day!

Q: Wait, I don't get it?

A: Watch this.

Q: The hell did I just see?

A: A small part of this barrel of madness.  And watching that video, it's even more deranged than I remembered.

Inktober Day 4 - No, you do not get to take Sunday off.

Here are some random stuffs:



(I agree with Noelle Stevenson, RE: Lugia's hand-wings.)

Inktober Day 2 - Pokemon from Memory

I confess this one's a bit of a cheat.   On September 30, my neighborhood suffered an eight-hour long phone/cable/internet outage.  If you've been following me on Twitter (I cannot imagine you'd be reading this and not be), you know that I was nearing the end of a Pokemon Alpha Sapphire Wonderlocke (essentially, take a game I've loved for decades and make it more stressful then necessary; finally beat it yesterday).  So in honor of this unfortunate turn of events, I decided to kick off Inktober a day early and draw my current team from memory.  Here they are from in-hindsight weakest/least accurate to my favorite/also inaccurate; deal with it. Accompanied with crappy screenshots and unofficial nicknames where available.



TARS the Magnezone

"Congratulations! Your Magneton is an awesome space-robot! #ASWL #AlphaSapphire #WonderLocke #Pokemon pic.twitter.com/huaYiHkUSS

— Trish (@Babbletrish) September 25, 2015

Lady the Gardevoir


Oof...

Yes!!! 😼 #ASWL pic.twitter.com/ymJiRfQUIS

— Trish (@Babbletrish) September 15, 2015

Ninja Rap the Greninja


Fernando the Leafeon


Furiosa the Ninetails


Yeah, that's not bad...

Congratulations! Your adorable Vulpix is now FABULOUS! #ASWL pic.twitter.com/dNNXlkjTF7

— Trish (@Babbletrish) September 16, 2015

And my favorite drawing, Shark Wahlberg the Garchomp

:)

November is Draw Dinovember!

I may have missed Inktober, but I'll be darned if I miss Dinovember; a plan that I just made up to draw a dinosaur every day in November (unrelated to this Dinovember).

Here's Skull from Albertonykus' "Raptormaniacs" as a sugar skull for Day of the Dead, rendered in ink, marker, and glitter pens.

Addendum: At the suggestion of the always-awesome Brynn Metheney, this will now be known as Draw Dinovember to relieve confusion with the original Dinovember. :)

Oh Hai, Links of Interest!

I've been doing a bunch of autumn cleaning, so I don't know if any Halloween stuff will show up here outside of this list. Anyway, here for you are links!

* - First off, Dear Mainstream News. Please, for the love of God, do not report on this story. Because holy shit... (Edit: Dammit.)

* - Second off, Dear Mainstream News. Please, DO report on this story! Just don't do it wrong. (Ye Gods, "hair"? "WHALES"?!?)

* - Halloween Content! Here are twenty baffling costumes based off famous people. That last one will haunt me all day (although it is also kind of hilarious.) Also, fifty unintentionally terrifying costumes from the same site! I refuse to believe numbers four and three are real.

* - Also, the good folks behind Boston Comicon are having a 5K Run/Walk through Cambridge... and all the participants must wear a costume.

* - Bogleech has a tribute to one of my favorite (talking, singing, carnivorous) plants.

* - Oh, Netflix. (Actually, this is good news as I, for one, dislike being inconvenienced the eff out of.)

* - Tough Pigs shared a gallery of weird, ugly, early versions of some beloved Muppet characters.

* - The Onion AV Club defended the second and third "Matrix" movies.

* - There's a new Simon's Cat short and... It's basically 😻 all the way down.

* - We finally have a Star Trek Cookbook. Easy on that Gagh, it'll give you nightmares.

* - The Chiodo Brothers are one (two, rather) of the great unsung animation/special effects masters. Here's a clip from a recent documentary that shows off some of their surprising credits.

* - An astute observation about the "Terra Nova" logo. (And the comments... Oh God, the comments...)

* - Far more entertaining than "Terra Nova" is this gem, discovered by Everything is Terrible.

* - Disney was clearly pleased by the response to the recent "Lion King" rerelease (I am sad I didn't get a chance to go) and so they are planning more rereleases. I have no problem whatsoever with this, especially since I want to see more hand-drawn animation in theaters. But Geek Dad has an uncharacteristically hysterical and negative response... (And the comments... Hooray, the comments! No, really!)

* - This guy, on the other hand, has a better idea. More importantly, somebody else likes "Fantasia 2000"!

* - Speaking of Disney, I present to all of my fellow Disney fans with weird senses of humor the Disney Face-Swap Tumbler. Man, I want to watch this version of "Pocahontas".

* - Speaking of 90's animation, Mtv has opened an archive of "Liquid Television" shorts.

* - Sue the T. rex's Twitter is the best Twitter.

* - Scythemantis has something for the Arachnophiles.

* - Dave from Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs met some new flying carnivorous friends and I am very jealous.

* - Speaking of birds, I love Hoatzins, you love Hoatzins, everybody loves Hoatzins and they have recently been showcased at TetZoo.

* - And finally, what better way to celebrate the anniversary of the discovery of Archaeopteryx than with this wonderful short by the good folks at Big Green Rabbit?

-----

Sketch of the Day!

Princess Mia meets Carlos the Dwarf - the 2011 Oscars Live Blog!

Oh, why not. Oscar night comes but once a year and I live-blogged the male-equivalent television event after all.

So here's how this is (hopefully) going to work. I will try to start after 6:15 PM EST, which is about the time the award coverage begins locally. I will make no predictions. I am not even that emotionally invested as my favorite movies have no chance whatsoever of winning anything big (for example, Best Picture is essentially a race between "Social Network" and "King's Speech"). I will merely take the awards as they come and make comments that you will hopefully find hilarious.

6:33 - Our local ABC affiliate is airing a fluff piece about a local Oscar party that I can't really badmouth because it is run by the Ellie Fund. Aww.
There are also a few reports from the red carpet and, my God, it's been ten years, please LET BJORK'S SWAN DRESS GO ALREADY!!! (Or, more to the point, unless you can name one Bjork song, stop picking on Bjork for being Bjork.)

6:52 - Yeah, NMH. More H. R. Fluffinstuff about movies set in Boston. Woo.

7:07 - OK, here we go. Aw, I'm rooting for Hailee Steinfeld since she's genuinely appreciative and excited to be there.

7:20 - D'aww, the story of the children's chorus.

7:24 - Ah, we have ads for upcoming movies to discuss. "Limitless" looks kinda nifty... and then it pulled the "we only use blah percent of our brain" cliche. Dammit.

7:29 - OK, between the "mom-inees", the children's chorus, and some other things, this is going to be a very "Aww"-some Oscar night.

7:47 - "Red Riding Hood" = wut

7:57 - "Source Code" looks a little dull and confusing in it's ad, but it's got Jake G. in it and it's by Duncan Jones. "Moon" was my favorite surprise last year, and critics loved it. So... why isn't the commercial mentioning this at all?

8:20 - Somebody tell me how "The Adjustment Bureau" is different from "Dark City".

8:23 - And here's your first notable instance (that I saw) of Mood Whiplash tonight! (Tom Hanks' "Philadelphia" acceptance speech vs. Roberto Begnini's... whatever you want to call that.)

8:30 - It's time it's time!

8:33 - Huh... this is Mtv-ish. I like it though.

8:38 - That was fun! I kinda wanted to see what they'd do with "Toy Story 3" though.

8:41 - Mark's strained smile = priceless.

8:42 - So the much-hyped virtual set is... nice.

8:43 - LEO WAS ROBBED! XD

8:45 - Alright, I'll watch "Alice in Wonderland" already. The art directors were very sweet.

8:47 - Woo Wally Pfister! Also Christopher Nolan's strained smile = saddening.

8:57 - LEO WON!!! (Thank you, I'm here all night.)
Also, essays will be written about Michael Douglas' presentation. Long, long, long ones.

9:02 - Oh, Justin, you so crazy.
Also, you don't know the definition of animation do you?
And we have our first potential running gag, care of Michael Douglas.

9:04 - "The Lost Thing" won! I'm so happy!!! (Seriously watch it. It will make a rainbow in your heart.)

9:05 - And as happy as I am that "Toy Story 3" was nominated, imagine if there were five nominees. Stupid weird Academy rules.

9:14 - I feel we're going to be hearing this over-orchestrated version of the spare, eerie "Social Network" score a lot tonight.

9:18 - And we are going to hear the "King's Speech" music a lot too. The question is, WHICH MUSIC WILL WE HEAR MORE!?!

9:28 - Yay Denmark!

9:32 - Yay! My other website's mascot won! (Honestly, I'm happy. It's been a long, long, long road.)

9:38 - Ugh, the president of the Academy. Here we go...

9:40 - And that was surprisingly painless.

9:41 - Nice, subtle "Fantasia" tribute here.

9:44 - I live in a world where Trent Reznor has an Oscar. This is awesome.

9:47 - Methinks "Inception" will sweep the technical awards.

9:49 - I'm right so far!
Yeah, so why the hell isn't Christopher Nolan nominated for best director again? Or does the Academy just not like him?

9:56 - Don't eff with Rick Baker. He is a legend. The nominees were a little offbeat, but it really wasn't a contest.

9:59 - I only wish there was an award for creature design. *sigh*

10:02 - Thank you for reminding me how I am so Emo for movie songs.

10:13 - Very nice, Jake. That'll show everyone who treats the shorts categories as a bathroom break.

10:17 - Ah jeez, Autotune? Really?
Also, I am a fan of the guy who directed "God of Love".

10:20 - Personal surreal experience of the night: explaining who Banksy is to mom.

10:21 - A-n-d potentially awesome Oscar moment averted. Also, I wanted "Exit Through the Gift Shop" to win. Wah.

10:31 - The Bob Hope tribute was cute, but I kinda wish they'd picked a movie to represent special effects... somehow...
And "Inception" wins! Practical effects for the waffles!
Also, Jude and Robert are so much fun together that I wondered why they'd never done a movie together. Then I remembered they did...

10:35 - Aww, Dave Fincher's editors.

10:41 - KITTY!!! OMG, IT'S SO FLUFFY! WANT!
Ahem.

10:44 - "If I Rise" = Awesome. Every other nominated song = Meh.
But, OK, Randy Newman's fine too.

10:50 - I didn't write anything about the Best Buy ad with Ozzy Osborn and Justin Bieber during the Superbowl because it's just... sad.
Speaking of, here comes the In Memorium part...

10:57 - And thank you cheerful JC Penny and People Magazine ad for the mood whiplash. (But then, what could you air after that?)

11:01 - Home stretch everyone!

11:03 - (Pouts in sympathy for David Fincher...)
Err, I mean congrats to the man who helped my hometown's tourism a lot!

11:15 - I was just saying that I will be astonished if "Black Swan" went home with nothing. Congrats, Natalie!

11:25 - Next movie idea for Colin Firth: "The King's Gallstones". Seriously, aww.

11:32 - "And 'Crash'!"

11:36 - OMG "King's Speech" or "Social Network"?!?
And Steven answered a second after I hit "Publish". Congrats "King's Speech". Nice montage too.

Good night all, may you all get to your homes or other destinations safely, may your speeches never be cut off, and may your dreams be sweet.
D'aww, the little kids are singin'.

Quickie: Art Evolved Speedpaintings!

Yesterday morning, Dave Maas invited the Art Evolved crew to a Speed Paint challenge, based on questions posed to the extremely useful (and oftentimes unintentionally amusing) website Ask a Biologist. For the unfamiliar, a Speed-Paint is a quick digital (or not) painting finished within a half-hour or less.

For this week's game, I chose this question, because who could resist? "Who would win, a harpy eagle or a grizzly bear?" With this question for the ages and the memory of an excellent satirical book that is more than a little tangentially related in mind, I spent twenty minutes on this:



I will confess I cheated a tiny bit: I just had to double-check on what a Harpy eagle looks like. Wound up mostly going from my memory anyway.

(NOTE: Simulposted at Art Evolved.)

Thanksgiving! Also, I Attempt to Live-Blog the 2010 Macy's Parade

Which probably is a logistical nightmare that will not work. We'll see.

Heck, I may not even be awake in real life yet. I did have the foresight to set the DVR and my alarm, so we shall see what happens.

I recommend reading all the parade recaps at X-Entertainment (conveniently collected in this blog post), this Onion AV Club post from a few years back (very good but why the "Foster's Home" hate?), and this recent follow-up. And this terrific Homestarrunner.com cartoon (what the heck happened to those guys anyway?) They deftly summarize why I cannot get enough of this stupid parade every year. It is deeply strange, shamelessly commercial, and at times you almost feel ashamed for everyone involved. However, it also acts as a very odd yet accurate pop-culture barometer, and that is what makes it fascinating.

With that in mind, here is a (coffee!) Drinking Game I invented last year. Excellent examples of all these instances can be seen in the above-mentioned X-E articles. Take a sip...
* - Every awkward and/or off-model character float or costume.
* - Every time the hosts mispronounce someone's name.
* - Every time the hosts misidentify someone.
* - Every weird juxtaposition between the performers on a float and the theme of the float. (On that note, this year Kanye West is the equivalent of a "free space" in Bingo.)
* - Drink deeply when you notice how much bigger and more elaborate the Barney and Barbie floats are compared to the Sesame Street float.
* - Here's the big one. Take a shot every time it is blatantly obvious that the hosts only have a small notecard explaining (or not) who the fictional character, band, or other entity now visible in the parade is. (In other words, for you Tropers, Cowboy Beebop At His Computer = You Taking A Drink. The "Snoop Doggie-Dogg" incident still wins.)

What odd things shall we see this year?

----

JUST in case this is a total failure, I have for you a very strange and almost-totally-forgotten Holiday special appropriate for today: Nick's Thanksgiving Extravaganza!



If my foggy memory is correct, this was aired in 1989 and ran several times during Thanksgiving Day (making it seem like it went on for hours and hours). This special seems a little rushed in parts (especially the beginning of "Thanksgiving Dream"), but it showcases a nice variety of animation directors who made those wonderful Mtv networks bumpers. I rather like the shorts by Joe Ahlbum more than the longer stories. Kevin Altieri's "Thanksgiving Nightmare" is kinda fun, but gives me a nasty "Capitol Critters" flashback, and Joe Pearson's aforementioned "Dream" is just... strange. It feels too much like one of those "sappy" episodes of "Animaniacs", like "A Gift of Gold". Highlights are the narrator acting like it is an unimaginable horror that the story takes place in a pre-Atari world (really) and a bad guy who inadvertently made Oogie Boogie and Clayface my crack pairing. The special was uploaded by Youtube user Bbahalt, and her(?) Channel is making me gleefully rub my hands for Christmas...

----

Macy's Parade Live-Blog!

9:10 - I'm awake! I didn't forget! I was in the kitchen getting breakfast and they cut the ribbon and I put too much sugar in my coffee cause I got surprised and... nobody's actually reading this live, are they?
(Ahem) Good morning and Happy Thanksgiving everyone! So there's a squirrel who is stubbornly trying to attack my (squirrel-proof) feeder, and in Parade action, we have learned that for some people "Cotton Eye Joe" will never stop being funny.

9:17 - OK, the people who made that creepy rocket-baby photo commercial have *never* paid attention to the lyrics in "Brand New Rollerskates" have they? (At least they are more subtle than, say, "Ride My Pony".)
Also, DO NOT LEAVE BABY UNATTENDED IN THING THAT CAN ROLL AWAY GOD DAMMIT!!! (I almost died when I got to watch a family take a picture of their baby -in a carriage- on the f***ing edge of a T platform *as the train was approaching*. )

9:20 - There are lots and lots of "F*** it, let's just write a musical around our favorite band's popular songs" musicals out there, so this was only a matter of time. But... Green Day has one of these musicals now. I am old.
Also, the title of the song is "Good Riddance". Take a sip.

9:26 - So according to Coca-Cola, Santa Claus is... God. Also, we all live in the Tommy Westphall Universe.

9:29 - Could something like "Rent" even survive if it had debuted in this "Let's just write a musical around popular songs"/"Let's just turn a move into a musical" Broadway environment?

9:40 - "PLEASE watch 'Outsourced'! And we PROMISE that 'The Cape' is different from all those shows by Glen Larson in the 80's!"

9:45 - Yeah... "Elf: The Musical"... yeah...

9:50 - Jeez, American Girl dolls still exist? Except it looks like now, instead of having to pick from three girls from three different historical periods (later to be joined by at least two more "ethnic" dolls: an escaped slave and a pre-Columbian Native American. Yeah...), you get to create your own modern girl.

9:55 - Ooh, the Rockettes! That means the actual parade part of the Parade is about to start!
Ad thanks to a quirk of Spellcheck, I JUST got the Rockettes/Rockets pun.

10:00 - So there is a new Peanuts special coming soon? Also, horribly off-model Peanuts costumes! (Characters with heads bigger than their bodies tend not to translate well at all.)

10:02 - On the other hand, those old big-head pilgrim things have got to scare children.

10:05 - I take it Arlo isn't going to get to sing the later verses of this song (as with "Born in the USA", it was a protest song misconstrued as a fist-pumping patriotic anthem). Also, the sight of a giant turkey serving a Thanksgiving feast as on that float is... unsettling.

10:08 - I still don't know what to think of the new "Muppet" movie.

10:11 - D'aww, Sesame Street. And they didn't say anything in the spiel, but is Wimpy Kid the first literary character balloon?

10:13 - It strikes me as very odd that the whole selling point of the X-Box KINECT is, "Aren't Wii-motes soooooooo hard to figure out?"

10:16 - RE: "Hop!" I... I don't even know.
Actually, I do: they're asking us to get excited about an Easter movie on Thanksgiving. I've lately had the existentially horrific perception that time is speeding up as I grow older, and this isn't helping.

10:18 - I hope people are aware that The Roots predate Jimmy Fallon's show by a good... however long it's been since my freshman year in college.
By the way, anyone who hates on "Do They Know it's Christmas" can go right to hell. (I have seen a surprising amount of dissent for it in the past few years. Jeez, it's a charity single, who'd complain about something so well-meaning? [The recent remake of "We are the World" is up for mockery, however. I'll take Bob Dylan over Autotuning any damn day.])

10:22 - This is what the group of humans behind "Mannheim Steamroller" looks like. Huh.

10:24 - A McDonald's commercial where a mother lies to her adorable daughter about where her food comes from. THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!!!
On a happier note, the Chickadees are loving something in the bird feeder. Can't quite tell what though. I have experimented with Safflower this year, so...

10:26 - So... you announcers never watched "Despicable Me".
Also, the minions on the Statue of Liberty float. Take a sip.

10:29 - I know they want to remind us that the Disney Dream ship is setting sail soon, but wouldn't you love to have seen an "Epic Mickey"-style balloon?

10:30 - I have nothing at all to add to the pizza-twirling team.

10:34 - Pink and lime green = timeless.

10:40 - Oh God oh God! (No, I hadn't seen the "Yogi Bear" trailer yet. Yes, the dead-eyed characters are doubly horrifying in motion.)


10:47 - Kylie Minogue on a float made of creepy giant pull-toy ducks = Take a sip.

10:50 - Munchkins with bits of sausage inside. Dunkin' Donuts, what happened to you?

10:54 - That Shrek balloon is bound to frighten children. That grimacing face!
Also, the "Imagination!" song from "Fantasmic" in the Disney parks is "a patriotic march" according to the announcers.

10:57 - You know what, Takashe Murukami woke up in the morning, put that costume on, looked in the mirror, and liked what he saw. So, preemptively, shut up.

10:58 - You know what I just said about the Shrek balloon? Yeah. That goes double for whatever the heck that blue-haired thing is on the Princess Academy float.
Ah, the five minute long Barbie retrospective commercial is back! I can use the ladie's room and get more coffee.

11:07 - OK, I hope I didn't miss anything interesting. Here is yet another band I have never heard of. And they are singing the least convincing song about being a hard-partying rock star since that excremental Nickelback song.

11:09 - Listening to the announcers tackle the pronunciation of Reshiram and Zeckrom = Sublime. Bonus: "Po-kee-mans".

11:15 - A-a-a-a-n-d begin the "Turn Off The Dark" jokes!

11:17 - And so, Kanye rides on the Big Apple float. I was secretly hoping it really would be the Barbie float.

11:22 - The Horton balloon looks... odd to me. And what I sad about big-headed characters definitely applies to Dora. She looks like the infamously terrifying Rainbow Brite costume.

11:29 - This Dance Troupe: "Well, we have a great medly of holiday classics and a dance routine all set. Now, you want us to wear WHAT?!?"

11:30 - The Build-A-Bear float unleashes a hurricane of bear puns from the announcers. Oh, God, I feel like I'm stuck in a Xanth novel!
Also, ADD is a fun thing to sing about.

11:45 - I know the Macy's floats and balloons are going to go down to Universal Studios Florida but... why?

11:48 - Aww, it's good to see the Smurfs back in the parade.

11:51 - Ooh, the Snow Queen float is pwetty.

11:57 - SANTAAAA!!!
By the way, why the heck aren't they just singing "I Still Believe in Santa Claus"?
And is it me or did they slip something funny in Santa's coffee?

12:00 - Welp, this was fun, and probably would have been even more fun if I wasn't such a terrible typist. I'm off to enjoy delicious orange goo and T. rex-sized drumsticks. Everyone have a happy Thanksgiving and I'll post again on Tuesday!

----

Oh, hey, guess what?

Feederwatch Thursday!

Rock Pigeon 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
Black-capped Chickadee 2
Northern Cardinal 2
House Sparrow 25

Speaking of birds, here's a nifty Dinosaur Tracking post about things to pause and think about before you fight over who gets to crack apart the wishbone.

Cute Animal Triptych

Traditionally, a Triptych is a painting or panel in three parts, often forming an alter-like shape. Sometimes, as in this case, it simply means three similar paintings with a shared theme or design element made at the same time.

Which is to say, I had three small canvases, didn't know what to do with them, and decided they should have cute little animals on them.



For an extra challenge, I decided to do each of these as a speed-painting. They might not be the prettiest things, but I like them.

Here's the former-Jackalope-now-Rabbit:



Here's the baby Mammoth (here's hoping he's not too cutesy for the Art Evolved Elephant gallery -- I don't know if I have time to work on anything else for it):



And here's a little guy you may recognize from last week:



All together now: Awwwwww...

----

Sketch of the Day!
I think I may have to make the top half of this page pretty later:

The Big Sit! Also, it appears that somebody got around to making "Gnomeo and Juliet".

(Record-scratch sound effects.)

No, really. Here's the announcement at /Film and the trailer:



I should probably explain why this was a little unexpected. You see, a long, long time ago, when Disney was in the depths of it's Dork Age, whoever was in charge of pitching story ideas there basically said, "You know what? F*** it! We're all trying to make the next movie that will make as much money as 'The Lion King', right? So let's just do ANOTHER loose Shakespeare adaptation with celebrities voicing nonhuman characters who sing lots and lots of Elton John songs."

And this happened back when there was a weird mini-trend, possibly inspired by "Amélie" or warm memories of Rien Poortvliet's art books or the beloved "David the Gnome" animated series adaptation of them, of collecting garden gnomes.

The last we Disney fans heard, the project had been scrapped. This happened back when "Meet the Robinsons" was being reworked. Since that was the last time I had heard anything of it, the sight of a trailer was a huge surprise. I guess another studio must have picked it up, which might explain why this is released under Touchstone. Disney (which is in the meantime working on a movie based on the whole Magic Kingdom because of COURSE they are) has been known to release "weird" movies under the Touchstone banner; the same thing happened to "Roger Rabbit" and "Nightmare Before Christmas". The whole situation was just too strange not to mention here.

What do I think of what we see in the trailer? Well, let me put it this way. I still dream of someday directing my own animated film. And when I do, I will insist that both the trailers and posters must include this or a similar tagline:

"From a person who was not at all involved in 'Shrek'! And while she kinda liked the first movie at the time, she frankly thinks that the 'Shrek' movies have a lot to answer for. (That God-forsaken 'Cat in the Hat' movie for example.)"

----

Announcement: This Sunday is The Big Sit! Register your circle and keep track of the birds you see. This instructional video explains the rules further. Skip ahead to the six minute mark to learn why friends don't let friends drink and birdwatch.

----

Sketch of the day:

"Jo-OY! An' Painting! / Are like-a SUN-SHI-INE! An' Rainting!!!"

What, you thought I was kidding?



So here's the first acrylic-on-canvas painting I've made in... I don't want to think how long. I won't feel sad if you all laugh at it. This is what happens when you follow along with "The Joy of Painting" using really old brushes, the wrong kinds of knives, and acrylics.
It's pretty obvious here that there are some serious differences between oils and acrylics. I wanted to go back into it again later on, maybe in a day or two, just so it wouldn't be so transparent.

Now a funny thing happened between me deciding this and this painting's ultimate fate: somebody closely related to me happened to see the painting.

This person (who wishes to remain anonymous) saw this painting and said she loved it and wanted it and could she give it away as a present please please please? I said, sure, but I need to work on it before I let anyone else see it. See, it didn't feel like anything I'd paint.

So, I went ahead and added in an Oviraptor.



Because why the heck not? By the way, the people who now own this painting love it!

----

"Inception" is out this weekend, and we should all go see it. Because buying a ticket to this movie is an unspoken vote for creative, director-driven, non-sequel, non-spinoff, non-franchise movies in what has so far been a spectacular summer for astonishingly bad movies. My feelings are more eloquently expressed in this old Devin's Advocate article from CHUD.com (which, by a happy coincidence, involves another crazy-ass director-driven movie that just happened to be released by the Dubya-Bee; emphasis and visual bleeping mine):

"Know that you went out and voted with your ticket, that you sent a message to Warner Bros that you'd prefer them to keep taking chances, to keep trying new things, to not always be safe. Know that you sent a message to the studios that they don't have to make horrible movies... that you won't wait to see the interesting films at home. And if you don't go, I don't want to hear you complaining the next time there's a sh*tty remake or a sh*tty sequel or a sh*tty movie based on a sh*tty toyline or cartoon." - Devin Faraci

It should be said that "Inception" is one of only two, maybe three, movies I am 100% on board with this summer. I *just* got to see the first of these, so next week is Movie Week! Which will hopefully build to something very special for August...

I am easel!

I took apart my old French easel to sand and stain it, then I put it back together again.

Right, now for what actually happened.

I had this French easel for years and years and never really played with it. This summer, I decided I ought to get back into acrylic painting, something I abandoned years ago for whatever reason. Before I did that, I wanted to spruce my old easel up, hopefully making it easier and safer to use. So I unscrewed everything, removed all the metal pieces, and took the easel apart. Then I sanded and applied several coats of polyurethane stain to each wooden piece. I set the whole thing outside to dry overnight.

I came back in the morning to put the poor thing back together.

Here's how the easel looked when I was finished.



This is the best reason to use this kind of easel: The whole thing folds up into a convenient box shape. At least it's supposed to. I had a hard time folding my easel back up and let me show you why:



Um... hrm...

Helpful Hint: If you ever feel the need to take a complicated thing like this apart for whatever reason, TAKE LOTS OF PHOTOGRAPHS BEFORE YOU BREAK OUT THE SCREWDRIVERS! I didn't but I have the excellent excuse of not having a camera handy. So I brought everything indoors, looked up catalog pictures of French easels, and after an hour of squinting at low-res photos on my laptop, here's my easel, all folded up...





And here she is in alt-mode. Glad to have you back, easel. You and I got a date with a Bob Ross DVD!



----

Sketch of the day!

Or rather, another Watercolor of the Week! Here's a very-sensitive-if-I-do-say-so-myself study of the view from part of Long Lake:

Reasons Why the New "Clash of the Titans" Bothers Me.

I have not seen the new "Clash of the Titans". I will admit this up front. Honestly, I don't really want to see the new "Clash of the Titans". But this stupid movie has inadvertently brought up some things that bother me:

1) It turns out some people will take any CGI, even the not-so-good CGI in "Clash", over the Ray Harryhausen stop-motion in the original. This makes me unspeakably sad. So I went to the library and got An Animated Life to read.  This is a big, huge book I've salivated over for a while, so I was elated that they had it. I'll review it soon.

2) The 3-D in "Clash" was added as an afterthought. This fact has been wildly reported. It was thought that people wouldn't pay extra for crappy 3-D... but guess what?

3) This plot point. (Deftly illustrated by the wonderful Coelasquid [naughty language warning], who has done an entire series of comics based of ridiculous things in "Clash".)

4) But I think the thing that bugs me more than anything about this remake of "Clash of the Titans" is this: Of all the things they changed from the original "Clash of the Titans", couldn't they have swapped the Kraken out for, I dunno, some scary sea monster out of ***GREEK*** Mythology?!? It isn't like they don't have a surplus of them.

In other movies I have no interest in seeing news, I am sincerely disappointed that the movie entitled "Furry Vengeance" is NOT about "Secret of N.I.M.H." fans out for justice, as the title would suggest. Because I would watch the hell out of that movie and so would you. Admit it.
----
Sketch of the day! How about some happy after all that uncharacteristic vitriol.

Yaaaaaaay!!!

But before we get psyched about Comicon, here is a loose end that must be tied up.

Hey, Spewey* I think I heard somebody drop off a package in the porch. Would you be a deer of an Oviraptor and retrieve it please?
* - Yes, Spewey. Seemed apropos for an animal fingered for eating some other animal's eggs (it's a damn shame Oviraptor eggs look just like Protoceratops eggs. Except that they have little Oviraptors inside.) In case you don't get the reference, read this.

(Angry clucking...)

!!!

...

(Series of elaborate clucks and tailfeather-shaking that roughly translates to "Hell and Yes.")
----
Sketch O'Dedae! Yes, the team has changed a bit since I made this, but I'm going to paint an update when I'm finished with the story: