Mar 25, 2008

Young Zombies in Love

if all things go as planned, i will be moving my press into the studio space this weekend. i think this may be my first print...i'd like it to be 24"x30" but let's not get crazy. three-colors is maybe a bit ambitious. anyone interested in prints?

























EDIT: after looking at this for a day or two, i wanted to make a few changes. changed the wording, added some spatter/bubbles behind the image. not sure which i prefer. and i may change the wording again. we'll see.

Mar 24, 2008

Zombie Painter

worked a bit more on that zombie picture from a few days ago...the software is interesting, can't wait to spend more time using it. as crude as my efforts are, it still seems to work pretty well...click for a bigger image.























i've posted this as a t-shirt, in my store at the bottom of the blog...no pressure, eh?

Mar 20, 2008

Painter X

just started working with a new piece of software for colorization. seems promising...

home again

last full day in vegas. we hit the rolly coaster at New York New York casino. what a trip that place is inside. every other casino seems to strive for clean lines and sculptural spaces. this place is confusing and mazelike, though it has really interesting decor imitating the streets of NY (as if anyone didn't know what it was imitating). the coaster was ok. 14 bucks for 15 seconds. we did a little shopping, there's a Bettie Page store there, then a little wandering, checked out the Planet Hollywood props. best thing there was a full-sized terminator robot. it's nice to be able to walk anywhere you want with a guinness in hand. afterwards we had a makeup guy pete knew over to our room, had a few beers and shot the shit and watched youtubes all night. it was a pretty good night. check out my new hero, Unknown Hinson.

came home last night through a snowstorm in ohio, then a rainstorm in providence. my checked luggage came back soaked and TSA dissected. it's weird when you find the you've-been-inspected notice inside a book inside your bag. i don't bame them for checking it though. the magazine i was bringing home stunk from the ink it was printed with. actually, i can smell it right now from across the room.

the flight between OH and RI made the roller coaster seem pathetic. it was a small plane and we got tossed around enough that the captain wouldn't let the stewardess pass out drinks or anything. we got tossed around a lot and then the captain announces that we may not be able to easily land at the intended destination because of weather and that we may not have enough fuel to do extra passes and that we may need to find another airport. what a great thing to announce. regardless, the captain did a fine job and we were on the ground safely a few minutes after the panicky announcement. got home around 11:15 or so. i made pretty good time, all storms considered.

Mar 18, 2008

fremont street

after the show closed yesterday, we headed up to the fremont area. the older section where the street is covered with that giant 2 or 3 blocks long tv screen. pretty cool. more gritty down there. maybe not gritty, just not as flashy as the area we're staying in. we hit a bunch of the souvenir shops and walked down the street with a six of coronas and a bag of souvenir junk. for 2 bucks we found a children's bow and arrow set with suction cups. we thought it would be hilarious to shoot arrows in the hotel room, maybe stick them to the tv. the thousand-plus flatscreen tv. good thinking. fortunately, it was a useless piece of junk. that we carried all over the place, including the rock club with ridiculous glammy music and hell's angels who seemed to like the bands. hey, what do i know. also of note, it was pretty much impossible to find a guinness on st. patrick's day.

we headed back. we played a few slots but couldn't quite figure it out. it's really hard for someone who enjoys fast computers (results! results!) to sit at that electronic machine and rush through my budget (a paltry $5, but whatever). pete ended up with an extra 10 bucks. wheee.

Mar 16, 2008

day 4

nothing much to report. my body's fucked up from setting up the booth. should be a lesson in planning ahead. too bad i don't need that kind of lesson. feet hurt like crazy too. it's like a 10 minute walk, inside the building to get to the convention hall. this luxury hotel (the venetian) is pretty weird, lotta broken shit, a constant food smell comes out of the heater/ac unit.

we finished the booth pretty well, grabbed some lunch (same noodle place, same noodle dish), and came up here for a nap. fell asleep watching something about the mars rovers and woke up to alaskan brown bears mating in HD.

the guys just got back, sounds like things went well.

day 3

just got in. it's 6:17am eastern time. pete and i went back to sin city. saw some great bands. had a pitcher of beer bought for us for no apparent reason and stopped back at the hotel for noodles at the asian place. as bad as the booth setup was today (and it was AWFUL), tonight was pretty excellent.

also, watching last-ditch efforts by morons to get bitches is pretty funny. and i won 2 bucks from pete about whether our roomies would be home or not. i guessed they would. PBR at sin city, here i come.

Mar 14, 2008

golf carts

so after much haggling over whether to rent a car or take a cab for the trip (potentially plural tripS) for extra equipment and supplies for the trade show booth, then deciding that the rental car would make the most sense, and finally finding that all of Avis' cars were rented, I took a cab to home depot.

home depot was out of everything I needed. even their own orange home depot paint buckets. out. orange stickers with in-stock dates. in-stock dates of yesterday and the day before? wtf?

about an hour and a half of shopping there and i called my cab-truck to come get me. the guy was pleasant enough, small talk on the way back to the conv center. we circle around a few times, looking for the delivery bay door for hall C. i can see our booth. we pull up to the door at hall C and begin to unload.

this is where it gets fucked up.

2 security guards pull up on separate golf carts. painted dark blue, these golf carts look as though they'd been dropped off the empire state building.

"Can't do it!" Security guard one says. I say, oh, I just need to bring these bags and sawhorses in right there. I got 2 guys coming out to help me. He walks over to the back of the cab and looks in, he seems to agree, no big deal for me to bring this little pile of stuff in.

Security guard two pulls up, inspects the pile in the back of the Ford Explorer for a full 30 seconds. I could have been inside in this amount of time.

"Nope. No way." he says. So, SecGuard one says to SecGuard two, "it's just that stuff, he can bring it in." I'm eyeing the golf cart, maybe this dude will help me?

"No!!" and SG2 zips off. Humiliated, SG1 yells at me and the cab driver to follow him to gate G (we are at C, and i am looking over at my booth. We remount our trusty steed and start slowly following the beat up blue shitbox golf cart. SG1 looks a bit like Morgan Freeman. he seems nice, but he keeps yelling at us, mostly because he was just yelled at by his boss.

about halfway to gate G i see my guys. they flag us down. the cab driver pulls over and pops the back trunk door open. SG1 pulls over and parks at the wall, and starts waving madly at us. we wave back because we are now all set, we'll just walk in. he dismounts and quickly stompwalks at us, yelling the whole way. he walks around to the back of the explorer.

"Put the bag down! Put-the-bag-down!" he is now in full-on security guard tsa swat-team mode, though i take care to notice he isn't armed. i tell the guys, just do it, it's a whole fucking situation, just do what he says, hop in and we'll walk in from gate G. the guys jump in and the security guard walks around and then walks over to the passenger side door.

"I gotta ride with you guys. My cart's outta juice."

night one

so, first real night in vegas. a guy on pete's crew recommended a local rockabilly place. no tourists, except us. we had an address and a name, and the first 4 cabs we asked to take us there flat out refused. the last one, i asked him why and he said, i'll get a ticket. what? we opted for the taxi stand, where we noticed they let you in the car, before askig where you want to go. tricky, huh? our cab driver kicked ass, and helped us find the bar that we drank $2 PBRs at, and watched tattooed chicks dance at all night. btw, the place was maybe 1/2 mile from the hotel, duhrr.
off to work...

Mar 13, 2008

Blogs Vegas

so, here i am in vegas for the transworld expo. i'll try and post a few things about the trip here, but i'll be using my t-mobile gallery that i can send my cameraphone pics up to instantly. anyone interested in that, check out this link:
http://www.t-mobilepictures.com/27675832/ps/ALBUM/VIEWWEBSITE?foneblog=1175612183471

it's old junk up there right nw, but i think ill add a few pics of the hotel room and the view...cheers.