exTRAVELganza #2

Leg #2: union mills, in to waynesville, nc



travel stats:
depart: union mills, in @ 7:30am, 8/15
arrive: waynesville, nc @ 5:00pm 8/15

total distance: 615 mi

states driven through: 4

book on tape completed: the subtle knife by phillip pullman

accidental turn-arounds: 3

worst bumper sticker: "Drill here. Drill now. Lower prices."

second worst bumper sticker: "NObama"

text messages between our travel companions: 34

meet chromeo...

from their myspace page:
"Chromeo is P-Thugg and Dave 1: best friends since their adolescence, virtuoso musicians, walking hip hop encyclopedias, and the only successful Arab/Jew partnership since the dawn of human culture."



thanks brendan.

hilarious...

[after seeing a guy wearing a red and pink camouflage hoodie]

me: that's ridiculous... when would you ever need red and pink camouflage?
krystal: maybe if you're hiding in a womb...

adventures in stock photography #2

search: pen (the writing utensil)
result:











it reminds me of how i wanted a pet goat growing up, and my dad wouldn't let me get one. not as ridiculous as it sounds when you grow up on a farm.

'cougar' or 'cougar'?

margaret called me this evening and told me that two cougars had been shot in chicago.

you can see my utter confusion. i haven't laughed that hard in a long time. thanks marg.

adventures in stock photography #1

1) who would buy this?
2) what would they buy it for?
3) what is she doing the splits on? can anyone tell?
4) this was the first photo that came up when i searched for "magnifying glass"... if this is #1, i hate to think was #300 is... never going to photos.com again.

from the brain of marketing genius, brendan ash...

brendan has been helping me to color-correct and resize images for a website we're doing for a brazilian steakhouse. needless to say, there are lots of pictures of meat. well, on the history page of the site, theres an image of brazil on an old globe. and thus, brendan says...

"thats boring. you know what would be way better? if you had a picture of a hot, topless brazilian woman with, like, a thong! a thong made out of meat! a bacon thong! with meat hanging off of it! and you could have a dog chasing after her!"

well, brendan, this is for you...


















*note: those may not have been brendan's exact words, but you get the gist...

feelin' giddy

so i acquired another one of scott campbell's prints... very excited. its called "igloo head and tree head" (see below) and features two characters for a comic that he did in flight: volume 4, which i also own. its weird, for someone who has been artistic my whole life, he's the first artist i've really latched on to and connected with since i wanted to be a comic book artist back in high school. back then, my biggest inspiration was joe madureria (although i still think hes good, you can see how drastically my tastes have changed).

i don't know what it is about scott's stuff... i think its the idea's behind what he does (which i admit is where my creative issues arise). i read an interview with him once, and he said he used to tape record conversations that people were having around him in restaurants and on the train and what not... i think thats awesome. and you can really see that a lot (more so in his comics than his art, but you get it).

i was just trying to think of where i first heard of scott, and i remember that he was the lead artist and character designer for the excellent game, Psychonauts... seriously one of the best (and funniest, which is rare) games that i've ever played. its about a psychic summer camp for kids where they're trained to use their powers, and ever level of the game actually takes place in the psyche of another character. Coach Oleander (the camp counselor/ex-military general) has a literal battlefield in his head; Milla Vodello (international secret agent and party girl) has a disco club in her head... all very clever and all very hilarious. i think i'm gonna have to dive back into that one sometime soon...

i heart my mac

so krystal and i discovered Photo Booth on our laptop last night. here is the result:

and so it begins...

well, this isn't the first time i've attempted to start blogging. but i'd really like to stick with it this time. this year, i made the first serious new year's resolution i've made in my entire life. try to draw an hour a night. doesn't sound like too big of a hassle. but here it is, 52 days later, and i've stuck to my resolution for maybe 10 days total. that's 19.2%. definitely an F in most books. but i'm going to go out on a limb and grade myself under some sort of montessori method. that makes me feel somewhat better.

my "big picture" goal with this resolution is to be a professional illustrator by the time i'm 30. i think that's reasonable. so, to sound cliche, i'm really only cheating myself by not sticking to it. i have taken a couple of freelance illustration jobs for cheap/nothing to stick to it. so that's cool. and i really want to get rolling on ambur's graphic novel. so i guess my ultimate goal with this blog is to post my drawings. not necessarily to share them, but to give myself mini-goals to work towards the big ones.

so check back to see what happens... it'll probably be a bit slow to start (my damn scanner isn't working for starters), but hopefully i'll get into a nice groove with it. and maybe i'll just ramble every once in a while too... thats always fun.

*side note: they just said "vaginal vault" on C.S.I.

*side note to the side note: on American Dad last night, Roger the Alien referred to a woman's vagina as a "baby cannon", which i thought was hilarious. that show is so under-rated.