Friday, June 27, 2008

Ludicrous Portraits of Me

Here are a couple more pictures of me that I found while seeking out mural photos.

The first is of me dressed in the Super Mario costume I mentioned earlier. Sorry it's not full length, but I didn't find any that were of just me (because I won't put other people's faces on this without permission, especially in fancy dress).
I wore the Super Mario costume for Ella's 30th Birthday "Fancy Dress" party. Ella thought having a costume party for her birthday would be a fun idea, and who doesn't like getting dressed up for a bit of fun?
Ma made the costumes for us again, because she rocks at making them. She also made Krissy's Rainbow Brite costume (she could have chosen between RB or The Little Mermaid; I guess she didn't fancy wearing seashells). There were a lot of really good costumes worn by the partygoers, and everyone had fun. Ma and Ray went as Morticia and Gomez Addams, and the Birthday Girl went as Tinkerbell!

This second photo is a little party trick I did to improve the mood at the studio. It freaked Trish out all the time! Imagine me making chomping motions while doing this, and you can probably understand why...

And these don't really belong in this section Ha! me pretending there's logic and order to all of this, but this is what we did with all the expired paint trays at the studio. We were very good at recycling - rather than just go out and pay for a bunch of brand-new paint palettes, we scrounged around for plastic packaging inserts, like those in a chocolate box or Easter Egg display. These did the job as well as any purpose-made palette. Not bad for garbage!
However, once the trays had been used for painting, Trish couldn't bear to throw them away. Most of them had dried out into interesting patterns, creating works of "accidental" art. But she needed to use them for something, and by coincidence she also needed something to help control noise in the "facilities", so she came up with the idea of using the trays as a primitive sort of sound proofing (like those acoustic tiles used in sound studios).

Okay, so it didn't really make much difference in reducing the sound from inside, but once we'd put them all over the ceiling and walls, it did look very nice in there. Especially all the stuff sitting upside down on the ceiling! (Don't worry - I just used a Hot Glue gun to stick the majority of these onto the walls, so they come off really easily.)

If you haven't seen the other three posts below this one, check 'em out now. Next time, I'll tell you about some of the other games I've been working on! Seeyas!

Lions Mural

This is the second set of "New/Old" photos of murals taken last year, only these aren't for Boolarra, but for Moe! I wasn't working with Over the Walls at the time this commenced, but I understand that it was commissioned by the local chapter of the Lions community club for display in the CBD of Moe.

My involvement with this one is a little complicated. I had been away from the studio for quite some time while this had begun, and I only showed up to pay my friends a visit - but somehow, I got talked into painting "just a little bit" of the mural to help out. Well, that little bit turned into "a little bit more", then "quite a bit more", until eventually I was helping out with a few friends the day before delivery of the mural, frantically putting in details at the last minute!

This first photo shows how the finalised mural looked when we left it. It is meant to resemble a wall covered with various historical artefacts and images of the Moe-Newborough area, dating back through the past century.



You'll see in the bottom left corner a small white rectangle; this is a list of all the people who worked on the mural. Even though I was only a ring-in, I still managed to get listed!

These three pictures are details of some of the pictures I painted. The first is a copy of the old Shire of Moe building (which is now owned by Federation Health).
The second is of the Sunicrust bakery, one of the local businesses to have provided employment to residents for many years (my Dad included). Yes, I know the car looks dodgy. I don't do cars very well.





I only painted part of the third image (of workers tending to the railway line at the start of the century), but I've included it to see if anyone spots the mistake.

This image shows Krys and myself painting on the mural in the wee hours of the night, the day before it was due. Man, that was a loooong night... and an even longer morning afterwards. (thanks, Krys, thanks Andrew!)


And the worst part of all this? Despite all that work we put in at the last minute, the artwork wasn't collected. Instead, three new panels were added to it for the next round of artists to work on!
[sigh...]
(And yes, I did actually wind up doing more work on this one - more pix to come!)

Train Mural, Previously

We haven't been able to work on the murals for the past couple of weeks, due to conflicting engagements (I've been working most of this week, for one). I wanted to put up some of the painting we did last time, but sadly, we haven't taken any new photos since the last.
But! I remembered that I did see some other photos of murals that I'd helped paint, and after a little search, I came up with - Ta Da! More Mural Photos! Except these aren't "New" as much as they are "Old", because these actually date from some time last year, not some time last month!

First, an image of the History Train mural, as it was just before the Over The Walls studio relocated. I believe these date from mid-2007, but I'll have to check with the other participants to be sure.

This image really illustrates the big difference in the figures on the first and fourth panels from the left. But the most notable change is the colour of the train. In these images, you can still see the blue underpainting that was used as a tone guide. This layer helps to preserve the light and dark areas of the mural as the top layer of colour fades over time. I understand that the life expectancy of a mural like this one is at least ten years (depending on the quality of the paint job, of course).

Also, another (clearer) photo of the name-plate mural that was shown in a previous post.

Thanks again to Andrew for taking these images, and those of the Lions Mural. You can definitely see a difference when you use a digital camera over an older film type. Mayhaps I will be getting one for myself, soon...?

NB. I had to upload this batch of images twice, because after the first attempt I realised I'd forgotten to add the copyright notice. Whoops!

When Workers Attack

Hey Folks!
I haven't updated this thing for a little while, so I decided to post loadsa stuff all at once. I just hope the net connection won't drag while I'm doing all of this.

First cab off the rank:
Click this link to watch a movie of someone having a REALLY bad day at work.

http://view.break.com/513310
Watch more free videos


PS. I would have just embedded the file on this page but it didn't fit properly in the display. Right-click on the link and select "Open In New Window (or Tab)" to see it direct at the site, without moving away from this blog.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

More "Lest We Forget"

Okay, I meant to put these with the other mural posts, but I forgot that I had them. These are close-ups of the letters of "Lest We Forget" from the first installed mural for Boolarra. Click on any of the images to view the larger version. You can zoom in on the images in the Picasa viewer to see the finer detail.



L= Lone Soldier · E= Boer War
S= World War I · T= World War II


W= Women's wartime contribution · E= World War II (?)



F= Flight/Aviation · O= Korean War · R= Returning Soldiers
G= Vietnam War · E= Vietnam War · T= Gulf War/Present day

I painted the first T, the W, and parts of the last E.
Apologies for the poor quality of some of these images (eg. flash bounceback) but they were taken with a pre-digital camera, and we didn't have the luxury of seeing how the pictures turned out before we developed them.
If you are the artist of any of these, and want credit for your work, please post a comment or contact me otherwise.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Making Comments

Hey Folks!

Some of you have told me that you have tried to make a comment on one or two of the things on this blog. Well, okay, it was just Ma, but her question will do for you all.

In order to make a comment through a Blogspot site, you need to be registered with one of these participating services:
Most of these are standard Internet journal-keeping sites or social networking sites. However, OpenID is merely a system of on-line identification, and you can immediately sign up for one if you wish. You need to have an account with one of these groups to be allowed to post a comment.
Not all weblogs are like this - some, like this blog let you get away with just an email address and a name - but, unless there is a way of altering it, I'm afraid the only way you can comment on anything on this site is in person, or in an email.

EDIT: I have fixed the situation so that you can now post anonymously, without having to go through all of that hassle. Check this out to see how you do it.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Lennon Legend(?)

[psych in]
While looking for pictures of the older murals, I found these two of the John Lennon costume I wore to a friend's birthday party. It's based on the uniform he wore on the front of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band".



Ma made it for me, and she did a really good job, don't ya think? You reckon I could cosplay with the best of them? And if you think this looks weird, you should have seen the Super Mario costume she made for me to wear to my sister's 30th!
(For extra weird, this was also a bridal gown in my pseudo wedding...)
[psych out]

Aside from that, will add a couple of things to the Links... and go.
Right now, it's 2pm., the sun is shining, and I'm sitting here in front of a computer monitor, thinking, "Why?"...

So...
Seeyas!

More Murals

Here's some more pictures of the murals from the same project. All of these are for Boolarra as well, and some of them have already been finished and installed. There's still a couple of other single-panel images that need finishing, and I'll include those later.

This was the first mural to go up on the wall. I've included a copy of the local newspaper article written after the presentation ceremony.
Each letter of the words "Lest We Forget" contains images related to different periods in Australian military history. For instance, the S is based on WWI, the G is from the Vietnam War, the W is dedicated to the contribution of women in wartime, etc.

This piece was intended to replace the existing nameplate on the Boolarra Memorial Hall. I don't know if it actually has been installed in that place, but I will find out the next time I go out that way.
It's a scene reminiscent of the bushland around the town, featuring some of the local vegetation and fauna. The tree stump in the foreground continues the Army Memorial theme.

And these are some of the single-panel works. This one illustrates Boolarra's history in dairy farming, an industry typical of most of Gippsland. Dairy cattle are a common sight around the valley; this panel shows what a dairy farm of the region might have looked like in the past.

This panel depicts the local logging industry. Boolarra is set in deep bushland, and for most of last century they had a thriving timber trade, and this panel illustrates what what it might have looked like in the late 1800s.

This was based on a photograph of a local who went to war early last century - I turned it into a rough composite figure, an "everyman" meant to represent all those who served in the armed forces.



Note: These paintings were the work of several people, NOT just myself. I only painted the Lone Soldier, portions of Lest We Forget and (teeny tiny parts) of the Memorial hall sign.
If any of the other artists are reading this, and want credit for their work, please write a comment or send me an email. The same applies for any of the artists who want photos of the stuff they painted.

There are more single-panel murals, and of course the Train Mural, which we will complete over the next few months (depending on our availability). More pix will come!

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Also...

In other news...

Today I went to the Sunday Market, for the first time in a few weeks. And this time, I actually managed to get there before they started closing up for the day, for a change!
I found a few appealing items (well, they were to me, anyway). A few vintage Mega Drive games (Zoom!, Chaos Engine, Cool Spot, and something called "Greendog the Beached Surfer Dude", whatever that turns out to be), a couple of CDs (Fleetwood Mac and Oasis), and some junk food.
I also ran into Will and Rox, who were there with Will's mum and brother, running a new stall at the market. I'm going to visit them some time next week.

I picked up the latest issue of Retro Gamer today (in a manner of speaking, since we get it about two months behind over here). Not a bad read, in fact it's about the only magazine I bother picking up these days. I only wish Andrew would finish with the ones I loaned him about a year and a half ago... [end obvious hint]

I called in to work on the way out to the market, only to discover that EFTPOS was down - BIG SURPRISE! It always goes offline on a long weekend! God knows why it keeps doing this, but back on Friday I knew it was going to happen.
(Damn you Crusty, you jinxed me again!)

Speaking of, I really ought to go to bed now, since I'm opening in the morning. See you soon!

The Train Mural

And now, the promised mural images!

Incidentally, I never got to go to the studio after my last post, so instead I got my friend Andrew to email his pictures to me. These were all taken by him over the past couple of weeks, as the images developed.
We have been trying to get this mural finished, as the clients have been patiently waiting to have this one (and several others) up on the walls. It has been taking a while, but circumstances have prevented us from getting into it sooner - mostly work, studies, transport, people leaving the project, etc. etc.

The mural is to be installed in/on the Boolarra Memorial Hall. The title is "History Train", and it represents a cross-section of the past century or so, with soldiers returning from various wars in which Australian troops had involvement (from the Boer War to the present day). Since Boolarra was on a train line at one point, we used the train as both a symbol of homecoming, and a visual reminder of the town's history.

This is one of a series of murals that we have painted for the township. There are several more, some of which have already been installed (and which I will include later). Click on the images to make them bigger, or, better yet, right-click and open in a new window or tab.

This is how the mural looked as of late May 2008. It covers five panels, each approx. 90cmx180cm. The panels we use as a base are the same type used in building houses, similar to plasterboard. We paint on panels instead of directly onto the wall because this way we don't have to work on-site, and the clients can install and relocate the murals as they see fit. NB. This was taken after most of the work shown below.


This shows how far the mural had progressed. Okay, so most of the stuff had been painted in already, but if you look closely you'll see that the guy in the front-centre, and the man standing to the right of him, are a tad "impressionistic". Well, let's be blunt, they're NOT FINISHED.

So, compare this picture...

...to this one, taken a day later. Andrew has managed to give him some more recognisable features. Incidentally, his model for the face and ears was Yours Truly, who kept getting annoyed at the repeated requests to "hold your head still". I made him bring some picture books on anatomy the next time!

More progress. We've altered the face again, because we realised that his head was out of proportion to the rest of his body (you can't tell because of the way the image is cropped, but he looked like a big fat giant compared to the people around him). The fellow standing next to him now has a face, and doesn't he seem pleased about it?


You'll probably notice that these three fellows have also received a face-lift since the first picture was taken above.



More of the crowd. A lot of the faces and figures needed retouching and adjusting - some of them were, shall we say, "a good start". That's my arm working on the faces. Compare these people to...



...this group, and you'll see what I mean.
Now, I don't want to create the impression that what was there before was "wrong". It was fine, it just needed further development - like a rough draft, compared to the final work. It's actually really, really hard to get a painting to look like the source image. I felt bad that the original artists were unable to finish it, so I made sure that their work was finished off nicely.


This couple were mostly finished, but there were some technical problems - namely, neither of them had a face. So, we fixed that.




More faces and details that needed rendering are shown here, fixed. Some of these appear in unfinished form in the 2nd picture above.
Most of this was Andrew's work. He thinks that he has make the blonde person in the centre look almost like John Lennon in profile. Do you agree?


We will give you more photos after the next time I get out there (hopefully Tuesday). In the meantime, here is one more photo that Andrew took of me while mucking around with his camera. He held the shutter open while he slowly got closer to me, and this was the "interesting" result...


Seriously, WHAAA? It makes me look like I've got weird facial hair, and a bald spot you could crack eggs on! It makes me look like... not... me.
Anyhoo, thanks again to Andrew for taking the pix. There will be more to come!

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Pro Active!

Hey Folks!

I spent the better portion of yesterday taking care of business. I've been quite dull for the past few days, so I decided I ought to leave this house and go outside.
I managed to pay a couple of bills, and went through all the charity shops in town. (Yay, my exciting life. Hey, it's better than ebay.)

Didn't find that much, but I did find a couple of good second-hand books. One of them was "Inside Mad" - one of those vintage pocket-sized books full of excerpts from MAD Magazines. Brilliant! It's one of the original editions too.
Let me just go and count how many of them I now have...
OVER FORTY!!!
...in variable condition. Some of them are actually barely ½ a book, because I wasn't always careful with where I put them. hee hee...

On the way home I ran into my friend Slink, whom I hadn't seen since we went to the Game On expo back in April. He was heading to his sister's place, which was handy because I also had to go see them as well. Her baby girl Sophie had her christening last weekend, but I was unable to go as I had work in the evening... so I had some catching up to do. (The christening was a 6pm mass, so it was apparently a lot different from her older sister's.)

It made me realise how easy it is to get caught up in your own stuff, and forget about the rest of the world. How many times have I looked at the clock and thought, "Oh, damn it! I meant to (insert something wonderful/important but forgotten)! Now it's too late! Oh, well, I'll just have to do it tomorrow..."
My friend said the same thing, though. She said that life has a habit of getting in the way of your best intentions - she's been having the same problem, though admittedly not for the same reasons. Maybe it's just a symptom of the times?

Speaking of catching up, you'll have to excuse me now. I have to try and organise a trip to Trafalgar, so that we can finish off the way-overdue murals for Boolarra before they get picked up. I'll try to include some pictures of same in my next post, once I figure out how the heck I actually do that! :)

See you later!

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Chocolate

BTW, in case certain US-based friends see this...

I have recently discovered that a local confectionery store has started selling candy bars from the United States. This means that: a) I am now able to buy as many Butterfingers as I like (for $A2 apiece); and b) you guys probably won't have to send me so many chocolate bars from there now.

But please, please, feel free to send me Hershey's stuff. Mmmm, that Hershey's was definitely worth a repeat.

And to my Japan-based friend... you already know what we would like. Pretty please?

Wot I Du

Okay, now that I've sexed up the blog a bit, I'll explain myself a little better.
  • I am 29 years old (as of now). Yipes, I turn 30 this year!
  • I work as a service station attendant/cash register operator.
  • I also consider myself an artist. I write, paint, draw, and create digital work. Right now I'm part of a team painting murals. I also make video games as a hobby.
  • I share a house with my sister and her family. So far, it's working out well - we're not pulling each other apart, at least, I'M not pulling anyone apart...
I'm kinda interested in how this whole blog thing is going to work, since I don't think I'm that interesting... but then again, it'll be easier than having to write the same things in emails about 10,000 times over, so...

Stay tuned!

TBA

Hey Folks!

Here I am. Yes, I finally decided to start up a blog. Why? Well, now I can join the 6 billion other people sharing their mundane lives with the world.
Stay tuned.