Seattle Times: Mariners will be looking for better approach and discipline at the plate this season.
This has been the headline for the last 4 years at least, has it not?
I just created a new page for the site, an awards page.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a list of awards on my site, so this is a first for us.
To be honest, I didn’t think I had that much, but the total right now stands at 55 awards of one kind or another. That’s more than I thought it would be.
If you care about this sort of thing, then go check out the page. You’ll find we’ve done a wide range of excellent work.
She would have loved my Chicken-Wing Trees.
“Yuuuuurp!”
I awoke to the sound of the cat puking somewhere in the house. To be honest, I’m more of a clock-radio kind of guy, but I can rise from sleep just as fast (if not faster) when I register the distinctive “yurps” of a cat in yak-mode.
Being the conscientious guy that I am, I took immediate action.
“Salma, your cat is puking” I said as I nudged Mrs. Sigmadog.
“Who’s Salma?” she asked.
I rolled over and waited for the radio alarm, and tried to re-capture the magic of a long-gone Salma. But you can’t re-wind a dream. The horses, Salma, and the chicken wing trees were gone.
Perhaps that’s today’s metaphor of life. You work hard, you plant your chicken-wing trees, build a successful career and just when you are about to begin a lip-lock with your biggest dream ever, it all falls apart to the soundtrack of cat puke.
I’m not a big believer in heaven or hell, but if I were, when that long elevator ride down to the basement of existence ends, and the doors open up to the devil’s fiery lair, and I feel the blast of Hell’s furnace hit my face, it won’t be accompanied by the wails of the damned, but rather by the constant, never-ending yurps of a million cats chundering.
So I rolled over and tried to rebuild my dream. Six minutes later the radio flipped on.
My day had officially started, I was in a bad mood, and I had lots of work to do.
I had a plan to accomplish everything that day.
But no matter how well I prepare, nothing ever works out accordingly. The reason for this constant failure: dogs.
You are no doubt familiar with the story of Roman Emperors parading through the streets of Rome to the adulation (voluntary or otherwise) of the mob, and how, we are told, there was someone to whisper in Caesar’s ear a variation of “all fame is fleeting, you are but a mortal” or something like that. It was an attempt to avoid the hubris that accompanies fame and success. The point of the exercise was to maintain a sense of humility in the character of authority. It didn’t work very well, in the end.
They should have tried dogs. There would have been no more humbling experience than Caesar raising his hands in recognition of the mob’s adulation, only to notice his loyal canine companion squatting in front of him, squeezing out a duke. If Rome had adopted the dog strategy, maybe history would be different. No Sack of Rome. No Dark Ages. No Black Death. No Rocky V.
In the modern age, very few of us need cope with the vainglory of roaring crowds; and those that do soon find their own font of humility thrust upon them (see Mel Gibson, Anthony Weiner, Roger Clemens, etc. etc.). For the rest of us, we have dogs.
My day’s plans came to a halt the moment I realized that Reggie (our 13 year old border collie mix) had become stuck in a culvert, an eighteen foot metal drain pipe nearly two feet under our driveway. It has a 12 inch opening at one end, and a crimped 8 inch opening at the other. She was facing the smaller opening. It took four hours to coax her backwards toward the wide opening, close enough for me to grab her and, like an obstetrician, yank her out. It was a breach-birth, of course. She was covered in muck and water, like a newborn baby (or so I’ve heard). It was the closest thing to childbirth I have ever experienced, and ever want to.
The hole. The damn, damn hole.
She was finally free. But for four hours Reggie was a full member of the Doggie Underground, a revolutionary confederation whose motto must certainly be “Victory through Delay and Inconvenience” (while not the catchiest of phrases, it has the benefit of truth). If I were writing their recruiting posters, I’d do something like “Come for the biscuits. Stay. Staaaaay! Stay for the revolution!”
In the end, I got nothing done that day. But I have two dogs that are still alive (for the moment), a little humility, and a (rather long) story to tell.
The leader of the Doggie Underground
Here is the latest Bloomsday artwork. This ad concept envisions Bloomsday as a musical. I haven’t yet finalized the ad layout, so there is no text yet. I think the artwork stands by itself fairly well.
Shiny, Happy Bloomsday People!
I’m trying to work more and more from actual reference photos, but with this ad I didn’t have any reference photos to work with (and I don’t have any friends willing to hold such goofy poses), so I modeled some characters in Poser and used them as references.
Poser is an interesting application. It allows me to manipulate and “pose” characters (usually people, but there are animals and other types of models as well). I can add and adjust all lighting aspects, so it’s almost like setting up my own reference photo shoot. The only drawback is that it’s a real hassle to clothe the characters, and once clothes are added, they look too fake to be of any use as reference. My solution is to use the poser characters without clothes, and find other reference photos to help with clothing and fabric. Once I have a scene that I like, I export an image, print it out, and use it as a reference for my digital painting.
By using a combination of reference photos and Poser images, I have enough source material for my drawing that I’m able to achieve fairly accurate representations of the human form. For example, here’s a closeup of the singers:
Remember, Kid: "Good reference images make for good artwork."
While the benefits of Poser are clear, there are some drawbacks. Hands and feet, for starters. I’ve never been happy with the way Poser handles hands and feet. They never seem lifelike. Feet are usually not so much of a problem, since they’re usually hidden in shoes. The hands are another issue entirely. I have to spend a lot of time redrawing them until the result looks believable. I’m still learning the finer aspects of hand drawing. As an interesting side note, if you look closely, you’ll see that my characters left hands always look better than their right hands. That’s because, being right handed, I can hold up my left hand as a model and draw it, but for some reason I’m unable to flip the features when drawing the right hand. It’s a mental thing, I guess.
I’ll post the ad once it’s finalized.
Boris collects bones. He just can’t stop himself. He should be part of some archeological expedition, or maybe help out at a dinosaur dig. Just imagine his inflated sense of self-importance were he to find a Tyrannosaur thigh-bone – he’d be insufferably smug.
Of course, it’s a constant battle between us. He collects the bones and I take them away.
I’ve mentioned this before, but I enjoy the irony, so I will repeat myself…
Several years ago I built a tall fence around our garden to keep the deer out. They were getting in there at night and eating our vegetables. The fence is a typical wire-mesh affair about six-feet tall. It’s been an effective measure in the summer time to protect our humble crops.
In the winter, however, whenever Boris brings home his latest find, it’s usually something like this:
Thinking of a career in chiropractic?
The garden fence was built to keep the deer out, but (dammit!) they keep getting back in:
Welcome to the Boneyard.
I think that if I had the time, inclination, and a castle high up in the mountains of Germany, I could assemble this collection of bones and perhaps reanimate them into a living, breathing creature once again; one that would no doubt roam the countryside frightening the peasants, destroying buildings and generally behaving like Oprah Winfrey at a Vegas buffet. But the thought of such a beast is too terrifying to contemplate.
The 50 Most Brilliant, Obnoxious, Or Delightfully Sociopathic Facebook Posts Of 2011. Some are hilarious, others are hilariously tragic, and some are just plain bad. But they are all interesting.
Washington man caught with pot-filled holiday gifts in CDA
A Washington state man faces felony marijuana trafficking charges after an officer found 3.3 pounds of marijuana wrapped up as Christmas gifts during a traffic stop in northern Idaho.
Illustrator David Grove is the creator of many amazing images. Chief among them (in my view) is his illustration for the cover of Rafael Sabatini’s famous novel, Captain Blood (above). It was an image that captured the imagination of a young Sigmadog way back in the 70′s, and helped inspire him to pursue a life in the arts.
Now, a new book is coming out on the life of this amazing artist. David Grove: An illustrated life is now available for order. I have it on good authority that the print quality of the many illustrations is superb. I’ve ordered my copy already, and anxiously await it’s arrival.
