evan's niblets

Why Ping Should Get Personal.

2011-08-14T16:03:00.003-05:00

I really want to like Ping. I always keep my Ping sidebar open, even though my better judgement tells me that I'm just wasting space in my already overly-crowded iTunes window. Perhaps, I'm driven in my faith in Apple that somehow it'll get better, but thus far, it has been a disappointment.

It seems like common knowledge that Ping hasn't been very successful. I could cite more than one possible factor as to why that is, but I believe the biggest missing element is simply the lack of personal content. So far, all celebrity Ping accounts I've seen seem to be comprised entirely of self-promoting posts. For example, at the time of me writing this, here's Paul McCartney's 2 latest Ping posts:

Wow! Paul liked 2 albums... McCartney and McCartney II... what a surprise! Subscribing to his feed would be like subscribing to a magazine of only ads. Of course it is a turn off. But what if we also got to see posts like "Paul McCartney purchased (This Song) by (This Artist)"? It would be much more compelling content. And it's win-win, because he'd probably gain more followers who would be more likely to read his self-promotional posts too.

I think this is one of the reasons Twitter is so successful. When I follow someone like Sarah Silverman tweet, here's an example of what I might see:

It's that feeling of real access to someone whom you're a fan, that makes Twitter feel more personal. Every Sarah Silverman post isn't "@SarahKSilverman likes her own comedy special!". There is a reason why advertisements usually accompany content you're interested in, instead of trying to BE the content.

To be fair, Paul's Twitter doesn't have any personal content either. Some of his Paul's tweets even start with "Paul will be..." in the 3rd person, removing all doubt that he's actually posting something personally.

I don't know if Ping will ever be fixed. Obviously Apple can't mandate that Paul post his real iTunes activity for all his fans to see. But I think there is a real opportunity for some well-known artists on Ping to start being real and kickoff a new era in Ping, that actually has content people would be interested in reading.

moose

2009-03-23T10:31:00.002-05:00

this has to be the best moose i've ever drawn.

dragon

2009-01-30T11:50:00.001-05:00

Popsicle characters

2009-01-29T10:36:00.000-05:00

Raymond Pencil Test

2009-01-27T12:38:00.001-05:00

Even better, watch in HD!

Hugh Heffer

2009-01-26T12:05:00.002-05:00

phelps

2008-08-29T13:26:00.000-05:00

walrus

2008-06-16T15:00:00.000-05:00

tiki head

2008-06-13T12:02:00.001-05:00

libby

2008-06-11T09:52:00.003-05:00

not my best inking job, but i didnt spend much time on it...

my most perfect circle

2008-06-10T08:39:00.001-05:00

this is the most perfect circle i've ever drawn (it was on the cintiq):

cowboy shane

2007-10-29T22:36:00.000-05:00

when i saw this magnificent picture, i had to take a couple quick stabs at drawing him.
i didn't really knock this one out of the park, i'll be the first to admit that none are dead-on, personally i think the one closest to the bottom is my favorite. the two on the left are the most half-assed, try to ignore those altogether.

Carnivàle: The Animated Series

2007-10-04T22:02:00.000-05:00

This drawing is the worst of the set, he looks like he has down syndrome.

octopus

2007-05-20T01:49:00.000-05:00

Why Aren't Cartoons Cartoony Now?

2007-05-11T14:00:00.000-05:00

I just did a couple of long comments on John K's excellent blog about my theory on this issue, and I thought it'd be nice to post them here as well since this blog needs some content.

Why Aren't Cartoons Cartoony Now? This is a topic John has made it his goal in life to remedy, and I'm certainly rallying for the cause. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, go read John's "cartoony" posts on his blog. I'm guessing if you managed to find this little page, you probably already read John's though.

So, here's my theory:

The reason for non-cartoony cartoons nowadays because most of the really popular cartoons like Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy are all for "adults" and they don't think that cartoony-type gags will be liked by adults. Looney Toons and Ren & Stimpy are probably the most successful cartoony cartoons (at least as far as I know), and they were both considered children's shows. Whereas shows like the Flintstones were more like sitcoms, and were considered more prime-time type programming for adults as well. To me, while it does look nice, The Flintstones was far less cartoony than Looney Toons for example. Perhaps this started the idea of what kind of cartoons are "for adults" and what kinds are "for kids".

Even when they mix it up look how bland this is...

I believe this set the movement in motion. Also, execs' crappy control and the fact that noooo one can use violence in kid's cartoons anymore were also very important factors.

The theory then trickles down into cartoons that actually are for kids, they don't want to come off as too young, because kids today want to be little adults and have cellphones and ipods instead of toys of cartoon doggies. I think execs thought Scooby Doo and Smurfs and crap like that were probably more sophisticated cartoons than Looney Toons... after all these had writers in addition to animators! (they don't realize that's a bad thing.)

At this point, John says: How does that explain animated features?

I think animated features somewhat suffer from wanting to be more adult too, but because they want to appeal to adults as well. For features, they ALWAYS mention, "Hey this is the cartoon the whole family can enjoy!" the kids will love it and there's some sexual innuendo jokes in there for mom and dad too that Jr. won't understand!

The second part of the theory on movies, is the damn 3d modeling! It seems to be the only kind of animation that is popular for movies now. Its too technical, anyone can't pick it up like drawing with a pencil. From what I know of the process, (I've had a class in Maya and Cinema 4D, which I hated both) it seems to me like more of a tool for creating realistic concepts of a building or automobiles, than to make good cartoons with. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are some skilled folks out there that could force the medium to do cartoony things, but they don't seem to be working for the movie industry, if at all.

Hideous "Boo" character from Monsters Inc.

And because you have to learn such an amazingly vast and complex program to even start modeling, it probably ends up being a bunch of computer nerds doing it who aren't that artistic. (I have another theory that great programmer-types aren't often great designers/artists as well and vice versa).

The holy grail of 3d animation seems to be: how realistic can you get your stuff to look. Look at the backgrounds in that new Ratatouille trailer, it looks like cartoon mice running around in REAL backgrounds. And people always try to post their models of humans online that look completely real but WHAT!? THAT'S A 3D MODEL?!?! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!

What?!? This is a 3D model?!?!?! I can't believe it!!!

To me, we already have real people and real cars and buildings and crap, why do we need to build and animate fakes ones? Movies that have all 3d animated humans are especially ridiculous to me. The recent movie Monster House had all humans as characters, doing things any movie without almost any budget could pull off, until the end when they enter the house and borderline weird things finally happen. And they even had real people act out the parts!! And the movie was terrible! For the life of me, I can't understand the motivation to make that movie animation! Read kids would likely at least been cuter than those hideous creatures they design.

Yet for some reason, this is what impresses people at the movies currently.

The Renovation of "Weapons of Mass Inspection" 3

2007-04-25T11:11:00.000-05:00

This one is kinda minor. But I actually think it helps a lot so that the story is a little more straightforward. In the old version you just see Bush's hand holding the whoopee cushion, then it zooms in on the 'Made in Iraq' writing on it. Observe:

In the new version, we see a slightly more detailed background, and Bush's chair with the slouched whoopee cushion on it and Bush's arm now raises it off his seat, and the camera pans with it, and the background chair and window move at different paces to give the background some dimension. Then it zooms in on the 'Made in Iraq' text, and the background enlarges too at a different pace, and darkens to focus you on the text. I think this is a nice improvement, seeing it actually come off his chair I think makes what is happening a little clearer. Here is a taste of what it looks like:

The thing I'm struggling with a bit at the moment is, in the establishing shot of the oval office, I showed leaves and branches outside the windows, but here I think it might be too cluttered and hurt the focus of your attention being on the whoopee cushion if I added a bunch of leaves in. I guess it's ok the way it is, if anyone has an ideas for me let me know.

The Renovation of "Weapons of Mass Inspection" 2

2007-01-17T09:21:00.000-05:00

This is actually the first background I redid, but I forgot to post it. I am really pleased with this one, the new version helps you focus on Bush in the center, also the pictures aren't as distracting anymore, there is a phone on his desk (which Bush uses in the next scene, so it really didn't make sense for it not to be present. Also, upon looking at pictures of the oval office I discovered the curtains aren't red.

The old version is above, the new version is below.

I am also going back and redoing some of my shoddy inexperienced Flash animation. For example I had scenes designed where only the mouth and eyes move, yet I pasted the whole entire head in every frame where the mouth changes (which is a lot). I fixed it so the stationary head is on a layer and only the mouths and eyes change. The result is the exact same look, but 30k lighter! Which is good because these new raster backgrounds are larger than their vector predecessors, so any space I can save is a good thing.

The Renovation of "Weapons of Mass Inspection" 1

2007-01-16T01:23:00.000-05:00

Much like George Lucas, I am taking my old stuff and "improving" on it. I have always preferred cartoons to have more painterly backgrounds, with more solid colored characters, I think it helps a lot visually to separate the characters from the background. Tons of cartoons completely disregard this idea today and I think they look horribly busy and give me a headache. John also mentioned this recently on his blog which got me interested in trying to create some backgrounds in that style (using Photoshop instead of actual paints). I decided to replace the backgrounds in my old college flash cartoon Weapons of Mass Inspection. Unfortunately, this cartoon was very rushed at the time, and I was just learning Flash. So needless to say, tons of stuff could be improved on it. However, the main difference between me and George Lucas is... I don't have any fans who give a crap what I do with my stuff, so my changes aren't very controversial.

Here is a screengrab of my original "desert scene 1". Very bland, which it was kind of supposed to be, but this is ridiculous.

Here is my new background. I based the rocks in the background very stongly (which means I ripped them off) from a Flintstones image on John's blog. I did draw them myself though.

Also, interestingly enough I discovered that there is actually a bloody neck and bone sticking out on the layer underneath the Iraqi dood's head. Apparently, I had wanted his head to fall off in the scene originally but didn't bother with it, likely because of the rush I was in. This little juicy bit of animation is restored as well.

PS- sorry I didn't trim these images very well.

Just a Frame

2006-12-11T23:31:00.000-05:00

This is simply a frame I drew, mostly in Flash, for our Thanksgiving greeting animation thing at work. I did it very quickly, but I like how it turned out.

Why Can't Anyone Model a Decent Human?

2006-12-06T19:55:00.000-05:00

The main kid from Toy Story

Ever since Toy Story became popular, I noticed... the toys look good but the humans they threw in look TERRIBLE. And this trend has continued, even as the technology has grown and expanded for 3D modeling, the human characters look as terrible as ever. Certainly old sculptors back in the Roman/Greek times didn't have any trouble sculpting humans, and they were using chisels! So what the hell Pixar and the rest of you idiots, step up and get it right!

I should note that I am in fact quite biased on this issue. I feel computer animated cartoons all are terrible. They all make halfassed attempts at "style" and come out looking terrible because they can't decide how the humans look with the same style they've done all the toys/fish/monsters/etc in the rest of the movie, and the humans all look mostly the same and insanely creepy and out of place. I would make the argument to adapt these movies to never have humans in them if this what they're going to look like. The humans are always feel forced.

The obnoxious girl from Finding Nemo.

Look at the examples of images on this post. Have you ever seen anything more hideous? If I learned anything from John K., it's that it is possible to draw gross things in a beautiful way. These "artists" are taking what should be a cute subject matter and somehow making them hideous, even when they try to make them cute.

The little girl from Monsters Inc.

Now granted, in Finding Nemo the intention was to make that girl ugly and obnoxious. However, look at the girl from Monsters Inc, I'm pretty sure they tried to make her cute and lovable, and failed miserably. She is just as creepy as the rest! In fact she looks more like a babydoll than the dolls in Toy Story.

The caveman from Ice Age.

Now this might be even worse, this guy still looks terrible, but at least he looks somewhat different than every other person in computer animated movies. Of course, on the other hand he is supposed to be a caveman.

Let's explore some more hideousness...

The Incredibles.

I haven't seen The Incredibles, but these humans bother me the least that I've seen. They still look just like the characters from the other Pixar movies too. But then they still throw in ugly characters like this:

A kid from The Incredibles.

Further more, I think 3D movies require a lot less skill in the animators. You're just moving around a full rigged model, whereas 2D animators have to draw every new pose! I sure hope the newness wears off these soon because these are killing 2D cartoons!

The main kid from Monster House.

These Monster House kids make me sick. They're half realistic humans half cartoons, and all ugly. If you want to go for realism, I don't see what the point of modeling is, just use real actors. If you want cartoons, draw a freaking cartoon!

Beth from Open Season.

Lastly, Open Season, this was a all around horrible movie. Not a likable character in the whole film. The humans looking terrible was the least of this movie's worries.

Anyway, that's all of the movies I could think of offhand, and they all have terrible looking humans in them. Does anyone out there know of any 3D movies with decent looking characters? Let me know what you think.

DEATH TO 3D MODELED MOVIES!!!

List of Words in Which I Prefer the Misspelling

2006-09-13T13:02:00.000-05:00

I've noticed there are certain words where when spelled wrong, I like them better. Here is the list so far:

1. teh = the
2. dood = dude
3. dicsover = discover
4. circodile = crocodile
5. t shrit = t shirt

For example, thus far, a great sentance could be:

"Dood, I dicsovered the circodile tshrit I lost last week."

I Love Old Space/Future Images!

2006-07-16T14:38:00.000-05:00

Since I haven't been doing much drawing lately, I think I'll do some Uncle Eddie inspired posts about images I like. Maybe these will provide some inspiration to someone or myself later.

I stumbled upon this image, it's from 1945. I really love this image because it looks pretty tame, whoever created this actually had a pretty good concept of what the future would look like. Cities, overpasses, sleeker cars. But you aren't too likely to look out your window and see a rocket taking off, but hey this dood is closer than most future-predicting artists!

This image leaves me quite curious. Perhaps the artist believed it would be as easy to travel from the earth to the moon someday as it is to leap between the uneven bars. Who knows! Those ladies seem to be having a grand old time though. Maybe we had better imaginations about space travel before it became real.

Who doesn't love a good space hero? He appears to be setting off bottle rockets on the moon, what's more badass than that? And to further prove his badassedness, he only wears a visor over half his face, the lack of oxygen on the moon is no trouble for him.

Predicting the Future

2006-07-15T12:19:00.000-05:00

One of my great interests has always been the future. What topic could be more fascinating than the world of tomorrow! I like stuff about time travel so much that I even loved the new The Time Machine movie that everyone gave horrible reviews. Of course as a kid I also loved the Back to the Future movies, and I always said the 2nd one was my favorite because I love the future so much. Although now, I can obviously see how the first one is superior.

Besides all the fancy visuals, what I love the most about the writing about the future is that usually people write based on logical ideas. For example, people in the 50s thought we'd have a flying car and jetpacks by now, because to them it seems like a logical step. If you look at advertisements in Back to the Future 2's 2015* the ads have no mention of the internet. If you saw BttF2 back in the 80s and it said "Visit HoverConversion.com to learn more about converting your vehicle for SkyWay travel!" you would think the ".com" was nonsense!

*granted 2015 is still in the future, so maybe the internet explodes by then and they're right!

So my point is, I'd like to see a lot more elements that are complete nonsense and aren't explained to us in the story. Since you can't possibly predict the future, why try to do so realistically? One thing I liked about the show Futurama is subtle odd details that weren't explained, like owls were the new rat-like pests in the future, knocking over trashcans and stuff.

My Favorite Image Manipulations

2006-07-08T00:28:00.000-05:00

My friend Ryan and I like to do image manipulations we find funny and send them to each other or post them in various places. Here are a few of my favorite ones I've done.

This is probably my favorite. It's a mix of my friend Ryan and some random old lady image I found online.

Here are the two source pics I used, click to see them much larger.

The interesting thing about this picture was that I found out a mix of my face and Alex Trebek's comes out looking like Scott Baio. The other person again is Ryan, mixed with that Ken Jennings dood.

Bob Ross painting a classical painting of a kid I know, whom we made fun of for having boobs.

My friend Ryan attempted to draw himself. I put his drawn head overtop an image of his real head. Not much of an impressive manipulation, but I still find it hilarious.

Bidetman 5 - Bidetman vs. The Barber

2006-06-24T12:40:00.000-05:00

I actually have a job now, at least for the time being, I have been working fulltime and doing a lot of driving to get there and back. Which is why I haven't been drawing much lately. I sketched these a while ago, but I didn't really like the character design I came up with for the Barber character, so I hadn't really planned on posting these. But now since this site is sorely lacking updates, I'll post these sub-par drawings anyway so I can tell the story.

We join our hero Bidetman in his human disguise (which in this sketch, consists of a toupee) getting a haircut at a local barbershop. When he is igcognito amongst mortals, Bidetman always keeps in mind the number one rule for finding criminals: weird acting people are almost always doing something illegal. While awaiting his turn for a haircut, he notices that the barber sweeps up the hair that has fallen onto the ground into a pile... that's suspicious. But like every good superhero, he does his work under the vail of night where his arms and legs won't be restricted by this clunky costume. So Bidetman awkwardly gets his toupee cut then waits for nightfall...

That night Bidetman returns to the barbershop, which is now closed. Bidetman is almost fully naked so that his arms have the widest range of movement possible, and therefor can do the most investigating. He peers in the barbershop window. It's dark and empty. Very suspicious. He uses his ultra-wet water to rust the doorknob off in merely 4 hours (that's still pretty darn fast considering). The rusted doorknob falls to the ground and Bidetman quietly enters. The door to the back room is now shut. Bidetman quietly opens the door and is shocked to discover the barber, sound asleep in a giant ball of hair clippings! Bidetman gasps, he had sensed something was fishy but he never imagined his barber was up to such a vile and disgusting plan. But he gasped too loudly, the Barbers eyes shot open, bloodshot and angry...

TO BE CONTINUED!
~Will Bidetman be able to defeat the evil Barber?
~What other sinister powers does this barber have?
~Why exactly is sleeping in a bunch of hair considered an evil plan?

STAY TUNED FOLKS!

Ren & Stimpy Sketches

2006-06-17T13:27:00.000-05:00

Here's some random Ren & Stimpy sketches from I think about a year ago. Some were done with my tablet pc.

Rant for Uncle Eddie 1

2006-06-09T21:30:00.000-05:00

I really wanted to participate in "Uncle" Eddie Fitzgerald's great Theory Corner. It's such a fun and unique blog, I highly recommend you check it out. Anyway, he asked for his fans to submit guest rants, wherein you draw a quickie comic then he draws himself into the same comic! I had to participate! I couldn't think of any good rants, until I tried to post on his blog and it took me like 50 tries, so I created this:

This post is part 1 because I'm hoping part 2 will include participation from the great Uncle Eddie! Maybe there will be more in the future too, who knows.

Random Junk 4

2006-06-08T00:58:00.000-05:00

video game girl

sketchy lady

Reunited!

Plenty o' Parises!

2006-06-05T16:09:00.000-05:00

Plenty o' Paris Hiltons? Have you died and gone to heaven! No, you're alive and gone to Evan! Evan's Niblets, that is.

Left: original scan of my sketch, Right: flipped, retouched version.

Since these aren't in color, these look a little better if you understand that's her teeth and her bottom lip in these sketches.

Even if you despise Paris, you've got to admit she's great to draw. Ever since I saw John K's rendition of her, it has been burned into my brain and I can't help but draw her kinda like that now. It's just so perfect.

I personally think she's a great celebrity too. Usually we can't understand why crappy actors and musicians get famous, well no one even knows how Paris got famous! It's amazing and ridiculous at the same time!

Once I got comfortable with a cartoony Paris I kinda liked, I used her to practice some construction. I used her same comb-over hairstyle in all of these because I was too lazy to look up other pictures of her hairstyles. I don't know if these retain much resemblance but it was all in good fun.

Look at that sexy body!

Kids, don't let your parents know there's anything THIS sexy on the internet!

Scary Aliens 3 - One Finished Alien

2006-06-01T11:29:00.000-05:00

For this alien I decided to experiment with a method that I have been interested in for a while. The goal is to take your drawing and get a nice vectorized version in Flash. I don't normally use this method because I haven't had much luck with it in the past. Recently I have been just tracing drawings by hand with my tablet pc. This one did turn out pretty well but it was very time consuming.

First you ink it as nicely as you can. I didn't have any good pens at the time, so I didn't get much line variation at all. Then you scan that drawing in really high res (much higher than this downsized sample posted here) in bitmap mode, which means only a value of black or white is assigned to each pixel, no grays in between. Then you take that image into Flash and run the Trace Bitman function, which always works a little oddly and I don't really understand what the settings mean. Then you can delete the white areas, color on layers behind the outlines layer, select the outlines and give them color, etc. I also ended up doing a lot of editing on the lines since I didn't like them originally.

Here is the final result. I also run smoothers and optimizer I think on the lines to make them better. Depending on how far away from the image you are zoomed in or out factors into how it smooths for some reason, so be mindful of that. I then edited the lines to make them a little more varied and colored his skin with a subtle radial gradient, etc.

Lost: The Animated Series

2006-05-30T01:59:00.000-05:00

In the same vein as my Kill Bill Cartoons, I did some sketches for Lost as if they were being developed for an animated series. I became obsessed with this idea of turning everything into an animated series after I saw Genndy Tartovsky's Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Clerks: The Animated Series. These shows created cartoons of real characters, but not so much caricatures, but they definitely capture the character and the character's personality in about the most simplistic way possible. I think this is a fun study, so tonight I did some designs for one of my favorite shows Lost. I'll tell their names and personality traits I went for with the drawing. Also, I tried to be more conscious of contruction, but I did do these pretty quick and all of these are my first try with little erasing.

First I did Hurley. Personality: content/easy-going. He has such distinct looks that it isn't hard to get a cartoon version to look like him on your first try.

Next up is Jin. Personality: serious. This one is the weakest of the sketches, head shape is probably wrong.

Next up is Sawyer. Personality: angry/vengeful. His sloped shoulders are distinct. His face was kinda tough, but the angry brow makes it look like him. Why is it so hard to make beard stubble look right in cartoon form?

My least favorite character Charlie. Personality: annoying. I tried to draw him to look as annoying as I find him to be in the show. I feel like it conveys that, the cartoon of him even annoys me to look at.

John Locke. Personality: mysterious/thoughtful. I like this one pretty well. Eyes could be better perhaps.

If anyone visits this blog and you are familiar with the show, I'd love some feedback .

Toy Pursuit 2 - Jamungo Loves Ropeburn!

2006-05-26T12:07:00.000-05:00

I got this amazing response from VanBeater of Jamungo.

Hey evan,

Thanks for your submission. Yes, Ropeburn has made an impression on
Jamungo. We love it and did laugh the first time we saw it... and just
about every time since. We think it /he/she is such a bizarre and crazy
character. The tongue (ricky) is great too! Unfortunately,(at this
point) we are not in the business of producing other artist’s toys.
Down the road we might get into that, but for now we are very much like
you. We are two artists who are doing our best to get our stuff out
there. Good luck with Ropeburn and Ricky. I'm sure they will do great!

Take care,
TVM /FERG
JAMUNGO

While it's not quite the "Ok, let's get Ropey in production!" response I wanted, it's a really nice and inspiring response. Back to the drawing board...

Ricky the Tongue 2 - 2006 Ricky

2006-05-20T02:21:00.000-05:00

Some of the stuff I post on here is actually quite dated. And I receive some criticism sometimes on that stuff, and rightly so. For example, most of the Ricky the Tongue stuff I've posted is quite old. I've had the idea for Ricky the Tongue since I was pretty darn young. On the first Ricky post, that Ricky as a dog image dates back to high school I think. The color version of Ricky as a tongue was done 2-3 years ago I would guess. The 3-D spinning Ricky was made up of new sketches, but those were quick just to see if I could animate them halfway smoothly. I didn't really sit down and think about what the 2006 me really wants Ricky to look like, until today.

The reason I posted some old images was because I really wanted to talk about the character Ricky the Tongue, and I already had those images on hand. But today I took a step back, and looked at the color Ricky the Tongue image that I just emailed to a professional art toy company, and quite frankly I am embarassed I did. It's terrible! It doesn't even really convey the look/personality I want Ricky to have. Nor is it at all well drawn.

So without further ado, here is the newest version of Ricky the Tongue I came up with today:

One way I can tell that a finished product of a something I make is good/professional looking (at least in my opinion) is when I'm done working on it, I can't stop looking at it. That is definitely true for this drawing. I hope you guys agree.

Here is a comparison between the new version and the previous version. To me, the reason Ricky the Tongue is funny visually is because he has a somewhat realistic humanoid face on a ridiculous body, this idea doesn't come through nearly as well in the old version.

Toy Pursuit 1 - STRANGEco

2006-05-19T11:36:00.000-05:00

I would like to start this post with a big fat shoutout to STRANGEco Toys. If you plan on buying any art-type toys, I strongly recommend you check them out first. Not only do they make fantastic looking toys:

Are these gorgeous or what?

...But the founders Gregory Blum and Jim Crawford are two tremendously nice fellas! I recently emailed them a pitch for Ropeburn and Ricky the Giant Tongue and they both were very courteous and emailed me back many times.

I wrote: (excerpt)

Please look at the attached images ropeburn.jpg and ropey-side.jpg. These are the front and side view of my character Ropeburn. Upon just looking at this character, viewers find it visually hilarious. I'd be willing to bet you laughed when you opened ropeburn.jpg. I also have some rough 3D designs of this character.

Secondly, please look at ricky.jpg and ricky3d.jpg. This is my character Ricky the Giant Tongue. Imagine that character as a figure, complete with a tastebud-like texture! It would be magnificent and hilarious!

Gregory Blum wrote:

Hi Evan,

Yes, I did check them out. They are cool, pretty unique and
definitely have an offbeat humor to them. I think Ricky would make a
more practical and marketable toy, but both would need a bit of
modification to really be practical - mostly enlarging the feet/legs.

Again, we are booked for about a year out and have a lot of other
projects already in development, but I have saved your email and pics
in the folder where I keep interesting art to review in the future.

Best regards,

Gregory

So while it is still a longshot that Ricky will ever be made into a figure, these are some genuinely nice, down-to-earth guys. If any art toy company deserves your business, surely they do. I wish them great success, and maybe, just maybe... someday we'll see a Ricky the Giant Tongue figure!

Random Junk 3

2006-05-15T00:30:00.000-05:00

I've been in a bit of a drawing rut. I've been studying up on construction again upon Katie's advice. Nothing much new to post, so here's some random scribbles.

a screaming brontosaurus

a goofy looking lady

my brother beating a drum (drawn w/wacom tablet)

Kill Bill Cartoons

2006-05-11T23:56:00.000-05:00

Inspired by Star Wars: The Clone Wars cartoons on the Cartoon Network, I was inspired to create some simplistic, but good looking Kill Bill cartoon characters, as if they were for a Kill Bill animated series. These could be worked on and made a lot better, but I kinda like these basic sketches. Maybe someday I'll work more on this idea.

At the time, I didn't have a scanner. So these images are pretty small and crappy because they are cropped from digital pics. I'd scan them but who knows where the drawings are now.

The Bride (Uma Thurman). The best drawing to come from this collection.

The Bride. This is her in the style of when she visited Hanzo to have him make her a sword.

Vernita Green. (Vivica A. Fox) These additional characters are a lot rougher sketches than The Bride.

O-ren Ishii (Lucy Liu). These drawings were intended to be very simple likenesses of the characters/actors, like The Clone Wars did brilliantly.

Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah). This drawing is probably the weakest of the group.

Ripping Off Katie 2 - Colorful Girls

2006-05-06T12:32:00.000-05:00

This blog needs some COLOR! I have been posting mostly pencil drawings and I realized this blog is getting pretty bland. So I decided to digitize and color two of my recent girly sketches using my wonderful tablet pc and macromedia flash.

I know these don't hold a candle to Katie's work, but hey, I'm learning.

Two Quickie Caricatures

2006-05-04T11:34:00.000-05:00

Stevie Wonder

kinda Justine Bateman, I ended up getting really loose with it.

Ricky the Tongue

2006-05-01T00:47:00.000-05:00

Here is another one of my story and character concepts: Ricky the Tongue.

Our story begins with a young boy who wants a dog, and finally talks his parents into letting him get a puppy. He names it Ricky. The boy loves his new pup and takes him everywhere.

It isn't long before the boy notices that Ricky's drool seems to be brown and fizzy. Him and the neighborhood kids joke that Ricky is drooling soda, and eventually one boy dares another to taste it. Sure enough, it is soda! And what's more it was the most delicious new flavor of soda that no one has ever tasted before!

Now Ricky was a kind-hearted and giving dog, so he began to drool into cups and give it to the poor and thirsty. But as people became greedy and wanted more and more soda. Ricky tried his best to produce as much drool as he could. Overuse of his tongue's drool glands caused Mother Nature to mutate him into a giant tongue.

Here is Ricky after his bizarre transformation. He is now over 6 feet tall and able to speak German (the cause for his sudden knowledge of German is yet unknown). Now that he is a giant tongue he is able to produce much more soda-drool as well. He can also taste things on a level far superior to any other living creature.

Here is a series of sketches animated together to give you an idea of Ricky's construction from all angles. This is made up of loose sketches, so they don't line up perfectly.

However, with any good protagonist there is an antagonist. Seen here in the form of The Scientist. His evil lack of good taste knows no boundaries. He knows if he could get Ricky's precious DNA from something as small as a tastebud hair, he could genetically create a huge herd of Rickies to produce this new delicious soda so he could sell it world-wide and become ridiculously rich.

AND EXCITING ADVENTURES ENSUE!
~What nefarious plans will The Scientist unleash to get Ricky's DNA?
~What exactly does speaking German taste like?
~How does it feel to actually use a bidet?

STAY TUNED FOLKS!

Bahamas Caricatures 9 - Leftovers

2006-04-28T09:55:00.000-05:00

Here is the last four remaining caricatures of this set.

Rod Stewart

Christina Aguilera

2 Lance Armstrongs (head shape flipped)

dancing Paris Hilton

Bahamas Caricatures 8 - The Best

2006-04-27T08:50:00.000-05:00

Here are my favorite caricatures I did on my Bahamas trip. I couple are reposts, but I really wanted to group all my favorite ones together.

Ashlee Simpson

Matthew McConaughey

Pink

Katie Couric

Bruce Willis

Gwen Stefani

Kevin Federline

Scarlett Johanssen

Jennifer Love Hewitt

Cindy Crawford

Reese Witherspoon

Peter Gallagher

Random Junk 1

2006-04-25T10:33:00.000-05:00

Just some random junk...

gross skull

Cheers!

some girl

cow

Boat Boy

Battle Llama

Ren & Stimpy Restoration Project

2006-04-21T20:26:00.000-05:00

When the Ren & Stimpy DVD of the first season came out, it included an extra scene that had never aired on television in the classic episode "Sven Hoek". It was extended animation of a threat Ren was making to his cousin Sven and Stimpy after they destroyed many of Ren's things. The only version of it in existence had a time code burnt into it, which is exactly what was spliced into the DVD version.

Around this time, I started talking to David (aka lyris). He mentioned one day he would like to restore this Sven Hoek scene. At the time I was employed in a college computer lab, and had nothing but spare time on a computer with Photoshop. We are both huge fans of Ren & Stimpy, and were bothered by the fact that the cut scene's quality didn't really match the other footage and had that annoying timecode blocking the some of the screen. Granted, we were thankful to be seeing it at all, but we knew it could be better.

I must give David most of the credit because he had the idea and he is the video whiz who made it possible. He also did retouching and modified the colors and brightness to match the rest of the episode.

Here is a screenshot of David's editing in Adobe Premier. Look how complex that is! Look at all the replaced frames!

I mainly concentrated on retouching the toughest parts, where the timecode blocked crucial elements. For example, it's pretty easy to retouch the wall, because you can just clone another section and people can't really tell if it isn't perfectly matching the original. But when the timecode is blocking something like Stimpy's face, that makes it a little harder.

Here is a before and after of one of the frames I did.

And this is how we did it, frame by frame for the entire clip. Now this is indeed a huge job, but we had some tricks. First of all, the hardest thing to restore was Stimpy and Sven shivering in the background because the code blocks a lot of Stimpy's face. However, I was able to see clearly how Stimpy was supposed to look be using frame grabs from the animatic of the scene included on the DVD and comparing. Also, since they were shivering, they were on a loop, allowing me to reuse areas of them I had already restored. Restoring this area of Stimpy's face took some redrawing, and careful editing to match the quality, which up close is blurrier than you might imagine, but looks great on your TV set. It was a lot of work, but eventually we were done!

VIEW THE BEFORE AND AFTER CLIP HERE!

Not to brag, but viewing the end result of this clip blows me away. I'm sure some people who get the Ultimate set will never even be able to tell it was a cut scene! We showed John K. and he said it was amazing! And that we could use this version on the Ultimate DVD set due out sometime in the future. John also offered to let us have our names somewhere in the credits of the DVD. Which I set to work on.

Here is my pencil sketches of the lettering for our credits.

Here is the final version. Hopefully this will appear somewhere on the DVD credits or something, but who knows. To have John call your work "amazing", to help him out and to help get a better product out for all the Ren & Stimpy fans like ourselves is thanks enough. We hope you all enjoy it!

Bahamas Caricatures 7 - Lovely Ladies

2006-04-20T20:35:00.000-05:00

I know I am splitting these drawings up into a lot of posts, but its really boring to just sit and scan a ton of junk. So I am doing a little along...

Nicole Kidman

Kirstie Alley

Reese Witherspoon

Marcia Cross

Nicole Richie

Ripping Off Katie

2006-04-19T00:50:00.000-05:00

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? Well, that is my intention here anyway. Like most everyone else, I love Katie Rice's artwork. I feel that I'm not very good at drawing girls, so I try to practice them from time to time, and who better to try to learn from than Katie, she is the cartoon-girl master.

Bidetman 4 - The Unnatural Birth of Chickenman

2006-04-18T02:18:00.000-05:00

Evil T.P. LaCroix once again finds himself in an all-out brawl with our hero Bidetman. And as always, he is losing terribly. His puny mechanical body was not designed to fight, much less with someone as astonishingly buff as Bidetman. After his pounding from Bidetman is finally over, T.P. LaCroix hobbles off into the night.

T.P. LaCroix decides to create his own super-hero type to destroy Bidetman. After countless hours in his lab, he finally creates manJuice, which creates a half man half whatever creature the juice comes in contact with. In his haste he dumps it on the first animal he cound find, a baby chick.

And thus, Chickenman is born...

WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT!?!
~Is Bidetman strong enough to defeat Chickenman?
~What super-powers will Chickenman unleash on Bidetman?
~Is Chickenman too stupid and poorly drawn to post online?
~How does it feel to actually use a bidet?

Bahamas Caricatures 6 - Mutants

2006-04-17T11:42:00.000-05:00

These are caricatures that were kinda based on features from different people, so they aren't really one particular person.

Well, this is odd-looking.

I accidentally drew Caroline Rhea.

Bahamas Caricatures 5 - Breakthough

2006-04-14T11:54:00.000-05:00

Here is the first batch of caricatures where I felt like I was drawing really well. They were drawn larger and are generally more exaggerated than my others so far.

Bahamas Caricatures 4 - Decent Stuff

2006-04-13T09:32:00.000-05:00

Ok, you've sat through all the crappy stuff I drew in the Bahamas, it's time for some actual halfway decent ones. Once again, I won't post names in case someone wants to guess.

For those of you keeping count of the many ways I rip off John K., add the curly hairs on caricatures style to the list.

I love this one, she isn't easy to draw either.

I don't even know what this dood's name actually is...

There is still EVEN BETTER drawings to come from this series! These drawings are still kinda before my big breakthrough when I felt like I was drawing really well. Stay tuned!

Bahamas Caricatures 3 - Still Loosening

2006-04-12T18:56:00.000-05:00

I loosened up somewhat on these ones. I like the one of Bush, but he's so easy to draw. I guess I'll post who these are, since they are so crappy.

Zack Braff and Mandy Moore. Looks more like Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine to me than Mandy. This one is pretty embarassing actually, oh well.

The sheriff's in town!

Renee Zellweger was looking a little bowlegged. As is true with the real Renee, this drawing is best observed if you ignore the face.

These are still pre-breakthrough, so stay tuned: much better drawings are coming soon!

MySpace Caricatures 1

2006-04-10T00:23:00.000-05:00

Taking a quick break from celebs, I decided to draw a couple friends from their MySpace pictures last night. I'm pretty pleased with the results.

This is my friend Kris. I'll show the actual pic I drew from below. I think this one is pretty darn accurate.

See?

This is my friend Jeni.

I hope she likes it.

Bahamas Caricatures 2 - Tom Cruise's Center Tooth

2006-04-09T01:09:00.000-05:00

Lil Tommy Cruise had a bully dad! I better go easy on him in this post... or not.

First of all, I'd like to share my favorite thing I always notice on Tom Cruise, he has one middle front tooth. Observe exhibit A:

Whereas most people have two front teeth, with the middle of the 2 lining up pretty much centered with your nose, Tom has one tooth that lines up with his nose. I can't quite figure out if he's missing a front tooth, or missing one of the next teeth or what. At any rate, it's hilarious. Keep an eye out for it.

However, I can't seem to focus on anything but that one tooth, so I can't seem to draw him well.

Here's a creature you might have seen in Jurassic Park, if Spielberg made it after he decided Tom Cruise has to be in every one of his movies.

I didn't continue to work on Tom any more than this. I got sick of looking at him.

Bahamas Caricatures 1 - Warming Up

2006-04-08T14:45:00.000-05:00

I have returned from the wonderful Bahamas. I did plenty of caricatures from trashy gossip mags while I was there. Here are 3 warm up ones, they aren't that great. But later I think I had some real breakthroughs in my caricature ability.

I won't say who these people are supposed to be right away in case anyone wants to guess.

Ropeburn

2006-03-14T16:45:00.000-05:00

Here is a concept for one of my favorite original characters, Ropeburn. I really feel that Ropeburn would make an excellent action figure, and especially now that art figures are so popular, I think it was put into production, it would be an incredibly great figure and would sell pretty well.

You are indeed lucky for finding this. Few have been fortunate enough to lay eyes on the odd creature known only as Ropeburn. Campers who have caught a glimpse, describe the creature only as "an exquisite beauty".

Here is a sketch of Ropeburn from a side view.

Here is the orginal sketch. It actually started from trying to draw the grossest boobs I could imagine, then I just drew the rest of the body around them.

No one is sure why this creature is named Ropeburn. And while this creature appears to have female anatomy, its sex is undetermined.

Here is a crude 3-D model of Ropeburn, done in Maya. I am in no way a great 3-D modeler, so many things are not true to the original drawing, but it gives at least some idea of what this majestic beast would look like in 3-D.

Please note that this is very flat as well, look at the side drawing to see more what Ropeburn should look like from the side. The legs for example, shouldn't sticking out directly to the right and left.

Here's a close-up of Ropeburn's face. The head shape is more circular here than it should be. I wasn't sure if I even should have posted these 3-D renders since they are so bad. If I was actually lucky enough to work to get a toy designed, it would probably have to be modeled again from scratch.

Sophisticated Leech

2006-03-13T16:04:00.000-05:00

Flash version.

Original pencil sketch.

Paris

2006-03-10T17:35:00.000-05:00

Bidetman 3

2006-03-09T12:35:00.000-05:00

Time for some more...

Everyone's favorite hygenic superhero!

Bidetman is world's first superhero with the ability to fly!

Here is the official Bidetman trading card!

DOWNLOAD IT HERE!!

Oscar Fever 3 - Crap

2006-03-08T15:36:00.000-05:00

Retry on Kiera Knightly, but I think she came out looking more like Teri Hatcher this time...

Here's a slightly better Jennifer Garner, but I still don't think it quite cuts it either.

Lastly, here's a terrible Tim Burton. One thing I learned from this however is not to rely on things like goofy hair and glasses for resemblance and skimp on drawing the face well. That's cheating.

Oscar Fever 2 - Gals

2006-03-07T17:27:00.000-05:00

Jessica Alba. She's hard to draw.

Kiera Knightley. I got the head shape wrong. Really attractive girls are kind of bland looking, I've noticed. It's hard to find a distinguishing feature on them sometimes.

Ziyi Zhang. I think this one came out looking like a Katie Rice girl kinda.

Jennifer Garner. Just terrible. I did all these Oscar caricatures in the same night, and it was past 3am on this one, and the drawings started to go downhill...

Pam Anderson & Paris Hilton. Hollywood's "finest"! John K's Paris Hilton has rubbed off on me, that's the only way I see her now!

Oscar Fever 1 - Guys

2006-03-06T18:00:00.000-05:00

Gary Busey. He looks a little too young in my drawing though. Most of these caricatures were done in a couple of minutes, although I didn't time myself this time.

Philip Seymour Hoffman. I dunno what this "Capote" crap is, he shoulda won an award for Brant in The Big Lebowski! I got the face shape wrong kinda.

I have no idea why Lorenzo Lamas is at the Oscars. Has he ever even been in a movie??

Paul Giamatti. This is my favorite of my male Oscar caricatures. He coulda at least shaved for "Hollywood's Biggest Night".

The always caveman-like Matt Dillon. I was happy to see Crash won best picture by the way. I didn't see Brokeback, but Crash had to have been better.

Hey Judes

2006-03-05T19:14:00.000-05:00

Here's my first try. Not too great, kinda boring. I see a little resemblance, definately not funny though...

Ok, I tried a different approach, and it came out Christian Slater. I don't think it resembles Jude really at all.

This one is a little funnier, not much resemblance tho.

Tried a different angle, this one looks like Michael Jackson and The Joker had a lovechild...

This one is my favorite. I had to break from John K's theory that he's diamond-shaped, I think he's more of a upside-down teardrop shape.

Grandma Gone Wild

2006-03-04T14:23:00.000-05:00

Cartoon Celebs

2006-03-03T18:20:00.000-05:00

Prince. I'd like to develop a Purple Rain children's show if I were in any position to develop shows.

Adrian Grenier of Entourage fame.

Owen Wilson. Although it possibly could work as Ellen DeGeneres too, haha.

More Bidetman

2006-03-01T14:06:00.000-05:00

And now, more Bidetman!

Here are some more fun sketches I've done lately. I'm waiting for a big time TV Executive to stumble on this site and greenlight Bidetman: The Animated Series, haha.

Ever keeping the streets of The Naked City safe, Bidetman flies up to the roof of the local bank, snatching up a robber trying to escape with precious booty. How was this robber planning to escape by running onto the rooftop? Bidetman didn't allow him enough time to figure it out!

Bidetman: "You should have stolen cigarettes instead of money, miscreant!"
Robber: "What, why?"
Bidetman: "Cuz that's the form of currency where you're headed: PRISON!"

His Toiletbowl Brush of Justice throbs with power as justice is upheld. It gains power from justice just as a normal toiletbowl brush gains power from cleaning supplies.

And who is this dopey-looking gentleman? He's a possible design for Bidetman as a normal person before he was transformed into Bidetman. I haven't decided much about his pre-bidet identity. This could be an option if I wanted him to be really nerdy.

Side view of Bidetman. One thing I began to realize about Bidetman is I always drew him from a frontal (or mostly frontal) viewpoint, and he isn't particularly easy to draw, which I think is an indicator of good character design. Anyway, I wanted to explore him a little deeper and see if I could do a direct side view of him. The proportions are a bit off, but it's a good start.

T.P. LaCroix is an odd design, and a bit hard to draw too, but I like him a lot from the frontal view. I'm particularly fond of his toilet paper based head and mouth. As with Bidetman, I knew what he looks like from the front but not the direct side. My drawing of him from the side is pretty weak, it's hard to draw him at that angle. But maybe it could be funny. It needs to be explored deeper, maybe some curves added.

Dannii

2006-02-28T03:17:00.000-05:00

Here's my caricature of Dannii Minogue. It was mostly based on the pics below. I made the dress much smaller and tighter though...

I'm continuing to browse gossipy celeb blogs because I'm too cheap to buy magazines with celebrity pictures to draw from. I've found a couple good sites, but I need more. If anyone is reading this, and knows of any good sites for posting recent images of celebs in fairly decent size, drop me a line!

Bidetman!

2006-02-28T01:50:00.000-05:00

BEHOLD BIDETMAN!
Bidetman's arch-nemesis is the irritable french toilet paper business mogul T.P. LaCroix.

The sad story of Bidetman begins with a young man who was madly in love with a cocktail waitress. He would hang out where she worked and walk her home in the evenings. That is until one fateful evening when he was walking her home, they were attacked by street toughs, but it just so happens that 10 minutes earlier a building somewhere in Europe was being demolished. A stray bidet from the explosion managed to fly into the Earth's orbit breifly and mysteriously gain powers. This very bidet crashed down into our young hero moments later, pinning him to the ground and rendering him helpless to save his beloved waitress...
A few weeks later, the young man arose from the cracked sidewalk and found he was indeed not dead, but more powerful than he had ever felt in his life. The bidet had merged with his head and he was more fit than ever.
But he had no idea if his ladyfriend was still alive. And so, he became Bidetman, The Porcelain Knight. Armed with his toiletbowl brush of justice, he endlessly patrols the night, keeping it safe for cocktail waitresses everywhere to return home.
Bidetman also gains popularity and bidets become all the rage. Every kid wants to collect all the bidets they can! Sales of toilet paper plummet. Enter T.P. LaCroix:
This businessman built his empire on toilet paper. Now he could lose everything unless Bidetman is stopped...

EXCITING ADVENTURES ENSUE!
~Will Bidetman ever see his beloved cocktail waitress again?
~What other powers and mysteries does this magical bidet hold?
~What sinister plans does T.P. LaCroix have in store for Bidetman?
~How does it feel to actually use a bidet?

STAY TUNED FOLKS!

Another Angelina

2006-02-26T17:29:00.000-05:00

Another stab at drawing Angelina Jolie. I think this one looks a bit more like her than my last attempt. Although, there seems to be a hint of Beavis in this one...

Quickie Caricatures

2006-02-23T19:06:00.000-05:00

I did a few really quick caricatures today. I feel like limiting my time drawing something can help me loosen up sometimes. This first Ashley Simpson is kinda rough, but hey I was getting warmed up. I did that in 1 minute.

I drew a really hideous Jamie Pressly next... but I am too embarassed to post it here. This 50 Cent however I am pretty pleased with, I see definate room for improvement but hey it was drawn in only a minute 30.

This next one is Laura Pausini? I don't really know who she is, but she was too crazy looking not to draw. This one was done in 1 minute.

This "lady" was labeled as Fantasia, I dunno who she is either. But she certainly is asking for a good drawing to be done of her. I allowed myself 2 minutes for this one.

Tablet PC sketches...

2006-02-20T09:44:00.000-05:00

I was browsing through my archives of saved crap, and I came across a couple kinda-decent sketches done using my tablet pc, usually drawn into Flash, although sometimes Microsoft Journal was used also. This first one is one of my first tries at using the tablet, and kinda one of my favs of the bunch, it's baby Ren!

This one is called Mace Bitch. This housewife ain't desperate, no one will be harming this fine lady tonight!

Angelina sketch

2006-02-19T16:40:00.000-05:00

This is for John K's Draw Angelina "Contest". Not my best caricature, but I think I can see a resemblance...

Chicky

2006-02-18T12:17:00.000-05:00

After seeing John and Katie's recent work, I had to take a crack at drawing a girl in that style. It was drawn directly into Flash using my Tablet PC.

Beach Scene

2006-02-14T16:25:00.000-05:00

Here is what I now consider to be the final version. The colors are a step in the right directions, and I moved some things around. I definately like it a lot better than the previous version, but part of me thinks it could be better still. If anyone is actually looking at this site, any feedback would be appreciated, thanks!

Here is the first version, which I felt for a long while was completed, but I never quite felt it was quite as good as it could be, but I wasn't quite sure why.

Here is the original pencil sketch. Some things were pretty rough, and a lot of things got moved around or changed.

Portfolio!

2006-02-09T23:22:00.000-05:00

After months of work my portfolio is online. This is the first time I have made an entire complex website using flash, and it was quite a learning experience. Check out evanoliver.net to view it in all its glory!

Serious Business 3: The Exchange

2006-02-08T00:34:00.000-05:00

Serious Business 2: On The Go

2006-02-08T00:32:00.000-05:00

Serious Business 1: The Look

2006-02-08T00:28:00.000-05:00

Gradient Girl

2006-02-05T11:29:00.000-05:00

A little test run of shading using controlled gradients in Macromedia Flash.

Blotter

2005-12-22T18:55:00.000-05:00

Itasca Taro

2005-12-22T02:38:00.000-05:00

Turtles, and How You Can Save Them

2005-12-20T11:50:00.000-05:00

Could you believe in that "Everybody Loves Turtles" is actually a truer statement to make than "Everybody Loves Raymond"? In a study released by the Central League Eastern Oceanic Survey Alliance Group (or CLEO-SAG) last year, it turns out more people love turtles than the comedic stylings of the nasaly-voiced Ray Romano. This, however, was not surprising to me, since I decided it. Turtles, however, actually do deserve higher ratings than Raymond.

Turtles are exactly as old as Saturn's rings. They were around when the dinosaurs roams the plains, when pirates sails the seas and even when cavemen did the stuff they are most famous for. Their outer most protective shell (or carpace) has certainly helped keep them safe from t-rexes and various and soundry meat-eaters all these trillions of years. It was once believed that if you threw a turtle into a volcano, it would die.

However, also like "Everyone Loves Raymond", turtles could be facing the end of a good run. People do not take the time in their busy work-a-day lives to pay love to turtles like they perhaps should. Many turtles like the rare Galapagos Reds are facing harsh extinctions if we do not act quickly. There are 5 important steps you can complete to help keep turtles safe at home:

1. Help turtles cross the street. If you see a turtle doing this, stop your car (or flaming SUV or whatever) and move him to the side he wants to go to. Don't put him back on the side he started on, because then he'll have to start crossing again, which is more dangerous.

2. Don't eat turtles ever. Come on, seriously. Eat Doritos 3-Ds or some crap, there's really no reason to be eating turtles nowadays. I strongly condone eating all animals except turtles.

3. Do not assume all turtles are males. This is easy to do, but it can cause gender issues on a subterranean level, which can lead to difficulty breeding.

4. Do not throw turtles into volcanoes. Unless they are inactive volcanoes.

5. Do not have a competition of "Turtle vs. Shark". However, if you do have a "Squirrel Vs. Cat" competition, please mail me a videotape.

In conclusion however, thank you for reading and please follow these important steps and together we all can help turtles have a safer tomorrow. Just because turtles have cold hard shells on the outside doesn't mean they don't have squishy lovable souls on the inside.

Bush & Bono

2005-12-08T10:22:00.000-05:00

Titanic 2: Extreme Diesel Edition

2005-12-06T15:48:00.000-05:00

The adrenaline-fueled thrill ride that began with Titanic takes an explosive new turn in Titanic 2: Extreme Diesel Edition! It's the nitro-fueled revenge film you've been waiting for!

Vin Diesel stars as Jack Dawson, the role formerly played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who returns from what was thought to be certain death in the freezing Atlantic. He stayed alive for years in a submersed gym from the Titanic, eating only Creatine and training and building muscle for his revenge.

And now his day has come.

Jack has rebuilt the Titanic himself, now its super fast and totally custom. Jack's no rules, win-or-die missiles are unleashed against every iceberg in the Northern Atlantic. With his velocity-addicted buddy (Monster Garage's Jesse James) riding shotgun, and a drop-dead-gorgeous undercover agent (Pamela Anderson) dialing up the heat, Titanic 2 accelerates the action into a desperate race for revenge, justice... and mind-blowing, jaw-dropping explosions! Those icebergs won't know what hit 'em!

The Reverend

2005-12-05T13:18:00.000-05:00

Digital sketch of my turtle, The Reverend.

SHAAAAAAARK WEEEEEK!!!!

2005-12-03T12:01:00.000-05:00

This week is SHARK WEEK on the Dicsovery Channel, so my font is blue because I am writing a report about sharks because I think blogs should celebrate Shark Week as well. We should all try to get the truth out about sharks and not persetuate fears about them.

SHARKS: Deadly Jawses of the Sea by Dr. E. Oliver

Have you ever seen a shark? Sure, we all have. And maybe it scared you when you did. Sharks may be cooler than dirtbikes, but did you know sharks are not actually members of the reptile kingdom at all? They are in fact animals? Its true. Sharks are constantly referred to as the cadillacs of the ocean, but that simply is a misleading statement.

Sharks come in blue and gray. Or grey, as it can also be spelled. They are the largest members of the Poriferma family. Sharks eat chum, oxygen tanks, fish, boots, blood and of course people. Sharks have brains mainly turned to smelling for the fight. They can smell electricity around their food which is why they attack electric boats and various things so often. Most sharks grow up to 180 feet in length and have 5 rows of teeth that grow back whenever one is pulled out. Sharks teeth are often found and put on necklaces by radical surfers.

In conclusion, sharks are dangerous and beautiful additions to Jurassic Park. These alligators are not intending to fight humans, they are just protecting their babies, or pups, so remember they are just as scared of you as you are of them. They do not have any venom.

THE END

Secret Finger: Introduction - A History of Legend

2005-12-02T22:23:00.000-05:00

Throughout history the legendary Book of Secret Finger has always been highly sought after. Many historians and religious scholars have spent their lives searching ruin after ruin for this ancient text, with little more than a belief to go on, always turning up nothing. Others dismissed the book's existence it as a hoax, some even called it herecy against human nature. Those who coveted the book believed it gave, among other things, detailed instruction for use of an unknown human ability stemming from an invisible sixth digit on one of the hands. This "extra" finger possessed such wild and unimaginable powers that the ancient sorcerer (identity unknown) who discovered this power, decided this knowledge could threaten the future of the human race should it fall into the wrong hands. After spending decades organizing his findings into a book, just before his death he and granted a copy of the text only to a select group of people he deemed worthy. This highly secretive group became known simply as the Secret Finger.

This became the structure for preserving the knowledge. Elder members passed on their copy of the Book of Secret Finger's text to a new member of their choosing before their death, keeping the precious knowledge alive in safe hands. Throughout the generations, the society consisted of many historically prominent members such as Jeremy P. Toughnipples, Abraham Lincoln, Mary Magdalene and Clive Rederson. Access to the original book was even more limited, only a select high-ranking few within the Secret Finger organization knew the location. At some point in history, the location failed to be passed on. Many believers think original book is still in existence, hidden away for centuries in that forgotten location.

Asides from the loss of the original text, the system worked for thousands of years. The legend picks up again in 1865, when a man obsessed with gaining the power of the Secret Finger named John Wilkes Booth, came the closest of any non-member to accessing a copy of the Secret Finger writings. His obsession led him to murder President Abraham Lincoln, whom Booth believed derived his great emancipation powers from Secret Finger knowledge. Booth was right, and discovered the text inside Lincoln's coat. Booth seized the the copy from the dead president's body, shouted "Sic semper tyrannus!" and ran off into the night.

Booth's knowledge of latin however did not prove quite as useful when he discovered Lincoln's copy to be untranslated, written in the ancient Fingero language just as original book was. Booth became frantic. He kidnapped a leading Fingero expert, David Herold and took him to a barn in Virginia. There the two men hid, Booth with his gun to the head of the kidnapped professor, forcing him to hurriedly translate the text by candlelight. Their whereabouts were soon discovered and the barn concealing them was set ablaze by the men of the 16th New York Cavalry in attempt to flush Booth out of hiding. Both John Wilkes Booth and David Herald died that night, and only one translated passage of the President Lincoln's copy of the text was recovered at the scene. It read:

"Test of thy bug, six legs strong.
The chosen Two, with endowment long.
If filled is thine sixth from within,
the Secret Finger shall rise again."

Many historians doubted this passage to be genuine, believing Booth had found nothing and was creating a hoax. They cited, "If this was indeed translated text, it would not likely rhyme in english." But believers were stunned, President Lincoln had been the last living member of the Secret Finger, and with his premature death had yet to find anyone suitable to pass onto them the knowledge. To make matters worse, his copy of the text normally would have been discovered on his body in the event of an untimely death, as a means of last resort to pass on the coveted information even if it meant into less than suitable hands. Lincoln's backup plan had failed, for his copy was destroyed in the burning barn. And so, the knowledge of the Secret Finger was gone, all was lost. That is, until one fateful day...

Wendy's Chili Research

2005-12-01T23:05:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while a delicious food graces a fast food menu that actually tastes decent, and when it does a cheapskate college student such as myself must act upon it and as wisely as I can. Wendy's chili may be one of the greatest additions to fast food in our lifetimes, and it is cheap to boot. The problem is, Wendy's offers options and it is hard to know which is the very best. First of all, there are two chili sizes: a small for 99 cents and a large for 1.79, and the question that of course plagued me was: which is the better deal? My research on this matter led me to wendys.com where it is stated (on average) a small chili is 8 ounces and a large is 12 ounces. Armed with this information, one can conclude that the small chili is indeed the better deal. The small averages 12 cents per ounce whereas the large averages 15 cents per ounce. Of course, this is just on average as I cannot take into account the small differences in the exact amount the workers put into the cup, the celery ratio per cup or other such factors. But likely the workers are not under-filling the two cups by a total of about 2.5 ounces, which is about what it would take to make the large equal in value to the small.

But the advantages to buying two smalls instead of one large does not stop there. When ordering "to go"; two 99 cent chilis come a lot closer to 2 dollars even than 1.79, so there is less annoying change to deal with. Another annoying problem with Wendy's is I cannot ever get enough hot sauce and crackers. Hot sauce and crackers add valuable extra "weight" to the chili and try as I might to add "can I have a bunch of extra crackers and hot sauce" to my order, they never quite come through in the amount I would like. this likely creates another slight advantage to the two small chilis deal, the workers of Wendy's often assume that the two smalls are for two people, thus probably giving more hot sauce and crackers. This purely a theory however, because I have not the means to test it. The only real evidence I have to reference is that I get two spoons with two small chilis at the drive-thru so I would assume that would mean the employees intended their amount of "free extras" to allow for two people. Also, college students can hang on to that extra free plastic spoon for a later meal and that's one less piece of silverware to wash afterwards.