Wednesday, June 29, 2005

My New Favorite Comic: Lulu Eightball

Monday, June 27, 2005

Back in the Saddle

Mr. Ryan Masuga (who has been featured here before, along with his fetching and surely long-suffering wife Marie), asked me a while back for some paintings to pay tribute to his simian overlord Zip:


I started the original series of three paintings just before my back went south for those two months. From my makeshift easel stared the pencil sketches, accusingly. I finally had a chance to finish 'em up.

I wasn't 100% pleased with the results (Zip looks a little, uh, challenged, maybe), so I started playing around some more.

I made a few krylographs to placate some rabid and vocal hippo and chihuahua fans, too.





Oh, and I made my first animated gifs in 10 years, probably: the shirts ad on the right and the banner ad on elreyart.com. It was fun. There will be more.

Also, Ryan and I came up with a surprise for all of you. You'll see.

Friday, June 24, 2005

PTLens: An Actually Useful Free Photoshop Plug-In

"PTLens is free Photoshop plug-in that automates correction lens pincushion/barrel distortion, vignetting, and white balance."

I'm looking forward to using this to tweak the point-n-shoot photos I take of my pictures.

I will admit that in the past, from the piracy device, I've grabbed a couple of "800 Photoshop Plug-ins!" collections, but don't have the patience to wade through 'em. Plus, the occasional twinge of guilt. I've started leaning towards open source and freeware when I can find it.With great power, etc.

Do youse know of any other good full-on freeware Photoshop plug-ins? Test-o-fy in the comments!

Toothpaste for Slate


My man Drew got a nice, overintellectualized writeup on Slate.com.

A patent! How 'bout that.

Free Font Friday

I'm not gonna do these font things regularly any more, probably, but found another one:

Kasper, from Fontmonster.org.



Click the Fonts button, and it's a couple of screens in, for Mac and PC. Enjoy!

Monday, June 20, 2005

Tuesday Ape Frenzy

A) $25K art sale:
"A lot of three paintings by the chimpanzee artist Congo has been sold for more than $25,000 US at auction."


B)The BBC Motion Gallery is up. Tons of little video clips in WMV and MOV formats, including many of apes. As it should be.

http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/customer/common/search/searchDetails.jsp?clipItemId=prod12811
http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/customer/common/search/searchDetails.jsp?clipItemId=prod12812
http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/customer/common/search/searchDetails.jsp?clipItemId=prod12807
http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/customer/common/search/searchDetails.jsp?clipItemId=prod120018
http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/customer/common/search/searchDetails.jsp?clipItemId=prod610075
http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/customer/common/search/searchDetails.jsp?clipItemId=prod120021
http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/customer/common/search/searchDetails.jsp?clipItemId=prod16678
http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/customer/common/search/searchDetails.jsp?clipItemId=prod150011
http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/customer/common/search/searchDetails.jsp?clipItemId=prod120020
http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/customer/common/search/searchDetails.jsp?clipItemId=prod10128
http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/customer/common/search/searchDetails.jsp?clipItemId=prod120027
http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/customer/common/search/searchDetails.jsp?clipItemId=prod290099
http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/customer/common/search/searchDetails.jsp?clipItemId=prod290100
http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/customer/common/search/searchDetails.jsp?clipItemId=prod290092

The best:
http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/customer/common/search/searchDetails.jsp?clipItemId=prod420223
http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/customer/common/search/searchDetails.jsp?clipItemId=prod12808
http://www.bbcmotiongallery.com/customer/common/search/searchDetails.jsp?clipItemId=prod12809

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Fun for the Whole Family

Mr. Dave Sims of Tramadol Oaks, CA sent in a little Flash puzzle! It was more fun that I thought it would be, given that I knew the ending.

Thursday, June 09, 2005

Request Lines Are Now Open!

Since I've been out of commission for a while, I'm momentum-free at the moment. And now that my brain is solidifying again from the bed-rest-induced tapioca of the last few months, I can think about things for a little while. Now I'm thinking this: what's next?

I have a couple of things in the to-do pile (don't worry, Las Masugas, Clive, and Chrisa), but beyond those it will be time for The New Batch. I have a passel of half-formed ideas in my El Rey folder, but I want to take the pulse of the people, here.

What do you think I should do next? I mean this both format-wise and subject-wise.

Format-wise, the krylographs are by far the most popular thing I do (though the t-shirts are catching up). I probably won't spend a lot of time on small prints except for personal satisfaction, as they are relatively unloved, but I might try some bigger ones. The paper paintings just got started, so there's not much data there yet. Canvases an paintings on wood continue to accumulate on the walls of HQ. And if I get a particular bug to make, say, a stack of pics on discarded plywood, I'm too much of an instant-gratification creature not to. But is there some El Rey delivery format you want that you haven't seen from me? I mean mainly original artworks, but merchandise (kitchen magnets?) requests are welcome, too. What do youse want?

Subject-wise, the animals will continue apace, likely into the more obscure and odd mammal branches of the scientific tree. Is there something else you've been dying to see done up El Rey stylee?

(I will likely not take on a spate of picture-of-my-most-adorable-pet commissions, for the record. Unless stacks of bills are thrown at me, of course. I'm deranged, not stupid.)

Now's the time to spit it out, before my brain gets all full up of the usual backlog of visual gibberish!

As always, thanks.

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

BEST DEFORMITY NEWS EVER

I only obliquely mentioned it here, but I've been more or less cripped with a back episode since the beginning of April. Been going to the chiropractor (the excellent Dr. Rabboni Tacusalme) and spending lots of time on my back on the floor undergoing PlayStation 2 therapy, which got a lot of the ouch out but still had me kinda useless.

On a hunch, I put a thing in one shoe to offset the gimpy walk and cushion the shock, which led to a heel lift, which led to Rabboni measuring my legs yesterday with a Sharpie and a tape measure.

Turns out my right leg is 3/4" short. I got another heel lift and am a new man. Back mystery: SOLVED. Not only is my posture better, but now I'm officially 6'1".

I am thrilled.

I only mention this to explain my absence for the last two months. Seemed long enough to justify an explanation.