I'm back from my vacation, and I have decided to declare war on Hedonism. It's a natural progression: vacation, and then war. It's time to start fighting the good fight.
Wielding the Spear of Consequences, and the Gilded Helm of Charitable Living I will cast down the bastions of selfish overindulgence and dedicate more of my time to aiding those in need.
Hedonism is the philosophy that pleasure is the most important pursuit, and can be found here.
I'm wearing two different gloves this winter. I lost a mitten somewhere out there, out in the infinite frozen timelessness that is Ohio in February, and haven't gotten around to buying a new pair. So it just happened that I found a replacement glove and I now wear that.
As you can see, the mitten is bigger than the new glove, so I look a bit unbalanced, like a fiddler crab. I was embarrassed at first, and I hid my shame. Not anymore, though. I realized that we're all different and unique, and that's what makes us special.
Fiddler crabs are here.
Day Four of my self-imposed vacation away from normality sees me at home with some kind of stomach bug. Since my plans for the day are canceled, I thought I'd take the time to update the look of the blog. I added a sidebar with some extra info. It's bare-bones at the moment, but I plan to add more links in the future.
I've started a new project, and as you can see, it's another diorama piece. It's a series of two-inch deep trenches on a piece of insulation foam. I've spent a lot of time researching tabletop war-games in the past couple of years, mainly by adopting the hobby as my own and spending many an evening at The Guard Tower, a local gaming store.
This new piece,"Entrenchment" draws heavy inspiration from the terrain tables on which we play our miniatures games. I'm waiting to decide the next step to take with it. I have need of an adhesive that bonds well to foam.
The Philosophy: My current goal for this work, as well as the Sludgetown project, is to see what types of conversations can happen between the tabletop gaming hobby and the art world. At present, I am finding it difficult to integrate these worlds due to the fact that tabletop games involve a complicated system of rules and accurate measurements, while art threatens to dash that system against the rocks at every turn. It is not my wish to cause my good friends in the gaming hobby a discourtesy by destroying their system. Rather, I want to make something that will celebrate the beauty I see in this complex hobby. To do this to the best of my ability, however, I must rely on my own systems, comprising rules and measurements that I alone will make.
This is a terrain table you can find at the Guard Tower. I don't know who made it. I think it is very, very beautiful. I want to make something that can reach out, talk to this piece, and acknowledge its presence.
Lastly, I wanted to share a couple more work-in-progress pictures from "Entrenchment." More to come. Thanks for looking.
As the sun rises this morning, it marks Day Three of my vacation adventure. This isn't your ordinary, run-of-the-mill vacation where people lay on the beach, sipping drinks and working on their tans. This is something more important: this is a vacation away from myself.
Actually, this is a vacation away from the things that have attempted to steal control of my life. I'm taking a break from all my usual time-wasters in the hope of finding something better. I've packed up my Warhammer models because I spend too much time painting them. I'm avoiding the internet for the most part because of the web-sites and hobby forums that gobble up my days. Interesting note: when I type "internet" my spell checker lights up and warns me to capitalize it. Fah! Perhaps I should start capitalizing the word Ocean, as well, Because That's Where Lobsters Come From.
So we've established that I'm on vacation. What do I hope to accomplish in the coming days? All kinds of stuff. I'll be looking for a cool job, growing a beard, getting in touch with God, visiting more people face-to-face, talking to less people over the internet, making new art, kicking butt, ect.
Wahoo!
Lobster Man owes a substantial amount of money to the government because he went to college and got some art degrees. Lobster Man had a job for a little while, but he hated it, and then got laid-off anyway. That's fine. Lobster Man aspires to be more.
What kind of lobster are you?
Clawed Lobster, Spiny Lobster, Furry Lobster, Slipper Lobster, Squat Lobster
I've been messing around with trying out my ideas for paintings in Photoshop as of late. In some ways it's easier than analog painting. It doesn't make a mess, and I don't end up with more canvases cluttering up the basement.
It's going on 3 A.M. and I am hungry. I pad down to the kitchen to see if there are any small things that can be eaten to sate my mighty appetite. I check the freezer, the fridge, and the cupboard, hoping to stumble across some forgotten morsel of food. Ho! What is this in the back of the cupboard? Why, it's none other than Chicken & Dumplings! It's the canned variety that no one ever eats, nor remembers purchasing, for that matter. Tonight I'm feeling bold. I am hungry enough to eat these vittles, but an odd feeling tells me I should break out the camera and document the event for a blog piece.
"Houston, we have a problem." I read the nutrition label on the can. Wow, 59% of my daily value in sodium per serving. How many servings are in the can? Oh.. three. So that's 177% if I eat the whole meal. Gotcha. I must be fair, though, and point out that there is zero trans fat per serving, which is good. But even so, that is a lot of salt. No wonder this stuff lasts forever.
"Staring into the abyss." The next step is to open up the can and have a look at the chicken & dumpings. "Ulp!" I find that my appetite has gone away as if by magic, which is weird considering that I was starving only seconds before. Despite mounting reservations, I press on and glop some dumpings into a bowl, place them in the microwave, and sit back.
As the timer ticks down, I am visited by Lord Blankfang, a warlord from the distance future, who, despite his grizzly appearance, is a wonderful conversationalist. We have a brief discussion on the pros and cons of being a 2-inch-tall chaos lord, and before I know it, the food is done.
I take a bite of chicken, a bite of dumpling, and then walk over to the garbage disposal and toss the whole mess down the drain. Maybe it sat in the cupboard too long. Or maybe it's supposed to taste like that. Anyway, it's inedible.
From the countertop, Lord Blankfang berates me for wasting food, but I ignore him and go upstairs.
Save me from myself. I paint models day in and day out.
I paint them until there is a army of unblinking plastic soldiers arrayed on my tabletop.
I paint and paint, and then buy more, assemble, and paint.
Oh, how the time flies. See! Now I am an old man whose fingers are too gnarled to hold a brush. I stand up on rickety legs, stiff from decades of painting, and hobble out into the light. Perhaps it is time for a walk.
For a change of pace, I decided to draw a comic for today's blog. Marvel at how the cycle of life renews itself via energy transference... or something.
