Online Bestiary & Mermecoleon & Fun Facts about Perytons!
Posted: April 28, 2013 Filed under: creativity, creatures, monsters, weird Leave a commentI recently found an online bestiary at http://bestiary.ca/index.html that is too good not to share. For example, look at this most excellent crocodile:
I love the human feet sticking out of the mouth — and the curls on the creature’s back. Plus it’s got a face like a bear and very human eyes. The bestiary informs me that the ‘cocodrilus’ weeps after eating a man.
Inspired by this most excellent bestiary, I decided I wanted to try to draw an ‘ant-lion’ aka myrmecoleon. The bestiary tells me: There are two interpretations of what an ant-lion is. In one version, the ant-lion is so called because it is the “lion of ants,” a large ant or small animal that hides in the dust and kills ants. In the other version, it is a beast that is the result of a mating between a lion and an ant. It has the face of a lion and and the body of an ant, with each part having its appropriate nature. Because the lion part will only eat meat and the ant part can only digest grain, the ant-lion starves.
OK, well, I have already decided I want to go for version 2 because version 1 is probably only scary to ants. So I start thinking about ants and lions and how I can combine them… I look to my online bestiary for help and all I get is this:
OK, not quite what I was looking for… I’m guessing the above is a drawing of ‘version 1.’ So I looked at pictures of ants and pictures of lions and doodled some in my sketch book… not my best effort, but so far I have this:
Top 10 Search Terms
Posted: April 28, 2013 Filed under: douchebaggery, Uncategorized, weird Leave a commentHere are the top 10 search terms people have used to find this blog since I started it:
The only one that has me confused is ‘rat monkey.’
Beholder attack
Posted: April 23, 2013 Filed under: art 2 CommentsI posted this while working on it earlier; I think it is done now:
Goodman Art Folio
Posted: April 23, 2013 Filed under: art, crass commercialism, DCC RPG, Goodman, portfolio, publishing Leave a commentShameless self promotion alert: Goodman Games has already published art folios about the work of Peter Mullen and Brad K. McDevitt; up soon will be one all about me — 16 pages of my drawings for DCC and Goodman stuff with commentary on my thoughts, musings and influences. I don’t have an exact release date yet; but this soft cover booklet is perfect for bathroom reading or as a gift for your best friends or dearest enemies – printed in basic black and white – available sometime soon from Goodman Games.
Here is the cover art when it was 1/2 way done… you can see a more complete version on the Goodman site. The text at the top is not a part of the drawing; it was just as an example/place holder.
Google Glass
Posted: April 17, 2013 Filed under: consumer, crass commercialism, debord, douchebaggery, essay, weird 7 Comments![]() |
These idiots are going to cause a lot of traffic accidents. |
You have heard about ‘Google glass,’ right? If you haven’t, it’s a tiny computer with a heads up display, camera and earpiece that you wear like a pair of glasses. It reads texts to you through the earpiece, can follow voice commands and can show you images via the heads up display. People are already at work on facial recognition aps and other functions that make this the smartphone that you wear rather than carry. It will photograph whatever you are looking at if you say, “OK, Google, take a picture.” Google is trying to make the computer as natural an extension of your body without putting it IN your body as current technology allows.
I’m surprised they didn’t call it ‘Google goggles’ or ‘Googgles’ or something like that.
Maybe I’m just a cranky old man, but I hate it already and think it’s fucking creepy to have a computer/smartphone/texting device that is always on my head and shows the world absolutely everything I see and is constantly whispering in my ear or showing me pictures so I never need to be alone ever again. I predict that the world will soon be divided between the ‘googlers’ who are constantly sharing absolutely everything they do and see and hear and the rest of us who don’t give a shit. Plus the googlers will wear their stupid devices while they drive or walk and probably swerve all over the place and run into the rest of us who aren’t simultaneously travelling AND surfing the fucking web or texting on our eyeballs at the same time.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin dialed the creep factor up to 11 when he said, “It’s really a device that wants to be outdoors, wants to be outside, wants to be with family and friends…” Really? This device “wants” things? I want things like chicken… and when I get chicken, my dogs make it clear that they want chicken, too, and that seems perfectly natural to me… but I’m just not ready for a computer or smart phone or tablet or wearable computer goggles that wants things, too. There is entirely too much ‘wanting of things’ going on… and now that the purveyors of technology are claiming that things are starting to want things too, I’m about ready to say, “Enough, already” and go live in a cabin like Ted Kaczynski.
EDIT: Google Glass is also a device that does not want to be sold or shared. Not only has Google restricted early sales of the device to people who have made a compelling public pitch as to why they should be deemed worthy of owning the device, but, if you should be so lucky as to be ‘allowed’ to buy a pair of the cyber goggles, you are forbidden to sell, loan or give them to anyone else. Welcome to the brave new world where corporations are people and objects can tell their ‘owners’ the terms of ownership.
Maggie, I wish I’d never seen your face…
Posted: April 12, 2013 Filed under: douchebaggery, politics, stupidity 6 Comments![]() |
It has been a week or so, but all of the world is still chattering about Maggie Thatcher’s death. It feels a bit surreal, like Reagan’s death a few years ago — especially since people in the public sphere are falling over themselves to memorialize a woman many of them hated while she was alive. And, perhaps because she seemed to thrive on controversy and appeared to relish a good fight, ‘hating’ Maggie might be a better tribute to her than getting all misty eyed and sentimental.
Helena Zmatlíková on Monster Brains
Posted: April 11, 2013 Filed under: blogs, inspiration, monsters Leave a comment2013
Posted: April 9, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a commentI recently realized that this site was locked up so no one could see it. What was the point of that? My wordpress site is open again. I’m considering using this template for stefanpoag.com.