Transformers World 2005 recently held an art contest about Super Deformed Transformers. The winning entry would be sculpted into a fully licensed statue by First 4 Figures. Of course, I had to enter this, and what better character to use for such a contest than Skybyte, the poetry loving Predacon shark?

Well, out of more than 50 entries, my SD Skybyte placed in the top 10. Yeah! It won’t be made into a statue, but I do win a poster with artwork of all the top 10 entries. Not too shabby. In fact, aside from an Armada Unicron entry, mine was the only one in the top ten that wasn’t a character from Generation 1. There are some really fantastic pieces of artwork entered for this contest that are both in and out of the top 10, so go ahead and check them out in the TFW2005 Contest Entry gallery.

I’ll be adding my Skybyte entry to the Fan Art Gallery next time I update, and I might just add some extra content with it, so look forward to that.

Tsunami Blaster!

Sayonara.

Wow, I’m, like, really messed up right now due to lack of sleep. I only got 3 hours and that seems like a long time ago. It’s not even like I was busy or anything, I just decided not to go to sleep for awhile. Not really an intelligent decision, but I usually don’t make very many intelligent decisions when I’m this tired. In fact, I should be going to sleep right now, but instead I decided to post in this weblog. So, yeah, there you have it.

I’m actually doing ok. I seem fairly wide awake. I probably could have stayed awake for much longer before I took that 3 hour nap, and I probably could stay awake for much longer right now too. But at this point a feel a bit of a fog around my brain as my short term memory goes down the tubes and my level of alertness is shot. I don’t have the firmest grasp of where I am and what I am doing beyond whatever it is that happens to be directly in front of my face at any given time in this sort of situation. But I seem articulate enough to type that last sentence, so I think that is a good sign. At times like this I usually tend to start thinking about bizarre things of inhuman origin that don’t make any sense, but I took a break to watch an episode of this anime about a girl who transforms into a super hero pig, so there’s really no need to hallucinate right now. It’s strangely comforting.

What could keep me awake like this? Textures. Yeah, that’s right. Textures. I’ve been downloading pictures of textures to use in my artwork. You know, stone, wood, bricks, that sort of stuff. I just love textures. I’ve spent the better part of the past 3 nights just downloading textures from all sorts of places on the Internet so that I have an extensive library of images at my fingertips whenever I feel like integrating some into a drawing or using one as some artistic inspiration.

For a recent example of using textures, take a look at this Skeletor drawing. The cracked background is actually originally from a photograph of dried mud. That’s a very simple and straightforward way to incorporate texture. I used a cloth texture in my Splinter vs. Shredder drawing for Splinter’s robe, and I also took pictures of some well used cookie sheets to add some of the metallic texture to Shredder’s armor. Those are just some of the creative things that can be done with using textures in digital art. I could go into some more in depth explanations in my message board if anyone expresses an interest.

I’ve got all sorts of textures now, and I’m still looking for more. The weirder, grosser, and nastier they are the better, as far as I’m concerned. I especially like textures of rotten food. Right now I’m up to 3 gigabytes of textures, and I don’t think I’ll be stopping any time soon. I’m just addicted to them. Even though it’s highly unlikely that I’ll actually end up using them all, I don’t think I’ll ever have enough. I keep finding more and I have to stop to get them all. Seriously, one can never have too many pictures of concrete. I can’t help myself. I just find them so exhilarating.

No wonder I don’t sleep. I’m just messed up all around.

Sayonara.

This weekend I did the stupidest thing ever.

While I was doing tome digital painting I was enjoying some hard candies. Jolly Ranchers.

I had already finished a few when I unwrapped a new one and popped it in my mouth. Soon afterward it somehow accidently lodged itself in my throat. There was nowhere for it to go but down.

I swallowed the whole bloody thing.

I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal. It’s just dissolve in my stomach. Nope, no such luck.

It was all jagged and rectangular. It hurt so much!

Now it’s not going away without a fight.

I’ve been feeling all sick and run down ever since. All because of one little candy.

How embarrassing.

So, take my advice. Don’t swallow Jolly Ranchers hard candies straight out of the wrapper. It’s just a bad idea all around.

Sayonara.

Yeah. Poker sucks.

For the past several weeks my inbox has been overrun with poker related spam. I’ve just been dumped on by this garbage and I’m really sick of it. I can’t ignore it and I can’t block it outright because it all comes though this website. I’ve taken several measures to block spam from being sent to me through the site, but these jerks keep changing the way they do things so some of their spam still slips through the cracks. I know that this must be sent via automated spiders, but I swear it’s as if they are targeting me directly because they seem to stay one step ahead of what I do to try to stop this nonsense. And nonsense is exactly what it is. There’s always some random text that looks as if it’s all been written by 3 year olds! Some of it is unrelated to anything, and some just doesn’t make any sense! Get a load of these examples.

It was opened without loss of time. I will try, sir, but I seem mad. Two men play together.

What the hell is this? I don’t want to read about two men playing together!

Online games are very dangerous to your helth. To prove this you should teach.

Are you kidding me? They’re trying to get me to play online poker by telling me it’s dangerous? Yeah, great marketing, genius.

Its far from clear whether mdma usage lead to refusing to get pleasure from gambling session (PO as an example). Time will come and you will see that joy in your eyes changes to fear and pain.

What the bloody hell does this even mean? Is this supposed to be deep? Because I’m just confused.

Wake up at he morning, eat and so on and go to the work. This is not a proble in the present. Why? Because you can play texas hold’em online

NO!!! NEVER!!! GO AWAY!!!

I was always puzzled what “Lanyon” means, is it related to poker somehow?

How in the hell should I know?

Poker is one og the gmabling game. Online leyword doesn’t matter.

Obviously not, stupid guy!

Important legal notices. Europe is not a country, It is kind of meta country, thouse happy peoples could play poker every day and every night.

WHAT??? Europe is not a country or a meta country. It’s a continent! It’s a lot of countries! Jackass.

The start of the huge work. And we already should plan a timeouts for the rest, both physical and mental, for mental one you need some gambling material and texas holdem is a good example.

Oh, so now it’s good for your health? Go to hell!

The magic lantern flickers and smokes, and the twisted face still shimmers on the screen. Bill said, draining four fingers neat of Old Kidney Killer and held his glass out for more.” And I should note, that in any cases, internet poker is very stupid couple to make.

Arrrrrg!!! You are a very stupid couple to make! You are! Now this doesn’t even make any sense either! I’m starting to write like poker spam! Arrrrrrg!!!

Bloody hell to this garbage! I don’t care about poker! I hate poker! Great job trying to get me to play poker, spamming guys. You have failed. You have completely and utterly failed. In fact, not only have you failed in your attempt at making me play your idiotic online poker games, but now I shall forever harbor a deep seeded hatred in my being for poker! I will never play poker. I will never watch poker on TV. So long as I live, I swear, I want nothing to do with poker.

Poker sucks!

There. I feel better now.

Sayonara.

Well, I know *I* do.

I’ve often talked about how the video game industry has become stagnant and boring and how the hardcore gaming culture offers me very little. Well it’s looking like Nintendo is, once again, going to try to challenge all that. The controller for the upcoming video game system known as “Revolution“, once shrouded in secrecy, was unveiled at a gaming show in Japan this past week, and it’s got the world buzzing.

Looking more like a DVD remote control than a traditional video game controller, this motion sensitive little number is way different than anything else on the market. Thus it looks like it’s going to introduce brand new ways to play video games, which is exactly what the business needs right now. I, for one, applaud Nintendo for going way outside the box, and for making such an incredibly polarizing move to distinguish themselves from the competition (who both seem content to release pretty much the same stuff they’ve already been giving us).

I’ll tell you this right now though. This controller sure is different and time will tell if different is good or not. But at this point, when it’s this different, it sure is exciting.

Sayonara.