A preview of something

First off I would like to thank flickr for making the code on there pictures harder to find. Not sure why they decided to hide the html code...but whatever.



These were originally taken by my mother at my wedding, I could not figure out how to photograph it myself. I am working on a album right now for my wedding and honeymoon and actually decided to re-edit the pictures into a different style. I wanted all my wedding shots to look uniform and to look kind of old. I also wanted no real color in them, so I went with a sephia look.



As I went along I started to make them look more aged as well by adding in blurs to wash parts of the photos out. I think overall it really came together nicely and the pages turned out looking good. Now to start working on the rest of the book

Faces

My wife took all of these pictures, maybe she will come back and add in her own words about them. For now just enjoy the pictures of animal faces, and try and guess at what emotions they may be feeling during each shot.


This is Ilyana (pronounced illy-on-ah). We adopted her recently and they did not know what kind of dog she is or how big she would get. This is her telling me "You startin wid me?"


"You wanna tink about dat mom!"


"Cuz I eat your face!" Sami seems a little bit afraid. Hmmm.


Sir Thomas would like to know why he was awakened from his beauty rest! "Mother, the small monsters are making noises again! How DARE they! SILENCE! I demand it!"

Fabul, Gobulle, F'lhaminn........

Fabul is a place in a game....well its more like a dimension...These were done for a side project. The paper was made in photoshop and I call it dirty paper. It was made to look old timey and dirty as if it was in a journal or book carried around by a adventurer for a long time. Was thinking of adding in some tears but I felt that was to much as its not supposed to be anciant....just not in great condition.

Upgraded to CS5 photoshop and needed something fun to do to play around in it...dirty paper

Gobulle





F'lhaminn

Transformers G1 Represent!

I had more photos in this set, but they turned out looking quite bad once I put them in my flickr. I couldn't tell if it was the monitor at work I was looking at them on or if I had a bad angle on my laptop when I was editing that messed up the look of them. Either way I left a few of the bad ones in to look at them on another computer later, they are the first few. I had to much red in them and it really messed up my editing process. I should have picked a better backdrop....or any backdrop really. But here is my latest set, more may come later once I figure out a better place to take them.



I have always loved transformers, and G1 or Generation 1 has always been my favorite line of there toys and comics. Basically its the style of which they are made and done int. As the years went by they made new series that had the same people but the would redo the entire look of them. G1 is the 80's classic look and the best looking one in my opinion.



Toys R us have been releasing remakes of the older 80's toys in a classic series for awhile now. Most of the good ones are already long since done and gone but you can occasionally find one on a shelf if you look hard enough. Wal-mart and I believe target also get 1 or 2 releases a year. There not vey often and there very rare.



This one is Perceptor, transforms into a microscope and then a crappy looking tank. he has no real movement as his legs have no joints but simply swing out to the side. His feet don't move either but simply tuck under him. It would be a crapy toy in this day and age but because of what it is and when it was first put out its a "Classic" Honestly I love the damn thing. Its got horrid colors and the decals are so lame looking. Its not something you see anymore, its the first one I have found from the remake series.



This is Grimlock, leader of the dino bots. When I was a kid he was my hands down favorite and still comes in pretty close to it now. I saw this a few days ago while shopping for my nephews birthday and just froze up. They had 1 and I had no clue they even put it out, a masterpiece Grimlock. Its pretty big to, I had to have it....but it was pretty costly. They double the price for the remakes, because they can. It may also be because there is alot of metal and higher quality parts but I doubt it. I carried this thing around cradling it in my arms trying to convince myself not to buy it.

Obviously I ended up with it.



TANK MODE!

Yeah look out for that one.....lol he was a nobody in the show and the books from what I remember. I had a big battle between him and Grimmy up there. It didn't go well for him.



The microscope mode was actually pretty neat looking I thought, but they didn't make it functional. Seems it wouldn't have been hard to make it magnify atleast a litte. You can already look down the scope and see the other side, but it doesn't enlarge it any. Missed opertunity there guys



Posing it up, grimlock has a laser sword and gun. Neat 80's features on this toy....they kind of sorta light up....abit. And his eyes change from red to blue if you want. He also closes his dino mouth and can turn his head if you push his tail back and forth. You just don't get features like that anymore.



Honestly though I still think this is one of the best looking transformers even from the new line ups I have seen and the Bay movies. And by far my new favorite in my collection, gotta keep a eye out for more classics though.



Like this one, Soundwave G1 re-release from the San diego Comic Con. It retails for anywhere from 90 to 130 dollars and I would do many unthinkable things to get one of these. Its crazy that they put him out again with all the tapes



I hate you San Diego

Sally, a gift of undying love

This was basically where I started my last project at, it took quite a few hours to complete but it was fun to be doing something like that again. My wifes birthday is coming up and I have been struggling to find her something other then what I have already and she expressed interest in something "Creative"



We went to a art show this weekend and it made both of us want to do something more artsy. I managed to find a extra canvas laying around and my wife bought some encaustic wax to play around with. I always loved The Nightmare Before Christmas and have painted it before so this was a easy choice to make



As I said this was for my wife, I actually got the original picture from a childrens story book. The 13 days of christmas, my wife saw it and said she loved the hearts in the skull made of smoke. So I figured I could take that picture from the book and make something nice out of it.



Its done in acrylic or however thats spelled and I used just the primary colors with black and white to tint. I did however add a special touch to it to make it better for my wife. She loves shiny things and I had some glitter pigmentless paint. It shows up in the last 2 pictures but it makes the border shine and sparkle and she loved it.



Her birthday is on the 10th, however painting something takes a lot of time and its hard to hide so she already knows about it and has seen it. She actually watched me paint a good deal of it over the day and was very supportive of the whole process.



Here it is finished, the wife is happy and we both had a fun vacation. This was just a nice fun way to cap it off before I have to go back to work tomorow. The white lines on it are chalk marks and will rub off once it has finished drying.



Thanks for looking, next update should be back to normal photos. This was a nice change of pace for me. When we get it hung up somewhere maybe I can get some better shots. The light was making the colors look odd and you can see the reflection in many shots. But I didn't want to move it until it was finished.

Halo: War of the megablocks

So tomorow is my birthday, and if you know me you know I enjoy my games. Halo is a huge fanchise that has been around for quite a few years now and I even remember the first time I played it back in 2003 with my friend Justin. His dad knew he wanted the new xbox and would torment him by leaving Huge X's all around for him to find. Come home and see a large X on his bed room door, at lunch a large X would be made out of cards on the table. It was all in good fun until his dad finally broke down and bought a xbox....for himself. This may sound mean but it was actually a smart move as it meant the system would stay in the family room and not the boys room so everybody could enjoy it by playing games or using it as there first dvd player. When he bought it though he bought this one game I couldn't for the life of me stand playing. Halo:Combat Evolved.



It was a sci-fi shooter about humanities last stand against the covenant, a unbeatable alien force. The game was well reviewed and considered one of the best shooters of its time. I just didn't enjoy it, the aiming was confusing and I was no good at it. I played it and beat it a few times with him while I was hanging out at his house but only because it was something to do and it was Justin's favorite game.

Eventually I started to get better and I do remember right before graduation getting a huge group of people together and hooking up 3 xboxs in 3 different rooms to have some pretty intense team matches.

Fast forward a few years and we get Halo 2, it looked and felt the same but it had something slightly different.



It was shinier, and had a pretty bland story. However for some reason I bought it even after hating the first one. Somehow though I started to get into it, and I became hooked on the franchise as a whole. Halo 3 improved and even added online into the equation for me.



Once a spartan, always a spartan. With each new game it quickly found its way onto my list of favorite franchises. I bought 3 copies of halo 3, one normal, one limited, and one legendary edition which came with a helmet.



What does this have to do with my birthday? Well its rather neat, the newest game comes out on my birthday September 14th. This is due mostly to the fact that the main marine in the series, John 117 or Master Chief, fought his first live combat mission on that date. However I have decided to also say that the game is my gift from Bungie for supporting them and there series thus far.



So I get the new Halo game, and my wife goes all out and decides to make my birthday even more Halo by picking me up every halo megablocks set she could find. I have yet to even build them all and there will surely be more pictures as small toys are quite fun to photograph and work as excellent learning aids.

So there is it, how a post about my birthday ended up being all about halo. Thats because this year all my gifts center around it. I have halo toys, halo video games, im picking up a halo dvd, and my mother has gotten me some killer new headphones for my game systems and pc that will work with the new halo game. So happy birthday to me, and if your wondering how I have these even though my birthday isn't until tomorow......well lets just say me and my wife have trouble keeping gifts. I already gave her her birthday presents and hers is still a month away.

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On our vacation we decided to go out and buy some stuff to play around the house with. A few nerf guns to have shootouts with, cards to do basic magic tricks with, transformers to......I guess play with, and then the most sought after item that required the most work to find.



We bought a bubble gun and a huge multi galon container of bubble solution and decided to see what all the animals thought of it. The dogs and cats were mostly afraid of the noise it made but the ferrets loved it for some reason.



"Dude you gotta see this"



They were in ther cage at first and they would use there noses to pop the bubbles as they stuck to the bars. We decided to let them out to see what they would do when not confined









We had to stop once they started trying to actually eat the bubbles. Figured licking up that solution wasn't the best thing for them.