Hock Fooshevs

Don't ask.
All I know is that, whatever this is, it spawned from high-school weirdness and post-grad boredom.

Based on track twelve of Tenacious D's 2001 S/T. Also if you can't put a finger on why it sounds so odd, I did the same reversed voice reversal that David Lynch uses in Twin Peaks.

Melancholy Comics: 2

From 2010; concerning romantic expectation. The rag-doll is made of cloth and string and is actually sewn onto the paper.

Stand-up Comedy Attempt #2

Note: Audio is quite low. Content is NSFW if you get offended at the mention of dolphin penises and other mild profanity.

This was my second open-mic night at the Wiseguys comedy club, SLC in April 2013. My first attempt contained 100% different material, but still went about as well. I've gone three more times since then, but none were quite as bolstered by adrenaline-fueled vivaciousness. I'm working on writing more jokes, though I don't ever see stand-up as a serious pursuit for me. Nonetheless, I do consider it an art-form--especially after hearing some of the other brilliant SLC comics--so up it goes on the blog!

Perhaps more video to come, depending on how self-conscious I feel.

Genitalia

Specifically ant genitalia. . .
Even more specifically, a 130x scale replica of half of a male Formica obscuripes genital capsule.

  
^ Ectal view of the three main components.                                    Ectal view of the penisvalva and volsellus.  ^

^ Mesal view of the three main components.                         Mesal view of the three main components (exploded).  ^

Click to enlarge! (insert male-enhancement joke here)

These models were sculpted from my go-to medium (you guessed it) super sculpey, and gifted to my lab's former technician, Brendon Boudinot, before he moved back to California. Brendon is one of the world's experts on male ants and I could think of no better way to send him off than with a giant copy of what he frequently talked about with strangers: ant junk. The parts of the male genital capsule have robust setae (represented by copper wire), and though they are typically connected with muscle and thinned cuticle, here they are entirely disassemblable.

Just to make sure you don't think I crudely threw together some ridiculously shaped blobs and tried to pass them off as representations of a biological wonder, I've included some diagrams of Formica obscuripes genitalia from Brendon's recent functional morphology paper:

        Boudinot, B. E. (2013). The male genitalia of ants: musculature, homology, and functional
                   morphology (Hymenoptera, Aculeata, Formicidae). Journal of Hymenoptera
                   Research, 30, 29-49.

French puns: the height of comedy

Translation: "History often details the insanity of Don Quixote, but almost never speaks of his wife, the Lady Quichette."
Quixote, which is pronounced kee-shut in French, is similar to Quichette (pronounced kee-shet), which of course is a tiny quiche.

Hosewater Brewing Co.

Here are two beer labels I concocted for the beer-brewing crew I joined last year. Each is a simple pen sketch taped over a collage of ripped magazine paper. Both still need text placed on them in Photoshop, but that will likely happen when I produce more of these so that I can do it consistently all at once. Stay tuned for more! (Bitter Ex Amber Ale, Poacher's Pale Ale, Rye for an Eye, Johnny Pumpkinseed, Bitch-Tits Cream Ale, etc.)

Dapper Cactus IPA (India Pale Ale)

Wily Czar (Russian Imperial Stout)

Back on the horse!

I've accrued a decent amount of new works/tinkerings in the past couple of months--I figure it's time to start posting again!

Here's is a pair of earrings I modeled after the lace back of a friends dress (completed September 2013).

The frames are beaded lengths of jeweler's wire of varying gauges, and each row is strung to the last with thread which allows them to flow freely. The wire forming the top wedge had to be super-glued at the corners in order to keep the tension of the "loom's" coiled thread.

Another photo for scale (they should almost touch the shoulders on most people):

I'm particularly fond of these as the dangling beads are also very reminiscent of Neuropteran eggs ^_^

Cookie, cookie, cookie starts with 'C'

Holidays, 2010--Robin Verble's annual Christmas party.
I was tasked with cookie-cutting and decorating the sugar cookies; I asked if I could do them free hand, and when she said yes a tradition was born. Behold!

2010's Dinosaur Nativity:

 (click to enlarge!)

and 2011's Zombie Santa's Workshop:

Melancholy Comics: 1

Apologies for the size; this is as big as I can make it. I hope it's still legible.

From 2009--This was going to be a piece of a larger project with black and white ink narrative interspersed with mixed-media dream sequences, but I've since moved on to other endeavors. The over-arcing theme of the project was about self-discovery, but I've become much more comfortable with myself over the last five years and have shed the angst that originally fueled these works.

Still good exercises in visual storytelling though.

Tiramisu

A cocoa-powder stencil of a barn owl on the dessert I made for last Thanksgiving.

Spring-time Mega-post!

What better way to celebrate the advent of spring than with bouquets of flowers? These ones happen to be made of clay, but still convey the burgeoning splendor of the season.

These are a series of sculptures that I made for family members a few years ago: the first two are Christmas tree ornaments gifted to my sisters Sarah and Elise respectively. The ornaments are replicas of their weddings bouquets. I made one a few months ago for my sister Anais, as she was recently married last May, but I have yet to take any photos of it (her wedding bouquet was calla lilies and freesia). The third bouquet posted here is a brooch I gave to my grandmother.

Each sculpture went through my usual M.O.: super sculpey baked at 275 deg. (with finer details baked previous to bouquet assembly), painted with acrylics, and sprayed with a fixative finish.

Tulips and roses:

 

Sunflower and irises:

Calla lily and tulips:

A wee bit devilish

Here's last year's pumpkin:

Here's last year's pumpkin with a candle in it :-)

It's supposed to be a little imp hiding behind a leaf in the underbrush. The hardest part, but most satisfying in the end, was shaving down the leaf to a minimal width that would allow a fair amount of light through and show the silhouette of the imp behind it.
This was largely carved by dremel although the big spaces were taken out with a knife. I cut too close on the tail and the ears and ended up clipping them off, but it was easy enough to reattach them with little pieces of toothpick. On Halloween night, some drunk asshole put his knee through it--an unfortunate fate, but this sort of art is always ephemeral anyhow.

Pirates on the Panama Canal

This pirate costume was cobbled together for a pirate-themed birthday/going away party my last night at the BCI field station a couple summers ago. Not a Halloween costume, but a costume nonetheless. Though everyone was doing intensive field work, parties were not uncommon (3-4 during the 6 weeks I was there). From the box of party knick-knacks available in the study lounge I found a belt to cinch one of my field shirts with and a floppy hat that I pinned up to make a tricorn. The cravat and sleeve ruffles were made with paper towels and masking tape, and everyone's eyepatch was sharpied notebook paper except for Dana who sported a piece of driftwood (3rd from left above). Lastly, I borrowed a razor from another student to make a more roguish shape of the facial hair I'd been growing out all trip. Quite dashing, no?

--"You asked me to draw you a tattoo of Poseidon. You never specified I couldn't draw him with a monster dong. . . 


. . .yeah, that's sharpie."

October

Time for a batch of Halloweeny posts (i.e. pumpkins and costumes)! True, it's been October for almost 2 weeks, but I've been out canyoneering in SW Utah. I'll start off with my costume from last year: the Egyptian deity Horus.

I started with a clay mask that I sculpted directly on my face because I had nothing else to lay it on to keep its shape. I packed tin foil onto my face and began laying on slabs of clay. After I had the right form, I found that it would stand up if placed over two upside-down kitchen bowls--one big (forehead), one small (chin). From there, I finished the details: semi-circle cuts for a feathered look, nostrils, shaping the eyes, etc.

-Here's the mask in the oven:

Then, as with anything else I make with super sculpey, I painted it with acrylics and sprayed it with a finish/fixant. The colors are based off of the peregrine falcon, with a few creative liberties to accommodate for a human contour.

-Profile:                                                                  -3/4 angle:

The rest of the costume was essentially a black leotard with a white Egyptian-style loincloth and an ochre cloth head-dress. Unfortunately, only one picture of me fully dressed exists, and I don't currently have it. As soon as I get it I'll update this post.

Now to start brainstorming for this years costume!

Treebeard

Sorry to have skipped a Music Monday; there will be some good stuff coming up but I've been swamped for the time being. For now I'll leave you with a picture from 2009's Guatemala expedition:

Druids rule!                                                              Photo credit: Steve Bylsma

Veggie corks

Last year I spent a week up at UALR's research cabin on the Buffalo River with my lab mate and good friend Dr. Robin Verble. She often commented on the row of glass bottles with vegetable-themed corks that stood perched upon the fridge; it usually entailed a desire to steal them. Thus, when she got married several months later I decided to give her the next best thing: home made reproductions.

They were a ton of fun to make although I don't think I got all of the vegetables right. There was an eggplant instead of the asparagus, and some other thing in place of the corncob. One particular thing I loved was how the best way to make most of these was to combine small sculpted components rather than molding the whole vegetable from a solid piece of clay; I felt it really spoke to the composite nature of plants.

Each of these goes with a square glass bottle about 2 inches tall.

Pelican beach (the one in my head)

This is an image salvaged from the chaff of fading dreams; that point when you're about to wake up and the oneiric weirdness comes flying thick and fast. I was standing on a beach watching this pelican serve bill-pouch-soup to a line of chameleons who changed their levels of transparency rather than their hue:

I have yet to be able to capture the method of transportation by which I arrived at this scene: inside the 6-seater rib cage of a 12-foot skeletal horse. It's a lot harder to draw.

Music Monday - Take IX

Saloon Music:


The first section is just riffing on a G-minor 12 bar blues. In the later half I was going for more of a ragtime feel, using some chord progressions from "Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear." The first time I played these in front of anybody my uncle said that I belonged in a saloon, so that kinda stuck. Play this track whenever you feel the urge to smash a sugar-glass bottle or a balsa wood chair over someone's head.

Research themed tats FTW!

This is a draft of a sleeve design commissioned by one of the faculty from my M.S. program, Dr. Matt Gifford. He had seen a tattoo design I drew for my roommate Jonathan and asked for a drawing that he could comment on, direct, and then bring to a tattoo artist. The (obviously not-to-scale) salamander is one of his study organisms, Plethodon jordani, and the tree is a hemlock with his daughter's name carved into it.

He really liked the design, but I have yet to hear if he's followed through and gotten it. My favorite part was seeing how excited his wife was with the idea of him getting a bicep half-sleeve: actually 100% super-stoked.

Siege weapons

A functional Lego trebuchet from Highschool:

It's outfitted with an adjustable pin that allows for fine tuning of the trajectory. What's really cool is that it will actually fire farther on wheels than if it's laid flush on the ground. It's got something to do with energy being lost in the backlash. Due to scaled proportions, and the low density of Legos, I supplemented the counterweight with downward pulling rubberbands. Cheating? Maybe, but I can still hit your turd of a castle from across the entire living room.