"We drink because it's what men do."

Yep, more Mad Men. Roger Sterling has the best lines.

Dick Whitman

For the Mad Men fans the title of my post makes sense. Anyway, Mad Men is the best show currently on regular cable. I don't get HBO or Showtime so I can't attest to their content... not until they come out on DVD anyway. I could sit and watch this show continuously forever. That's a pretty big compliment to give a television show I think. It is so well written, acted, designed, and shot.

I can't stress how great the show is shot. I HATE the new style that has permeated the mainstream. It's this CSI constant camera movement with harsh primary colors streaming in the BG. It's hard to watch. I'd like to think I'm not getting to the age where the rock music is too loud. But I would cheer if they made directors use camera movements with a little more restriction. It used to mean something.

Another rant for another time.

Brush Pen Sketches

Pen Sketches

Nemo Nemo Nemo

My 20 month old niece has a very healthy love affair with a certain Pixar movie. Her vocab is limited but she knows "Nemo" and it usually comes in multiples. It's amazing how a single word repeated continuously can speak volumes. So, I decided to do something completely unoriginal with my pumpkin this year. I did it solely to ensure "Uncle Steve" would remain one of her favorite people.

Unfortunately, you can't get the full breadth of my masterpiece in one single photo. Nemo had to wrap around the pumpkin. Thus, it must be viewed from multiple angles. I'm gonna go ahead and say the pics I took with the iPhone don't do it justice.

I'm dying to get more serious with the pumpkin carvings and move to the sculpting/subtracting that gives the great effects you see in all the really great Jack O' Lantern creations. I guess there's always next year.

Another attempt

After my awful painting debacle in Photoshop I went back to trusty ol' Painter. I left it loose and I like it a lot more. I'm mainly doing this to find the color correction adjustment layers that I need once I bring it into PS because the Cintiq has drastically different colors than my Cinema display.

I've tried everything to get the colors to look more saturated on the Cintiq and have failed to the point of extreme frustration. The point where you start taking it out on everyone around you. The 12WX Cintiq has this large gray box attached to it with four buttons but it's an exercise in futility. Not just because the buttons make it so clumsy but it is so basic it cannot solve my problem. Now I'm gonna have to buy some color correcting software. Great.

Ya Falta Menos

A friend of mine did a short claymation project about her experience running with the bulls, entered it into a contest, and WON! This is a screen cap and one of my boards.