Like Watching Hair Grow….

The job search becomes more tedious, and in the meantime, I’ve been bolstering my skill set with big thick books from O’Reilly: System Administration, Learning Perl, Programming Perl, Unix CD Bookshelf.  Also Teach Yourself TCP/IP in 24 Hours, and Teach Yourself SQL in 21 Days. Also Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, but I doubt that’ll help much….

The hair on the Figure is very nearly done:

Also did a few more bits for the set:

It’s getting there, but there’s still the whole coat thing.  Guess what I’m gonna be doing later today….

Galloping Towards An End Of Sorts….

First and foremost, I still have reservations about the damn coat.  I hate myself.  That’s why I’m drunk at the moment.  But all in all, there was progress.  Mostly hair:

Me bright idea was, get a couple of chip brushes, stain them with water-based stain, and cut bits out and glue them to bits of cloth and glue them to the head of me fella:

Also did a bit of distressing on the workbench, was frankly a bit distressing to me (ha ha):

Then I did a few test shots of the painted head of the fella in the set lighting, just to see what it looked like:

It’s getting there, but I keep hitting that ol’ debbel Creative Apathy, also known as Why Bother, Mate.  The hair makes me happy, but the coat thing still sticks in me craw.  Feh.

In other news, the overall look of the set is pretty much done, the Shots are mostly set in me head, and it will take me maybe a couple of days to get the workings of the DSLR under control.  And I’ve started asking around for folks’ opinions for programs for working with RAW format.  So, ya see, I do have a handle on things….

Also, anyone know of a position opening for a lower-level IT tech?  ‘Cause I got taxes to pay soon….

How To Get A Head In One’s Project….

Firstly, one needs to make a skull….

So how I have it worked out in my head is I do up a cork skull that slips over the sketch figure head, and then build it up with clay to the form desired, and then paint and attach hair.  Why a cork skull?  ‘Cause clay doesn’t stick too well to a varnished wooden stick, and if I just happen to drop him, I can glue or re-work the bits back onto the skull without having to do the whole thing over.

I would have done more, but I had a laptop (not my own) to beat down for being infected with Bad Things, and did fed and state taxes (not my own) to Suitable Completion.  Also, I did a “stress test” of the hands:

They are nicely flexible, but they work very much like tacky skin over squishy flesh, so the finger “flesh” can be distorted accidently, and dust and fingerprints show up on the “skin” surface.  They work as I had hoped, but there’s an unforseen level of tweaking that is needed.  Ah well, it’s not like I’m doing anything constructive around here…..

The Tentative Halloween Broadcast Programme…

Halloween film viewing isn’t exactly all about blood and guts and gore, although it certainly can be.  For me at least, it begins with mood, and then humor, and then blood and guts and gore.  It can, on occasion, be an all-day process….

The Raven (1963) – Say what you will about Roger Corman’s directorial stylings, but his Poe movies certainly knew how to slather on the atmosphere.  And that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

Young Frankenstein (1974) – More atmosphere, and one of the funniest movies ever made.

Invader Zim: Halloween Spectacular of Spooky Doom (2001) – It’s funnier than It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.  Also more purple-y….

At this point, one could insert Beetlejuice or Elvira: Mistress of the Dark or The Addams Family.  Or even a couple of episodes of the Addams Family teevee series.  I haven’t figured this bit out yet….

Return of the Living Dead (1985) – Punks versus zombies.  It doesn’t go well for anyone….

Shawn of the Dead (2004) – One of the more original movies on the whole zombie genre.  And it’s got laughs too….

At this point, I’d put on Dracula (1931) with the Philip Glass soundtrack and listen while I get something to eat.  In this day and age one can’t really take a movie seriously if it uses armadillos and opossums as rat stand-ins….

Evil Dead II (1987) – It’s fun.  I like it.  Can be replaced by Re-Animator (1985) for the more daring….

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) – When I first saw this in the theater, I didn’t get it, and neither did many others.  Nowadays, having dark humor in your horror is almost passe….

At this point we have crossed over into horror with a capital H.  Depending on one’s mood, we can slip Prince of Darkness (1987) or The Ring (2002) or Night of the Living Dead (1968) here….

Halloween (1978) – Still works well, and not really dated, even with Jamie Lee Curtis in hip huggers….

The Thing (1982) – One of my personal favorites, and what I always point to when someone somewhere starts whining about remakes.  It can be done well….

And then I tend to wrap things up by playing Bauhaus: Shadows of Light.

Exhausting, but fun….

The Shoes Of The Collector Are Some Jive-Ass Slippers….

I can barely dress myself some days, and here I am, attempting to get a little twelve-inch figure dressed in clothes that I have to design and manufacture myself.  I got the boots halfway done, and they ain’t looking like they should in my head, but I can tweak them a bit more.  Got a collar and half of the front of the shirt done, and I have buttons to glue later today.  Maybe I’ll do the swallowtail coat today, it’ll make me feel better about my progress….

Watched the debate last night.  While I shy away from political commentary on the whole here, I gotta say I’ve seen more confrontational debates in high school than I did last night.  The word now is the vice-presidential debate is either gonna be a WWF smackdown or a Clown College Amateur Hour.  We shall see….

Speaking of politics:

“The whole mechanism of dissecting their every waking moment has created somewhat of a paralysis. We have drained them of their ability to remain human. Because any human moment will be so fiercely dissected and digested and metastasized by the media.”  — Jon Stewart

Go here for levity….

A Little Ellison to Get You Through the Day….

Harlan Ellison is one of the formative forces in my early life – I could, and probably should, do up a nice essay on him sometime soon – and not only is his work influential and important, just listening to him run at the mouth can inspire and entertain. Here, then, is about an hour of him – I am not in a position to listen to it myself right now, but I thought you might like to….