· art

Project: Rooftop? I say Project: AWESOME.

May 14, 2008 in art, artists, cartoons, comics, entertainment, project: rooftop | Permalink

How did I not know about this!?! Proof that the internet is a big big place and that I don’t have enough free time on my hands if you ask me. If you’re into Superheroes, Design, Art, Fashion, or especially all of the above, head on over to to Project: Rooftop.

It’s a great idea, inspired by things like Project Runway; the (semi-recent) Batgirl Meme; and all sorts of great things that run wild on the internet in regards to art and superheroes. It reminds me of Illustration Friday in that it plays on that same creative internet spirit that unites and actually evens the playing field for artists both known and unknown, but it’s a little more developed and complex (read: I won’t be participating anytime soon…but maybe someday). Also there are prizes! Definitely check it out when you have a free handful of moments.

#134 ~ Rabid Lamb Comics

May 5, 2008 in art, artists, books, cartoons, comic of the day, comics, jeffrey brown, writing | 7 comments

Whew. Hope you all had a great weekend. Mine was fairly uneventful as I’m still recovering. If I do too much I get little residual sinus headaches and I’ve got a nasty hacking cough no matter what I do. I had high hopes for some writing and drawing, but instead it was rest and movies (none of them very good), which isn’t SO bad. Onto the week…!

Movies I Saw:

The Ten. Not so impressive. A couple awesome skits, but mostly jammed in among totally mediocre ones. 2.5 Stars.

Henry The VIII. Not so good. Just like all the other pieces about this. I’m giving it only 2 Stars, despite the presence of Ray Winstone and Helena Bonham Carter.

Demon Seed. Not good. Based on a Dean Koontz novel, who I used to love. It’s an idea that I can see being awesome and horrifying in a novel, but on screen it did not work at all. I’d say they should do a remake, now that we have extra fancy technology, but a remake would likely be terrible too. 2 Stars.

Night Watch. Again, I bet the novel is pretty good, but this film was ALL over the place. There were some interesting ideas and some cool things going on, but all in all it was a mess. Sadly I have the second part, Day Watch at home from Netflix as well, so I guess I’ll be watching it. Also, as a sidenote, I HATE dubbing. I would much rather have watched this film (and maybe would have liked it more…at least half a star more) if it could have been subtitled. It look ridiculous dubbed from Russian into English. Who is into this?! Horrible. 2.5 Stars.

#132 ~ Rabid Lamb Comics

April 25, 2008 in art, cartoons, comic of the day, comics, craptastic, entertainment, getting sick? | 8 comments

As you all know, I’ve talked about my struggle in drawing myself on this blog for the Rabid Lamb strips frequently. I’ve pretty much hit a wall in that regard, and so for awhile I’m going to be drawing myself like this:

*Objects in comic may be larger (or smaller) than they appear in real life

*Objects have been cartooned up in a happy fun way to make this more enjoyable for the artist

*Artist will be annoyed when confronted with “you don’t look like how you draw yourself in your strip” after having posted this “strip”. Artist will not engage in a silly debate but will simply point the complainer to this “strip”…Rabid Lamb #132.

For further documentation, here is a cartoon rendering of a more accurate version of the current me:

And here is a cartoon rendering of how I FEEL these days:

Finally, in closing, please note that the artist reserves the right to change her mind at anytime and to begin drawing in whatever style she feels like on any given day…

Okay, with all the technical jargon out of our way. Anyone have good plans for the weekend? I had dreams of catching up on my writing and drawing, but I got a terrible sore throat last night and am now suffering severe head congestion as well as the sore throat, so basically, I’m just hoping to make it through the day at this point…

New Temporary Header

April 24, 2008 in art, artists, cartoons, craptastic, james jean | Permalink

Borrowing (i.e. stealing) from my idol James Jean has gone on long enough. I’ve uploaded a new temporary header (which I hate). Bear with me in that I will probably hate anything that is not my old James Jean header. Now that this temporary one is up and I’m not happy with it, I hope it will motivate me to get a new more permanent version up and running. Stay tuned…

High Maintenance Machine #600 Strip Contest

March 21, 2008 in art, artists, blogging, cartoons, comics, competition | 4 comments

Matthew Reidsma, an incredibly talented comic strip artist, whose strip High Maintenance Machine is so superior to mine I can’t even explain it, in fact once you visit High Maintenance Machine you’ll probably never come back (sniff sniff), just celebrated his 600th strip last month and is having a little contest for other artists to try a hand at drawing his strip. The deadline was yesterday, and here is my entry. You can also see Paul’s (My Life Comics) entry here.

Please do check out High Maintenance Machine, it is a truly excellent strip.

Semi-Famous…

March 19, 2008 in art, cartoons, comics, seafood, urban lobster | 10 comments

I’ve gotten a tiny little taste of semi-fame and I’ll tell you what, I’d pretty much like some more.

Adam and I went to dinner and a movie last night downtown after my salon visit (it’s always a shame to waste super awesome hair by just going straight home – though I’m not sure a dark movie theater is really the place to be showing off awesome locks). Anyway, we went to my new favorite place, which I’ve talked about before, Urban Lobster. As we’re walking inside, Adam grabs me and says, “Oh my god – Kelly look.” And sure enough, taped up in the window with some of their recent reviews, is Rabid Lamb Comic #70 in which I proclaimed my love for Urban Lobster. Hilarious and awesome.

We had our, as usual, delicious meal, and upon leaving we saw the strip and blurb I wrote about Urban posted up on an exterior wall as well. It was pretty much awesome. I took a picture of the ad in the window with my phone, it’s pretty tiny and crappy since it was taken on a phone, but check it out below.

Adam asked me if I had any regrets about the comic now that it was posted up on a public wall, and I said yes, for sure, I wished I’d drawn it better as I particularly hate panel one (panel two I actually love and three and four are passable, though the text is a bit wonky) but this is actually a bit of a conundrum. I know I can draw better than what I crank out for Rabid Lamb, but I’m just too busy and posting daily is just too fast and intense for me to put in the necessary time to get everything drawn at a level I’d be more happy with. I don’t know, I’m going to have to think about it. Anyone have any thoughts?

Sidenote: I’ve decided that should I ever be on Death Row, my last meal request will be “Lobster Bisque, Lobster Roll and Mashed Potatoes from Urban Lobster”…It’s definitely carb heavy, but it’s my last meal…might as well live it up right?

Conan and The Bad Plus…what could be better?

March 14, 2008 in art, artists, entertainment, james jean, movies, the bad plus | 5 comments

The Bad Plus will be on Late Night With Conan O’Brien TONIGHT, Friday March 14th. If you want to know what I’ve been raving about over here on 1979 Semi-Finalist make sure to tune in.

I’m so excited to see them on television, and what’s better than Conan? Nothing I say. I’m also seeing them next Saturday at The Blue Note, so I’m feeling especially Bad Plus-y these days, which is a happy feeling to be having.

AND, in yet more Bad Plus news, I wrote to The Bad Plus a few months ago, asking if they minded that I’ve co-opted their song title (The 1979 Semi-Finalist, obviously) for my blog, and I got a nice note yesterday from Ethan letting me know that he had dropped by the blog, liked the comics, and was happy to let me use their song title. Whether they have some kind of actual complicated legal rights to the title I don’t even know, but I’m superfan #1 over here, so I mostly just wanted their stamp of approval.

Now that I’ve got that stamp of approval, you’ll be seeing a new blog header developing sometime soon. It won’t be anywhere near as good as the one I’ve got now, but the one I’ve got now is mostly stolen from genius James Jean and I’ve been feeling guilty about it for ages, so it’s time to move on.

Try not to be TOO disappointed when the new header premieres, okay?

Rabid Lamb Logo Premiere…!

March 10, 2008 in art, artists, cartoons, comics, graphic design, rabid lamb | 9 comments

Here is the long awaited (well maybe for me, more than you) Rabid Lamb Logo. I expect it will go through many drafts, but here’s the first one. Huge thanks to Adam for actually designing and drawing the actual rabid lamb…who I am thinking of calling Ham Head…

#97 ~ Rabid Lamb Comics ~ Guest Artist Adam Greene

March 7, 2008 in art, artists, awesomeness, cartoons, comic of the day, comics, entertainment, writing | 11 comments

Here it is, in all its gorgeous glory, the first Rabid Lamb guest strip. Adam tends to be more about beautiful cartooning and artistry and details while I am more about the writing or the “joke”. Sadly, even if I had the skill he does, there is just no way I could measure up to the standard he has set with this strip in a daily comic, there just aren’t enough hours to set aside for it. He has promised to do another one soon though…so feel free to hassle him until he gets it done. Additionally, Adam has a great blog of his own, that is mostly about film, although a few other things slip in there on occasion, which I urge everyone to check out: www.dudehesthestallion.wordpress.com.

Also, coming on Monday, Adam has drawn a great mascot for Rabid Lamb Comics, so I’ll be assembling the new logo over the weekend…it should premiere with Monday’s strip. There are also some book reviews coming up that will post today and over the weekend I think…

Thank you Adam – I LOVE it.

#51 Comic of the Day

January 3, 2008 in art, comic of the day, comics, james jean | 4 comments

They look FANTASTIC. And I’m so happy to finally have them up…most importantly because this “art cluster” hides a giant grey metal switch box in my living room wall that I’ve been staring at angrily for the last six months. Yea for art on walls!

I also made a massive list…not of resolutions, but of priorities for 2008, and there were so many things I wanted to make sure I do this year that I broke the list up into sections (work/art, job, health, money, house, and fun). Onto each of these categories I put a bunch of things I want to accomplish this year and more importantly where I think my priorities should be on a daily basis (funny…tv did not make the list…at all). Anyway, house has by far the most things on the list, although if I just get up and do it the “house” items are also the easiest to accomplish, so that is good. Already two things (hanging those pictures was number one) have been accomplished…so that’s not too bad for January 3rd right?

art

Blogroll