. . . because I'm having the wobbling terrors about TSA and nothing warms the chambers of my cold, blackened, unbeating heart like reading about other people's misery. I realize no one likes being groped, but I'm afraid I'll flip out, punch someone and then get shot, or put on a no-fly list, or something. Sheesh!

In other news, I have over 3,000 watchers? When did that happen? I remember thinking I should do something special to celebrate hitting 3,000 and now it's past that and whoa. Because that's precisely 3,080 more people than I ever thought would be interested in watching me draw a million werewolves. Seriously, I was visiting my aunt this past week while she was babysitting my cousin's two little girls, and I was drawing unicorns for them in their coloring book, and my aunt says, "You should draw a wolf! Remember when you used to draw wolves all the time?". Yeah, I'm five years old still.

Anyways, if anyone can think of anything fun to belatedly do, sing out.



In closing, I'll share this which went up on Cracked today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84WpcmJ28Yg
it's gone up from 17,000 to 47-odd just since this morning.

The writer says, "I can't morally include that last dub without bringing up this one -- and I'm telling you right now, it's a goddamn tragedy that this only has 17,000 views. If this doesn't have at least a million by next week, I'm setting people on fire. It's that horrible "Party Rock Anthem" song, started right at the dancing interlude part of the video. Except right as they say the line "Every day, I'm shufflin'," the music that comes in is the cantina song from the original Star Wars. And it fits perfectly. Every beat, every dance step, every kick ... perfect. If you can watch that video and still be in a bad mood, you may be part demon. And if the Internet can make a pre-teen's song about days of the week famous, then there's no fucking reason we can't reward the person who made this."

I AM part demon (1/4 demon on my mother's side) and I love the hell out of it. You won't be sorry you clicked on it.

An Order Muppet, or a Chaos Muppet?

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/.....or_order_.html

I am an Order Muppet, although you might not think so to look at my house (but *I* know where everything is).

Everytime I get to liking a web comic the creator seems to decide to take an endless hiatus, or gets sick, or dies or just stops.

I'm taking requests for tomorrow's Werewolf Wednesday livestream.

http://www.livestream.com/tatterfoal

EDIT: The theme comes from elsewhere - were-thylacoleo. Time is 7pm Eastern standard / gmt -5

It's Werewolf Wednesday once again!
Come watch me livestream a werewolf painting . . .

The time: 7pm Eastern )GMT -5)
The place: http://www.livestream.com/tatterfoal

Why?

Why the heck not?

Yes, it's that time of year again, the completely arbitrary, nonsensical and purposeless Draw A Centaur Day. No prizes will be distributed, no accolades will be given, no charities will be donated towards, no good causes will be furthered, no ones bills will be paid. This is purely for the sheer fun of drawing a goofy mythological critter.

We had really great participation last year, and you've got all damn weekend, so no excuses. All kinds of centaurs are accepted, not just the classical human/equine one, so take the opportunity to go as ratel-ass crazy as you want.

Don't forget to leave a link to your art in the comments!

I am liking the large print edition of FA.

I discovered bearded ladies are way more popular than I would have guessed.
Go figure.

I'm only drawing My Little Ponys.

http://youtu.be/3oqUd8utr14
Andy Warhol's first computer art.

I did pretty much the same thing a few years later in class, only I used stills from "Alien". IT WAS SO COOL! Drawing with a computer, so futuristic! And oh my god, I so was impressed with myself!

I kind of want a time machine so I can go back and blow 14-year-old-me's tiny little mind.

Just been recuperating and working on stuff.

Miss me? I missed you.

If you've ever read Scary Stories, you'll remember it. Not so much the stories, which were a grab-bag of urban legends, tall tales, and folk lore, but for Stephen Gammell's illustrations. The ink and wash drawings were magnificently creepy, full of spooky half-formed figures, wispy spiderweb-rootlets, staring eyes, walking corpses with limbs akimbo and a way of suggesting decay, body horror and mind-numbing terror without drawing an on-the-nose, straight ahead visualization of what happened in the stories.

Many people were scarred for life by these illustrations as kids; I know adults who still get the creeps from them. So what does the publisher do for the 30th anniversary edition?

If you said, "Replace the illustrations with blander, less-gruesome more parent-pleasing pictures,", well, pat yourself on the head and give yourself a lollipop.

Read more here: http://www.adventuresinpoortaste.co.....l-vs-helquist/
It feels kind of grotty to crack on the new illustrator, but this does a very thoughtful analysis of why the original illustrations are so much more effective, and the points the author makes are quite educational for those of us who like to illustrate fiction.

Then you might be interested in entering the Ratha fanfic contest: http://promoshq.wildfireapp.com/web.....ontests/183569

I know there are quite a few authors who watch me, so I wanted to spread the word. I would enter myself but I'm one of the judges :)

Seriously, how cool is this? You know many authors try to pretend fanfic doesn't exist, or actively oppose it. That's one of the (many) things I love about Clare (aka  rathacat) - she's very supportive of and and interested in the fan community. Hell, I illustrated the recent editions and I've been a fan since I was 9 years old.

I'm a very enthusiastic supporter of fanfic, for several reasons. Obviously Sturgeon's Law applies - a great deal of it is lazy, uncaring crap. But there is also an amazing amount of great stuff, too, and after having written it for years I think the proportion of good writing has increased. It can be a great stepping-stone to a professional career, but even if you never sell a thing you can only be improved by learning to express yourself and your ideas through writing. All practice is good practice, even if that practice is writing My Little Pony shipfic. Fanfic is also a way to be an active participant in your culture, rather than a passive consumer. So much media is dumbed down or otherwise caters to the masses. If for social or other reasons you're marginal, writing fanfic and reshaping the media presented to you to better reflect your point of view.

So to sum up: get writing!

So, there was this phone company that decided to do a big budget rebranding, it was all very exciting, and all their time, money and effort resulted in this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUfqVYlsGXA

That is supposed to be a meerkat, by the way.

It's hard to tell if they were shooting for something like the infamous French ads for Orangina, or what. You would almost think the hideous awkwardness was intentional, but subsequent ads cast the character in situations where he was clearly supposed to be cool, which failed in ways that suggest the company saw that Poochie episode of the Simpsons and completely missed the point.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRY-tcYM0cA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj5tWatctWw

I tell you, I may not be brilliant at designing characters but even I could do better than that bizarre combination of hydrocephalus, malnutrition belly, rodent teeth and creepy little doll eyes.

Have fun sleeping!

I've got two paid-for commissions to complete - just letting folks know I am still working on them. It's going slowly since there seems to be something badly wrong with my clavicle, I can't move either arm without severe pain so I'm mainly painting when the painkillers kick in. Unfortunately, I only have one left and it might be a while before I can get back to the doctor. Feh.

I feel rotten about this, so if commissioners would prefer their money bacl rather than waiting any longer, please note me.

Anyways, that's depressing so I want to end this journal with a laugh.

Want mudcrab mods? Why not Zoidberg: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Od-b.....ure=plpp_video
Also this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSHvPJD_558

Sometimes it gets closer to being restored.

http://thechive.com/2011/12/23/the-.....ily-37-photos/

. . . was when  cetetic picked up my dad's old accordion - an instrument he's never touched before - and after a little less than an hour, serenaded me with Oingo Boingo's "We Close Our Eyes" aka the best love song ever to feature an accordion.

This one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PqWou7WTFA

Family at a distance, holidays, you know the drill.

Also, this came up in discussion: the gender of Santa's reindeer. When I was a little kid, I always assumed the poem recited them in boy-girl pairs. Depictions in cartoons aside. Although 'Prancer' sounds like a girlie name and it's a tough choice between Donder* (Thunder) and Blitzen (Lightning), so we'll say Prancer and Vixen are the gay does and Donder and Blitzen are the gay boys, righto?


Yes, Donder. Not Donner. Donder is much cooler, baie dankie hoor!

On facebook: http://promoshq.wildfireapp.com/web.....ontests/180775

In-progress shot here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/7044162/

I'll be resting my bad arm for the next day or two making this, then dive into the next commish.

Give Biscuits a goat for the holiday gift-giving ritual.

Why, you say?

Well, for one thing, goats are awesome! Don't believe me? That hurts my feelings. But anyways, take a look at this: http://www.thisblogrules.com/2010/0.....e-animals.html

Of course, he can't have a goat where he's living at the moment but there's a nice lady in Africa that will take care of it for him.

http://www.justgiving.com/Goats4Biscuit

. . . and then I kissed someone who had just eaten chocolates laced with naga jolokia peppers.

Burninate.


Also, hey look: http://viergacht.tumblr.com/
(not much there yet, of course)

There are like 2,000 people watching so this is probably the best place to ask. I read something about it last night and realized it's wrist-slittingly depressingly similar to something I've been writing that I would really not like to trash, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to so my book doesn't look like a rip off.

I don't want to read it myself, but I need some informed opinions on whether or not I should give up. Looking for volunteers/betas.

The Real Tuesday Weld "Me and Mr. Wolf"
30's-flavored animation, gore and werewolfery, what's not to love?
http://www.youtube.com/user/sixdegr...../6/cYBCrYPRFUU

Squirrel Nut Zippers "The Ghost of Stephen Foster"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sxFyu_U2go

Tally Hall "Hidden in the Sand"
http://www.youtube.com/user/tallyha...../5/EOFA9kPQ_uU

Know any more in this style?

1. Black and white reproduction of color art. Either pony up the dough for 4 color printing or don't print the book, you chintzy bastards.

2. That style of layout where the picture very small and surrounded by a lot of white space, or there's lots and lots of white pages with maybe "gallery" or "early works" in tiny print. This is done to look artistic, but you know what? I don't care if the book is artistic, the book is merely a vehicle. I bought it to see the ART. If I wanted to look at a bunch of blank sheets I'd go buy a ream of copier paper.

3. The opposite problem, lots of pictures of the art, but in order to cram them all in they're shrunk down to stamp size. What a bonus, now let me go get my microscope so I can make them out. Seriously, pick and choose because a bunch of tiny, tiny, tiny pictures you can barely make out are completely worthless.

4. Artist comments that are as insightful as tweets. "On the day I painted this, I ate 6 baked potatoes and then threw up.". Thanks for the insight, Picasso. If you can't effectively communicate something about your process or goals or inspiration, then don't just write goofy filler.

5. This last is specific to books collecting the work of illustrators - not saying what the picture originally illustrated. Maybe they like to pretend it's fine art, but if you're painting a gorilla with a screaming girl tucked under his arm and riding a dinosaur as he fights off a sword-wielding muscleman it's fairly obvious this is meant to grace the cover of a pulp magazine or paperback. The job of the illustrator is to make us want to read the story, and you know what, looking at your art book makes me want to read the story! It wouldn't be hard to at least tell us the title and author so we could look it up.

I haven't uploaded much recently because my bad arm is still bothering me (may be time to go back to the doctor) so this may be Old News, but I was impressed to finally see some updates to FA, particularly the species list. I'm thrilled to see satyrs as a choice, but where are the werewolves? I KNOW I'm not the only person who draws scads of werewolves. Ah well, hopefully they'll be in the next overhaul.

If anyone asked me, it'd be nice to see the genders list get a facelift, too, with a few more options, and to add an option for handicraft (which right now would go under traditional art, but it would be a nice distinction for those of us who sew, sculpt, etc).