Saturday, December 24, 2005 at 9:29 PM | 0 comments  
Christy and I collaborated on our Christmas card this year. She penciled in a fellow holding a little lamb, I colored it in. Some folks got the printed card - others got an 'iCard'. Some got both. I was toying with the idea of sending the Episode III Nativity around as my digital card....but I felt some folks may not 'get it'. Usually I don't care if I offend people, but in the spirit of the holidays I decided to try and stay on the nice list.

Enjoy.

If you want to get next years card, make sure you sign up to be on the mailing list :-)

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-B
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Saturday, December 17, 2005 at 2:52 AM | 0 comments  
It's that time of year again, and I feel like sharing a special photo just for all of you. It's a Star Wars Nativity scene! Specifically from Ep.3.....

Feel free to grab the big versions for your holiday drenched desktops....

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A 1024x768 version..



A 1280x720 version..


Have a nice holiday - whatever ideals you worship or entertain.

-B
Posted by Ben
Monday, December 12, 2005 at 9:18 PM | 0 comments  
Sweeeeeet. Nuff said.

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-B
Posted by Ben

Not really. But in the spirit of DIY I entered our fav lil monkey in an adult swim (cartoon network) contest. The prize is for a car, which would be neat-o groovy, but I took it as an opportunity to get off my ass and put an animation together. You'll see two links below, one is to view the submission that I sent to adult swim. It doesn't have any credits, or naughty words and had to be under 20 mb. The other link is an uncensored version, as I prefer to present Paint Monkeys, Inc. It's bigger, and better, and has naughty content that I removed for the sesitive Cartoon Network folks.

I doubt I'll win, as it's pretty offensive material. But, considering what I do see on the air - I'm on par. Either way it's done, and maybe someone will take interest and flip the bill for a full blown pilot episode.

Enjoy. Be patient, the files are big. Wear headphones. Update your QuickTime viewer as I use the H.264 (HD) compression scheme.

*Update* I moved the vids to my .mac site so the files would stream faster. You can also download them and share with all your lame friends that don't have high speed internet.





-B
Posted by Ben
Sunday, November 06, 2005 at 7:05 PM | 1 comments  
A while back I donated some work to an auction for GoArt!. They're a great organization, and I received a grant through them a few years ago. They help a large number of artist in Genesee and Orleans county by coordinating shows and facilitating grants and general arts integration. I've had the honor of being on a handful of grant review boards, and it's always great to help make some kind of an arts impact. Someday, I'd like to do more full time work with them, but for now, I have to work for a living.

Anyhow, I do like to help when I can. So I donated some work - more accurately the commitment to do work for the lucky bidder. What I was donating was a portrait for inclusion in my current series. Well, that was the plan...the winning bidder asked that her granddaughters be painted. Even though this isn't what my current series is about, and I normally don't do kids - I agreed since she donated a generous $300. I ended up getting photos of her, and her daughter in law which I will eventually use for the portrait series. More on those later.

For now here's the Girls;

In progress;



Detail;



Final;



-B
Posted by Ben
To celebrate Halloween, I'm resurrecting a drink I created last year. I call it the Blood Clot. Perfect for a halloween dare. It looks and sounds disgusting, but it tastes sweet and fruity. Only the brave will ever truly know...

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In a standard shot glass add the following in this order;

3/4 Peach Schnapps
1/8 Amarula
1/8 Grenadine

-B
Posted by Ben Labels:
So as I sat in the goddamn Doctor's office...for an HOUR, I had a few entertainment choices. One was watching the Family Guy movie on my brand spankin’ new video iPod. The other was staring at the oft corny info-posters in the office. the 'vPod' is always entertaining, but so are the posters - each in their own special way. I particularly enjoy the posters that are only in Spanish. I think one was about feet. It had a foot clip art image. Another I interpreted as being about birthing. It had, like...birthing stuff on it.

One poster I enjoyed was one titled "Slow Metabolic Syndrome" It featured this rather large man. It's done old-school. That means, for medical illustration, it was airbrushed. Some artists apparently still do that (and by golly, good for them). Fatty (who somewhat resembles me...only in pure fatness) has this retarded grin on his face. He suspiciously looks like he has down-syndrome. Maybe all us fatties look like that. No. I know I don't.

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-B
Posted by Ben
Thursday, September 22, 2005 at 5:17 AM | 0 comments  
Christy and I just returned from visiting my parents in Mesquite Nevada. While we were there we visited a few monuments; Zion National Park, Byrce Canyon and the north rim of the Grand Canyon. If you're into hiking, then these places are perfect for you. My only regret was not having a higher calibur digital camera. But alas - regrets are for the dying. On the last day we visited Las Vegas. I'll have more commentary and other photos at the Camera Phone Gallery about Vegas, and other trip happenings.

While most of my photos are private, I do have a few compilations that I thought would be of interest.

"Freemont Street 2005"
On our last night, I roamed the old downtown, a.k.a. Freemont Street. It has a certain charm that the main strip lacks. I wanted to photograph the signage. Eventually I'll do more with these images, but for now I'll share what I have.



"North Rim, Grand Canyon 2005"
One of the highlights for me was to visit the north rim of the Grand Canyon. I've seen the west rim, and there is a stark contrast. While the west rim is dead and barren, and a spectacular display of scarred landscape, the north rim is full of life, very green and far more full of life. For this assembly I took about 20 or so photos and used Photoshop CS2's photomerge feature. It does a pretty good inital job, but I needed to touch it up. Doesn't beat a good panoramic camera, but it's what I had, and it's what I did.



-B
Posted by Ben
Wednesday, September 14, 2005 at 3:25 PM | 0 comments  
Christy and I went to Nevada to visit my parents in September. They live in Mesquite Nevada, a little over a hour east of Las Vegas, right next to the Arizona border. It was great to see them, and I love the desert scenery. It always seems like alien landscape, as if we're on Mars, compared to lush are ever green (when we're not covered in snow) NY state. The hot days are wonderful without the humidity we're used to. Makes a 99 degree day very bearable.

One of the days my parents drove us to a shooting range that a friend of theirs, Mike, works at. It was an amazing sporting range, wide open on any side for miles, set into a canyon floor. While there I got a chance to shoot Skeet and Trap. Up till that moment I never shot a gun a moving target, so I was sure to do miserably. But I quickly got used to the action part of the sport, and before long I was nailing those quick buzzing clay pigeons. In my first round I hit 17 out of 20 targets. In my second go around I scored an 18 out 20. Not bad, but I was trained on Doom, Unreal, and Counterstrike - who says games rot your brain. I've been subtly trained over all these vast years to be a marksman.



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I'm envious of Mike's pistol collection, this is but a small sample;




Oh yeah, Vegas and the Grand Canyon were cool too. I made some pretty pictures from those trips.

-B
Posted by Ben
Sunday, September 11, 2005 at 4:45 PM | 0 comments  
So we have a big house, some have said way too big for just two people. We don't care. Christy and I bust our asses and we enjoy coming home and having sanctuary. Even though the village of Holley apparently enjoys screwing home owners - we persist. But every bogus tax increase gnaws at us little by little every time.

Our house is 93% complete, and solid. The previous owners were contractors, and rebuilt the house after a major fire about 15 years ago. In fact portions on the attic still have exposed scorched wood, like scars.

If your following along, we haven't had to do much work on the house. I'm and lazy ass artist, computer freak, paint monkey and Christy is a graphic designer, homemaker kinda gal. We ain't carpenters. So, thankfully not much has needed repair.

But, and I say...BUT...

The porch roof sprung a leak. And as I explored the damage I realized the damage was more than just a freak happening. It's been building up over the course of a few years. The damage extends from the ceiling/roof of the porch, to the base of our tower, and up around the window directly above. The culprit, other than some half-assed flashing, was where the roof meets the tower. Water hits that corner from a super steep roof, slams the corner and pours down blasting the window frame. From there water gets backed up, and eventually pools and finds it's way into areas it shouldn't go.

Insurance co. says it's not covered. I say Insurance co. is full of shit. I also say that our lawyer needs to review our policy. But that's a gripe for another day.

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-B
Posted by Ben
Wednesday, September 07, 2005 at 10:46 PM | 0 comments  
I've always been a big fan of fantasy films. Dragons, Knights, Wizards - it's all good. Excalibur is one of the earliest films I remember watching. It always stuck in my head. While digging through a Best Buy bargain bin, I found the DVD version, at $5 I couldn't resist. Watching it again after all these years was amusing. Funny how the world seemed bigger back then. I took screen captures of the movie as reference to create another love of mine - movie posters. Presented here is the sketch for the poster, as well as the beginning stages of Guinevere's paint. I'm not sure if I like it thus far...Time will tell. I'm doing this one out of pure nostalgia, so who knows when it'll get done.

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-B
Posted by Ben
Sunday, August 28, 2005 at 11:21 PM | 0 comments  
Those of you that know me personally, understand that I have an affinity for action figures. I have a large collection at home ( and plan to eventually photograph it all ). One of my recent acquisitions was a Galactus figure. To get Galactus you had to collect his body parts by buying seven other figures in the Marvel Legends series IX from Toy Biz. Then assemble him. He stands at sixteen inches tall, by far one of the tallest figures in my collection. When I finally did assemble him, I had an idea to photograph him in various poses, and create a marketing piece. I've always admired how McFarlane Toys photographs their figures, and I really wanted to try my hand at it - my way.

Here is a size comparison between Galactus and a standard G.I. Joe figure;



Some of the original photos:

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Final composition, you can use these as desktop wallpaper;




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Galactus is a Marvel Comics character. The action figure was created by Toy Biz.


-B
Posted by Ben Labels: ,
So I get the itch to get a new phone, and switch to a new carrier. I have Cingular now - and it's been satisfactory for me for the past few years. I loose signal inside of Wegmans and Wal-Mart. Aside from the occasional random dropped call, I really can't complain. So being cheap as I am, I decide to buy and port my number through a 3rd party company. Wirefly. I bought my current phone through them last year (and get a 1 year contract too). That went just fine. So I decide to go through them again for my upgrade.

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It's a Motorola E815. Bluetooth, supposedly all the bells and whistles. Quite and upgrade from my current V600. So I get the phone and my number gets ported, and I love Verizon, and get to sync all my data via Bluetooth.

Right?

No. Not even close. First off, I had the phone for 3 weeks waiting the whole time for my number to get ported. I call Wirefly's "customer support" over and over, each time (after 5 min of recorded CRAP) the customer support (BTW Indian) assured me that the problem would be solved within 48 hours. Well it never did. Before I finally cancelled the whole deal, I did a little research on Verizon, and this new phone I had sitting idle. I tried to link to my Mac via Bluetooth. They saw each other. Neat-o. So I took a snapshot and tried to send it to the Mac. No luck....Mac says the phone doesn't support that feature. Hmmmm. Tried to sync my address book. Mac says the phone doesn't support that feature. Hmmm.. Tried to send a (Mp3,Mpeg4, photo,etc...) Every time, Mac says, the phone does not support that feature. I need my custom rings. I need my custom screens. I need to take photos (where would this blog be?). I guess Verizon wants you to use their camera phone network. No free bluetooth transfers..

So I slueth. I find this handy dandy chart on Verizon's oh-so-easy to navigate site. Turns out Verizon like to lock out most of the useful Bluetooth features. Especially usful features, such as address book syncing, and media swaping. I mean, why would I want to actually use a feature, that I was built into the phone? I could unlock the phone, using special hacking tricks, and void out any warranty in the process.... Whatever. Verizon blows for crippling hardware features. Some of us use Bluetooth for more than linking to overpriced hands free units.

Screw off Verizon, screw off Wirefly.

Now I wait for my order refund. I wonder what crap I'll get nailed with now...

Bluetooth

-B
Posted by Ben
Saturday, August 27, 2005 at 11:35 PM | 0 comments  
Clicky;

Posted by Ben
Wednesday, August 17, 2005 at 2:12 AM | 0 comments  
Clicky;

Posted by Ben
Friday, August 05, 2005 at 11:45 PM | 0 comments  
So Dan gets a nice new toy. It's an AK-47. I haven't traditionally been a 'gun guy', but I must say that this piece of harware is impressive. And the really cool thing is that most Americans can go out and buy one. No special permits needed (thank you NRA for keeping our rights alive and well). I think we all should have at least one.

So for lunch on Friday, Dan invited me and Rich out to test his new toy.

Dan takes his first shots with the AK;


Rich takes a few shots;


I take a few shots;


My target after 10 shots;


After it was all said and done, we had to clean up our mess;


That's a trash can with 90 spent rounds in it.
This beast would let off a ball of fire with every round fired.
Gotta love the 2nd Amendment.


-B
Posted by Ben
Saturday, July 30, 2005 at 8:35 PM | 0 comments  
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An actual gift, at a real wedding. Not even wrapped. In fact, it's a freebie for opening a checking account at a local bank. It's a lunch box thermos cozy. It's a wedding gift. Someone actually thought that this would be an appropriate gift to give a newlywed couple. And that it was so cool, that it shouldn't even be wrapped.

Did I mention I live in Orleans county?

-B
Posted by Ben
Tuesday, July 26, 2005 at 6:12 PM | 0 comments  
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My work PC is messing with my head. I seem to get this screen more and more lately...at random times, for no apparrent reason. Well, actually - it happens when I least need it too.

-B
Posted by Ben
Clicky;

Posted by Ben
Clicky;



Introducing Green Face.
Posted by Ben
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Of the few Vietnam Veterens I know, not a one has fond thoughts of Jane Fonda. Hanoi Jane as most of them would mutter as their teeth grind under their breaths. I find it facinating because all I knew of her was Barbarella. The above precious moments were captured in the men's room at the Holley V.F.W. Post 202. You can take guesses on were those decals are sticking. But if you think to long, then you're just a dumbass. My father and I visited the V.F.W. as he's a Vietnam Era Vet, which means he was enlisted during the conflict, but never went to Vietnam. He visited us from Nevada, and as per tradition we walked across the street and got blasted with a bunch of really good people. Vets. They're good people. Go thank one today.

-B
Posted by Ben
Tuesday, July 05, 2005 at 11:21 PM | 0 comments  
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Ahhh...a night out at the grand 'ol Falls. Christy and I met up with Dan and Shannon for some booze and overly corney attractions. The Falls themselves are always a cool site. I could do without the tourists. It's funny how I don't consider myself a tourist since I live within an hour of the falls. I think that's a pretty solid philosophy - if you live within an hour of an attaction, then you're a native.

-B
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