Real Superheroes among us!

Superheroes

I caught this documentary last night on HBO. Since I recently saw "Kick-Ass" and I'm a fan of things like "Stan Lee's Superhumans" I figured I'd check it out and see what it was like.

After watching it I'm not sure if I'm more disturbed or inspired by these people. I immediately had to go look into the phenomena a little more and found a website all about Real Life Superheroes (RLSH s) www.reallifesuperheroes.org .

These people are the real deal folks. They are heroes all the way. There are quite a few different types of them and I must say I'm bloody impressed and kind of ashamed of myself after reading about them. I only read a little bit about them before I felt a need to spread the word a bit. Rest assured I'll be keeping tabs on this particular movement.

They fight crime, do good deeds, help the homeless, patrol neighborhoods, teach children and basically just are living examples of decent human beings. There should be more people like this, with or without the costumes. We can all do a little more to help our fellow citizens, from helping the homeless to organizing a neighborhood watch. The cops are overworked and undermanned, social services are the same. The documentary just shows that any one of us can make a difference if we ust make an effort.

Check them out, you won't be disappointed. Disturbed maybe but not disappointed. And to all those people out there who call people like this crazy, FUCK YOU. They do dangerous things by choice, it's what they are called to do, and they do it without fear. When was the last time YOU did something you felt strongly about without fearing what others might say?

Frankenghoul & the Pinup Ghouls

I finished the first piece of the series "Pinup Ghouls" and finally got it live at our store and our galleries. Pinup Ghoul is the name of an older 3D piece that I did quite some time back and decided to use the name for a series of pin-ups. The Pinup Ghouls will have the retro pin up and nose art kind of look that I love combined with my love of things that are dark and twisted. I mentioned on my previous post that I'll be making this series, but I was waiting until I had at least one complete before I announced anything.

I have a dozen planned to go onto a calendar sometime in the future, and many others planned and waiting. Right now it's just a list of concepts and ideas which I'll be fleshing out as I go. Expect awesomeness!

The first one, Frankenghoul, almost didn't make it online at all. I was working on her, getting skin tones and details painted on when it occurred to me that I might not be able to put it in our store. Zazzle tends to pull anything that might infringe on copyrights, it's automatic a lot of the time. I knew that anything with Frankenstein or Frankenbabe (they're both movies) would get pulled as soon as I put them up so I had to figure out a new way to name her and still somehow let people know that she's inspired by the old Frankenstein movie with Boris Karloff. She's all original and all my own work but the name alone would cause me trouble. While I can say whatever I want on our blogs about inspirations and ideas, I can't at Zazzle. I finally came up with the idea of using the name Frankenghoul for the first one. I'll probably use the "ghoul" from "Pinup Ghouls" for a lot of their names in the future, since a lot of the ones I have planned are inspired by classic monsters of one kind or another.

Frankenghoul is a modern interpretation of the classic Frankenstein's monster. I rendered her out in plain black and white and then painted everything on. I had to make two renders so that I could get the ragged look on her miniskirt and the bolts on her neck. I forgot to add the bolts to her neck in my first render and when I tried to paint them on by hand, it was a disaster. I love my Genuis tablet but there are some things I just don't have the skill to paint on. All of the color on her, her stockings, all the scars and staples, and even her hair were hand painted.

I went with staples instead of stitches because that's what you see on the old monster, and frankly I think it looks cooler. Much more impact from shiny metal than little black lines. The bolts I made smaller so they might look more like body jewelry than actual bolts. I wanted them to go with the nose piercing and all the other metal on her. Her miniskirt is ragged so that it gives a more classic look, just like the staples. The hand painted stocking were kind of fun to make, I painted them on and just dropped the opacity, then I added the lace on top and erased bits here and there, to get them to match the skirt more. Her make-up is definitely one place where I decided to go with a more modern look. Thanks to some input from my wife, Frankenghoul's make up looks modern and smooth without being tacky. Frankenghoul is a pin up model, not a slut. The hair is another modern interpretation. I colored it to give a little tribute to the Bride of Frankenstein, but I made it a swept back flat top. All in all, I'm quite pleased with how she turned out and I look forward to the next Pinup Ghoul.

You can get Frankenghoul on prints, t-shirts and other gifts at Blair Peacock Creations. You can get her on a free wallpaper in our galleries at Blue Dragon Creations.

Todays Kewl Thing that grabbed me - 7/27/2011

So, I'm always on the lookout for twisted and dark pinups that grab me. After a looong discussion/conversation about what kind of pinups I should make, it was decided that I'll be expanding on my idea of "Pinup Ghouls". The very next day I get a message about this site. Lo and behold, an artists who takes iconic images and twists them in very cool ways. This is JUST the kind of thing that I like to see!

Twisted Princess by jeftoon01 on deviantART

The perfect social networking site

We've all done it. Your friends encourage you to join this "hot new" social networking site that they think "iz da bomb yo!". What a bunch of shit.

I'm an artist, a teacher, and ordained minister and a sometimes author so I accept social networking as a necessary evil. I even hope that sometimes I might be able to use one or more of them to actually make new FRIENDS. Notice the all caps?

I would love to join a social networking site where they have everything I need for work and actual social interaction. Wouldn't it be nice if such a thing existed? It would have a way to follow what someone else is saying without that person saying that they "know" you. I want people to be able to find me and see what I'm doing, but I don't want to have to add them to an ever growing list of friends. Just because you are interested in my work and what I say, doesn't mean I want to hear all your paranoid hateful shit that you incessantly post. I don't care if you want to pay attention to me, but my acceptance of your fanhood doesn't mean I'm a fan of YOU.

Shouldn't I have the option to have games on my homepage or NOT? I don't play games on social networking sites, I block them (constantly). There are people whose work and thoughts I pay attention to and there are people I know in person (family too) who I actually am interested in.

Then there are the interest crapfests that fill your profiles(s). Just because I "like" something, doesn't mean I want to be inundated by their shit. For instance I actually like futurama and watch every week (Yay for a new season) but I don't need all the marketing crap shoved down my throat. The same goes for ALL TV shows and movies with a social networking page. ( Oh who am I kidding, most of this is about facebook and you know it.)

Facebook isn't the only culprit though. They all become a bloated piece of crap after a while. I have a myspace profile and I don't pay it any attention any more. A "friend" of mine recently sent me an invite to another site (like I need to fill out another profile?).

Gimme a way to talk to friends, family and fans without having to know their every fucking thought OK? Lemme show people what I'm interested in without filling my mailbox with crap. Let me upload my ART without worrying about a witchhunt. Give me a place to put my shameless promotions and I won't fill YOUR news feed with crap. Leave the games in a place for them! Allow us to make groups, but for heavens sake, please somehow stop the empty group repetition. While we're on the subject, Why can't I search for groups in a language that I can actually READ? I love that anyone can make a group, but why can't I filter them?

Recently I jumped on the Google Plus bandwagon. Here's hoping I can make sense of it. Maybe I'll like it, maybe it'll go into my crap bin. Just let me stop filling out profiles! PLEASE!