AndreZero

Fall Pictures

2008-10-22T19:23:00.005-04:00

My girlfriend and I went out to a nearby park a couple weeks ago and I took some pictures. Most of them turned out pretty crappy because I still don't really know how to adjust my camera for the lighting. These were the best pictures we got. The pictures we took in the woods all make her look really pale because there wasn't much light... and the pictures we took in the open have really harsh shadows.

The next two are the same image just cropped differently.

I shot all of these in raw mode because I've read that gives you more control over things like white balance after the fact. Unfortunately I don't know enough photoshop to know how exactly I should be adjusting it!

Waterfalls

2008-07-08T19:55:00.004-04:00

Over the July 4th weekend we went to Moss Glen Falls in Stowe, VT. I took a whole bunch of pictures but haven't had time to sort through them yet. Here's one image.

I took a couple autobracketted images that I hope to try turning into HDR (High Dynamic Range) images.

Downpour!

2008-06-23T20:48:00.005-04:00

We've had a lot of storms lately. Last night was a pretty strong one with lots of lightning. Last winter I had a leak where ice crawled in under the gutters so the condo association decided to remove our gutters. There was a huge waterfall where the corners of my roof meet during last nights storm.

I've got a few potted plants that I keep on my deck so they can get sunlight and water. You can probably guess where I'm going with this... the torrential downpour focused by the angle of my roof landed right on my potted plants... and washed most of the soil out of the pots!

so much for growing my own herbs...

Weebles Woble but...

2008-06-02T15:23:00.005-04:00

I recently tested for my second degree blackbelt in Aikido. My test went very well and I owe a lot of that to my Sensei for preparing me for it. As a thank you gift I bought him a Daruma doll

I realize the cultural connotation is a bit off (it's traditionally a "good luck" gift rather than a "thank you" gift) but seeing as how it's a symbol of resilience I thought it was apt. These dolls are supposed to get back up after you push them over just like a weeble wobble. The base on the one I bought seemed to get in the way of it getting back up. I talked with some of my crafty friends about what my options were. In the end I decided to build a small bowl to sit the doll in that would be weighted and more rounded allowing it to get back up. I glued some metal washers to the base and then covered it with felt. Then I built the bowl out of plaster with some magnets in the bottom so it would pull the washers and lock the doll into the bowl.

Here's the bowl I made

and here's the doll going into the bowl.

and here it is rocking up and down as well as back and forth. I was playing around with my camera trying to get a good image showing it in action... which was tough when I had to push it over then quickly snap the picture...

So after making the bowl (which took days because each section of plaster had to dry before I could do the next) I found out that the washers and felt I glued to the bottom added sufficient weight that the bowl wasn't necessary! I included it in the gift anyway but I kinda feel like a tool!

Hardware

2008-06-02T15:11:00.004-04:00

A few years back I broke my collar bone. After 4 months it hadn't mended so I had a plate and 8 screws installed to help it heal. It's been about a year and a half since I had the plate put in and this morning the hardware came out!

Everything went well with the surgery and now I've just got to take it easy till the screw holes fill in.

Here are some pictures of the hardware.

My "Garden"

2008-04-20T17:02:00.004-04:00

Despite the fact that I work for a gardening supply company, I know nothing about gardening. Last year I planted a sample pack of bulbs. They all bloomed last summer and I assumed they were annuals so I wouldn't have flowers again. This weekend I looked out on my deck and the flowers were back!

Some of them grew up through the leaves. What is pretty cool is they didn't go between the leaves, the literally grew through them!

More Long Exposures

2008-04-19T17:27:00.005-04:00

Last night there was a nearly full moon and a perfectly clear night. I decided to go out and see if I could get a good picture of it. Apparently not! I'm not sure what I need to do to fix the problems I had...

The first one I used my light meter while not looking at the moon to adjust the settings, then took this shot.

It was waaaay overexposed! So I played around with the different settings and came up with these:

And here is the best one I made...

I need to figure out how to get rid of the "twinkle" and the lens flare.

After taking those, I took these shots of some trees nearby. I'm surprised how they turned out. These were taken well after sunset but look like they were taken in broad daylight. And the colors look like they were taken in the fall. It was too dark for me to properly focus and the autofocus went crazy.

Not exactly what I'd call "handy"

2008-04-16T15:11:00.003-04:00

I'm getting two complimentary issues of Photoshop User Magazine. I've never read it before but since it's free, I figured "why not?".

I just got this in an email about my free issues:
Your two complimentary issues of Photoshop User magazine will be delivered in an exciting new digital format that provides the full experience of the print version in a handy digital format.

I'm not necessarily against digital formats but I don't think they provide the "full experience of the print version" nor is it a "handy" format. In face, I'd almost say they are anti-handy! You can't read them on a bus, in a doctor's waiting room, or in the bathroom, or in the park (unless you lug a laptop with you to one of those places and sunlight makes computer use outdoors difficult).

If this was a book about programming (and maybe it has code for photoshop scripts, I don't know) it would be cool to have in a digital format so you could copy and paste. I suspect this is some non-copy-paste format so that's probably not actually a benefit here.

The only "handy" feature I can think of with this is archiving them would be easier than having a large stack of magazines kicking around.

I guess I'm getting what I paid for.

Long Exposure

2008-04-07T20:02:00.007-04:00

I went out last night and took some long exposure shots of cars driving by.

The above image has a little bit of jiggle. A friend recommended a few things I could try to eliminate that.

I was really surprised that the cars disappear in the final image. I was expecting a blur of the car. It's actually pretty cool that the cars don't show up.

I really liked this one. The lights appear to be taking off at the end.

I wish I would have stayed out for just a few minutes longer because an ambulance drove by with all it's lights on just after I packed up and started heading home!

Snow Pix

2008-04-07T19:50:00.004-04:00

A few months ago I went out at night and took some pictures of the snow. I really need to learn how to adjust the white balance to shoot snow properly.

Here's some snow with a street light. It looks like there is a fire.

Heroes Journey Pt 2: The associate

2008-01-28T21:24:00.000-05:00

Round 2 of this challenge is to create "The Associate" for my hero. here's what I came up with.

Detective Jacob "Jack" Kain. He is in charge of the cities Anti-Gang unit. He's made it his mission in life to bring down Mo' Fears and his gang The Knights.

After the gang betrayed Mo' and left him for dead, he's desperate for help to make them pay. Mo's been forced to forge a fragile alliance with Jack. Neither really trusts the other but for now, their goals seem to be the same - bring down the Knights!

And being a cop, he likes his coffee and donuts!

So I'm not 100% happy with the hand holding the donut. And I learned that my scanner seems to xray through the paper... you can see the ghost of my first drawing through the donuts drawing...

Heroes Journey Pt 1

2008-01-17T20:45:00.000-05:00

Over at the Dare Detectives Forum there is a (mostly) weekly challenge. The current challenge is going to be a six parter and it's called "The Hero's Journey". This challenge is to create a new hero.

I wanted to make "the most unlikeliest of heroes" so I decided to make it a "redemption of a villain" type story. I thought about the Grand Theft Auto games where the protagonists are definitely not what I'd call "heroic". So my hero is a drug dealing gangster. I imagine his story will start with a coup against him. Stylistically I'm trying to make him a combination of Stalker from GI Joe and Mr Eko from Lost.

Here's a portrait

and here is an action shot

I was hoping to find some time to put a background into the action shot but I haven't had a chance to yet. So I'm putting this up as is, with the intention that I will touch it up later.

Anachronism

2007-11-14T19:45:00.001-05:00

The Dare Detectives Forums weekly challenge is Anachronism. I was inspired by a picture of a guy riding a bicycle wearing a gi (with hakama) and a bike helmet while waving a bokken. So that was the original idea but it morphed into Lone Wolf and Cub riding a motorcycle.

Anyway, here it is!

I know the left arm is off and the angle of the handlebars is also off... But I'm pretty happy with it. I inked this with brush, which is something I'd never done before. It seems to exagerate my inability to draw a straight line! After I inked it, I ran an erase over it for a long time because my pencils has smudged all over the place and made all kinds of dark spots.

Furries

2007-09-19T21:24:00.000-04:00

The Dare Detectives forum has a challenge right now for drawing a "furry". An anthropomorphic animal. Here's my submission. Zorro the Fox.

Momentum

2007-09-10T20:43:00.000-04:00

For some reason the first thing I thought of with this topic is the episode of Bill Nye the Science Guy on Momentum. He kept referring to momentum as The Big Mo'. That got me thinking of Moe from the three stoogies as a giant. I was going to draw him smashing a city (gozilla style) but figured that without his two partners, there'd be no context for who he was (and I don't think my likeness of him is good enough to stand on it's own).

Anyway, here is The Big Moe

Worlds Collide

2007-09-06T21:45:00.000-04:00

A cartooning forum had a drawing challenge labeld Worlds Collide. The premise was to draw characters from different worlds who wouldn't normally meet fighting each other. Here is what I came up with.

It's supposed to be Batman's partner versus Robin Hood... It's kinda flat and stiff but I'm not sure how to fix that.

Visitors

2007-08-27T19:35:00.000-04:00

My first thought with this topic was "The Visitors are your friends" propoganda from the movie V from the 80's. The effects are pretty dated now but I remember how amazed I was the first time I saw the scenes where the Motherships were hovering over all the major cities of the world. So that inspired this.

I know this doesn't look like the actual ships from V, but I wanted to make it look a bit more retro than that. The top of my ship is a bit too close to the spiral end of my sketchbook so I ended up having to crop the image a bit more than I wanted to... other than that, I'm pretty happy with this.

I'd kinda like to color it in, but at the same time everything I've colored in has turned out looking kinda crappy so for now, I'm just doing a bit a shading.

Captain

2007-08-20T18:55:00.000-04:00

Captain Hook!

I googled for an image of the bad captain and used it for a refence on this...

Missing

2007-08-06T19:39:00.000-04:00

This weekend I was listening to Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me! on NPR and they mentiond this story. Apparently a family in New Jersey had thier swimming pool stolen. The really bizarre part of the story is that there was no sign of the water!

So that inspired this drawing...

I'm pretty happy with the little girl's face but the tall guy looks pretty strange... I almost think he looks like Spock.

Moon

2007-07-30T21:16:00.000-04:00

Here's my drawing for Illustration Friday's "Moon" topic.

I'm not sure how convincing the drawing is but it's supposed to look like he is tearing his shirt off at the end of his transformation.

My first idea was to draw a bubble hockey table. I know you are saying "what does that have to do with moon?". When I was a kid we found an old bubble hocket table in my grandparents attic. It had belonged to my dad when he was a kid. All of the players were made of tin. One of the goalies was bent and wouldn't fit on his post properly so we had him standing backwards. The figures were painted front and back so his butt was pointing out of the net. He became my brother's favorite player and he named him "mooner". Needless to say there was a fair amount of smack talk about how good Mooner was.

Poem

2007-07-30T20:49:00.000-04:00

Ok, this isn't my work. Here's the artwork ArkonBey refered to here. This is a pretty poor picture of it but I couldn't figure out how to get it un-framed to scan it so I scanned it through the glass... anyway, in case anyone was curious, here it is.

Discovery

2007-07-16T21:21:00.000-04:00

I've missed two weeks!! I was going to try to include the missed weeks but best I could do was 2 out of 3.

ed as Geeky bit of trivia - Archimedes was challenged to determine weather a crown was made of pure gold or not without destorying it in the process. While taking a bath he made the discovery of water displacement. As he got in the tub, the water level rose. He realized he could use this to determine the density of the crown without melting it down. he got so excited he ran down the streets naked yelling "EUREKA!" "I'VE FOUND IT!"

I was trying to go for a Sergio Aragonés look with the knobby elbows... I realize this looks nothing like his work...

Camouflage

2007-06-25T21:15:00.001-04:00

I missed last week's IF so I wanted make sure I got one in this week.

Here's my recreation of a the classic "Ninja Hedge" bit from The Tick comics...

Until next week, SPOON!

Suit

2007-06-13T18:57:00.000-04:00

I spent a few hours on monday working on a man in a space suit. I really wasn't happy with it. It was a boring pose and looked really flat.

The I read a headline (that I'd link if I could find it again) that read something like "New NASA Spacesuits Disintegrate On Re-entry". The article said they were designing suits that could just be dumped in space and would burn up on re-entry instead of having to take them back to Earth. The headline had me picturing astronauts losing thier clothing as they came back to earth.

So I drew a different picture. This one is pretty cartoony. It's still not as good as I'd like it but, here's what the headline made me think of.

Your Paradise

2007-06-07T16:02:00.001-04:00

This IF made me think of the following joke:

A man found himself, he knew not how, swept up on the shore of an island. There was nothing else anywhere to be seen. No person, no supplies, nothing. The man looked around. There were some bananas and coconuts, but that was it. He was desperate, and forlorn, but decided to make the best of it.

For the next four months he ate bananas, drank coconut juice and mostly looked to the sea for a ship to come to his rescue. One day, as he was lying on the beach stroking his beard and looking for a ship, he spotted movement out of the corner of his eye. Could it be true, was it a ship? No, from around the corner of the island came a rowboat. In it was the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen -- or at least in last 4 months. She was tall, tanned, and her blonde hair flowed in the sea breeze.

He watched as she rowed her boat toward him.

As she arrived at the beach, he asked, "Where did you come from, how did you get here"?

She said, "I rowed from the other side of the island.. I landed on this island when my cruise ship sank"

"Amazing," he said, "I didn't know anyone else had survived. How many of you are there?"

"It is only me," she said. "Would you like to row over to my place?"

They both got into the rowboat and left for her side of island.

The woman easily rowed them around to a wharf that led to the approach to her place. She tied up the rowboat with a beautifully woven hemp rope. They walked up a stone walk and around a Palm
tree, and there stood an exquisite bungalow painted in blue and white. "It's not much," she said, "but I call it home. Have a seat. Would you like a drink?"

"No," said the man, "one more coconut juice and I will puke."

"It won't be coconut juice," the woman replied, "I have a still. How about a Pina Colada?

Trying to hide his continued amazement, the man accepted, and they sat down on her couch to talk.

"You look great," said the woman, "I think I will go up and slip into something more comfortable."

After a short time, the woman returned wearing fig leaves strategically positioned and smelling faintly of gardenia.

"Tell me," she purred, "we have both been out here for a very long time with no companionship. You know what I mean. Have you been lonely? Is there anything that you really miss?" She moved closer
to him. "Something that all men and woman need? Something that it would be really nice to have right now?"

"Yes there is, now that you mention it," the man replied, moving closer to her. "Tell me, do you happen to have an Internet connection?"

Ok, so "Paradise" makes me think of tropical islands, but I'd be pretty miserable without a lot of the niceties of living in civilization. So I feel like the man in the joke above... The thing on the left side is supposed to be a satelite dish made out of palm fronds.

As I'm working on these drawings, I find really silly things get me excited. I was really, really happy with the way the womans foot turned out. I realize it's nothing worth bragging about but I was so pleased with it, I made my thumbnail for IF that part of the image.

And for the people who urged me to finish my car last week, I promise I will revisit it...

Cars

2007-05-29T20:16:00.000-04:00

Ok, after skipping the last two weeks ArkonBey said I should try comibing the theme's I missed into this weeks. I tought about making signs for a used car dealer and have some say something about "no lemons!" I thoguht that was kinda cheesy so I came up with an idea I liked even better. I as going to make a car ad for a flying Citroen and have a tagline about "A sign of the future!"

I drew it in blue, then went over it with a regular graphite pencil. After I scanned it in, I was going to remove the blue and darken the lines. After I had scanned it in, I kinda like the "prototype" look that the blue lines gave it so I decided not to "finish" it on the computer. So... it's not exactly a car ad, but I like it!

Yes, my perspective is a bit off in a few places...

Neighbor

2007-05-08T19:50:00.000-04:00

Interesting topic. While this isn't my neighbor, I'm sure he is somebody's! On my way home I drive through a neighborhood where this guy is standing out side listening to headphones. He must have a mile long extension cord on his headphones since the cable runs on the ground before going into the windows he stands next to. I'm curious what he listens to while he stands out there...

Remember

2007-05-03T20:51:00.000-04:00

Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot...

Ok, I used a picture for a reference on this one. I tried a few times to draw something original but it kept coming up looking crappy... Since I missed last week, I felt I had to do something and get it posted... So this is V in a Guy Fawkes mask.

My first thought with "Remember" was "Please remember, to tie a knot in your pajamas". Unfortunately I'm not quite sure what that means so I had no idea how to draw it...

Fortune

2007-04-18T20:31:00.000-04:00

I was going to draw a fortune teller... and I did... just not the human form!

Green

2007-04-12T19:01:00.000-04:00

I went through a handful of ideas. This topic had a lot of potential. I came up with quite a few ideas that were more complicated than I am capable of pulling off so I had to strip it down to something simple. Here it is:

I think my drawing is getting better but my computer coloring still needs work. If anyone can point me to a good tutorial on coloring with Gimp, please let me know!

Snap

2007-04-01T19:45:00.000-04:00

My first thought for "Snap" was "Snap Crackle and Pop". I was going to draw just Snap but without the context of the other 2/3rds of the trio it was hard to tell who/what he was supposed to be. So when I decided draw all three of them, I had to decide what to have them doing. For some reason I thought this would be amusing...

I Spy

2007-03-29T21:36:00.000-04:00

Ok, I didn't really like this topic but this morning I had an idea I really liked:

I like the idea, but I'm not terribly happy with my execution of it.

BY YOUR COMMAND!

Total

2007-03-21T20:52:00.000-04:00

For some reason, while trying to come up with something for "Total" I couldn't help but think of the 80's song "Total Eclipse of the Heart". So I found a computer rendering of a heart and drew it. I resized a copy of it smaller and lined it up so one eclipses the other... Mostly this was an exercise in what I could manage to do in photoshop. It's nothing great, but I feel I was successfully because it looks more or less like what I wanted and I learned something in the process!

So without further ado, I present "Total"

Wired

2007-03-18T20:33:00.000-04:00

Ok, so I missed the deadline for the "Wired" illustration friday. I liked my initial stick figure version but when I tried to flesh it out, I never liked the final result. So I redrew my stick figure drawing bigger and here it is.

The idea is "wire fu"...

Hide

2007-03-05T21:43:00.000-05:00

Here's my take on the "Hide" topic for Illustration Friday. I was tempted to go for something less obvious like hide as in leather but decided to go with a monster hiding under the bed.

I'm hoping to learn from this so if you have any constructive criticisms, please post them!

Communication

2007-02-28T18:09:00.000-05:00

This week's Illustration Friday was "Communication". After thinking about it for a while I decided to do the Communication Officer on the Enterprise. So:

I'm not 100% happy with it but it is leaps and bounds better than my drawing from last week. I tried coloring it in on my computer but it ended up looking pretty crappy so I decided to post the pencil drawing rather than the digitally colored version.

Hello

2007-02-17T20:07:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine has been trying to convince me to participate in Illustration Friday. I'm not much of an artist but I've started taking a weekly art class. Hopefully I will learn something in this process and improve my drawings.

Gravity

2007-02-17T20:03:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago The Daily Show had on Neil deGrasse Tyson, author of Death by Black Hole. He was very excited as he described what would happen to your body if you were sucked into a black hole. When I saw this week's Illustration Friday topic I decided to use that as inspiration.

Since a black hole is... black... and space is... black... I didn't shade "space" in at all... I know it looks a bit off but I wasn't sure how to handle that.