Spitpaint #2 Robot Bowling Alley

Well, that was a disappointing result. Below is what I managed to achieve in the half hour, not what you'd call a finished piece. I was working with PS Elements, which is a little less familiar to me than the Corell Sketchpad, but still, no excuses, it just sucks.

I kept working on it a bit more, about another 20 mins, and got it to something a little closer to a finished piece, but really, it's not much better than a sketch. Time to watch some more tutorials.

30 Min Digital Painting (1st Attempt) (Also Known As "Spitpaint" #1)

I don't love it, but I'm happy enough with it as a start. I can only improve from here.
Inspired by artists I'm following on Instagram, I've decided I'm going to try to do a daily 30 minute sketch/digital painting. (They call it a "spitpaint") The subject should ideally be randomly chosen by someone else, so there's no preparation for it, but today I just tried to do a kind of alien landscape, which is just an Arizona (maybe?) landscape, but green.
I did it Corell Sketchpad, which I like, it feels pretty intuitive, but I'm not sure it's brushes are the best for this kind of thing. I'll try with Photoshop and Manga Studio as I go along.
Wish me luck.

Through The Fog

 

 

Freaky Baby Dolls All In A Row

Low Tide, Mackay.

Low Tide, Mackay.

7/12/13

MEGAFOOT

Today I want to share with the most awesome poster I've seen in  a while. This is up there with R.O.T.O.R. levels of awesomeness, though this film as of this writing, isn't even made yet. It does have a facebook page though, Megafoot. So until it gets made, check out the FB page, and gaze on the awesomness of this poster. (I'll credit the artist when I found out who did it.)

Brisbane By Night

My Daughter's Name

I recently had an idea, an epiphany if you will, about how I would choose a name for my daughter (if I ever have one). I would make the choice based on names that appear in Bob Dylan songs, or even restricting it song titles. So examples would be names like Sara, Angelina, Lilly, or Blind Willie McTell.

Awesome Photo

I don't know where this is from, and I'm not interested in finding out. I just want to bask in it's glory, so I leave it here, without comment or context, to allow you to do the same.

Awesome VHS Covers: Furious

I came across this recently, and even though I shared it through all my social media, I haven't posted it here yet. So now it is, so that any random people may also share in the glory.

And in case you wish to find out more, there is a review at trashnite.com that you can read.

Panel Of The Week: Planet of the Apes Cataclysm #11

If you're not reading this comic, you should be. It continues to be an engaging political thriller set in the world of Planet of the Apes. I don't know why more people aren't talking about it.

How cool is this?

Art by Damian Couceiro, Inks by Mariano Tabio, Colours by Darrin Moore.

Instagram Tonight I'm Lonely

Best of Instagram

I really love Instagram and the other photo editing apps. This is probably my favourite of my recent efforts. Luke at Al and Elise's wedding.

R.O.T.OR. The Greatest Movie Poster Of All Time?

Apparently the movie is bad, as in really bad, but you can't argue with awesomeness and greatness of this poster, done in a time before Photoshop when movie art was an actual thing. I tried to find out who the artist is online, but couldn't. It's not Boris Vallejo, but it's a contemporary of him. I'm sure I saw this in a Fantasy Art book from my youth, so I have to try remember what other names were out there with a similar style. Until then, we'll just have to bask in it's anonymous glory.

McDonalds Smoky Texan Burger

 Since I enjoyed the New York Burger so much, I decide to ry the the other burgers in McDonalds Taste of America promotion. Next on the list was the Smoky Texan Burger, which i again got in the value meal. This is more a more expensive burger than the New York Burger, I think the meal cost $8.95, but you might want to check that. But it is a bigger burger, with more fillings on it. It's a different kind of burger pattie, definitely more Angus beefy than the New York one, but I preferred the NY burger. It's sauce is more distinct, a BBQ sauce with a bit of bite to it. Very tasty. I'm noot a fan of the cheese McDonalds use, so it did lose points when I could taste it, but not enough to ruin the meal.
So yeah, it was good, but I recommend the New York Burger over this.

Grilled New York Burger

So since I posted about the McDonald's New York Burger, I thought it only fair that I post about the Grilled New York burger.
It's a yummy burger. It's got a smoky BBQ sauce, that's got a bit of bite to it. Actually, I'm not 100% sure about that now, since I may be getting his confused with another burger. It was very yummy, I'll give it that. It had pickles like the Maccas burger, but also bacon, which always improves whatever it's added to. But at $12.90 for just a burger, I'd rather get 2 Maccas value meals New York Burgers, because you get 2 burgers, 2 small drinks and 2 small serves of chips for less than the same price I paid for this burger and 600ml coke from a vending machine.
But it is a nice burger and I don't regret getting it.

McDonalds New York Burger

Sorry for wasting a blog post about this, but this what blogs are for, right? Anyway, it's only fair, if I review other restaurant meals, that I review this as well.
Well, I say review, but really, all I'm saying is I liked it. My bun seemed nice and fresh, and I guess I couldn't say how it was different, but it was different from the usual McDonald's bun. I guess the other two things that make this the New York Burger is the sauce and the pickles. It seems a lot of people don't like the pickles on their burgers at Maccas, and usually take them off, but I've always liked them on there. And this burger has plenty of them, so that was good. I don't know what the sauce is, what makes it New York, (maybe it was more mustardy? I think that's what the ad is suggesting), but whatever it was, I liked it. So it was nice burger I thought, I wouldn't mind having it again.
One last thought, I got it in the meal, and my chips were nice and salty, which contrasted nicely with the sweetness of the Coke, so a very pleasant meal all in all. If only it was cheaper, Maccas just doesn't seem like value for money to me anymore, but that's probably because I remember when I could get a Juniorburger there for $1.

Failed Experment 2: Hamburger Patties With Haloumi

I had an idea a while back, I can't remember if there was a specific point of inspiration, but the thought was, why not chop up some haloumi and put it into a hamburger pattie?

So I did.

I used about 600gm of beef mince, about half a red onion, a splash or two of Worcestershire Sauce, and dollop or two of my ribs sauce which was left over, and en egg for binding. Oh yeah, I also cubed up some haloumi into small little cubes. That made about 10 patties. Well, not about, it did make 10 patties, there they are in the photo above.

Anyway.

And then I cooked them.

And then I ate them.

They were alright. Nice hamburger patties if you were having a BBQ, but they were a failure as far as I was concerned. I was hoping for little explosions of haloumi taste in my mouth, but I noticed nothing. No subtle taste, nothing.

I'm going to try again, but next time I will try it with lamb mince to keep it a bit more Greek, and I've got two options. I could fry up some haloumi frst, then cube it and mix it and see if that brings out the flavour, or I could chop the haloumi up a bit larger, maybe into strips rather than cubes, or just larger cubes. I'm not sure what I'll do yet, but I'll let you know when I do.

Failed Experiment 1: Which Flavour Soft Jelly Do I Like The Best?

Mum buys a packet of soft jellies, in which there are 6 different flavours. I've wondered to myself, which one do I like the best, how should I focus my efforts when raiding the lolly jar? So I decide to set up an experiment to try ascertain which flavour is my favourite.

I started out by arranging the lollies in rows of flavour and roughly arranged in assumed favourite flavour. My intention was to then eat one of each, in order of "least liked" to "most liked", and comparing it to the one I had just eaten, to see if I did in fact enjoy it more than the previous.
The flavours in the initial run were laid out from left to right in the picture below, Lemon, Lime, Orange, Raspberry, Strawberry and Grape.

I found the bottom three didn't change, though I considered swapping Lemon and Lime. Lemon definitely has a stronger flavour, and the Lime seems almost bland when directly following the Lemon, but the test is not based on strength, so I decided that even though it is subtle, I preferred the Lime.
I made some changes to the top three though I pushed Raspberry to the top, forcing Grape to second position, and Strawberry to third. But it was not an undeniable win, I found all three flavours competeing for top spot, and could see either Grape or Strawberry coming out back on top.
Time for round two.

In the second round nothing changed down the bottom, nor did it change up the top, but I found myself not really particulary enjoying any of the individual lollies. That is to say, they all still tasted sweet, but something seemed to be missing which would make one flavour stand out above another as a clear winner.
Time for round three.

By this stage, I was starting to feel a little sick of the whole experiment, and couldn't work out which one I actually thought was the best one. I had a glass of milk between rounds. I had a sip between lollies, to try dampen the sugar, but to no avail, I could not tell.

In fact, I came to the realisation that it is the combination of different flavours in the mouth which makes one taste better. The contrast between them makes the experience as whole better, but that didn't help me choose a winner. As far as I was concerned, the experiment was a failure.

Sunnybank Dining: Himawari

I was planning on having some ramen for lunch, but the line at Hakataya was too long, so I decided to pop next door to Himawari, which means sunflower, and try their ramen. I'd been meaning to try them out for a while, so I was glad for the opportunity.
They offer two types of ramen, the Miso and the Shoyu. I went with the Shoyu. They give you a complimentary bowl of Miso soup anyway, as you can see in the photos. It didn't come with a spoon, so I waited for my ramen to arrive. If I drank it from the bowl, it just goes in my moustache, but you may not have that problem.
The soup was delicious, as in the liquid soup. Maybe I haven't had Shoyu before, so I can't recommend it over Taro's necessarily, but I'm thinking if I'm back at Sunnybank, I might prefer this to Hakataya. The pork was minimal, only 2 slices, but substantial pieces, nice and thick, and tasty, really very tasty. It had some radish in also, but I'm not really a radish fan, so I left that floating all by itself in the bowl. But the noodle, I think I ate up all the noodle I could manage to snag, it too was very tasty. So each of the individual ingredients were very good in and of themselves, but then you combine them, and you get a very tasty ramen.
The advantage that Hakataya might have over Himawari would be value. When you add in the "kaidama", the free bowl of noodle refill, its tempting to choose that over the other, but I really liked this ramen, so I will definitely go back for another bowl down the line.