Tag Archives: art

Tall Tales

During E3, there was a brunch. During said brunch, there was a discussion of Tall Tales (Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, etc), in nostalgic amusement for the Americans of theĀ group and a bewildered, slightly horrified reaction from the Dutch member. We learned that Dutch Tall Tales are a little lacking in the Tall department. Then there were a few other adventures.

I normally don’t like to be all public with inside jokes, as there’s nothing worse than an inside joke you’re not in on, but other people seemed to enjoy these for their own sake so I guess it’s not too bad. So, just for you, a new set of Tall Tales!

Continue reading Tall Tales

Art Blog

So, in honor of my 10th year of blogging, I'm starting up another blog project which has been on my mind for awhile.  It's basically a doodle-a-day, processing my backlog of drawings that I do in my notes during meetings and such.  Since it's on an auto-post schedule, I don't really have a good way of crossposting it here, beyond starting up an rss account for it.  

All the same, if you want to subscribe via other means, here it is!

http://wertle-doodles.blogspot.com/

Halloween Studio Crawl

Last night was prowling about in the local Goodwill trying to figure out a costume for tonight’s Studio Crawl. I have been mildly depressed lately that I haven’t really built a good Halloween costume in ages, and was poking about the aisles hoping to be inspired.

I began thinking about props I could use, and my bright green parasol came to mind. It was bright green, it was Asian in design, and suddenly…that was it! I would go as an Eastern dragon and tote along my parasol! I was quickly galvanized to scour the Goodwill for any bright green article of clothing I could find.

I put together the costume last night and the headpiece this morning. For the headpiece, I used a ball cap and created a dragon face on top with foam and feathers and the like. The bill acted as the dragon’s snout, and I was quite pleased with the whole outfit! I even made three-claw gloves out of some purple mittens (it was nice to fire up the sewing machine again). Pictures to come soon, I’m sure.

Anyway, I joined up with Edmundo, Carlos, and Rich, and we invaded Schell Games as the League of Awesome. Rich had put together a fantastic steam punk time travel monster-hunter get-up, with a brass-plated gauntlet, a steam-powered shot gun, and other such fun gadgetry. Carlos was a mime, and Edmundo was a classic Frankenstein monster. The details in their costumes was delightful, and the Studio Crawl was great fun.

There were other such fun costumes from other IGDA members at the Crawl: Beast in scientist garb, Michael Cera’s character from Juno, a Tonks and Lupin duo, and a FANTASTIC Phoenix Wright getup (the guy just modeled his hair out of flat fun-foam, it looked great!).

All in all, a great night, and a refreshing one at that. Having a venue to go all costumed up is just the spark I needed after several years of dull or effortless costuming on my part. I feel very much in the Halloween spirit.

Back in Pittsburgh

My first thought as I unpacked my Corolla’s-worth of belongings from the summer and piled them into the middle of my room, looking over all the stuff I’d left behind and done perfectly well without, was this: “I own too much stuff.”

In the past few years, I’ve often made notes about the purging of stuff, how I’d like to own less, how I need to get rid of things I don’t use, and the like. But this being my final year of school, I’ve decided that I need to take action in order to rid myself of excess belongings.

My goal this year is to get rid of at least one thing each weekend, be it big or small, thrown away or donated, or whatever. Some things will be easy (my old desk, for example, will be easy to disassemble, set out in a box on my porch and say to craigslist, “Free desk, first pickup gets it.” Other things, however, will prove tricky to get rid of.

I have, for example, a large number of art supplies crated up in the basement. This is everything from oil paints to casting materials for mask-making. Part of me wants to keep it, as art supplies are an expensive start-up and generally last pretty long. But another part of me looks at the last time I was able to devote time to an art project (in undergrad, really) and thinks that perhaps it would do better as a donation to someone who has chosen an artsier path in life.

I’ve gotten better about detaching myself from sentimental belongings, and before the summer I did manage to gather up a good number of old stuffed animals for donation. But I have, for example, a dresser given to me when I was young and a couch that once belonged to Nancy. These things, I suppose, I should hang onto. My bed, however, I could probably do away with, having found that I can sleep perfectly well on a Japanese-style futon. And let’s not even get into my kitchen stuff, yeesh!

If anyone has tips or advice for getting rid of belongings, please share!

Fun Facts

Did you know that I have had illustrations published in two places?

The first is in Brendan Adkins’ fine collection of short stories, Ommatidia. Even if you haven’t been following his 101-word short story project at Anacrusis, I highly recommend this book as a fun and swift read, full of variety and intrigue. Seeing the stories in print adds a sort of magical quality to them, and if you are looking about for a new book to purchase, I’d suggest you give it a chance.

The second is as card art for Jesse Schell’s Deck of Lenses, a compliment to his book, The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses. I illustrated one of the lens cards in the deck. The book and the deck are both fantastic tools for the aspiring game designer, or really a designer of any sort. Perhaps you should investigate!

My Little Dreadsteed

(x-posted to wow_fanart)

A billion years ago, someone posted a picture of My Little Dreadsteed, and I thought “that’s awesome! I want to make one of those for my warlock friend!” and everyone said “You should!” and I said “Okay!”

I actually finished most of this a long time ago, and then it came to rooting the mane…zomg, I don’t see how those MLP customizers do this on a regular basis!! Anyway, it’s done, and my friend squealed in delight upon giving it to him…

Great big pictures!