MARVEL MANIA

So over at Comic Book Resources via io9 someone posted the menu from one of my all time favorite restaurants MARVEL MANIA. It was like Planet Hollywood or The Hard Rock Cafe, except that all their memorabilia was fictional and had to be made by a prop house. "Oh, you have Keith Richard's guitar? That's cool. WE HAVE THE FUCKING INFINITY GAUNTLET!!!"

Since I recently just bought a new scanner and dug out an old photo box I figure I'd share the scant memories I have from my one visit to the restaurant. As you can see we geared our interests in a specific direction.

PLATE: What a great logo.

SHOT GLASS: Thank god Marvel's heroes are in the real world otherwise I'd have to start calling my Manhattans Metropolises.

-GD

Not all I do is 1s and 0s

PAINTINGS:

So as you may or may not know I am coming into the homestretch of expecting a little girl. We already have all the furniture we need and the wife picked a color scheme of Pink/Fuscia and Black. She got some wonderful wall decals for one wall.

But, that was just one wall so we need to cover others, so the wife asked if I could contribute some artwork for our daughters room. I worked within the color range (for the most part though it's a bit more purple than pink) and came up with this cuddly little beast. I'll probably still tweak it, put a shadow underneath the critter and fix a couple little things but it's pretty much done. I'll also take a better photo once I find my camera charger, this is the iPhone but thought I'd share.

DETAIL

OTHER PAINTING THINGY:

So, also yesterday we picked up a couple little items. Down the street from us here is a Consignment furniture shop. It's called Consign Design, but that is not an invitation for you to go gank all the cool stuff I am now gonna look for. We have literally driven past it every day for the past 2 1/2 years and never gone in because most of the stuff we can see from the window is antiques, 80's contemporary etc... Not really my style and occasionally no style at all. But earlier this week they put a 60's orange lamp in the window so I figured I'd stop by and see how much it was. $250... way too much for me right now, but looking around the store I saw a couple other things and came back yesterday with the special lady, did some haggling with the very friendly salesman there, (thanks John) and walked away with this painting as well as 2 (original as I just discovered) cushion-less Burke chairs. All for a very respectable price. My only concern now is this... Who is the artist of this beaut'? And what do we name her, or do we just stick with calling her "Spanish Lady"? [again, iPhone pic, WHERE'S MY DAMN CHARGER!!! I've got a baby to take photos of soon!!!]

-Garrison

More Music

Ok, while I do like the work of my friend Anduze (find him at iTunes or CD Now), I have to admit I spent the better part of the weekend listening to this. The full album, which found its way to me via an industry friend, is just as awesome as the first.

I'm so happy that Brendon Small bothers to make real music to accompany his fake band. So often "parody work" winds up resting on its humor or the fact that it exists at all. No one would put the work of the Rutles or Cb4 against their real life counterparts. Even Spinal Tap, while amazing, still can be heard singing with their tounges in their cheeks. Dethklok could be put up against any band out there and probably come out swinging.

-GD

Support this man!

If you're a fan of smooth soul, new soul, old soul, slick vocals, or just good music for f*%&'n check out this new release by a friend of mine, Anduze. It's a soulful examination of love lost, well not so much lost but given away. "Speak Now" is particulary catchy.

Oh, I also did the album art. so, you know, make me look good.

ANDUZE - CLOSURE

-GD

Text Illustrations

Been playing with some very lo-res sketches of text illustrations, just to work on the process for it. The Cloud City needs a lot of work but I like where it is going I just don't know if I'm going to take it there. I'd need to see if I can make these sorts of things move in AE.

-GD

HALO what?

Well, I finally saw "District 9" last night. Amazing. A few years ago I came across "Alive in Joburg" online and fell in love with it. There was a stroke of brilliance in it that I hoped would one day translate to a full film by that director. I never could have expected that it would be a feature length version of Joburg. For the past 30 years every genre film has basically tried to be Star Wars or Alien/s, I'm so happy to see someone develop a new aesthetic for other people to rip off for a while.

I'm also glad that we are moving past Music Video directors getting feature films and back to commercial directors. People like Blomkamp and Kosinski (Tron 2) who have actually had to tell some form of story in their previous work for hire rather than just make it look good (which they also accomplish). I feel I have been burned far too many times by the "it" music video directors who have made some of my favorite videos coming to feature films and making aimless, pointlessly depressing, and ultimately plotless character studies about hipster assholes, that never lived up to the visual potential introduced by their previous work. You guys all know who you are.

In any case, I was excited when I heard that Blomkamp was going to do Halo. I've never played Halo, but the guy visually had the chops. I'm insanely glad that it fell through because, and again I only know the broadstrokes of the story, I doubt Halo would've allowed for as personal and well fleshed out story as D9. BUT! As I was watching D9 unfold one video game lept to mind that I would love to see him do, and it ain't Halo. It was all solidified when Wickus picked up a pig with what I could only describe as a Gravity Gun and send it flying into a soldier, that I could loosely describe as a Combine. Let's get this guy on Half Life, pronto. Forget Halo. And I imagine it would look a little bit like the image above. (edit: yeah, I did it, you can see a little GD in the corner, thats me!!! :) And here is the original if you are curious...

-GD

COMIC-CON Part Deux: The Stills

While I was handling the video, my special lady was wandering around with the still camera and she did alright. Here is the album. Normally I would edit these more, but whatever.

SDCC PHOTO ALBUM!!!

-GD

COMIC-CON DISASTER SPECTACULAR!!!

Got this done! Alright! Hope you enjoy it.

As usual click through the link for the HD version.

-GD