Moving On…

This is probably finally, mercifully the last call for this blog.  Maybe an out-of-habit shill here & there whenever I launch new ventures or whatever, but yeah, this is intended to be the last meaningful post from me here.  Here is the key word.  While I’m not going to be posting on this blog anymore, I’m still going to be around now & then, making trades & hopefully taking commissions, and maybe even blogging a little bit.  But said blogging is going to be done on tumblr from now on (first post should go up sometime in the middle of the night).  I feel like it’ll be easier to post stuff there without the pressure of coming up with an angle to make a full, wordy post, and that might make me feel comfortable enough to post more regularly.  People might actually pay attention to my blogspace arena if I don’t randomly disappear for months on end, right?  Right?  Bueller?

Anyway, I’ll leave this here blog thing up for awhile, if not forever.  It’s a dodgy mess full of half-baked, unfinished series and weird random asides that happen once and are never about again, even by me.  Buuuut… there’s still plenty of cool shit on here worth rememberizing and someone might stumble upon it someday and find something that’s worth their while.

In closing, I just wanna say thanks to the handful of folks who semi-regularly stopped by & had nice things to say about my art & stuff.  Hopefully, once I get situated and the tumblr is showing up on the blog roll and everything, I’ll see some of you pop up in over there at some point.

I guess that’s all for now.  Hopefully my crappy little blog has only been a waste of your time in the best possible way. 😉

Until our next…

Paging SpastikMooss

Yo dawg, look what I finally got around to finishing for you. 😉

Seneca Wallace & MLB Superstar Fred McGriff..

Cross another one off the list…

Not Much Blogging, But Still Arting

I’m probably never blogging in any meaningful way on WordPress ever again, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t still been collecting cards and doing stuff.  In fact, dedicating approximately zero seconds to this blog over the past several months has freed up enough time that even my uncannily lazy & hopelessly unfocused ass has been able to settle down a bit here & there to create a decent amount (for me anyway) of art.  So I figure I might as well show off a few of my better works from the “after I bought a tablet & started using Instagram” era (established early July, 2015).

Rey Star Wars Sketch Cover..

First up is the most recent, a Star Wars Shattered Empire #1 sketch cover of Rey from the upcoming Force Awakens.  I think I spent somewhere between five and six hours on this early Saturday morning.  Turned out alright. 😉

Kyle and Jake..

You’ll notice the faces are more accurate than a lot of my baseball sketch cards these days, because I just grabbed the reference photos off the internets instead of trying to work from a tiny baseball card.  Thanks, tablet!

Bo Jackson sketch card..

See what I mean?  Not a terrible coloring job at least, despite using filtery, washed out A&G as reference.  Meh, I like this card less every single time I look at it.  Let’s just move on.

Lou Gehrig sketch card..

They turn out alright sometimes though. I’m not entirely displeased with my performance on Lou anyway.  Now might be a good time to remind everyone that, while technically I am doing this for my health (I’ve noted before, arting is good for my emotional state), I would very much like to turn my art around for a little extra cash, or at the very least, some nice new cards to add to my personal collection.  So if you see something you like, do not hesitate to leave a comment or email me or tweet me or something so we can work out a deal!

Kershaw!

Moving on, we have this Clayton Kershaw I drew/inked up well before I had the tablet/Instagram, but didn’t get around to coloring until a little while after.

Mr. Terrific..

If you’ve ever noticed I do way more DC sketch cards than Marvel, the reason pretty much entirely is because my dad has way more DC books with excellent photo reference.  He does have lots of Marvel books too, but they aren’t nearly as photo-heavy as the DC ones, which was kinda important when I didn’t have any way to access the interwarbs over there.

Heel & Face Captains..

I’m not sure why I leaned so heavily on dad’s books for reference after I bought the tablet, but apparently I did for at least a little while.

Big Barda sketch card..

This Barda sketch card is a very rare and special occurrence!  It’s one of the only cards I’ve ever completed where I liked the pencils & inks well enough, but felt like my color job almost ruined it.

Charlotte/Becky Lynch sketch card puzzle..

Finishing up with some pro graps art.  First up, this dodgy, cartoony, hastily drawn puzzle of Charlotte & Becky Lynch, leaders of seemingly failed, yet actually technically successful, #DivasRevolution.  I started a Sasha & Bayley puzzle too, but it’s still at pencil stage.  And now for a wrestling rant.  Joy…

So if the idea was to be booked on the same level as the guys, well… they are consistently booked like shit too.  So as much as it sucks to say it, more frequent lengthier matches and a small handful of the women on the show getting even semi-defined characters is probably the best anyone could have reasonably hoped for.  It’s a damn shame mainline WWE is almost entirely unwatchable garbage (NXT is excellent, however), but on that sliding (circling the toilet bowl?) scale, the 8-12% of extra effort they’ve put into the divas since 3/4 of NXT’s Four Horsewomen were called up more-or-less puts the women on equal footing with the men.  Isn’t it a shame that the only really viable game in town right now is basically the Springfield Tire Fire?

NXT’s Asuka/the last thing you see before you die..

It isn’t all bad though.  Whereas mainline WWE is the most shitty wrestling show on the planet right now, their developmental system NXT is the very best (at least until Lucha Underground comes back in 2016).  Longform storytelling in wrestling is such a beautiful thing, and NXT does it very, very well.  The reason Bayley & Sasha Banks at TakOver: Brooklyn was such a huge deal is because that match had been for two years in the making (even if not quite entirely intentionally)!  They do right by both their men and women down there, and it is absolutely mindblowing that the main shows can’t even deliver the slightest hint of gravitas and emotional stakes that NXT does in only an hour a week + a two hour TakeOver special ever couple months or so.

Anyway, the well-traveled and pretty much universally beloved badass Kana recently debuted on NXT under the name Asuka, so I tried to capture the wonderfully terrifying glare she gave Emma & Dana Brooke at the end of her first appearance.

And that’s all I got for now.  Sorry about my not even remotely groundbreaking wrestling rant.  And remember, everything above is available.  Thanks for stopping by!

Until our NXT…

Mediocre Twitter Poetry Theatre

I’ve done quite a few of these silly things in recent days.  Figured I might as well collect them here on the ol’ blog again.  I know there have been a few people who seemed to enjoy it when I’ve dropped rhymes on here in the past anyway.  It’s all pretty random, just what happened to be on my mind at any given time.  Enjoy.

When I look at you

I drink it in

Enjoy the view

Like it’s a sin

From your head

To your toes

A treat so sweet

Til the last drop flows

~~~~

Riding rough, the lonely trail

A jaded rōnin

With a battle-hardened soul

Following the money

Wherever it goes

A lamentable fate

For the once ideal

When all the while

She’s just looking

For a place to lay her head

That feels like home

~~~~

Both hopelessly romantic

Yet their views on love

Seem diametrically opposed

Is there common ground

For the one so intensely focused

All in, every time

And the one who wanders

Desiring to spread their love around

Can two beautiful, but disparate souls

Strike a lasting bond

~~~~

We are the last legion

Soldiers in a hopeless, endless war

For what we fought

And stood for fast & strong

Spanned centuries and star systems

Yet all that remains

Our sacrifice

Written in death & destruction

An ode to the ideals Of arrogant old fools

Whose night has finally come

~~~~

And this, baby

Is the perfect love

Between you and me

Our souls intertwined

Organic technology

Never felt so alive

In our flesh-wrapped circuitry

~~~~

I can feel it in my bones

My body is ready

Soon I will Shed this skin

Awaken the power

That lies within

So…

Let the metamorphosis begin

Until our next…

From Conception to Completion

Over the past week or so, I’ve been plugging away at this sketch of New Zealand-based future wrestling legend Evie.  A short while ago I finally, mercifully finished.  Not that I can actually explain how I shade with so much detail (pretty much completely self-taught), but I grabbed progress pics after each session.  Just thought it might be fun to show it in various stage of completeness here on the ol’ blog.  So here now is Evie, in five excruciatingly long steps.

Step One: Just a semi-rough outline with minimal detailing..

Step Two: The first section of shading.  Gotta start at the top and left because I’m right-handed & don’t use a glove or anything, so it’ll get messy if I don’t..

Step Three: More shading.  Top to bottom, because the lower half is about to get hella complicated..

Step Four: Roughing out the folds in the fabric.  So many folds.  So, sooooo many folds..

Step 5: Tightened the folds, finished shading dress, tightened up other lines, touched up shading in places, and voila… Done!

And there you have it!  A complete sketch of one of the coolest and most badass wrestlers in the business, in classy mode, I guess you’d say.

That’s all for this post.  Thanks for stopping by!

Until our next…

Gone, but not for Long

Looks like I hit my wall even faster than last year, unless the flurry of posts to close out 2014 count.  But I’ve no plans to disappear until the end of the year again.  Whenever I get around to scanning stuffs again, I’ll have fresh card posts to share.  In the meantime, I’ll see about getting around to more 30 Day Anime Challenge posts, and if we’re lucky/unlucky, depending on what you think of my work, maybe some poetry as well, to bridge the great divide.

I can at least say I’ve even been a little bit productive away from the blog this time out.  I have a bit of fresh art and, shockingly, even a little writing to show for my slacking off here.  The first several hundred words, as well as a new story bible, for Nexus Eternum are under way.

I really should have more to show for it, but you know how easily distracted I can be, even without the assistance of the internet and social media.  Still though, it’s amazing how much free time opens up when you aren’t really even thinking about cards at all for a significant stretch (going on two weeks now).  Once I know for sure if, and/or how badly, my checkbook is wrecked, I will get to work finishing packing up the handful of outstanding deals I have in the works, to be sent out as soon as I am able.

For the rest of today though, I have another hour or so of art in me, and a round of relatively intense cleaning to do.  Maybe I can work in a little food, and maybe even a shower too, if I really put my mind to it. 😛

Thanks for stopping by!  I’ll try to be back soon.

Here’s a random card from one of my last major scanning sessions.

Sincerely,

The Patron Saint of Lazy Bloggers

Collection Transactions, Part Whatever of Infinity

Finist Prodigies Yu Darvish..

Since I don’t really have anything interesting or useful to add at the moment (haven’t scanned anything since 2/15), but still feel like I should put something on here, I’ll toss up a few scans from January’s COMC shipment that have don’t really have anything to do with anything, and make note of a few updates to the ol’ collection.

First up, now that Robinson Cano has proven playing 82 games a year in a ballpark not designed around his particular set of skills isn’t a hindrance in the slightest, thus strongly negating the Yankee taint of one of the few Yanks I’ve ever really liked, I have added him to the Single Page Sensations page.

The only card relevant to the post.  This is staying on the 2014 Canvas Collection Single Page though..

I’m also adding Kenny Lofton, because he had a stint with the Cubs and is on the all-time underrated team.  He is yet another Hallworthy player that got knocked off after his first shot on the ballot.  Not surprising, since it’s going to be a monumental struggle to get an even better player in Tim Raines in, but still total BS.  Nearly 70 career WAR?  Piss off, jabroni.  Screw the Hall of Fame.

Forget scanned, I don’t even own any pageworthy Loftons yet.  So here, have an Archives Frank Thomas Triumvirate..

I made quintet of new set additions to my Single Page Sensations wantlist: 1996 Fleer Ultra Gold Medallions, 2014 Topps Upper Class, as well as 2015 Topps Spring Fever, purple Toys ‘R Us parallels, and Gallery of Greats.  I’m also making my need of a page apiece of base for every year of Panini Golden Age (non-baseball subjects preferred) a priority, so if you got a pack of any of them laying around, hit me up, I might be able to use some of them.

After getting my hands on a couple, my lone full set addition I’d like to get my hands on is the 40-card, Walmart Exclusive Sting insert set from 2015 Topps WWE.

Gallery of Heroes Vladdy..

Finally, the big one.  Taking a page out of Gavin’s playbook, I want cards of any and all players named Caleb, as well as any variations on the name (Kaleb, Onterio McCalebb, etc).  There are a surprising number of players and a couple non-sport cards bearing the name, but none who have really done anything of note at the pro level, so this shouldn’t be a hard collection to do.  The reason I’m finally breaking down and doing this, without going into details, is a neurotic, therapeutic one.

The only players I know I have a card or two of are Gindl, Clay, and the aforementioned Onterio.  I have no set limitations or expectations on this collection yet.  I’m just going to wait and see where it goes for now.

Ending on a sexier note, with two very talented NXT gals on very different trajectories..

And that’s all I got for now.  Will try to be less half-assed in the future.  Thanks for stopping by!

Gonna fly now…

One of those Nights…

It’s a cold, lonely night

And I’m stuck in the past again

Lost in memories

Of what I thought could have been

Can’t stop replaying

All the things I should have said to you

Everything I felt back then

You know it all still holds true

♫

It never was

I know it never will be

No matter what I say

No matter what I wanna see

But I still lose all my senses

Rehashing our brief passing

And all the times you smiled at me

Make my lonely heart

Still want to believe

♫

And I guess life goes on

Even when you can’t let the past go

No amount of pain

Can halt time’s unending flow

I cling to fading shadows

In the dying light

Of another sleepless night

♫

I know I never had a chance

But I’m sorry I never tried

And when I’m at my weakest

It kills me deep inside

I keep chasing something

I know was never there

But when I’m missing you

The signs are everywhere

♫

And I guess life goes on

Even when you can’t let the past go

No amount of pain

Can halt time’s unending flow

I cling to fading shadows

In the dying light

of another sleepless night

♫

And I guess life goes on

Even when you can’t let the past go

No amount of pain

Can halt time’s unending flow

I cling to fading shadows

In the dying light

of another sleepless night

♫

Just another damn sleepless night…

My only eBay Purchase of 2015 so Far

That’s right, most of my money has gone to COMC this year, with a little to loose retail packs of 2015 Topps and a couple repack boxes.  I’ve only bought one thing on eBay in 2015, and it wasn’t even a card.  It was this:

Raven comic book backing board sketch by Jose L. Rodrigues..

I picked up this great addition to my Raven art and sketch card collection for a whole $9.99 (shipping was free, but it was nicely protected) back in January.  As the caption states, this fantastic piece is drawn on the non-glossy side of a comic book backing board.  Looks good at the end of my sketch card binder with the rest of my larger Raven art. 🙂

Random aside: I’m considering drawing something on the other blank backing board that was in with this to protect it and sending it back to the seller, lol.  Maybe they can try to sell it too.

Haha, anyway, that’s it for this post.  Thanks for stopping by!

Take my hand, with all your might… ♫

30 Day Anime Challenge: Day Three

Day Three wants to know your favorite male character.

First up, some honorable mentions to, amongst others, Inuyasha‘s lecherous itinerant monk with a black hole in his hand, Miroku, the titular Kenshin, as well as Sanosuke, from Rurouni Kenshin, Kawabara and Kurama, Yusuke and Hiei’s far more interesting sidekicks from YuYu Hakusho, Cowboy Bebop‘s fantastic Jet Black, and crack shot Daisuke Jigen from Lupin III.  Now onto my actual choices.

More Patlabor love!

Captain Kiichi Goto of Patlabor franchise fame is my number one choice.  He heads up the ragtag band of delightful weirdos that make up Section 2, Unit 2 of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police department.  He’s chill to a fault, but also sneaky brilliant and playfully devious.  It’d probably suck to work for him, but he’s damn great to watch.

D’aww..

My second choice is Haku from Naruto, partially because I have a severe weakness for androgyness-ness, but mostly because he was just a damn good character that got killed off way too soon.  The are very, very few good characters in Naruto, and pretty much every single one of them get the shaft in one way or another.  Haku was nominally an antagonist and was subsequently killed off at the climax of the very first major story arc.  Freakin’ DAMMIT. 😡

Now I’m just upset.  But thanks for stopping by anyway.

See you Space Cowboy..