Happy Halloween Avatar

No, not the giant blue smurfs on steroids. I'm talking about that little picture everyone uses to make their mark on society.

To get everyone in the Halloween spirit I altered, mutilated, and awesomed up a bunch of people's avatars. Then I put them in a slide show.

But that's not enough so I also took all 84 and hid them inside a single Halloween image:

Happy Halloween!

House on Haunted Hill

Happy Almost Halloween everyone!

You'd think with it being just around the corner and all we'd be scrambling like a chicken in a poker tournament (I have no idea what that means). But much like our wedding we've got just about everything under control and have to wait til the big day is almost here to go into craze mode.

So instead we've been chilling like a pine cone in an ice cream factory (what the?) and what better way than with some House on Haunted Hill Rifftrax style.

You all know what that means - shiny new pictures based around the shorts.

Their first short revolved around a witch who must have drawn the short straw that year and had to put on a rather embarrassing play about how to make your own sugared cereal and save. You knew she was really there to dick with people when she suggested reconstituing powdered milk and drinking that.

I've done that before, trust me, it's got to be against the Geneva convention.

I give you, the grocery witch:

The second involved a young boy who due to eating too consuming too much powdered milk has a complete psychotic episode and believes a paper bag is talking to him and takes him repeatedly to a forest in the south so it can talk about how much fun it is being chopped down and having its skin removed. (Like I said, never consume powdered milk).

This is probably the scariest thing I've drawn in quite a while:

And of course I put it on a T-shirt cause why not?

Rifftrax Live is more fun than a barrel full of eels.

All right, that does it! This Simile book is just a series of random nouns strung together. Who wrote this thing anyway?

Oh.

Guest Comic

I've made some amazing connections on the ol' tube system better known as the 'net. People who encourage my insanity in some form or fashion leading to some rather strange things percolating in my brain and gathering dust in the back room.

I imagine someone with more focus and a better business acumen would use them to gain some kind of leverage and finally take over Latveria, but ooh look something shiny.

It was just another plutonium rod, anyway what were we discussing? Oh right, the drawing thing.

A couple weeks back I was asked if I'd like to do a guest panel for a comic I raved about on here a few months ago called Skeleton Crew. At first I thought, awesome! Then, oh crap I don't have any time. Awesome got in there again followed by "but I have all this Halloween stuff to do." Before an idea of a "story" wormed its way into my ear.

Here is the first panel of my Guest Comic which you'll have to click over to read all of:

Now it's encouraged all kinda of crazy ideas that shall have to remain secured on the back burner with the tea kettle til Halloween is over and packed up.

Oh yes, you may want to tune back in around November 1st. We've gone insane this year.

Puppy with a pile of leaves

Last year my little puppy was so tiny when she barreled through the piles of leaves it was adorable and cute.



Now that she's her full size it looks a bit more like this:

It's going to be a long fall.

Purple

As you may have noticed the internet has been turning purple today.

If you're not certain why it's to honor the 6 people that took their lives thanks to bullying because they were gay.

I've been wearing this all day as I don't actually own anything purple in real life (nor does anyone aside from the dog really see me):

And I've been turning other people's avatars purple that asked trying to help out in some sort of way with a show of solidarity.


I, like every other person on this planet, faced bullying when I was younger, but I was lucky to have been born straight.

I never had to come to the realization that my sexual preferences don't match up with what society deems correct and then proceed to worry each time if a certain someone found out who could hurt me emotionally or physically.

I've never been told that I was an abomination unto the Lord (though judging by the stuff I keep in the garage I must be getting close) and should have been stoned.

I've never faced down the othering of a person declaring something they find annoying, fruitless or sparkly "gay."

I've never had my bedroom choices and love policed by the moral right because they think they know what's best for everyone else.

Truly I've had it far better than so many all because of how I was born. So why are so many tormented, hurt, crushed, denied, and killed all because of how they are born?

That's why I wear purple.

Zoobily Zoo

Well will you look at that. It's my anniversary again. Amazing how that seems to keep happening every year. I should get together a committee and see what's up with that, it can't possibly be right.

If you are a new friend/follower/fish first let me say I'm amazed that you can click a mouse with just fins and secondly if you are at all curious about a run down of our Hallowedding here's a post from last year that sums it up pretty well. My tail is still sitting on the floor.

As for now I am looking forward, okay it's actually backwards a bit now, to Friday when my husband and I locked Essie up in the pen and headed an hour towards Iowa to the Omaha Zoo.

We must have picked "cheaper for school children day" because for being a Friday in the midst of October the place was hopping. But despite the loud echoes of excited sticky fingers and frazzled parents/chaperons I still got lots of pictures and video clips to share.

Here is my zoo trip album with an easily identifiable theme running through it.

The Second Anniversary is the fur and bone one right? What? Oh crap, I'm using the old Caveman guide aren't I?

Okay how about new video cards? That's robots.

A shiny gold coin? Pirates.

A caked over cauldron? Oh, witches.

A lb of bacon? Hm, apparently this is the Butchers guide to anniversaries but I think I'll stick with this one for now. Bacon always beats out a clock.

Rocky Marker High

October's here which can only mean a couple of things:

1. It's cooling down enough that my puppy now has the energy of a dozen suns.

2. Halloween is coming which means my house is now covered in half finished projects and my head filled with half thought ideas.

3. I'M GOING INSANE BECAUSE THERE'S NO WAY I CAN GET IT ALL DONE IN TIME!

But no one wants to see half idea thoughts scattered across a kitchen table, kitchen floor, tool shed and spare bedroom.

Instead today I wanted to share my latest artistic branch out into something new and exciting and other things ending in "ing."

In the old days when I had a random idea for a cartoon/drawing I used to sketch it out in pencil go back over in pen then scan it to add color digitally. Which works out pretty nice sometimes thanks to the undo button and all but was far more time consuming than if I just did it manually. Plus I like the control I get better with my hand than the mouse.

So after seeing a set that were 70% off I got myself 12 professional markers. But how best to break them in and get a feel for the new medium?

Why making free stuff for people, of course! People love free things right? And what better way to hide the fact that you don't have a clue what you're doing than by giving it away. Thus was born my Super Special Follow Friday on Twitter.

I took some of my Twitter friends names and created a drawing for them which I then colored with my new shiny, strange fumed markers.

In the end I managed 25 before the week was up, at about a half hour or so per drawing I think that's pretty good. I learned quite a bit about what will and what won't work and how much I miss being able to add white instead of simple not covering it up.

After the Jump I'll put all 25 of the drawings (see if you can guess which was my first) but to tide you over here's something I finished last night I call "What Chickens Dream Of."