The Call of Cthulhula - part two

I pondered the painting and figured the island in the background wouldn't work stretched across the painting, so I panicked and slapped down loads of dark paint so i could add foliage and tikis in the midground.

more dark paint in the foreboding sky.

A lot done to the painting, lots of monotone figures and then I attacked the portrait sorting out the face, making the shirt work and getting the hat right.
To complete the midground i went through the "Book of the Tiki" and nicked bits from dozens of menus and album covers, pretty much a painting exorcise rather than a unique work of art.

The Call of Cthulhula - part one

I'd thought I'd try something new, instead of a snarling tiki something a bit different. So I've been wanting to do a Cthulhu themed painting so I found this fantastically photographed "Don the Beachcomber" mug of Ooga-Mooga and overlaid it with a portrait of H.P.Lovecraft.

Then I transfered the image to the canvas using the grid method, which I've never done before, the trick to it is to copy exactly whats in each grid, rather than use the whole grid as a guide. Since I nicked the source image I went further and pilfered the background image from an old aku-aku menu printed in the Book of the Tiki.

The base colours laid down red background and blue for the front.

Since the face is the most important part of the image, I've backed up the pencil sketching with neat blue.
With two shades of green added on the hat and shirt and the figure start to come together.


With the basics of the figure in I can start on the backgound and the ominous evil idol starts to appear.

Sorry! Aye Right!!

We took a travel set of "Sorry" with us when we went around the world, sometimes it got crazy competitive between me and the missus, cards slamming to the table and foul language and threats too my life, yup the missus gets seriously competitive.
But then again we play "Sorry" by Kiribati rules and use real playing cards instead of sorry cards, so it get to be like poker.

What 10 games should really be called, but not all the renames are funny, but the Sorry one is spot on!

The Largest Pound Store in the UK

Do you know that visiting the largest pound store is like having the biggest penis in the UK but its made from marzipan, its no use for sex but its great for covering a Christmas cake but your allergic to marzipan.
Once you enter the store and see the isles of goods you can go a giddy at the though of the hundred of thousands of bargains to be had but once you actually look at the quality of the stuff then you soon realise its all a bunch of crap, which you may be able to buy it for a pound but you really don't need it.
I was almost suckered in by a big tub of Brylcream for a pound, but i hate the smell of it and its no good for pomping my hair, but it was about a pound and a half cheaper than normal.

Robots Vs Monkeys - Films

Here is a tough one D.A.R.Y.L.(Data Analysing Robot Youth Lifeform) was almost quite cool it was advertised on the backpage of 2000ad and he stole a plane and everything.
I always advise friends to choose a name for their child which could work as an abbreviation if their child turns out to be a secret synthetic robot child, like my beat friend's child O.R.R.I.C.K. - Organic Robot Replicant Infant Computer Killer or my sister-in-laws A.N.J.A. - Automatic Ninja Jet-powered Android



On the truck based monkey movies I guess their is only the classic "Every Which Way But Loose" - Clint Eastwood and an Orangutan called Clide, whats not to like.

Jazz-Age Tartan Kitsch Highland Beestie

Today is the 75 anniversary of the publication of the first photograph of the Loch Ness Monster, a Jazz-Age creature that own half its life to Scottish legends but most of its existence to King Kong.



Is it a fin of a unknown beestie or a dog holding a stick in its mouth.

Story about Loch Ness Monster photographs

My own animated tribute to the Loch Ness Monster

Robots Vs Monkeys - TV shows

I saw this clip of the theme tune of "Small Wonder" a terrible sit-com about a robot child called V.I.K.I. (Voice Input Child Identicant), which I might have seen, I defiantly remember the scary robots face and the clunky robot innards.



But if your after TV monkeys then do you remember "B.J. and the Bear" I used to love this as a very small kid, I just looked up what it was about on Wikipedia and until then i would have sworn it was about a private detective and his crime fighting chimp, the chimp used to be Cheata from Tarzan and the man went on to drive the truck in Knight Rider.
But I'm wrong it was about a trucker and his monkey like Convoy meets Every Way but Loose, oh and Bear was the monkey.

Three Heads are better than one!

So I've done another painting, wish I had a better camera to catch the detail of the art, but first I did a pencil sketch of the monster, two heads on top and a third face to make up the body. I intended to have a grinning devil long tongued face but after the two tentacle tongues of the last big painting I decided against it.


Slapping on the background red, which is a bright new crimson.


Brown for the body, the spear held by the monster is cribbed from a real Maori souvenir, I just trace around the object, its sort of cheating but more a way of excusing my dust catching collection of Maori weapons to my wife.

More of the lovely wood grain effect, their a living statue monster, plus two-headed mutants were held by some pacific cultures as divine. In the museum in Rotorua I think there was a two-headed Maori carving, it was tapu to take pictures so I have to rely on my memory.

On with the black outline and the image is pulling together, I've coloured the blade of the spear and club green to suggest Jade or as the Maori call it Pounamu.


The last of the shading, high lights and the facial tattoo's, hot pink and sky blue for them, I gave them almost identical tattoos because its easier to copy something that has worked on one rather than get all experimental and loose all the good work done so far.

Sometimes paint can be a bit odd, take the crimson in the background, it started off looking red but by the time I'd finished the figure, it looked to me that it was a strong orange. So I went for a cop out background and slapped down the old tapa print design, the dark colour is another red and a yellow ochre, which with the background comes out a faded black and gold.


The tapa almost finished, it quite soothing doing the tapa, I rub the pencil marks off as I go.



and the thats the picture finished, I like the new square canvases they suggest the cover of records, it's always been a hope to do a record cover one day, I'll just have to find some form of band that suits my art.

My little shopping

Every week that my wife goes to the supermarket with her father, she tries to reverse shoplift a "My Little Pony" toy into the shopping trolley, to make up for the ones she wasn't allowed to have as a child.

Her father always spots it before the checkout and places it out her reach on top of the supermarket shelves or hides it behind inappropriate products elsewhere in the store. I wonder if the staff have realized that they are the reason the "My Little Pony" wander all over the store.

Today her dad was unavailable to do the shopping with her and we had to do the shopping by ourselves, but were warned no "My Little Pony" were to be bought.
So we decided instead to re-brand some choice products, and to extra annoy him we added bad spelling and cutesy spelling to the labels.

In the Dark Eons before Dinosaurs...

..in time for Halloween scientists prove that eight legged star shaped beasts ruled the world before the Dinosaurs, just like Grampa H.P.Lovecraft said they did.

Star Beast from Before Time!

Just Can't Get Enough: the Chippendales Story

"Men have always danced around in their underwear, as far back as Jesus, even before Buddha"

I've been watchng the new C4 zombie Big Brother "Dead Set" and being a chronic zombiephobic I've had to sooth my mind with non-horror immediately afterward. So how overjoyed I was to catch "Just Can't Get Enough: the Chippendales Story" a perfect made-for-tv-movie about the seedy history of the all male strippers the Chippendales.

I for one was shocked to discover they dabbled in sex and drugs, but the bomb threats and Hitmen was news to me. I do belive I saw the leader of the Chippendales Fabio appear in a cameo as a photographer in the film.

For me the Chippendales will always be the snowmobile driving heroes from the mind of Zodiac Mindwarp in the fantastic book "Bad wisdom".

The Barras

I love it when people photo blog an entire days tiki hunting or searching thrift stores. Today I went to the Barras in Glasgow and its just not the place to be waving a camera around. Its not just that some stalls have counterfeit goods, illicit tobacco, or support paramilitary organizations its more that its the experience is the thing.
I swear today I saw the banjo playing guy from Deliverance in a white shell-suit selling homemade happy hardcore cd's but I defiantly saw shaven headed family guy with his daughters and grandchild pass by, i do think his half face maori moko was a strange tattoo choice.
Some of the stall's are interesting stalls selling only tablet or dog chews or used pornography or Nazi uniforms or paint/Elvis memorabilia or the book seller who has that many books you can't look at them or move them without causing an avalanche.
The best thing i saw was three six foot tall religious paintings done in household paints by a divinely inspired outsider artist, they were so nuts.

Dr Menhunious, The Wee Drunkin' Frankentiki and The Bride of the Frankentiki (part 2)

So on with the shading, slapping the black paint on.


So I've added the white highlights and some more detail on the figures and now skuffing black onto the green background to add mor atmosphere to the image.


The frankentiki is affixed to the painting by wires I cast in its back way back in the plaster stage, so i have to brutally knock holes into the painting so it can be fixed in place.


A final bit of tarting up on the Bride, extra stitches, sort out that boob and a bit of highlighting and my tiki tribute to James Whale is complete. That's James Whale the film director and not the talk radio host.

Dr Menhunious, The Wee Drunkin' Frankentiki and The Bride of the Frankentiki (part 1)

So at the last London Luau I had this idea for a version of my "Wee Drunkin' Tiki" done as a Frankenstein's Monster with Menhunes transformed into the Doctor and the Bride. So I finished the Frankentiki a year ago and finally I've gotten around to starting, originally I planned to convert the Trader Vic's Menhumes with tiny little costumes and fit them into a shadow box. But the Menhunes proved to be too thick to fit in the box without some serious cutting, so instead i decided to paint them.

In Britain we can never find Witco Carvings but I can allways find these burnt grained spanish macho wood items, this frame came with a faux oil paint print which i flipped over and about ten layers of white household undercoat flattened out the surface enough so that i could paint on it.


Because the Menehunes are now at a larger scale than the Frankentiki, I've made the male Menehune into Dr Septimus Pretorius rather than Dr Frankenstein, so the Frankentiki is like Pretorius's Homunculus.


More green and brown.


The pink added to the Leis and wood grain on the table.

And thats the black added, my hands cramping so I'll leave it and finish it tomorrow.

A Big Basket of Yuck!!

Purple fluffy feathered winged unicorns, this is what fairies vomit would look like.

Neal Stephenson

Tonight I went to see Neal Stephenson reading from his new book "Anathem", which was a bit difficult due to waterstones not having a working radio mike, so Mr Stephenson had to shout his reading.

After the reading there was the question and answer session, all the question were from glasses wearing wanna-be-authors asking about writing and not many question about the stories or characters. I really wanted to know who Mr Stephenson thought would win in a fight between "Captain Jack Sparrow" and "Half-Cocked Jack Shaftoe"?
But I did find out that by the time he was almost finished "Cryptonomicon" he came up with the idea for "The Baroque Cycle" and was able to place teaser-mcguffins into Cryptonomicon.
Not that every bit about Solomanic gold was cunningly put in as a tease, Mr Stephenson smiled quite widely when i Enoch Root's cigar box and the golden punchcards.

I did also find out that Half-Coked Jack Shaftoe's Syphilis was cured by the high fever (apparently this was crib from the life of Sir Richard Francis Burton who may have been cured of the clap by malaria) and not as I suspected that he was brought back to life by Enoch Root. Which I could have sworn there was a passage in "Confusion" that alluded to this.

It were great and then I came home and had oven chips.

Sunday Morning Occult Car Boot Sale

I've finally broken my duck at my local Sunday morning carboot sale, normally there is nothing worth buying, just holiday novels and bad home decor. This morning though i found a box with a lovely selection of mid-90's weirdness. The three books of the Illuminatus trilogy, Cosmic Trigger Vol.1 & 2 and The Book of the Subgenius, all for only 20p each.

I used to read books like this back in my "Crazy Youth" and was quite disappointed when i was jaunting around the world, to find that the backpacker libraries were full of "Da Vinci Codes" and other new age twoddle and missing the real head messing literature. If your going to have a malaria medicine and heat stroke based breakdown you might as well have it based on the classic conspiracy texts, so I'm going to send these off to my friends in Cambodia in hope of reviving 90's style traveler insanities.

Robots Vs Monkeys

In the age old war between monkeys and robots to become our faithful servants/butlers, those ever resourceful Japanese have trained up a bunch of monkeys to be waiters.

We all know that once you have experience as a waiter you can train for silver service and then its a hop-skip-&-jump to becoming a butler.
So for the moment its Monkey 1 Robot 0.

Painting a picture - part four

So now its down to the final fixing, a bit more detail on the menehune's lei and finish his concussed expression. Its important to note that the menehune is only knocked out and not dead because as i was finishing the picture i realized it was quite a violent scene.



Sorting out the eyes on the tiki, a touch of the "big eye" look.




I was thinking of painting a necklace onto the tiki, or perhaps the shrunken head of a lady menehune but instead I've gone for ribs and a ripped chest. What good fun!

Painting a picture - part three.

Adding more shading on the central tiki, the war club in it's hand is life sized, I had one kicking around so i just set it on the canvas and traced around it.



That's all the black on the figures.



Slapping on the white..



..and the whites finished, then i go over all the black lines again, to tighten up the image.



I tried to think of various way of doing the background Tapa design easily, like using stencils or make stamps, but in the end I have to carefully pencil in the shapes and hand paint them. Which is quite pleasing to do.


With the back painting finished its time to give it a rest for the day, I've been recording these pictures on my camera phone and sneakily peeking at them in every spare minute, its like a timelapse in my pocket.