Latest Posts by robtfirefly - Page 4

My homemade Tom Servo hanging out at the movies in 2004.  This display seemed to catch his interest for some reason.

He's a totally functional puppet, built out of most of the same parts as the MST3K crew used (or, where unavailable, fan-made replicas of same.)  I'll put up some clearer pics of him soonish.

My BFF Grey has a listing on the Internet Movie Database.

As you may know, if someone listed on IMDb wants to upload a photograph to their listing they need to buy a pro membership on the site.  While I couldn't do that for her, I did the next best thing: I redrew my Fairey-ish portrait of her in smileys, and posted it to her IMDb message board.

I can't help but think the potential of message board smileys as an artistic medium has barely been scratched.

I was screwing around with the Doctor Who Red Nose Day special short "Space/Time" (see those first if you haven't) and this accidentally happened.

Doctor Who ©BBC.

A rough Doctor Who sketch from 2000 or 2001, done to stave off the boredom of the retail job I had back then.  I wasn't allowed to nap, so the Doctor got to instead.

I sketched this clandestinely behind the store's counter in black ballpoint.  This scan is color-corrected to counteract the old cheap ink having gone a bit violet over the years.  Around 9x6".

This past Wednesday I volunteered to add something unique to the thank-you gifts we gave to Off the Hook listeners who pledged their support during our final fundraising episode of the season.  During the show I drew a series of telephones, all different, all off the hook, one after another in a live marathon.  Everyone who donated to WBAI during the show's live broadcast will be receiving a random one of these.

This was lots of fun.  I did better than I thought I might both time and quality wise, and the fundraising was successful with many awesome folks supporting our listener-funded exploits.

You can listen to the episode by going to this archive page and selecting the May 18, 2011 link.

Signed, dated, and numbered series. Archival ink on heavy paper, 7x10".

Studio photos by Mike, first-five photo by dot.ret

It's National Draw T-Rex Day, as started by crashsuit and spread around by nedroid over on Twitter yeterday.  For my contribution I riffed (very badly) on this guy.

Some more captchart.  The 1963 Wostro, the herpderpiest automobile the swinging sixties and a wonky captcha had to offer!

Public domain source images: 1 2 3 4 5 6

In response to the current kerfuffle going on in Neil Gaiman's corner of the Internet, the affable @mistressmousey suggested her artist acquaintances draw this elusive creature known as the pencil-necked little weasel.

So sorry, etc.

Way back in 1999, I was attempting to capture frames from a video file on a Playstation 1 disc; I no longer remember which game it was.  The process of accessing video from a PS disc in a regular CD-ROM drive was unstable to begin with in those days, and it didn’t help that I really wasn’t sure what I was doing.  Instead of grabbing usable screenshots from the video, my wonky software (which I seem to remember being in Japanese with no translation available) and wonkier settings generated four 320x224 bitmaps which, while unrecognizable, were surprisingly pretty.

I’ve been saving the images ever since, hoping to find something to do with them.  I haven’t managed to find anything yet, so I stitched the four frames together into one image and am posting it here.  Instead of using the Creative Commons License I normally apply to my work, I’m posting this graphic entirely public domain and free of any restriction in hopes that folks might get some sort of use out of this old accidental digital art.

WARNING: Spoilers for the Doctor Who episode "Day of the Moon" ahead.

I really liked the nanorecorders from the episode.  I started wondering how cosplayers and such might emulate the special effect of the nanorecorder in a live setting, and thought of the UV-reactive invisible ink used in things like hand-stamps at concert venues and nightclubs.  This is a quick-and-dirty sketch of how such an idea might be put to work.

If you manage to make this effect work, please let me know!

aikainkauna:

WASSSSSSSSSSUUUUUUUUUUUPPP.

(Dying of laughter.)

(by robtfirefly)

It amazes and delights me that people are still digging this ridiculous thing I made 11 years ago.  That's something like three centuries in Internet Time.

If you desire context and production details, click through to the YouTube description.

I could explain that this is a photo of Walt, my character in the surreal dark comedy theatrical musical Aisle Six, who long ago had Hondo the hand puppet as his best friend and co-conspirator in mischief such as trying out the toilets at Home Depot, and this image was among those used in the show during a flashback slideshow of Hondo explaining his and Walt's storied past.

I could justify posting this to my art blog by pointing out that I did a serviceable photo manipulation job; at the photocall I was actually seated in front of a plain wall on a plastic chair.

I could reinforce this picture's value as a portfolio piece by pointing out the fact that I sourced a copyright-free public domain image to use as the background, so as not to cause the production any potential problems or costs.  I could then invite the viewer to hunt down and examine the aspects of the original I had to manipulate to get a usable background.

But I won't do any of that.  Instead, I'll just announce that this will probably be the most awesome photo I'll ever appear in and leave it here.

When I was growing up, there was a certain "inspirational" poem most, if not all, of my elderly Christian relatives had framed and displayed somewhere in their home.

I rewrote the poem as inspirational material for a Jedi pursuing the Dark Side of the Force, and set it against a Tatooine version of its standard backdrop.  I don't know about you folks, but I certainly feel more inspired now.

Here's the poem in text:

"Bootprints"

One night I dreamed I was walking through the Tatooine desert with Lord Vader.  Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.

In each scene I noticed bootprints in the sand.  Sometimes there were two sets of bootprints, other times there was one set only.

This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life, when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow, or rebel defeat, I could see only one set of bootprints, so I said to Lord Vader,

"You promised me Father, that if I joined you, we would rule the galaxy as father and son.  But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my journey toward the Dark Side, there has only been one set of bootprints in the sand.  Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?"

Lord Vader replied, "The times when you have seen only one set of bootprints, my son, that is when I levitated you."

Public domain source photos taken from here and here.  Star Wars crawl font taken from here.

I subtly altered a scene from the Blake's 7 episode "Bounty."  I wonder if you can spot what I changed.

AISLE SIX - YOUR ONE-STOP SUPERMUSICAL by Nicola McEldowney

More info on the FREE April 11 reading of this show in New York City which you can FREELY attend for FREE can be found in this blog post.

More info on the show itself can be found on my site as well as the author's own page about the show.

If you're in the area, come see us!

I liked basing a drawing on the userpic of my 400th Twitter follwer so much that I decided to make it a habit for every hundredth follower after that.  Here's a fifteen-minute sketch of my 500th follower, who just happens to be my old pal @jayeennenn.  Jenn's an old-school telephone enthusiast like myself, among other things she archives old telephone company recordings, so I dug up the last telephone book left in my house and doodled her on the telephone page.

I must point out that Jenn is more attractive than her userpic or this sketch of her userpic would suggest.  I'd snark at her extreme-eyeball-close-up avatar and tell her to go back to MySpace with that stuff but, well..

Ballpoint pen on telephone book page, 9.75x6.5".

Me as world-renowned and universally-beloved superhero, Italian Spiderman. Unfamiliar?  Watch this, read this.

Thrift shop clothes: $8

Fabric paint: $5

Cut-up cat mask: $6

Bagged wig: $10

Dodgy pornstache: model's own

Unlimited admiration and caffè macchiato from every woman who happened to glance in my direction: senza prezzo

Photo by Sidepocket

Sometimes upon encountering a captcha the obvious captchart gag comes immediately to mind, and won't leave one alone until one finds the right photos to 'shop.

Public domain sources: 1 2

Making captchart has quickly become one of my favorite ways of fishing for ideas and/or killing time.

Sources: "The Hungry Earth" (© BBC) and this guy (PD).

I decided to try my hand at Troll Physics.  Let's all do this and party in space!

For those unfamiliar with Troll Science/Troll Physics: SFW / NSFW

My current business card.  The design was slightly accidental; I was playing with some vintage photos of my ancestors to pass the time while trying to come up with a new business card design, when I realized the distraction I'd been fooling around with would be just the thing to use.  It's a bit more "me" than my previous business cards.  I'd like to think my late great-grandparents would approve.

Background skyline is adapted from this public domain image.

Printed on 3x2" cardstock, with glossy coating on the front and rounded corners.  The reverse is blank, the better for writing any additional information the situation may require.  The cards are also quite useful for getting old food out from between one's teeth, though I always make sure to not use my relatives' corners for that.

A fun little fandom meme I filled in bit by bit on breaks over the course of a busy day.  I generally try to fill things like this in by doodling as rapidly as possible with minimal erasing or undoing.

I was pointed toward this meme by my friend and fellow Doctor Who fan aikainkauna.  The original blank meme is by neekaneeks on Deviantart.

These logos for fictional trendy Web 2.0 sites were made for the latest episode of The Media Show.  The show called for a bunch of silly but real-sounding website names which were generated in the manner in which we write many of the show's greatest jokes; blurting increasingly random things back and forth at each other on filming day until we've all hopelessly dissolved into fits of convulsive giggling.  I then whipped up suitably shiny icons to match.

"Toop" is pronounced "taupe" because of course it is.

I took some video of part of my rail commute and set it to the English-language cover of Yatta! I made recently; the result turned out surprisingly mellow.  More info and an MP3 download in the track's original post.

Captioned lyrics are included if you click through to YouTube.  Here's the direct YouTube link for embedophobes.

This goofy track has gotten a far kinder response here and elsewhere than I thought it would; thanks, Internet!  I shall have to do more musical things.

fuckyeahtrollface:

Trollface stencil.  U jelly, hand-painters?

I stencilized Trollface.  It was my first shot at making a stencil out of someone else's image and it came out ugly as hell, but the original Trollface is also ugly as hell and that has done nothing to diminish my eternal love for him.

More info on Trollface for the uninitiated:

Encyclopedia Dramatica (NSFW)

KnowYourMeme (SFW?)

Trollface fans new and old should be following these tumblrs (all NSFW):

fuckyeahtrollface

trollphysics

fuckyeahtrollphysics

drawadinosaurday:

This Raptor-flavored spoof of The Scream started as a silly doodle, and ended up a full-blown digital painting.  This was a lot of fun to do, thanks to all at DADD for the occasion!

I'm rather proud of this.  It's an entirely digital painting, done on a graphics tablet in Jasc Paint Shop Pro with a few original versions of The Scream and a toy velociraptor as reference.  This was "painted" using only the Paint Brush and Smudge tools, and the Dropper tool was used to pick up colors from one of the originals.

No filters or anything like that were used, what you see is what I got manually.

Happy (slightly belated) Draw a Dinosaur Day!

I started playing with recording over my own voice in multitrack, and after about an hour and a half this accidentally happened.

If you're one of the poor unfortunate souls who haven't experienced the glorious original version, here's the video and here's the Wikipedia article.  I put together these lyrics based on multiple English translations floating around out there; I think I've kept the basic gist of each line intact.

I have no regrets; if nothing else, at least I actually hit every sour note without pitch-bending or autotuning of any kind.

Download this track here if you're unwell enough to want to do such a thing.

There's a music video now as well.

More The Wicker Man nonsense.  My extra-derpy Nicholas Cage from my earlier piece is now a brand mascot, paying tribute to another memorable line from that cinematic bee-sting.  Would you buy your next bottle of God Damn Honey from this man?

Inspired by the ending of this rather brilliant Wicker Man YouTube Poop.

Original photo by Flickr user TheTruthAbout (cc by-sa)

When I learned that Neighborcon's own Travis Goodspeed encouraged attendees to counterfeit the con's Tennessee-shaped badges, I swore I'd make the best Tennessee-shaped badge ever and proudly display it at Neighborcon NYC in December 2009.

When I arrived I found out Travis meant the badge should be shaped like Tennessee the state, not Tennessee the playwright.  How embarrassing.

Permanent marker on PVC.

One fine evening in the lobby of the radio station WBAI, where I work on Off the Hook, I was doodling in my sketchbook to kill some time.  I decided to draw the file cabinet, plant, and telephone which happened to be in front of me.

When the drawing was complete I stuck it to the wall behind the cabinet, natch.  It was suddenly inaccurate, though, so I added the picture on the wall to the picture, and so on.  It's cabinets, plants, and phones, all the way down.

I figured someone at the station would get rid of this before too long, but as you can see from this photo taken a couple of months later (note the plant's growth) it's still in place. In that time I've witnessed a few other denizens of the place notice, do a double-take, and get at least a slight chuckle out of it.  RESULT!

2013 UPDATE: The sketch, which I posted in November of 2010, surprisingly ended up staying on the wall for a couple of years.  It remained even after the plant had grown larger, the phone had been replaced, and the cabinet had been moved.  The lobby closed down, and the station and its contents hurriedly transferred to other facilities, when the building was damaged by Hurricane Sandy in October 2012; the drawing's fate remains unknown.