Art - Hay field

Had to get some pencil crayons for school, where we were tracing signals on electrical schematics.

It is near the end of the semester, and I am feeling homesick, so I just started sketching up a landscape based on a panorama I took a couple of years ago.

I like how the right side of the drawing came out; not very impressed with how the left mountain came out. I need to figure out how to get depth into a object.
  

full page legal (8.5 x14) using Staedtler pencils.

Halloween Story

I'm not much for Halloween.  When I was a kid, I could not understand why there was a special day for scaring people; Prehaps I still don't understand it, but like it for being the one day I can show up in unusual attire.

I tend to avoid scary stories, movies or games. I will read plot summaries for them, but actually watch it? Ugh.  I think the System Shock games was the closest I have been to playing a horror game, and even then I only came close to finishing one.

But it's Halloween.  I do have a (true) story to share with you related to the subject.

Back when I was a kid- maybe 5 or 6 years old, I had this dream. I don't remember what time of the year I had it or even the events in my waking life leading up to it. I think may have had trouble falling asleep before the dream.

The scene fades in with a dim, pale green light. The entire dream seemed to be in this light throughout. There is a little girl in a rain poncho, simular to little red riding hood. It is raining, She is singing a little diddy of some sort while lifting one leg, claps her hands, then turning a little bit before lifting the other leg and clapping her hands.

She does this for about a minute before lightning begins to strike.  It seems as though the lightning bolts are chasing her, and the girl starts to move to shelter - what, I don't remember, but I think it was a house.  The final scene I remember is the girl removing her poncho and casting it aside - in slow motion - just as a lighting bolt rends the poncho in two.  The scene ends after this.

The next thing I know, I'm supposed to reenact this. I put on a poncho and walk out to the rain.  I think I walk around some before the lightning starts to show up.  I think I try to take my poncho off to throw it aside, but either I don't do it fast enough or the poncho becomes awkward for me to take off. The lightning bolt hits me.  The bolt seems to push me on my stomach and then pushes me forward on the ground, seemingly about 15-20 feet.  I remember water and mud splashing on me as I slid forward, and I was in a bit of confused fear and shock.

I wake up after the lighting finishes sliding me along the ground.  I didn't have any reaction to the dream, other than just lying on my bed and thinking "Just what the heck did I dreampt?" I refreshed myself and went back to sleep.

I don't think I ever had as haunting a dream like that.  I may not think about that dream for a few years, but if it ever shows up in my memory synapses, the whole memory sequence comes back.

I don't know what might happen when I share this - Creepypasta always has something where the haunting is shared somehow; But I know that this is burned into my memory and I can never forget it
- the dream of the little girl dancing in the rain.

Model FMC Skidder - Part 4

Alright, now it gets messy!

I had mentioned that I this was my first scratch-build, and to be honest, the first plastic scale model I have come close to finishing.  What this means is that the model has a fairly considerable number of newbie mistakes that, even now, make me feel a little embarrassed about. Looks don't match, the plastic got messed up and became a gluey mess in spots, and maybe I should of considered painting as I went.

I figure since this is a model that I don't want to draw too much attention to (Otherwise those problems will start to become apparent), and partly because I want to stretch the project out, I have decided to put it in a display case.

But not any display case; a diorama!  Have a scene where it is being used! Finding a figurine in the pose I wanted (and not military) was a bit of a challenge, until I stumbled upon Slot-Car accessories.

I  settled upon a 1:32 figure holding a fuel hose as the pose I wanted.  I cut off the fuel hose and the top of the guy's head, and some sculpty gave him a hardhat.  a quick repaint got me a pretty convincing late 80s / early 90s logger.

After priming the model skidder, the painting started.  I had initially wanted to try airbrushing, but I psyched myself out on preparing for it, and I decided to settle for brush painting.  It was messy, it was brutal, but it came out looking pretty acceptable.

The arch came out a little short, but I figure if I have it tilted in the diorama, no one would notice. I'll use some copper wire as the cable.

I'm going to have to do some weathering (And figure out what the hell I'm going to do for decals) to put it in the diorama, but this is a major landmark for me!

So onto setting up the diorama! I figure a lot of it will involve terrain modeling similar to what is done with model railroading.

On technological ages

In Sim-Earth, the population's settlements were marked by what technological age they were in: stone age, bronze age, nuclear age etc.

I got to thinking that the past century could be divided up into 'ages', where rapid development was being made and mainstream opinion was largely positive.

1800s:Steam age
1900s-1940s: Mechanical Age
1950s: Nuclear age
1960s-1980s: Chemical Age
1990s-present: Electronic Age