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Chiropterothopter

A piece in the works… still a little bit more to go. I had the container lined in velvet – but that was just enough to make the coffin lid touch the metal fangs.

Afterwards, I decided I rather liked the look of the screws – gives the thing more of a toolkit look like what I was going for.

You can’t see it here, but the coffin has brass legs, set up in the way that legs on a grand piano would be. It makes it look rather elegant on a bookcase or other surface.

Chiropterothopter

The piece does come apart – head and wings detach – revealing mechanical insides to the creature.

I am also working on a brief [fictitious] instruction manual for the mechanation.

Were it an actual functioning piece – its purpose would be to collect blood samples from would-be targets. An essential tool for the most modern and civilized of voudou and/or alchemical assassins.

Chiropterothopter Disassembled

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Sabicu (engraving) WallPaper

Sabiku WallPaperCreative Commons License

Wallpaper: 1280×1024 made from the engraving “Sabiku”, which is available in my store as an 14×11 Metallic Print, signed and hand-embellished in silver archival ink.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License Addendum: You are definitely free to convert it to a Jpeg or Bitmap to match your native environment, and to resize it to fit your desktop, or for blog entries about this entry or site, but that of course falls under “personal use” or “fair use” anyway.

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Conception Wallpaper

Conception WallpaperCreative Commons License

Wallpaper: 1280×1024 made from the piece “Conception”, which is available in my store as a 16×20 Metallic Print, signed in silver archival ink.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License Addendum: You are definitely free to convert it to a Jpeg or Bitmap to match your native environment, and to resize it to fit your desktop, or for blog entries, but that of course falls under “personal use” or “fair use” anyway.

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A Brief Reminder

If you are planning on purchasing any of the lovecraftian seascape airship prints today, there are a handful on sale at our Etsy store, including giclees, hand-embellished prints, and metallic prints. Some non-airship strange-fiction themed prints are also included.

If you have ever wanted a print from my store, and do not have it already, this might very well be the best day this year to do so.

Typically, we try to keep the prices at both stores about even with each other. This, however, is a rare sale, with much lower than usual prices on limited quantities of each print (Look for items that say “SALE” in the title).

If interested, please follow this link: EttaDiem.Etsy.com

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Current progress on commissioned works

For Coni: Sketches and Underpainting (in oil) are completed. Resuming this project as soon as Seth’s commission is done.

For Seth: Sketches, Background, Midground, Foreground done. Working on the main subjects today, then added detailing and shading. ETA: Looks like another 5-7 days.

For Brian: Board cut, gessoed, and sanded. Research, Sketches working in free time or time away from paintings. This one will be worked on in between layers of Coni’s painting. Both should be done around the same time, with yours drying/shipping first due to the difference in media.

Conservative Estimated Shipping ETA:

Seth: 1.5 to 2 weeks
Brian: 1 month 2 weeks
Coni: 2 to 2.5 months

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Silly Hats Only

Beth evicted herself from the desk the other night so I could paint in some warmth – since it is many months running still with no sign of relief from the cold.

I’ve been making much better progress since, especially with my computer being in the basement (not so tempted to obsess over ad campaigns, client invoices, and item view counts).

I put the painting down for today, as she needed to get some sleep, and understandably so.

I will show you pictures soon. Some of which will not be fuzzy pictures of my nether regions.

A relative’s car has been in the shop off and on for months now, last broken down state has lasted weeks. I am sure the mechanic feeds it treats every time it comes back to the shop. I should cut off his hands and feed them to the squirrel, but I won’t, not today.

Well, the relative needs work transportation. We’d just lend her the car, but she is afraid of it – which probably has something to do with all the people it runs over. So, getting up at 6AM on a night’s notice tends to mean being antsy over needing to sleep, and drifting off at 5:45. Beth tries to sleep, I stay up all night so I can get her moving, and ride with her or drive. I would just go in her stead – but my glasses are 8 years old, it is a long drive with a lot of turns, and I doubt I would make it back all that easily -if at all, though I would have a great excuse to not stop for cops: “Sorry young man, but I can’t see a thing! [clipping my credit card to his ticket board and writing in a tip]. You’d better not have forgotten my egg rolls this time!”

I’ve decided to try to stay up the day and get to bed at a normal person hour, because I want to see what they are up to one of these days, as I know they are up to something. This schedule has really been making it hard to manage schedules, tough to get enough done – both of us, zombies through the day, managing nothing useful at all save for noggin-chomping and clawing at badly boarded windows. The neighbors hate us.

So, this morning, I have been treating myself to some world conquering… Risk II… ‘not that exciting when you’ve tried every combination of generals, every handicap, every play option – more of a method of relaxing at this point. I still have Heroes 5 uncompleted on the other machine, never bought any expansions for it either.

I promised myself I would play it again when I had a day or two to sink into such things… it was new when I set it down… in 2005?

If I ever win the lottery, I’d be tempted to lock myself in a cabin for a few weeks with every RPG and strategy game I have missed over the last 20 years, every movie that has been in and out of theaters, a 200-lb brick of beef jerky, a man-sized wheel of cheese, and maybe even some of that water stuff – since milk and soda don’t keep too well. I’d look like Grizzly Adams. I’d also have a bear, who I’ve already named “Larry”. He eats furries, else he gets no desert. I guess I would have to get my caffeine through bleeding door-to-door missionaries dry with a pointy straw – the likes of those straws that we, as children, used for pinning shiny bags of fruit-scented sugar-water to the palms of our hands… every day at lunch… screaming, bloodily, “I LOVE SHINY FRUIT JUICE! YEAAARGGHHH!”

Meh. If I know myself, I’d probably end up spending it all on hit men and singing telegrams singing hitmen, a cask of amontillado, a bucket of mortar mix, and a clown suit.

On that note: I’ve noticed a lot of people, saying “Happy Birthday” to me and similar things, both real people, and internet models, even though my real birthday is not for at least another ten years. Still, it’s the thought that counts – that thought being “buy me a pony!”… or better yet, buy yourself something shiny!

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Birdhouse

more at my flickr account

More at my Flickr Account

These are images of a recent art project – a birdhouse which will be at a late March Art show (featuring myself, Bethalynne Bajema, and others) at the Genuine Artikle in NYC.

This piece is not yet completely done, but, it is close enough. Mainly I need to color the creature that lives within the box, and add some gold leafing to the birdhouse. So, I figured I could get some pics up while waiting for paint to dry.

It is made of wood (birdhouse and coffin), brass (hinges, feet, handles, eyelets, latches), super sculpie (the creature that will be inside the box), and a lot of lacquer.

In other news, I received a nice plug from this site, which I am most grateful for, as I am for all such mentions. I am, of course returning the favor – not as a courtesy, but because they themselves are well-worth giving a shout out. There are a lot of great artists and crafters listed there, a lot of great blogs about artists and artworks there – it is definitely worth checking out.

[edit – Birdhouse, DONE!]

(My Flickr account images, regardless of what they default to on upload, are always Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported)

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10 still available.

Last week, 12 special “Behold the Machine” 53×29-inch Hand-Signed and Hand-Embellished prints with serialized holograms and matching certificates of authenticity were put up for sale.

Of the run, all of them hand signed and certified, only these first 12 will be hand-embellished, and I am offering them at the same sale price as the standard prints from this run.

The first two to sell are artist’s prints, unless the buyer requests otherwise, one of two A.P.s, has sold already.

If you are interested in this offer, here is a direct link. If you haven’t been here before and would like to see additional pictures, you can also go here.

Site News: Currently, I am painting – so there is not much going on here in the form of content, yet. Look to see images of the new work within the next week and a half – if that is why you are here. If not, no, I will not do the dance again – not until you apologize.

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Gnaaargh! Oh! The Butter!

The sun is coming up, and I am putting down the paints for the night.

I had started a post about my painting process earlier tonight, but it was coming off too much like a tutorial – rather than serving the purpose of stating what my stuffs are made of and what is involved.

Tutorials are the stuff accomplished artists and great artists alike tend to put out: I on the other hand was looking to outline how incredibly obsessive I can be, whilst distracting you from my true purpose, and assuring you that I am not up to anything even remotely nefarious.

Instead, at least until I take pictures and trim everything down to 10,000 words or less, I will just put up the abbreviated version for now:

1) Adrian Monk ain’t got nothing on me. I’m nuts.
2) ????
3) Coffee!
4) Actually, I don’t like coffee – though I do love caffeine.
5) Let’s go ride bikes!

… And there you have it. As impressed as you may be by my anal coherence to archival standards and such, I am unfortunately unavailable for commissions until I get the ones I have done. Pictures of those (in the works) forthcoming.