I had the opportunity to sketch Lyndhurst Castle in nearby Tarrytown, and let’s face it – it’s a hard subject to pass up! The last time I had the chance was my solo trip to Ireland almost seventeen years ago. This almost merits a return trip to to Lyndhurst with proper watercolors, paper and straight edge, due my interest in better perspective drawing.

The Xbox has been returned and we are running it through the paces – tomorrow the wife and kids are going to California for a short trip and it will likely see a lot of usage; purely for testing purposes. My hunch is that the replacement is working like a champ and all will be forgiven with Microsoft owing to their world-class reaction to this widespread RRoD (Read Ring of Death) malfunction.

I played at a BBQ Gig on Saturday 8/09 at my good friend Mike’s annual BBQ. A pickup band thrown together with one rehearsal cranking geezer classic rock for an appreciateive audience. They indulged me and let me sing a few tunes by the Stones, Dylan and Hendrix. Since this will likely be my only gig from 2008 I thought it warranted a post.

Clearly I have to lose weight. I got on the treadmill the next morning after seeing the dozens of unflattering photos Harrison took, and I may try to do daily treadmill workouts throughout the Beijing 2008 Olympics games to see how much I can lose. The TV has finally been moved near the treadmill after endless requests.

On an unrelated note, we had a pretty good family vacation at Sanctuary Resort in Sandbridge Virginia, which is about 20 minutes from the main Virgina Beach boardwalk scene. We took two day trips to Jamestown Settlement and Colonial Williamsburg and both of those attractions left an indelible mark on me, more now as an adult than my childhood visit. I guess the older you get, the more you appreciate sacrifice and hardship.

Sadly two days into the vacation the Xbox 360 (yes, we brought the Xbox, just in case of rain) finally suffered the fatal three red rings of death (RROD) after weeks of overheating. If you know anyone who has a 360, they are familiar with this. I must say Microsoft has done due diligence in repairing (i.e. replacing) it, and if it performs reliably when it returns tomorrow, all will be forgiven. We’ll see.

I used to do a lot more sketching from TV than I do nowadays. In the past you had to be very quick; but with the proliferation of the cable news networks there are lots of interesting talking heads to tackle that get long stretches of on-air time.

Jesse Ventura appeared on Larry King Live last night. Initially I thought, “what has this nation come to – electing former wrestlers and actors to public office.” But if you hear him out, he makes a lot of sense. I don’t want to turn this into a political blog, but tonight’s guest is our next President, and I need to see if I can get his likeness. I’ll even record it if I can’t be in front of the TV.

Also, Lyssti is “live” on Slingo.com today!

With Therese gone for a few days on the annual business trip to Bermuda (last year we all accompanied her), the inevitable lunch at the New City Diner with both kids in tow transpired yesterday.

There was a large, multi-family get-together at tables that were assembled to run the whole length of the diner section we were seated in. I was struck by a young girl sitting directly opposite me, and commenced a quick sketch. She had her hair arranged in a ponytail facing forward – this was a hairstyle I planned for my latest project so I considered it “research”.

Lately my multi-talented daughter Isabel has taking a greater interest in drawing and asking me relentless questions as I draw. She confessed she goes through my sketchbooks. Isabel is not very good at secrets. Of course by now the subject knew she was being watched, but didn’t seem bothered.

Besides the hair style, I was struck by two other things: my subject was not particularly pretty in the traditional sense, but did a very good job at playing to her strengths, make-up wise.

Secondly, she was sporting what must have been false eyelashes. They were preposterously long, and as a petite teen (or pre-teen for all I know), it seemed they could cause her to topple over!

Sadly, the last sketch I did on the previous page was also done in the diner. Not that I go there all that much, but I bring my sketchbook everywhere in the car. I have learned to be prepared to draw some of the local characters while waiting for slow diner service.

This is not even a good sketch.

I have to draw more.

There has been a longer than usual space since the last post, for a couple of reasons. Primarily, there has been nothing compellingly new to merit writing about. It is Father’s Day and I am reminded of my Dad’s response when I asked nightly what was “new”. He would wearily reply “What could possibly be new?”.


The girls unexpectedly presented me with a pair of Ray-Bans with the qualifier from Therese that “this is strike three!”. I have a history of having pricey shades either broken a) by me or b)for me.

• My Xbox 360 is overheating to the point of being unusable. Why fanboys (and girls) willing to accept this rate of failure is beyond me. Want to read some spin from Microsoft? Read this. Fortunately mine is a 2005 production model and Microsoft is repairing the early units free of charge. How I define irony: I can’t register the device to commence the long, slow return process because according to Hector on the MS support line “all our systems are down.”

• New Slingo game now in beta scheduled for July launch. This one’s a doozy.

This just in: the “finale” episode of my episodic “hidden object” game will launch tomorrow! So the moral of the story is – procrastinate blogging long enough and something big will happen!

Grand Theft Auto IV.

You may have heard a little something about this in the media; the latest installment in the franchise from Rockstar – in a genre called “sandbox” with which I’m unfamiliar – is in the house.

No less than the revered New York Times quotes: “[GTA IV] ..sets a new standard for what is possible in interactive arts.”

It’s M-rated, purely escapist entertainment strictly intended for my eyes only.

Mind you , it’s not perfect. Even next-gen state-of-the-art can disrupt my suspension of disbelief with issues such as “dead zombie” eyes, strange eyelid edge highlights and disconnected line(s) of sight, and appendages with polygon collisions that defy the laws of physics. I’m not crazy about the control scheme, either – and it’s a key skill. More quibbles are available from one of my daily reads: The Digital Gamer .

In the past I exchanged an unopened GTA Vice City for a more family-friendly (and guilt-free) Microsoft Flight Simulator. I can’t really cite what has changed in my thinking except for my employment in the games industry, curiosity about the sandbox genre, and perhaps a sprinkling of inescapable hype. Nonetheless this will be my entertainment for the next few months. At this writing, I feel completely entitled to this seedy indulgence- even though I typically shun movies and television that glorify and romanticize crime.

I’ve recently discovered the DAZ Studio line of products and become quite distracted and consumed with its potential. In a nutshell what DAZ Studio does is continue the legacy of Poser.
See the wikipedia entry for greater detail.

Poser is a product I largely ignored because it seemed to allow for bad 3-D art, making human figures available for 3D Artists unable or unwilling to craft them from scratch, and resulting in a lack of uniqueness and the possibility for all 3-D art to look too similar.

I am re-thinking this at this point in time for a couple of reasons:

1. Time does not permit crafting a complete, posable figure in Max or Maya and then composing my desired scenes complete with clothing
2. Coupled with reaching into my own archives of fantasy sketches from sketchbooks over twenty years old, I could spend the dwindling free time with important and challenging issues like facial expression, body language, mood/atmosphere, lighting, narrative, etc.

I have already purchased the My Lin model from DAZ, as well as a costume. I’ll likely post a case study here when my first composition is ready. Additionally I have created an Artzone profile, which was needed to get a free Victoria Base model. I aspire to publish finished pieces on that site as completed and see if this is the social networking site for me.

Well, we have wrapped our first cruise on Norwegian Cruise line and it was pretty unforgettable. This was Spring Break coupled with St. Patty’s day. I’m told cruises in general are geared towards heavy alcohol consumption as a rule so this was a “triple-whammy”.

It has happened again, at NIU in Dekalb, Illinois on Valentine’s day.

As I grow older and see kids go off to college and wind up slaughtered – it affects me more deeply than in the past when I was not a parent.

With condolences and apologies for taking too long to post:

• Catalina Garcia, 20
• Ryanne Ma, 19
• Gayle Dubowski , 20
• Julianna Gehant, 32
• Dan Parmenter, 20

The gunman was seemingly an outstanding kid. To learn more about this tragedy, see the Wikipedia page. Rest in peace.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, here’s what is new:

• Slingo has launched the “Merry Poppings” game which is a match three game with balloons. I was Art Director.

  Apparently an exploit was found and patched, and the community seems to be embracing it; it scores consistently in the top ten for player counts on the website on a daily basis.

  The design was by a departed game designer (not deceased, just jumped ship) who I was looking forward to working with. I was suprised at my anger to lose such talent.

• I’ll be attending my first ever Game Developer Conference (GDC) in San Francisco in a few weeks. Pretty excited!
• I’m obsessed with an innovative 3-D sculpting tool – and I haven’t been this jazzed since PhotoShop added layers. Not a big fan of the interface. Likely samples will start to be added to my website as they are commpleted. This allows me to resurrect some abandoned personal projects, and it’s the only reason I turn on my PC at home.