Been an expensive week, it has. My heating/air unit died for the last time. It's been costing about a grand a year just to keep it repaired for the past four or five years. A couple years ago the heater died on Xmas Eve and of course no one could fix it over that weekend, so by the time it got fixed it was down to 40 degrees inside. Brr! It's kinda surreal to be sitting there watching tv while your breath is visible. Anyhow, the thing died again last week (coils cracked and leaked out all the coolant and burned out the circuit board all in one go) and that was the last straw. Spent a horrible amount on a brand new unit. Sigh. At least I won't have to worry about it again for a number of years.
I also went and ordered one o them Wacom drawing tablets. An Intuos. I've never used one before, but I've wanted to try it for years. If it works and encourages me to draw more, it'll be a worth it. Thing is, I don't have a very visual imagination. I have ideas, and I have the technical skill (if a bit rusty), but
there's a blockage in there somewhere that doesn't allow a proper
translation. I can't form a good solid image in my mind to draw from (and faces are also very fuzzy in my memory). When I visualize something it's very unstable and abstract. It lacks detail and is more a set of concepts rather than pictures. A blur of trunks and green are a forest. I need to view something in front of me to draw it well. It's why I express myself much better with writing than drawing.
It's not that rare, people have a wide range of visualization acuity and even good artists can have very little. They either make it work for them or they find a workaround. It does affect the drawing process, though. When I want to draw realistically without a reference it starts out as a lot of rough overlapping sketches, honing in more and more as the vague concept starts to look more natural. The problem with that is it takes a lot of trial-and-error and a whole lot of erasing. Paper just doesn't last long against all the erasing I have to do... gets those fuzzy spots. It's the same reason I disliked painting -- you can't erase! But with digital drawing and tablets, I can erase and redo all I need to without any trouble. That's the theory, anyway. Here's hoping!
Oh, and I've counted six turtles in my yard, a chipmunk, and one three-legged squirrel.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Doom of Plants
First thing I did this morning was this:
The next thing I did was visit a plant nursery with half a mind to look at holly bushes. They didn't have any. But I did wander through the rows of flowering plants with envy. See, I can't keep plants alive. Not many of them, anyway. I can't even keep cacti alive, and I love cacti. Back during the few years I lived in CA, I lived a block away from a cactus nursery featuring amazing succulents of all kinds flourishing in profusion. But it was hopeless. I couldn't even keep a cactus alive in the desert.
Compounding the problem is my yard, which apparently resents having holes dug into it to the point of killing anything I attempt to plant. Oh it's not unfriendly to everything, sure... oak trees like it here, azalea bushes do fine, there's some wild jasmine, a rose bush I planted last year is alive, and I have a splendid Japanese maple that is almost exactly old as me. And the yard is green, I can't fault it there -- there's a little grass and plenty of weedy things that, when mown short, give it the illusion of having a lawn. But just about anything I try to plant in it... is doomed.
Part of the problem is the shade what with all the oak trees around. There aren't many spots that get a good full sun. But shady plants haven't done well, either. I tried fancy moss. It didn't take in the sun or the shade. Regrettable. I like moss. The bigger problem is the soil, this hard dirt clay stuff that stunts growth. Few bulbs flower, things grow slowly. I'm sure its chemically all wrong. But even a deep layer of nice rich loam-in-a-bag doesn't seem to help much. Oh, greeny things! Why must you be so fickle!
So, among all the plants at the nursery, I left with nothing but a teeny tiny chick and hen plant in a pot barely wider than a quarter.
 |
| What? I'm just a little guy! |
Compounding the problem is my yard, which apparently resents having holes dug into it to the point of killing anything I attempt to plant. Oh it's not unfriendly to everything, sure... oak trees like it here, azalea bushes do fine, there's some wild jasmine, a rose bush I planted last year is alive, and I have a splendid Japanese maple that is almost exactly old as me. And the yard is green, I can't fault it there -- there's a little grass and plenty of weedy things that, when mown short, give it the illusion of having a lawn. But just about anything I try to plant in it... is doomed.
Part of the problem is the shade what with all the oak trees around. There aren't many spots that get a good full sun. But shady plants haven't done well, either. I tried fancy moss. It didn't take in the sun or the shade. Regrettable. I like moss. The bigger problem is the soil, this hard dirt clay stuff that stunts growth. Few bulbs flower, things grow slowly. I'm sure its chemically all wrong. But even a deep layer of nice rich loam-in-a-bag doesn't seem to help much. Oh, greeny things! Why must you be so fickle!
So, among all the plants at the nursery, I left with nothing but a teeny tiny chick and hen plant in a pot barely wider than a quarter.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Succulent Sizzle
Tried making teriyaki beef. Well, it tasted okay. But the beef strips came out all tough and chewy.
I'm a bad stir fry. : (
I'm a bad stir fry. : (
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
John Willie, a Founder
There have been April showers, and the wild jasmine growing on my back fence has burst out in a profusion of sweetly scented flowers. I'd say that makes it time for another review!
Evil Dolly's Featured Fetish Artist of the Day: John Willie.
It could be said that John Willie, or John Coutts, (1902 - 1962) was a worldly man. Born in Singapore, raised in England, lived in Australia, New York, and Hollywood. A self-taught artist, he did fetish photography and illustrations from the 30s up through the 50s. I think it is fair to say that he is another artist who had a big influence on fetish art later in the 20th century. He was a contemporary of Irving Klaw... though I don't believe in reality he ever met Bettie Page as depicted in the movie The Notorious Bettie Page. I'd say the bulk of his known work came from his comic series Sweet Gwendoline and his own periodical publication, Bizarre magazine.
Here's my chunky Taschen collection of Bizarre. I found it in a kinky shop (I think it was Stormy Leathers) while I was in San Francisco for the Folsom Street Fair... must have been around 1996. I snatched it right up. The magazine does feature a lot of Willie's artwork and bondage, though the bulk of it is fashion fetish photography (heels and boots, corsets, gloves, stockings, that kind of thing), some articles and stories, and lots of kinky reader mail. All in all, it's pretty innocent.
Among his favorite subject matter were corsets, heels, restrictive clothing and costumes, and tear-filled eyes. I like the detail on those gloves up there, with the outlines of fingernails. For the most part, he seemed to put more focus on a more realistic and simplistic sort of bondage, as opposed to some of the more contortionistically extreme bondage machinations of Stanton and his peers (some of whom I've yet to feature). Simple ankle hobbles, basic wrist ties, a gag... you're all set! And it never hurts to have an exposed back or bottom to cane and whip.
One thing I appreciate about the style of his painted works are their softness. The black and white ink washes have a very watercolory air about them. And that up there on the right... bound to a tree and stinging red welts on a nice summer day... refreshing! Of course there were a variety of gags, bridles, and branks.
And, naturally, there had to be ponygirls!
John Willie's work isn't too hard to find, if you're interested. Both Sweet Gwendoline and the Bizarre compilation can be found without too much difficulty, both used and reprinted.
Evil Dolly's Featured Fetish Artist of the Day: John Willie.
Here's my chunky Taschen collection of Bizarre. I found it in a kinky shop (I think it was Stormy Leathers) while I was in San Francisco for the Folsom Street Fair... must have been around 1996. I snatched it right up. The magazine does feature a lot of Willie's artwork and bondage, though the bulk of it is fashion fetish photography (heels and boots, corsets, gloves, stockings, that kind of thing), some articles and stories, and lots of kinky reader mail. All in all, it's pretty innocent.
Among his favorite subject matter were corsets, heels, restrictive clothing and costumes, and tear-filled eyes. I like the detail on those gloves up there, with the outlines of fingernails. For the most part, he seemed to put more focus on a more realistic and simplistic sort of bondage, as opposed to some of the more contortionistically extreme bondage machinations of Stanton and his peers (some of whom I've yet to feature). Simple ankle hobbles, basic wrist ties, a gag... you're all set! And it never hurts to have an exposed back or bottom to cane and whip.
One thing I appreciate about the style of his painted works are their softness. The black and white ink washes have a very watercolory air about them. And that up there on the right... bound to a tree and stinging red welts on a nice summer day... refreshing! Of course there were a variety of gags, bridles, and branks.
And, naturally, there had to be ponygirls!
John Willie's work isn't too hard to find, if you're interested. Both Sweet Gwendoline and the Bizarre compilation can be found without too much difficulty, both used and reprinted.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Stifled Creativity!
You know what would be awesome-keen? Making a game. More specifically, a game based off my li'l Slave Role Generator. Maybe like an isometric Sims sort of game, where you have this mansion that you build up over time, populated with these little slaves and the guests who've come to use them... income based on the happiness of the guests mainly due to the quality and variety of slaves.
You could build and maybe decorate gardens and rooms with specific purposes, like different dungeons, bedrooms, dining room and kitchen, pony slave stable. And of course all the different slaves would need their own dorms. Maybe use seamstress slaves to unlock more outfits? You'd have to pay to acquire more slaves to raise the satisfaction level of the guests, and as the game progressed the randomly generated slave roles would become more diverse and you'd have to figure how to best utilize them.
And each little slave would have stats like Morale and Obedience that would affect their job performance and escape attempts, based on their training and how they were treated... whether they did their jobs well or wandered off a lot or broke down crying in the middle of the hallways. You could have slave trainers and staff on the payroll to keep everything running smoothly, but those would later be replaced with Drone slaves who'd work for free, but wouldn't contribute much to satisfaction since they'd be brainwashed to the point of total obedience but be too robotlike to benefit morale.
Not sure there'd be a winning condition of the game, more like a sim game where the fun would be watching all the little characters go about their days, going to and fro doing tasks, interacting with each other as the mansion grew and grew and became more populated. Zoom in and see someone beating up a punching bag slave, or the little gym slaves tied to treadmills, or a mummy slave getting wrapped up, or pony slaves pulling a cart through the adjacent forest trail, or sex slaves flirting and being fucked. Loads of funny little animations to watch. Generally a low-stress sorta game, like watching an aquarium.
Unfortunately... I cannot make computer programs. Scripting language just doesn't stick in my head at all. I tried to learn it once years ago - the Second Life language - didn't work. Can't do Java at all. And something like I described would require tons of scripting. Scripting aside, I'm not much good at 3D modeling, or animating, or making textures. And I'm not rich enough to pay someone else to do it all. Heh. I get a lot of ideas, but haven't the skill to bring most of it to fruition.
You could build and maybe decorate gardens and rooms with specific purposes, like different dungeons, bedrooms, dining room and kitchen, pony slave stable. And of course all the different slaves would need their own dorms. Maybe use seamstress slaves to unlock more outfits? You'd have to pay to acquire more slaves to raise the satisfaction level of the guests, and as the game progressed the randomly generated slave roles would become more diverse and you'd have to figure how to best utilize them.
And each little slave would have stats like Morale and Obedience that would affect their job performance and escape attempts, based on their training and how they were treated... whether they did their jobs well or wandered off a lot or broke down crying in the middle of the hallways. You could have slave trainers and staff on the payroll to keep everything running smoothly, but those would later be replaced with Drone slaves who'd work for free, but wouldn't contribute much to satisfaction since they'd be brainwashed to the point of total obedience but be too robotlike to benefit morale.
Not sure there'd be a winning condition of the game, more like a sim game where the fun would be watching all the little characters go about their days, going to and fro doing tasks, interacting with each other as the mansion grew and grew and became more populated. Zoom in and see someone beating up a punching bag slave, or the little gym slaves tied to treadmills, or a mummy slave getting wrapped up, or pony slaves pulling a cart through the adjacent forest trail, or sex slaves flirting and being fucked. Loads of funny little animations to watch. Generally a low-stress sorta game, like watching an aquarium.
Unfortunately... I cannot make computer programs. Scripting language just doesn't stick in my head at all. I tried to learn it once years ago - the Second Life language - didn't work. Can't do Java at all. And something like I described would require tons of scripting. Scripting aside, I'm not much good at 3D modeling, or animating, or making textures. And I'm not rich enough to pay someone else to do it all. Heh. I get a lot of ideas, but haven't the skill to bring most of it to fruition.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
The Colors!
Happy fertile bunny time day! Did you remember to color and hide your eggs for the Wild Bunnyman? Yeees, even perverse Evil Dollies might color eggs well into adulthood. It's been known to happen.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Irii
Today is the day when the irises are a-bloom. That's a fine thing. I think these iris plants are as just about as old as I am.
I hope people have been enjoying my little artist reviews. The tricky part is trying to pick just a handful of pictures. Takes some time. And I don't want to post too many, after all. But I've enjoyed being able to share some of my interests like this.
I hope people have been enjoying my little artist reviews. The tricky part is trying to pick just a handful of pictures. Takes some time. And I don't want to post too many, after all. But I've enjoyed being able to share some of my interests like this.