The Mental Blue

Here’s a little painting I was able to whip out recently, I’m quite happy with the way it came out!
It’s 3″x3″  Acrylics on canvas.

I suppose it’s rather strange of me, but I’ve always wanted to put whipped cream on a tiger’s nose.
This is a 3×3 inch Acrylic on Canvas painting.

This is a parting gift for a friend of mine.
An exchange student who has been here for quite some time.
She’s good friends of a couple girls I know and I’ve gotten to know
Her through them and so I asked her what her favorite animal was
So that I could paint something for her.  She had asked me a while back
If I could paint something for her and what better a parting gift to give her
than something like this!

Wow, been that long already?  I’ve got some exciting news!

Earlier the first of this month I had a really cool opportunity to meet actor Ray Park, who is most well known for his roles as Darth Maul from Star Wars Episode 1 The Phantom Menace, and most recently Snake Eyes in the new G.I Joe movie.  He was also Toad in the first X-Men movie.  How I got to meet him you ask?  At an event here at a local comic shop called Krypton Comics, they have an event every year called Free Comic Book Day.  This was the first time I’ve gone to the even and it would appear they have special guests from time to time, usually it’s artists and sometimes actors as was so in this case.  You can go and get Free comics, free artwork as well from several of the local artists in the area, and they also offer great sales that day as well.  What also makes it fun is the 501st Vader’s Fist Central Garrison show up, as well as other costumed fans dressed as various super heroes and villains so you can get your picture taken with some very cool characters!

For this event I thought about doing something in honor of Ray Park, so I came up with this.
A 3×3 inch Acrylic on Canvas painting of Darth Maul and Sidious, of which I was able to have Ray Park sign!
I even got my picture taken with him!

Oh and if you’re curious about the costume, I made it myself!  I actually made it back in 2002 I think it was, in time for Star Wars Celebration II. I”m surprised it still fits!  Well not that I’ve grown a whole lot, thankfully but it’s great that it still comes in handy for events like this!

On a different note, but a similar tune, Today I’m going to go meet up with Author Bryan Davis writer of the Dragons In Our Midst series and Oracles of Fire Series as well as a few other novels, and most recently his new book Starlighter! A year ago I did some work for him, a Family Tree illustration for Bones of Makaidos the fourth book in the Oracles of Fire series.  I’m looking forward to finally meeting Mr. Davis in person as well as getting a few autographs.
Remember those path tags I mentioned a month ago?  Well I finally got them in about a week or two ago and they’re fantastic!!  I’m very pleased with them and how the design turned out!

They are a tad bigger than a nickel and a tad smaller than a quarter,  perfect for a pendant, or a key chain, or even a cellphone charm or something to spruce up your zipper on a backpack!
If you’re interested in one they’re $8.00
If you’re out of state and would like one it’s $8.00 + S&H
You can contact me at jslotiger@gmail.com if you wish to purchase one!
Just make sure you put PATH TAG as the subject so I know right away that you’re ordering one.
Also include your address as well.  No worries I will NOT give your address to telemarketers.

For those of you who don’t know, Ustream has been a recent and usual locale on the net that I’ve been spending most of my free time at lately.  One of the various channels I’ve been following is Chillstream, now the chillstream isn’t particularly one channel, it’s an event hosted by a particular group of individuals including myself.  Chillstream began not long after concept artist Bobby Chiu began streaming his creature sketches, which soon after became the Chiustream, in which now is a full blown, global art community event.  The Chillstream started when a few fans of Bobby Chiu decided to continue streaming and carry on the artistic energy into another stream where we could continue to draw various creature topics or whatever else beyond that.  Since then Chillstream events more than likely continue to carry on after Bobby streams or sometimes at random.

I thought I’d share some of my Chillstream paintings with you all!

This is from a Chillstream session where we all drew dragons of some kind.  This is about a 45-60 drawing.  Most of the drawings that were done on the chillstreams were anywhere from 30-60 paintings.

In this drawing the topic was funny or crazy fruit.  I decided to make an Orange Tiger!  The particular individual who hosted this Chillstream I believe was one of the first few to stream, she’s a very talented artist named Maja Sukeile Klockljung from Sweden.
As I mentioned earlier several of the chillstreamers and people who watch Bobby Chiu’s streams are from all over the world.  Of the usual members of the Chillstream, we have several artists from America, including myself, several from Sweden, one from the UK, one from Transylvania, and one from Germany.  We have visitors from time to time as well, more usually after a Chiustream.  Most times these streams are held in the evening, or sometimes in the very late hours of the night or early hours of the morning.

The topic here was Snow owl bunny creature.

The topic here was Witch’s House. I decided to do a beached whale carcass that a witch or sea witch perhaps had made into her lair.  Here the which is seen dragging a dead mermaid back to her “house”.

Here are some paintings done for Bobby Chiu’s Chiustream event!

The topic here was a Ronald McDonald creature.

This topic I think was Fat and Scary.  So I chose to draw Alien.

This topic was Pirate Creature!

This topic was Self Portrait.

This topic was Strange Lycanthrope, techincally not werewolf, but strange “thrope” of some kind, in this case it’s an Angler Fish.

The Topic was Insane Turtle Guy.

I thought I’d share this will you all.  There’s these little things called PathTags which are slightly smaller than a quarter and can be worn as a pendant, keychain ornament, a zipper tab or a sort of charm.  I recently submitted this design of my logo and approved it for production.  The production time will be about a month or so, so I wont be actually getting them until mid-late May.  I’m really excited to have them put into production!  Let me know what you think!

Been pretty inspired by the new Alice in Wonder Land by Tim Burton.
Following Bobby Chiu, a concept artist who worked on the film has also
spurred on this inspiration.  I’ve been following him on sketchoholic.com
where he does interviews of famous artists in the industry as well as does
contests called Chiustream challenges in which you can win by submitting
a drawing done during the hour of the contest and whom ever Bobby chooses
as the winner out of the top three most voted, they’ll get the original painting
or sketch he’s working on during the duration of the contest.  So without further
to do I present my own take on the Mad Hatter and the March Hare.

Here’s a Sketch card I’m working on currently.  Red Pyramid from Silent Hill.

And Here’s the finished result!

2.5″ 2.3″ Colored Pencil on bristol board

Well I did something rather fantastic a few weeks ago, my cousin and I went out on the town and saw Cirque du Soleil Alegria!  For those of you that don’t know what it is, it’s a feast for the eyes and ears, it’s pure magic, talent, shock, awe, beauty, gracefulness, happy, sad, funny, and absolutely amazing!   There  are several different acts in which performers, dancers, acrobats, contortionists, and everything else filled with talent performs each their own act.  My personal favorite are the Hoops, Contortion, and just as of recently the Hand Balancing act!  The music is absolutely amazing, very multicultural.  A lot of French, Spanish, African, and Asian influences. Such a beautiful variety all very well put together!  My parents got the tickets for me as a Christmas gifts.  The seats were amazing!  We were right up next to the stage in the middle of it all.  One of the really neat things about the performance is that occasionally the performers will interact with the audience so every now and then one of the performers dressed as and old bird would bow to us or wave, the “ringleader” type character his name being Fleur would sometimes gesture to us. For now I’ll just highlight some of my favorite performances as there were several.

The opening act starts as a parade introducing the band and Fleur as they march through the audience playing a wonderful tune rather upbeat and rather circus like with a French/Italian feel I think.
Then onto the introductory opening that introduces most of the characters who are consistent through the show such as the Tamirs who look like Asian monkeys of some kind. Fleur, who looks like a pot bellied, hunch backed, aristocratic, majordomo.  The White Singer who ties the show together with her amazing voice.  The Old Birds who are spectators of the event, and the Angels and Nymphs who perform throughout the performance.   There are classic performances such as the Trapeze, fire spinners, and balancing acts however all with an amazing twist to them.  The balancing act was really something else!  I was stunned at the strength and flexibility of the performer as he balanced on two “canes” that were poles with two wooden blocks atop of them as he would balance on one hand or two lifting himself up, holding his body parallel to the ground, and contorting in shocking but beautiful ways.  He made it look so easy, though it would take immense strength and  flexibility to maintain such perfect form.

The contortion was another favorite of mine, I’ve always been fascinated by contortion. To me it’s beautiful! It may disturb others being able to sit on your own head and stare at the backs of your own feet, but I love it!.  Again it’s a requirement of amazing strength and flexibility!  The act was performed by two amazing Mongolian ladies doing a simultaneous performance, intertwining with each other at times, balancing on each others hips or shoulders, it was stunning!  They wore blue-green outfits with pale makeup with slight colors accentuating their eyes and cheeks and had blue, matted, feather like, hair.

The Russian Bars was another incredible act in which the Angel characters have these very long planks in which they would hoist onto their shoulders across from each other and another angel would stand on top of the plank in the middle.  These planks were rather flexible like a trampoline but also firm when held still.  The angel that stood in the middle atop the plank would jump up and down like on a trampoline and then be launched in the air with the help of the other two who would squat and stand to help launch the middle angel into the air.  While in the air the performer would flip and twist several times and then land back on the plank of which sometimes the angels holding the plank would have too move a bit to catch their fellow performer.  It was incredible!!

The whole night was just magical!  It was so surreal and beautiful!  I couldn’t stop smiling and clapping,  It was like the best dream of my life to be there and see such an amazing performance!  I really hope the remember my smiles.  I don’t think I stopped smiling at all.  At home I have the DVD performance and the Soundtrack as well, so I was fairly familiar with most of the acts except a few changes made for the traveling show.  I was loving every bit of it, even singing along with some of the songs.  At the end of the performance the final song Alegria was performed as the cast and performers come out to give their thanks and bows for their performances, and I was singing along giving my standing ovation!

It really was a brilliant night and a stunning performance!  If you ever get the chance to see them yourself  would highly recommend it!!  To see them live is just incredible! However not everyone I know can make it or afford to, thankfully that’s where the wonderful people of youtube have provided footage from the DVD, which I would encourage you to purchase if you love it.  Here is a link to the first act of the performance recorded in Sidney, Australia.  I hope you can enjoy it too as it is quite amazing!