From the Mind of Phil

Stuff I didn't feel like putting on Faceplant

2009-08-20T12:33:00.000-07:00

Hi y'all. Just thought I'd share a bit of the geekyness I'm experiencing today. Most people know how I love to listen to the radio. More specifically 99.3 the Fox. Well I've gotten a little brave and decided to e-mail the morning show with my comments concerning a couple songs that are in rotation now. First was the new Alice In Chains tune Check My Brain. In my opinion it sounded like it was recorded on or at least played back on a turntable that had a rubber band instead of a proper drive belt. Now I'm not saying that's a bad thing, in fact I think its way cool, but perhaps when I wrote them they thought that's what I meant. If that wasn't enough I also made comments concerning the new Nickelback tune Burn I Down. I seem to remember hearing an interview where they originally thought the song would be about some girl getting kidnaped but after a meeting with the producer they decided on a extensive rewrite. Something about wanting to pump my fist in the air and crack open a beer if i recall correctly. So listening to the song cranked in the van cruising to work it seemed to me that at the start of the guitar solo there sounded like a muffled female voice muttering something. I could not help but describe it as similar to when I was a kid and I'd have friends over playing in the basement. Mom would call out outside the door to the stairway to the basement and ask if we were all ok and or let us know snacks where ready. Now once again I'm not saying thats a bad thing, but, I'm hoping that I'm not crazy and some people will agree thats what it sounds like. I guess it might simply be a result of the guitar effects in a crazy overdub or something purely coincidental. At any rate I wasn't expecting them to read my e-mail on air. Imagine my suprise hearing my name mentioned on air. SQUEEEEEEE that totally made my day.

At lunch time I also got to thinking (scary huh) what if instead of taking guitar in highschool I took drama instead. My biggest fear was how would I do in that class. I seem to think they would have an exercise where the teacher would ask the students to act like spoons. Initially I thought my spoon is an inanimate object so I'd simply lay still on the floor. Or perhaps the point was to imagine it was a living thing and my task was to personify it. I'd be sleeping soundly in my lunchbox when suddenly some guy picks me up and shoves me into some yogurt. He then is just about to put me in his mouth when I sputter and shout at him "Woah buddy you got some nasty jungle breath!". I suppose that could be used as a concept for some mouthwash commercial with the tag line "Nine out of ten spoons approve" and I'd be the guy in the spoon costume with the Don Cherry thumbs up in a cameo on the screen.

Like I said "Geeky" huh
Ok Bye now.

Azumanga Daioh vs Questionable Content fanart

2009-05-31T11:39:00.000-07:00

Hiya. Its been a while but anyway here goes.
I did a drawing based on the concept of "What if Azumanga Daioh came to visit Questionable Content?"
Here's what i came up with. Ink Only

and also the same but colored

Laterz

New Pics From New Camera

2008-10-06T22:41:00.000-07:00

Hi y'all. As promised here are a few new pics. Starting with the following one

This is Samantha Joan Carless. She was born August 15th 2008. I took this picture with our Fuji camera using the Potrait mode. I see how that might enhance the skin tones but the effect overall seems to add too much yellow. So the next pic was taken using the Natural light mode.

As you can see it seems to have worked better. The light source was a window that faced east but with overcast skies. And finally one more pic.

This is Renee handing Samantha to meet Colette for the first time. Of all the photos I took that day I think this one came out the best. I really enjoy how the lighting worked and the colors matched so close to how I saw it. The overall composition overwhelms me with emotion. If ever I where to enter an amateur photo contest this one would totally be my pic to enter. Well there's plenty more to come but that's all for now. G'night y'all.

OMG I almost forgot I had this

2008-07-22T17:52:00.000-07:00

Hi y'all, as the title of this post would suggest I've almost totally neglected this blog thingy. Some things are coming up though. If you are on facebook it'll be no suprise that we are going to have a baby anytime soon. In prep for that we got a new camera and I'm hoping to start putting up pics and stuff here for the benefit of those who are not on facebook (or faceplant as Opa calls it). In the mean time here's a pic of me at the parade on Canada Day in Steveston.

This pic was taken by Kristin with our old camera (Kodak EasyShare C315). I'm holding the new camera (Fujifilm FinePix S1000fd). Its sooooooooo much better than the old one. Even though it's not a SLR camera, it has a lot of neat features. I hope to learn to use them all. I did shoot almost 4 Gigs worth that day and with a varity of settings. Most if not all of them turned out good. Like this one.

Of course I could always crop and zoom that one but its ok for posting on here. Ok thats all for now. Maybe i'll take a photography course through Parks and Rec. I leave you with one more pic i'll call after the parade....

Back the Time Machine Up Part 2

2007-08-22T23:13:00.000-07:00

June 9th.
Our newlywed friends just got back from their honeymoon so we go out to their place to visit. We did not tell the girls right away that we were really going with them to Disneyland. When we got to Dave and Lana's we only told them we where going to a place with shopping and amusement rides. We passed Bellis Fair which had rides and shopping but when the girls protested we told them there was a bigger and better place ahead. When we passed Puyallup they really started to complain, but once again we told them there is a bigger and better place ahead. We stopped in Seattle for lunch and decided to let the girls off the hook but not until after lunch. After lunch we kept on down the I-5 then the girls where really getting upset. I couldn't stand it either so I begged the rest of the adults to stop and let them know. We stopped in Tacoma and finally told them. This is what they looked like at that point.
Kristin was in tears. Colette looked skeptical. They were fine the rest of the way there. In California we seen lots of Palm trees. Colette still the skeptic wondered if the trees where "real" so I had to reassure her..
This was a "real" tree. We had lots of fun. Only 2 bad times at Disneyland. The first was the lineup for the new Finding Nemo ride. Even with our early entry passes we had to wait 3 hours.
Worst lineup EVAR! The ride itself was really cool and worth the wait. The other thing that really wigged me out was Space Mountain. In a word it'd be "vertigo". On the last day there the girls where starting to get tired but thats probably because they where also hungry.

Mommy to the rescue.

And there you go. Thats all for today.

Back the time machine up. Part 1

2007-08-21T22:34:00.000-07:00

April 28th, The Big Day. After months of planning the day finally arrived. It was Lana and Dave's Wedding. Both my girls and my wife where in the wedding party. The girls, flower girls. My wife, a bridesmaid. I was just there to drive them around. Here are some pics

The Chapel at rehearsal.

My girls and wife just before the ceremony.

The Bride and Groom.

Thats all for today more updates to come.

Summer Was a Blur

2007-08-20T11:42:00.000-07:00

Well well, what a time it has been since my last post. No pictures or drawings to post this time. The board i was designing on my last post. Has since been laid to rest. I've decided its one thing to take some time and try to design something but quite another to produce one, let alone one that works. I also made the mistake of asking my manager for some lamination pouches. Thats when he found out that it was I who was making the PTHell name badges. It wasn't so bad that I did a parody of our companies logo. Nor was it bad to put cartoony versions of staff on them with nicknames. The thing he objected to was that I also included a functional barcode that they could scan to make use of systems here. Well it crushed me. That was the whole point of making them. I promised not to make anymore save for myself only and agreed to refer anyone who wished to get a duplicate of their barcode to the manager. Thats all for today. More updates too come soon.

Getting board at work (Pun intented)

2007-04-20T14:25:00.000-07:00

Hey'all i'd like to say how busy i've been but its not really true. I have kept myself busy by playing Mr. Engineer. I've put together a printed circut board design and schematic to go with but all i need now is to write some assembler code. Here's what the top silkscreen and pads will look like.

Not much to look at now but when I can afford to get it made i'll post more including production photos.

Another One

2007-01-15T17:29:00.000-08:00

...Whew talk about whirlwind like the last few weeks. What I failed to mention in my last 2 posts is that on New Years Eve we were headed to a friends place when our beloved "Buggy"s transmission fell apart. Now that its been fixed I can't help but be thankful. All this artwork and other stuff helped some of the time go by and kept me distracted enough so I didn't get stressed out over it. Anyway that aside i give you "Saggy" well to be fair she's not really saggy its just that her real name could be shortened to sound something like that.

...uh huh it was another photo ref one. Some people might argue that its cheating. In my defense i'd say that since I'm the one who took the photo then i have the right to alter the image so long as the people in the pictures don't mind me using their likeness its all good. Of course i'd welcome some comments on this so feel free to click on the comments link below and let me know. Ok thats it for tonight.

Dudes

2007-01-05T19:19:00.000-08:00

...hiya. Work is picking up again and so are the requests for pics. Here are my 3 most recent ones.

...I don't have any nicknames for these guys. For the purpose of dropping a hint i will however call the above guy Kareem Abdul-Jabar and the guy below i'll call Willy Wonka.

...these were both done from photo refs. Seems that they turn out a little closer to the actual persons likeness. Compare them to this next one. I did without a photo reference.

...stuff like eye, hair and nose details are most noticeable. but after poor "El Marr" i've decided to stick with a solid skin tone. I do however like the way i've rendered hair and wardrobe. It helps to make use of plenty of layers. By the way her nickname is Souixie. More to come perhaps tommorow.

Happy New Year

2007-01-03T15:57:00.000-08:00

...so like happy New Year y'all. Oh man my keyboard is starting to scare me. It looks like it could use a hot soapy bath. Of course i'm not shure it will work afterward so i'm afraid to try. In other news we made 2 gingerbread houses. The first one was a kit that the girls helped decorate.

...The second one I made from scratch. I used a 3 by 5 index card as a template and cut 4 identical panels. The front and back panel i still used the 3 by 5 card but cut the rooflines by hand. It turned out like this.

...i guess next time i'll make the roof panels slightly larger than the walls. That way i can avoid having to go all Mike Holmes on it.

..."i'm going to have to tear it all down" LOL

Merry Christmas

2006-12-24T00:07:00.000-08:00

...just in time for Christmas i've done a self potrait of sorts. Here I am rockin out. I borrowed the basic shape and pose from the guitarist on Weird Al's video for "I'll Sue Ya" the differences are as follows. I don't wear glasses. I don't have a goatee. My tie is faded black or dark grey if you will. My pants are faded black or grey if you will. My guitar is red. Oh and finally I have a blue gradient fill as a background instead of the star spangeld banner and an eagle.

...more pictures to come as i also have some more people at work who have requested one of those PTHell photo ID barcode thingys i've now known at work for producing. One guy i admit i cheated on though. It just so happens he shares the same name as a recent Dreamworks animation character. So for his ID card i just used a pic of that character.(ps ie Madagascar the lion) Ok thats all for tonight.

Back to School Back to Blog

2006-09-20T19:59:00.000-07:00

...hi y'all. No new drawings yet. I've been on a kind of hiatus for the latter part of this summer. But things are looking up. I have a few ideas together for 3 strips but haven't the time to put into them so far. Things are starting to settle into a routine here and i'm hoping to get working on the comic strips soon. Aside from that I also have an idea for the car. A while ago i scratched up the middle of the dash. On the weekend i decided to try and fix that so i took off one piece and used some wet sandpaper 800 grit and sanded it smooth. Then i let it dry. then noticed that the plastic was more grey then black underneath so i decided to repaint it. 2 coats of grey primer. 3 coats of metallic blue. Looks ok but perhaps next payday if its sunny i'll add 2 or 3 coats of high gloss clear on top then that should make it "POP". If when done i'll post some pictures. Besides i gotta fix the one vent. i think a lever came loose from the dial. The whole centre consloe comes off as one piece so it won't be too hard. Just gotta be gentle because its all plastic. Thats quality german engineering for ya. ok thats all for now.

Better Late Then Never

2006-07-17T23:49:00.000-07:00

...As the title would suggest this post is come almost 2 weeks late. Only because i've been so busy doing other stuff. Like changing the oil in the car. Setting up some music for a weekend house party. And now i got an idea for another fan art project/commercial parody. Well enough of my drama here's "El Marr"

...i tryed to vary the skin tone to emulate the lighting effect but it didn't turn out exactly how i liked. Perhaps i'll stick to flat tones for now. Comments please. I do read them if any. OK nuff fer now.

My Niece has the Same Name

2006-07-05T21:29:00.000-07:00

...Tonights drawing is another person from work. I'll call her "Jazzy" which coincedently is also my niece's nickname.

...It seems I've fallen behind on some other work as well. I will be working on some code and updating my other page soon. I don't want to spoil it but here's a hint. Ok thats all for now.

And now for the other one

2006-06-27T22:53:00.000-07:00

...OK so here is the other visitor from Holland. I gather he doesn't have a nickname so I might suggest "Größermann" but only because in comparison to "Dee" whom he referred to as "Der Klinermann" to which I add "just because he's smaller than you doesn't any less of a man!" Ha I kill me. LOL

...looks as though I didn't miss them after all its just they are exploring Vancouver Island for a few days before leaving next week. So I have made for them PTH Visitor Passes using todays drawing and the one from yesterday.
Also got the car fixed. I cost me only a mere $388.95. WTF ONLY A MERE!!! I might be broke for vacation time.

Good News Bad News

2006-06-26T07:35:00.000-07:00

...the good news is that for the past few weeks we've had some cool folks visiting from Holland at work. I wanted to give them a neat souvenir but didn't make it in time. But I have done one picture.

...and the bad news? the window on my car refuses to go up. the motor runs but there is a grinding noise. Great anyway I'm going straight to the dealership today. See y'all maybe later today maybe tomorrow.

Cropped for convenience

2006-06-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

...I finally got something to work the way i wanted and this pic will make it neater. Only the original was way too big so i've cropped it to get the pic above. I've taken my camera to work and will be doing some more drawings with photo refs soon. Check you later

Some Recent Schetches

2006-06-05T21:13:00.000-07:00

...I've taken to carrying 5x8 writing pad on a 9x6 clip board and a pencil tucked under the clip that makes the page 5x7. When I have time at work i've done some recent schetches. Here they are slighly enhanced via photoshop and
my scanner.

...the first one (up top) is suppost to be a co-workers '98 FORD Ranger and he was going to pose beside it OCC style but when i got that far lunch break was over so perhaps another time i'll get to draw him. The next ones of the work benches we use at work. And the last one is of Christina, driving her Honda Civic. Unfortunatly she also doesn't have a nick name that I was aware of so in this case its her "real" name hope she don't sue me. What I enjoyed about her drawing was the hair. Well thats all for now.

Jarhead Wannabe

2006-05-24T22:11:00.000-07:00

...Well here's my latest drawing

...Its another charactor from work. He works in the stock room so it reminded me so much of one of the few times i went to cadets. There was the stores master. You could get almost anything you wanted from stores but the trick was getting the proper forms filled out. Anyway this "panel" led me to an idea for a full strip. I've done some preliminary schetches but nothing to post just yet. By the way this charactor i'll call "Dee".

My Next Character

2006-05-09T18:49:00.000-07:00

...My next charactor is (drum roll) ..."Plucky".

...of course i forgot to save the full image before i cropped it so i suppose i'll have to redo this at some point but the pic works well at this size to make fake ID cards but only for the persons they repersents personal use. I see it as a way the people can have a neat hard copy of thier alter-ego sort of speak. That and it has the added functionality of a duplicate ID card we use at work.

Diva

2006-05-08T16:46:00.000-07:00

...Diva is the nickname for the person i most recently did a drawing of. But as usuall I didn't get her ok until a few days later. so anyway here you go.

... I do have 2 other drawings that are in progress. Hopefully i will finish at least one tonight and post it tommorow.

Birth of Venus parody

2006-05-01T21:06:00.000-07:00

...Well here I go again with another picture. The problem is that there is no "Indian" equivalent of Venus. So therefore i'm not shure what to call this. I would probably make up a nick name for the person it is to represent but then her real name is hard to make a nick without making it sound derogitory. As much as I would like to draw this person as a ugly monster i've decided to be ironic and draw the opposite of her like this.

...All being said. I think it looks ok. If you happen to guess who it might be then kudos to you. Just do me a favor and let me know by clicking down there on the 0 comments link and leave a comment. I reserve the right to edit or delete rude comments so be warned. Oh ya and suggestions for the next portrait i'll take in person only.

Resume Tres Somme Ohh La Lah

2006-04-26T23:31:00.000-07:00

...No artwork tonight, sawy :( I spent the evening updating my resume. I'm not telling why so don't ask. On the other hand I also took some time to reaquaint myself with Microshaft Excel. I did a Yahtzee knockoff. Basically its the same except i've added a couple extra rows on the bottom of the form. Thats all for tonight.

Another Project Done

2006-04-24T23:10:00.000-07:00

...Well i'm finally done another project. I'll wait and see if it is accepted before i post it here though. In other news I got an OK from another person from work. Once again she wanted to remain anonymous. Funny thing is that the first person i drew after seeing her picture asked me to do tonights person next but she did not select the next person so this might be the last for now.

...Also on a completly different topic I heard them play "Hurt" by Johnny Cash on CFOX today and it turns out that "Hurt" was in fact a cover of Nine Inch Nails. I have since listened to the original and have come to the same conclusion as before. Although there is no argument of the intense talent of Trent Reznor for writing lyrics I can't help cringe at the instumentation. I find the "industrial" sound difficult to listen to. So I guess if you can get past the ear torture then Nine Inch Nails might be worth a listen.

Off on a Tangent

2006-04-19T22:53:00.000-07:00

...So I happened to be reading another of my favorite webcomics when i noticed the author/artist was going to make a fan art contest. I think i'll enter. So far here's what I got.

...I figure i've got 4 more panels to go. I don't want to spoil the rest so consider this the only sneak peak i'm posting until after i'm finished.

So Many Distractions

2006-04-17T20:15:00.000-07:00

...Woah DUDES there is so many things going on right now. People moving around. Hockey teams being eliminated. Holiday meals with friends. And of course little ol' me reading webcomics, making fake ID's and doing some drawing. On the topic of webcomics i happened on a link to an article in Wikipedia about listening to Pink Floyds Dark Side of the Moon while watching The Wizard of Oz. At first I thought it was a joke but after watching it on low res I was AMAZED. It totally works. On the topic of doing some drawing i had drawn my interpretation of someone from work. Fortunatly they thought it did not resemble them so i'm going ahead and posting the drawing here.

...the second picture is the rough outline i started with. I changed the lips because she looked way too serious. I think i'll call her "Cinnamon" She has razor sharp wit and an almost wicked sarcasm but of course you'd never suspect it from the nice gal. By the way i also like the way the gradient fill worked in the background. More to come. Perhaps tomorrow i'll do another. In any case this is all for now.

Auntie Comes to Visit

2006-04-06T23:05:00.000-07:00

...My sister came to visit the girls. I drew her car parked out on the street. Its a 1990 Pontiac Grand Am.

...I'm glad to report i've figured out how to expand the selection like Jeph mentioned but i find 3 pixels work better for me. I also tryed using a dark blue for the inital schetch. When I set the schetch layer to 20% opacity the blue goes a pleasent shade lighter. Its not visible here though because i've removed it before publishing. Come to think of it perhaps on my next drawing i'll post the schetch layer, the ink layer, the fill layer and the finished picture to show it all a little better. Thats all for tonight.

Sleepy

2006-04-05T21:15:00.000-07:00

...Going back to Daylight Savings Time? What a pain. I've been so wiped this last week. I shure hope my body adjusts soon. I've just finished looking at the latest post on Jeph Jacques blog and after following this link i have some ideas that may find there way into my next drawing. For now though this is what i have.

...yes it's true we have each our own alarm clocks. Renee's is teal, mine is grey. The lamp is ficticious. We actually have those obnoxious touch lamps. If you happen to be an Amateur Radio operator and own both a Handheld Transciever and touch lamps try this for fun. Press the PTT while aiming the antenna at the lamp. WHEEEEE such fun LOL. Ok g'nite for now.

Almost My Own Webcomic

2006-03-26T15:57:00.000-08:00

...ive been trying to set up another website in addition to this blog but it doesn't seem to be working so i guess this will have to do for now. When all the drawings are assembled it should look something like this.

...and the title of this strip would be "The Parental Suggestive Force". I'm thinking of using "Tentatively Titled" as a title for the comic at least until I come up with a better one. Ok thats all for today.

Colette with Text Balloon

2006-03-23T21:52:00.000-08:00

...Ok so here you all go. I lost track of how long this took but i think it was about 4 hours again. My little model would never have been able to stand posing for that long so i cheated a little and used a photo as a reference again.

...I had to do some enhancing and cropping then tracing which went ok untill i went to copy and paste into new picture. I deleted the original trace by mistake. When I realized the paste was wrong i couldn't fix it so I had to start over. Eventually though I stuck with it. I even went into extra and tryed a little more successfully to do text bubbles.

...Of course Renee is really worried 'cause she thinks everyone will think she spends all her time on the couch but let me assure y'all that once all these drawings are amalgamated you'll see thats not the case. More to come. G'night fer now.

Renee On The Couch Watching TV

2006-03-20T21:38:00.000-08:00

...as the title would suggest this is Renee on the couch watching TV.

...This one took me about 2 hours to complete. I guess that means i'm getting faster at it. I also tryed some shading like you can see on the couch, the blinds, pillow and Renee's hair. Man I gotta figure out speech bubbles. I could just picture whats written there. I already am thinking of the next panel. But thats for another night.

My Character and Another Background

2006-03-15T23:19:00.000-08:00

...yep yep roughly 4 hours of work and this is what you get...

...lets call em "Phil" circa 1993 fresh outta highschool and ready to rock the world. The Background I'll call the driveway viewed from the street. I think perhaps i'm missing sidwalk cracks and perhaps his jacket needs pockets but I'm too tired now so too bad and its off to bed I go. BTW while I drew this I kept bouncing between "Here I Go Again by Whitesnake" and "Bolivard of Broken Dreams by Green Day".

Hurt

2006-03-14T21:27:00.000-08:00

...something happened at work today. As much as I want to spill all the details I can't. The fear of being suied or dismissed keeps it that way. I guess the only way I can express the way I feel is for you to have a listen to Hurt by Johnny Cash. The track appears on the last record he did before he died. To make matters worse on the way back from having dinner tonight I had a flat tire. 7:45pm No tire joints are open that late so I guess I'll be driving on my spare till sometime tommorow. So many thoughts running through my head. Where to start, I don't know. Hopefully tomorow will be better. Hopefully....

Another Dinner Scetch

2006-03-12T11:15:00.000-08:00

...maaaan I just love eating out at resturants. Especially ones where they give the kids crayons and activity placemats. I always end up drawing something. Last night we went to a certain resturant. OK here's a hint. Imagine there is a city in the US that is not only famous for the Bruins hockey team but they also make great Pizza. Got it? So anyway we were seated and I was able to watch the last period of the Toronto Maple Leafs beating the Tampa Bay Lightning. So what would you draw? I drew this.....

...well now thats some powerfull scanner you can see the reflection of the front of the paper with logo of said resturant near his skates. Guess one disadvantage of using crayon as a medium is there is no means to correct small mistakes. If you guess them I don't have any prizes. Anyway more artwork to come.

It starts like this

2006-03-10T21:10:00.000-08:00

…well here goes after reading through Jeph's tutorial on how he draws I've decided to jump in and try some of this crazy webcomic stuff. I have plenty of ideas on characters and locations but not much on story or plot lines yet. In a way I've always thought my life was somewhat comical at times so it might be loosly autobiographical in nature. The trick will of course be creating characters that are near to my personal experiences without infringing on anyones likeness. More on that later. For now I'm going to try to concentrate on locations. I think I'll start with my rocking chair. For reference I've photographed it.

...then using Adobe Photoshop Elements a few hours later I came up with this...

...not bad eh? Well thats it for tonight next up will be the couch.

Omigod Omigod Omigod

2006-03-09T22:29:00.000-08:00

...wahoooooozorz I'm like totally psyched. Our income tax return came in and i'm like ka-ching way cool now i can buy that drawing tablet. WOAH hoooold it. Looks like i made a mistake. The one I almost bought would have been a problem. It uses Bluetooth wireless technology (which is cool) but since i don't have no steeenking bluetooth port it might not work to well. Lucky for me the store i went to happened to also carry the higher end models. For $20 more I got this model. Shure its smaller than this but what i lose in surface area I more than gain in functionality. I don't bother with the mouse because I was able to leave my other mouse plugged in. I musta spent 5 or 6 hours playing with it and the bundled software (mainly Photoshop Elements 3) this makes drawing super easy. I also love the functionality of it within windows itself. Well i gotta go but be shure to check back often because I promise some new artwork will be appearing soon.

Brake job

2006-03-05T08:16:00.000-08:00

...Oh maaaaan. So like I finally did the front brakes on the car. I had this whole plan in my head that I was going to set up the tripod and document everything in a photo essay. I had read the manual several times to make sure I knew exactly what had to be done. First I had to get the parts. What an adventure that was. The first store had only the pads. For rotors I had to go to the warehouse location across the river. Of course when I got there it was only to find they did not have them after all. Turns out the first store might have sold me the wrong ones because the second store in looking for them discovered the ones they did have plenty of the stock number had the last two numbers reversed. Well I needed some other supplies so I got them there and then went to store number three. At store number three not only did they have the rotors they also had the pads. Why oh why did I not simply go there first??? By that time the girls where super hungry so we went ate and then home to crash. Next day no time to lose I get out the jack and jackstands. Put the car on the stands and took off the first wheel. Looked ok there oh wait gotta take out some brake fluid from resovier. Nope can't do that the MAF sensor and resonance chamber in the way. No problem right? wrong i got the air box cover off but still had to bend and tuck intake hose and resonance chamber under engine cover. Ok so now i gotta remove the guide pins. WTF they are 7mm allen wrenches. In all my many toolboxes I have 6 and 8 but no 7mm. Best i could do was 1/4 inch which did the job but not perfectly. Got the calipers off and pryed off the outward pad. Oh ya gotta compress the caliper to make room for new pads. That c clamp I bought came in handy. Ok so now i set the new pads in the caliper but wait the inner one seems loose. Lucky for me a friend of my wife came by. Her husband is a mechanic and pointed out that on closer inspection i had two outside pads (thanks much Wayne). I probably would have figured that out but thanks to him I was saved the time. The rotor came off relatively easily. Everything went back together easily so on to the other side. Uh oh the top guide pin would not come off. I could get the caliper off if the rotor was off. The rotor wouldn't budge. I had to take a mallet to it to beat it off. With the rotor off I was able to wrestle the pads out of the caliper and then slide off the caliper from the guide pin. I put the new pads in the caliper and the new rotor on the hub. Then i called my friend who was already on the way to stop in at an unidentifed auto parts store to pick up a 7mm allen wrench. Wouldn't you know it but sure enough the allen wrench sets they sell do not include a 7mm. Plan B time for vice grips. They did the trick. I removed that stubborn guide pin put the caliper back in place greased the pin up and put it back on. I got them as tight as I could with only the 1/4 inch wrench. I don't own a torque wrench so tight as i could will have to do.
Turns out this was also true for the wheel bolts. When I finally got everthing back together i went for a spin around the block everything seemed ok so when i got back i cleaned up and Renee and I went to Langley. On the way back we noticed there was a bit of vibration on the passenger side. Shure enough I was able to tighten the wheel bolts even more. Went for a drive 5 blocks away and it seemed that the vibration was gone. Cool all done. Well until next project or picture bye for now...

Last one of our current series

2006-02-23T18:28:00.000-08:00

...Thats right. This will be the last one for a while. This picture is called "You want some sushi?" It goes once again with that Japanese fascination i seem to have. I didn't actually try Sushi until some time a couple years ago. I really like the Tuna, Salmon and Ebi both as maki and sashimi. Good sushi is served with fresh ginger and wasabi. Ginger of course is good but wasabi is well umm lets just say its an aquired taste. I recently spotted wasabi flavored potato chips from lays. I bought a bag but have not opened them yet. Perhaps i'll try them later tonight. Anyway here's the picture.

...Not much else to add but perhaps i might plug in the scanner and scan this.

...its a schetch i did at Renee's Birthday dinner. We took her to Montana's. She did not wear the horn helmut so i drew this instead. Also since i ordered pan fried fish the little fisher had to catch em first. Ok by for now.

The Surreal

2006-02-17T17:35:00.000-08:00

...i guess this describes the following picture. What does it mean? I haven't a clue. The title was "wipe your nose". If i where to guess it may have something to do with my choice of music that day. Does the "Digital Underground" ring any bells? How about "The Humpty Dance"? Ok if not then perhaps you might wan't to look here. Anyway you may have to draw your oun conclusions.

...and of course you could always leave a comment by clicking on the little green "comments" link below.

I had fun doing this

2006-02-14T18:48:00.000-08:00

...The assingment was simple enough or so it whould seem. Do a modern stained glass design. Immediatly i thought of most classic stained glass and cathedrals with stained glass whose subject matter mostly included saints. Being raised protestant I really had no clue of any of the saints cannonized or immortalized in glass. So i thought of what group of people might not be represented by a patron saint. Since I thought motorcyclists were mostly bad dudes (which i liked) then they probably would not have a Patron Saint and thus i hoped that i would not offend anyone by inventing one. This picture was the result.

...The bike was inspired not devinely but from boss hoss bike that had a small block V8 engine instead of the usual V-Twin like a harley. By devine intervention so small a rider could handle so big a bike. Also i thought perhaps that since I thought there might not be too many saints some of them might do for other groups of people. So i figured my patron saint would also represent electric guitar players. Turns out its a good thing i'm not catholic. I might have been burned at the stake for heresey. Actually there are 2 patron saints for motorcyclists. The first is "The Blessed Virgin Mary" and i'm like "well duhhh". The second was Saint Columbanus who by what i could find did not play guitar instead did missions and tamed wild bears (with Gods help of course). As for guitarists well not that i could find so perhaps I'll suggest i should rename this picture to that instead.

Yet Another Self Potrait

2006-02-13T21:13:00.000-08:00

...yeppers it looks like another one. This time its was near grad. The library in the backgroung is a cleverly placed backdrop. Not shure what else to say 'bout this.

...the only thing i like about this was my hands. They look the most realistic element of the picture. Perhaps if i had taken the extra time to edit it i would have tryed to redraw my face. The offset of the eyes are somewhat correct but the nose and mouth are way too cartoonish. And of course i could have spent a little longer tightining the detail of the books in background. I suppose if i where to do my own webcomic i might start by defining settings with story board like backgrounds of where my charators live and interact. Or maby charactor development should be a priority. Anyway these are just musings at this point. More to come, possibly tommorow.

Study of Contrast

2006-02-07T20:06:00.000-08:00

...First of all i must apologise for the lack of posts so far this week. My excuse is simply that i've been sick with fly like symptoms. Anyway this assingment I'm proud to mention was the only one i recall that was a top of class selection from the other students and also earned an A grade. The idea was to draw something that demonstrated the concept of "Contrast". Not real shure what that meant but i remember thinking of the effect of adjusting the contrast control on a black and white television set. I thought of how i could give different weight to each color and using a sort of grey scale repersent it that would give defined contrast. The picture was in full color but i drew the lines and did the shading on that idea of grey scale weight. I think it turned out great....

...i guess the flash from the camera scared me because in the next picture i was crying but i didn't draw that one so you will have to imagine what it might have looked like. Of course i belive Naan, Oma and Opa still have the originals so they would know and be chuckling now. By the way we decided that our new cat will be named "Smoky" Ok bye for now.

Rock you like a Hurricane

2006-02-04T08:23:00.000-08:00

...Once again I had another reproduction assignment. This time it was my choice. I chose this...

...The album cover of The Scorpions, Love At First Sting. I've played this tape so many times its warped. So mabey i'll buy the CD right? Nope i got something even better...vinyl! Bought it at a garage sale. But oh if only i could get a drive belt for my turntable. Just kidding. I figure that because i paid full retail for the tape so long ago then i must have some right to the music. So why not download select tracks in mp3 format. After all I could hook up the tape deck to the computer and rip it that way but why bother. Downloading is so much easyer. Anyway i've secretly wondered if this was some endorsment for double penetration. Its obious he's sticking his tattoo needle into her but is that all?? Hmm ok thats it for now.

Where have I seen this before

2006-01-31T22:04:00.000-08:00

...If you think you seen this before you're right. Its a reproduction of "The Seated Woman" by Picasso.
Basically the assignment was to try a redo of a famous art piece. I also did a redo of Van Eyck's The Arnolfini Wedding but unfortunatly it was lost. You can catch a glimse of the original here. I picked Picasso because the lines might be easy to replicate.

...it seems as though i can't find an image of the original for you to look at but you get the idea. It also seems to be popular image for artists to do their own interpretations of. Hope you enjoyed mine.

Straight Line Drawing

2006-01-30T22:18:00.000-08:00

...Ahh the 90's. Mullets and all. In case you didn't already guess I was totally into "Hair" bands. This drawing proves it. If i knew that BBS chat rooms where in existance back then this would have been my avtar. Or better yet the lines might have been all parallel and vertical, making it easy to digitize. Anyway it might have been a little hard to do with the TRS-80 but thats a whole nother story. So here you go.

...I think i called it "Nature's Romance". Must have just finished watching "Bambi" or something. Well thats it for tonight.

Landscape vs Human Form

2006-01-28T21:10:00.000-08:00

...The following was meant to find similaritys between landscape and the curves of the human body. After i drew it i felt it looked kinda like Madonna playing catcher and thus was named "Landscape Madonna". Not one of my best works. Well you decide.

...of course you could leave a comment if you wish. Down there just click the comments link. I've set it up so anyone can post comments.

Also two other items are Kristins birthday and Colettes door. Kristins b-day party was cool. We had it at the pool. My eyes are still burning. Colettes bedroom door broke. I fixed it really good.
Before

After

with a bigger gap the door doesn't drag on the floor anymore. Well thats it for tonight.

Continous Line Drawing

2006-01-27T15:53:00.000-08:00

...Well as the title of this post would suggest the following drawing is what is known as a continous line drawing. The idea is to draw something using one line. Ideally your pen or in this case pencil must never leave the page until the drawing is complete. I can't remember how long it took me to draw her but I do remember that she was an excange student from Japan. Although I knew I could never have any real relationship with her i will never forget her. Its a likely explanation for my longtime almost secret fasination with Japanese culture. Anyway meet "Kazue".

...apparently this looks like more than one line. A simple explanation is that it was cropped a long time ago to bring it into a standardized size. And finally I have noticed on this site i had to change some settings to allow anyone to post comments without regestering with blogger.com. Also some of the links where wrong. On the last post the thing i was hinting for is this. Anything else you happen to notice please let me know.

Name That Assignment

2006-01-25T20:24:00.000-08:00

...I guess the majority of new posts will be of my highschool weekly assignments. Unless of course I happen to get one of these (hint hint). Or i could simply do things the old fashoned way. Pencil, eraser and paper then scanner. Anyway for tonight i give you this....

This is titled "CBR900RR". I can't remember what the assignment was but I do remember reading all about the bike in Cycle Canada. The picture is essentually a reproduction of a photo in the aformentioned publication. I guess I was a little more open minded about motorcycles back then. I've taken more of a liking to custom choppers nowadays however if i where ever to get a sport bike then probably it would be a Kawasaki Ninja 650. Seems a 900 might be a tad bit too much power for me. Anyway i have one more pic tonight.

Our new kitten. Still accepting suggestions for a name. So far the previous owner called him "Hufflepuff". I was like ah no. "Smokey" came to mind and "Buddy". Ok well thats it for tonight.

For My Next Performance

2006-01-24T22:06:00.000-08:00

...I was thinking a while back that perhaps if i did start a blog then i might use it to publish some of my artwork. One image per post ought to keep me busy for a couple weeks. Anyway after that I will quite literally be back to the drawing board. For now here is the first picture.

This picture i call "Battleaxe" was highschool art class assignment. On this occasion the assignment was to draw an original cartoon charactor. Since I didn't have a clue I borrowed the general look of this guy from one of my favorite sidekicks "Obelix" as in the "Asterix" comic book series. The "axe" of course a pun on a guitar which is another of my passions. The medium is pencil crayon on paper which i've scanned.The original is kept in my archives (the fileing cabinet).

at last its done

2006-01-23T23:04:00.000-08:00

...at last it's done. Well actually it was finished last night. but that was much too late for me to post so here you go now.

i'm not shure what grade Colette got on her robot or if she gets a grade on it but she told me she liked it. Fortunatly some of the other parents where there to help when they where paraded around the school. Apperntly Timmy sustained some minor damages. One of the other parents was able to help repair him. He is now on display at the school.

On a more personal note i'd like to thank everyone who wished me a happy birthday yesterday. Till next time here is another photo you might enjoy.

She wanted to kill me

2006-01-22T10:11:00.000-08:00

...I did some more work on it. It seems i had the foresight to lay something down before painting but alas it was not enough. I still ended up getting paint overspray on the kitchen floor. Lucky for me we had plenty of Comet. a quick scrub and the floor was clean again.

...with one coat of primer and one coat of blue the main parts where ready for assembly. By the way i managed to fab a nice head too. here is what our AnthroPC looks like now.

The arm (timmys cup) is not painted yet because i ran out of primer. behind Timmy you can see a piece of cardboard i used to lay under the head piece for painting. Also if you notice there is a glue gun. It worked really well for assembly so i will use it when the last of the components are ready. Well thats it for now more to come tommorow

More Work In Progress

2006-01-19T21:30:00.000-08:00

...looks like i jinxed myself. No sooner did i tell Oma how good things are going at work did things change dramatically. The last three days have been insane. I'm so wiped out from work that when i get home from work i eat dinner, sit on the couch and in minutes i'm out cold. Snoring to boot. Needless to say I didn't get too far on the project until tonight. Colette helped me hold the cardboard to the body so i could trace outlines and made some cuts. A few more cuts, a test fit and a few more cuts and "voila" we have our outer skin fabed. It looks like this...

...The small long tube will be an arm. The wide short tube will be the neck. I still have to cut the holes on the bottom for the legs. Once that is done it'll be ready for paint. After that it'll be time to fabricate the head. The head will have to be painted. Good thing i still have tomorrow and the rest of the weekend. Ok thats it for tonight.

Didn't get much more done

2006-01-16T22:08:00.000-08:00

...Well i didn't get much more done on the project. I met with the steering commitee (Colette and Kristin). We decided our AnthroPC will be grey and blue. They wanted to call it "Princess" but that wouldn't fit the color scheme so they picked "Timmy". I thought that was ironic given the Tim Hortons cups. In order to make the body easer to work with i felt it needed back filling so i did with some card board and tape.Here's what it looks like now.

So next up the outer skin or in this case a box, by the way i guess i failed to mention that is by no means a real working AnthroPC. It is simply going to be a neat model or toy prototype. Although I suppose it could conceivibly be done all you gotta do is look at a Mac Mini
Ok well thats it for now, be back tommorow night.

It all started by reading a webcomic

2006-01-13T17:24:00.000-08:00

....well here goes. Hi I'm Phil and Welcome to my Blog. After many years of surfing the web, trading files on chat rooms, instant messaging people and making a few lame webpages; I've finally found a easy and usefull way to keep up to date on the web. And here it is. After all if a charactor in my favorite webcomic can make a blog than so can I. You'll never know what you might find posted here so check back often.

For tonight aside from starting this I wanted to show and tell of my latest project. Colette's Robot. Some of you may recall when Kristin had this assignment the beast i created for her was horrorendus. Not wanting to make another monster i decided it should be smaller and more user freindly this time. After some thinking i decided to loosly base this robot on Pintsize. I looked around the house and dug up some of my old computer hardware. Took an old motherboard, a CD drive, a hard drive, a 3 1/4 inch floppy drive and a power supply and slapped them together with some packing tape. I thought perhaps that might make the body so i left it on the counter over night and went to work in the morning. The next day Renee told me that Colette tried to pick up the bundle and found it was way too heavy for her to carry. I took that apart and decided in order to reduce the weight i had to further dismantle the components. First up was the power supply. A few screws and a few snips with my wirecutters and presto less weight. I decided to leave the cooling fan in place to help the realistic appearance of the robot when i'm done. Next was the Floppy drive. Looking at "Pintsize" as a model i noticed he did not have a floppy drive. Because i thought my AnthroPC might need one i decided to put one in there. I took a scrap Mitsumi drive and popped off the cover. I took the two springs that held the disc cage in place and carefully removed them then the cage came out easily. A few more screws and both the read/write head assembly, stepper motor and connector boards all came out. I placed the disc cage back into the drive and re-attached the springs. Then popped in a floppy to see and it still appears to work. Next was the CD drive. I couldn't get the bottom cover off cleanly so i broke the control board in the process of removing the bottom cover. Thats ok because i was going to scrap it anyway. After all that i descovered the top cover was much easier to remove. The top cover attached to the mid-plane and the disc tray slid along the mid-plane. I slid it out and removed the laser head/motor assembly and the rest of the guts. Then slid the tray back into the mid-plane and screwed the top cover back on. Since the hard drive would not be visible from the outside of the AnthroPC i decided to scrap the hard drive. Next I took the old motherboard and thought all i really wanted showing was the panel at the back where the keyboard, mouse and other ports where. So I took the cutters and mangled it down to only those connectors and the panel. I then took all these newly modifyed components and taped them together and I have this.......

....The cups you see are from Tim Hortons where I have been getting small double double coffees for the last 4 days. They will make the feet and forarms. The paper towel roll tube makes arms and when i get another one will be legs. The tape roll on the top is a prop to help conceptualize where the head will be. Well thats it for tonight, tomorrow i'll start the rest of the body.