I Vomit Rainbows

Last night, I was being super stubborn and wanted to do a perspective drawing of a bunch of ninja stars flying out in Illustrator. I know how to do it in Photoshop and it’s super simple. Illustrator, not much so. My first try was to draw it by hand, but it looked kinda weird.

My next idea was to make a pattern swatch, hit expand, and tweak it with envelope meshing (Object>Envelope Distort>Make with Mesh) but the result was too warbly.

At this point, I was pretty frustrated. I was convinced that Illustrator just didn’t have what I wanted it to have. Dave was convinced that there was a way to do it, so more googling happened. The thing that worked was something I never would have thought of. I a group of objects, and hit Effect>3D>Extrude and Bevel. Turn off all of the shading and bevelling, and finally there was something you could set a perspective to.

And this was the result that we were looking for

The world is a bit sadder of a place today. Barry Blair passed away 1/3/10 and I just found out via http://www.bleedingcool.com/2010/01/03/founder-of-aircel-comics-barry-blair-dies/ .. he had a brain aneurysm at age 52.

In 1994, I was a 16 year old girl who drew a lot of penguins. I came to San Diego ComiCon with a single laminated copy of a comic book I drew called Peacekeepers, which had pages handcolored with colored pencils. 200 of these books were produced.

I took the book around to publishers big and small, to get advice on improving my art, and to hopefully find someone who would want to publish my work for wider distribution. Looking back, I’m rather suprised anyone took me seriously at all.

My favorite moment from ComiCon was when I went to the Elfquest booth, and Barry Blair sat there and read the whole thing. He laughed at the silly parts. Then he told me I needed to self-publish it. The idea hadn’t crossed my mind at all, and he talked me into it.

The next year I took my life savings, sent it to Brenner Printing, and had 3,000 copies of Tori Do printed, through my comic book company Penguin Palace.

RIP Barry. My life would be very different today if I’d never met you.

I don’t want to make a bunch of resolutions i’ll break, so i’m just going to stick with one: throw a party in Antarctica.

By 2020 I want to visit all the continents and go up in space once.

In the past decade I’ve:

Found the perfect boy
Travelled to europe twice and Japan three times
Gotten paid by publishers and websites to take pictures and travel
Thrown parties that have become internet-famous
Got my 6th dan black belt in Tang Soo Do
Went to the Firefly movie premiere & the Season 4 Battlestar Galactica premiere
Got a picture taken with the president (Bush, blegh) at the White House Xmas party
Had back surgery where they fused some bones together and grew new bone over it
Got to see tons of people wearing my tshirt designs at conventions
Hung out in secret bars an partied under a freeway overpass a few times
Partied in an abandoned missile silo
Frequently visited the Magic Castle, and been to Club 33 twice
Burning Man, Tokyo DisneySeas, Love Parade SF, and the Sapporo Snow Festival
Shot lingerie models on an airplane while hanging out in a scary tall crane
Made a LuLu costume with my friend and cosplayed at a few conventions
Won an award for working on a flash video game, at Schmoocon
Appeared in some small movies, and had some art used in one
Eaten raw horse and a foie gras corn dog
Explored many hidden and abandoned places
Shot Red Carpet at the Spike TV Scream Awards twice, and the 300 DVD release
Shot two weddings and attended many weddings
Ran my own karate school
Learned to cook

In the past two decades I’ve:

Thrown punk shows and underground raves
Published (and been published) in zines, comics, and a CD-ROM
Moved around a bunch in three states (California, Texas, Colorado)
Gotten sued for $100,000 by Penguin Books
Been raided by the FBI
Got on the front page of the local newspaper (San Diego)
Been in a bunch of art shows and thrown my own
Been to San Diego ComiCon 16 times
Been to Defcon 12 times. Since Defcon 4 I’ve only missed it once (or twice?)

I kinda lapsed on the comic book publishing thing, but me and Dave are working on a photo book project together. Making this list made me realize how long it’s been since I’ve published anything (The last big thing I made was a comic book on CD-ROM in 1998). I came up with a story idea while in the woods this weekend though.

Happy New Year!

Nym came by so I made breakfast for him and Dave - Flying Spaghetti Monsters! These were cool cuz the pasta is actually baked into the meatballs. They were also really yummy. Inspired by http://dabbled.org/2009/11/make-a-yummy-flying-spaghetti-monster.html

More pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinguino/sets/72157622805693556/

So yesterday Jose tried to plan  a suprise bday party for Keith, and about an hour later Keith found out.  He twittered “Ok, cats out of the bag. It’s my birthday. I’d ask for a pony if I wasn’t 100% sure you assholes would get one and put it in the front room!”

About a month ago, me and Vissago were at the Burbank mall, and we ran into Hivoltage (Teklord’s old roomate). I’ve known Hivoltage since I was like 13, but we hadn’t really hung out in ten years. He said he bought  a mini-horse and we traded numbers.

So when Keith said he wanted a pony for his bday, I texted Hivoltage, who was suprisingly ok with bringing her up 11stories up to an apartment in Hollywood for a party/prank. And it was awesome. I don’t think I can think of a better present than that, ever.

The horse was super cute and I got to ride in an elevator with her. She travels around in a Scion xB and does tricks.

CRAZIEST NIGHT EVER.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinguino/sets/72157622750595280/

paul just made this

CuriousJosh captured Mark Zabala spinning at his new monthly Ninja Skillz event, Fable, and the pics went up at LA Weekly. Spot me and Dave dancing in the background?

Fable was last Friday and tons of fun. Medusa Lounge is a beautiful venue, and even more fun when packed with your friends. It was also Mike Insane’s birthday.

Saturday we went to Magicopolis to see TommEE Pickles perform at the bar show, and our ever-travelling friend Dan popped into LA for a night to hang out with us. We went to a bulldog-themed british pub afterwards, then Swingers for pie.

Sunday we saw Surrogates, which was a really good movie, and yesterday we finally got Netflix. Send movie recommendations for weird stuff I’ve never heard of!

Last Thursday I wanted to suprise Dave with dinner. I had him choose from a long list of animals, and he chose the most ordinary one: the chicken. It was a challenge to make chicken fancy, but I hunted through about 100 recipes before I came across the Chicken Saltimbocca on Food Network. Basically, its a jellyroll with layered chicken, prosciutto, and spinach, sprinkled with parmesan, and pan fried. I had to hold the whole thing together with wooden coffee stirrers, because anything else in the house would probably melt (I contemplating wiring it together) and a pot lid had to fit over it. After the chicken was done, I made a gravy out of the stuff it was cooking in. It was the most complicated thing I’ve ever cooked. The dinner was an absolute success.

We also went to Wurstkuche, which I’d been to before. It’s a specialty sausage place with an extensive beer and soda selection. This time I tried Elderflower, which was light and sweet. I also had the rattlesnake eating rabbit sausage, which is my favorite sausage in the world, and really yummy fries with pesto mayo and buttermilk ranch.

The first year I went to Japan, with Aka-san from Intermixi, there was a snake sushi and me and (I think conco?) were the only ones brave enough to try it. This sorta started the whole adventurous eating thing, and the last time I was in Japan, Kim dragged me over to the snake ice cream, so I had to eat that, too. Rattlesnake sausage is about a zillion times tastier than either of those dishes.

Old video of me eating weird ice creams, including snake:

We’ve been trying out lots of restaurants around Universal recently. Follow me on yelp to see my reviews. http://pinguino.yelp.com

I’ve had many people through the years tell me that I was a terrible cook. Rightfully so, since seafood pasta was dumping a can of clam chowder over some overcooked noodles, or mixing up a batch of Kraft Mac’n'Cheese. I’m not sure what it was that finally led me down the path of making things other than cookies and sushi, but eventually I developed an interest in it.

Maybe it was watching Nous throw together amazing Christmas delights out of things laying around in her kitchen. Maybe it was Vissago coming over and pretty much buying me a pantryload of spices cuz I didn’t have salt or pepper shakers. Either way, I can make stuff now and it’s pretty awesome.

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across a recipe for Bacon Lollipops, so I made them and brought them to the beach. People were apprehensive at first, but at the end of the day, all lollipops had been consumed. The pecans were a pain to chop without a food processor, so it’s not likely I’ll make them again, but if I do I’ll make them smaller and put them in smaller sticks, and use fresh basil. Also, I’d mix bacon into the cheese. Recipe here: http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/ingredients-meat/bacon-pops-goat-cheese-balls-with-herbs-pecans-bacon-082974

This is totally my new favorite website. Basically, you get two words (some made up) and have to draw what happens when they’re joined together. It doesn’t matter if you can’t draw, cuz most people on this site can’t. But the ideas that come out of it are absolutely hilarious.

My artwork on the site is all here: http://www.scribbls.com/users/pinguino-1739

I find it to be the perfect creative outlet. Thanks nym, for sharing the link!