Animals – Page 4 – Robot Claw

A Few Unusual Things

March 6, 2022

I had a birthday recently, and got a lot of weird and wonderful stuff. Here’s a few of them…

KLS gave me an electronic card, that plays Happy Birthday and then lets you blow out the candle (yes you blow on the card) to trigger a jumping game! It’s smaller than a credit card and very unique.

This dispenser creates a cat paw pattern using foam soap! It works very well, and the soap from this Japanese item is denser than what we get here in America. I reckon this basic idea will be the first of many of its kind…

This is a set of neon/metallic watercolour paint samples, and I’ve showed what they look like on the right. The glitter ones are extremely cool, but apparently look best on black paper. I wonder if I can use these in the ongoing postcard contest?

This sculpture of a one-eyed raven – possibly one of Odin’s ravens – is made of resin, quite heavy and mounts on the wall. We have a few items like this, and he’ll find a welcome home on our walls. KLS purchased this directly from the artist, and mine is #139 of 300 🙂

The above is a set of stamp sheets depicting American wildlife. They were printed one per year between 1998 and 2009, and Bernard gave me the full set!

The artwork on these is fantastic, and they are printed in such a way that it’s not immediately obvious they contain actual stamps! I’ll never use these; they’re certainly ‘for the collection’ 🙂

And lastly another piece of art: a miniature giraffe sculpture! This is also made of resin, and is hand painted. It’s incredibly tiny: that’s my fingertip on the left and a normal size LEGO minifig on the right. I need to find some sort of mini display case to put him in since he’s so weightless he may just drift off on the wind one day!

As I said this is just a selection of what I received for my birthday. The ‘usual stuff’ (model kits, LEGO, trading cards etc.) will eventually get their own posts right here on this very blog!

Animal Contest: Halftime!

March 1, 2022

A new year meant a new postcard contest, where the worlds most amateur artists would once again render a selection of topics and have them judged. Things were mixed up this time, and the rules were as follows:

The subjects are all animals
We would paint each using watercolors
There are twelve animals in total: Five judges pick two each, and mum picks the first and last

Six are done and the judging is complete. Let’s see the standing at the halfway point…

Panda

Mum’s first pick was a real surprise, but I won’t say what I thought she’d pick since she’s got one more coming. The watercolor nature of the contest immediately made it more difficult than the portraits! We’re both using watercolor pencils, and in the early weeks I drew a pencil drawing then wet it to achieve the paint effect, which meant detail was extremely difficult. However… Bernard ignored the rules and didn’t even create a watercolor!

Mine (on the right) was given the win by the judges with a score of 4.7-0.3 (Bernard got a tiny nod due to cuteness).

Here’s a comment from one judge about mine:
“Movement and emotion are conveyed and one can almost hear the panda munching away on his bamboo.”

Eagle

Mine is on the right and Bernard’s on the left and once again (sigh) we see he failed to add water and therefore didn’t create an actual watercolor. He feigned ignorance of the rules at this point, but it was clear he was exploiting the fact the judges themselves were ignoring the rules since he won this one 3-2. One judge even said “Left doesn’t look like an eagle but it has more detail so it gets my vote“! Imagine that: giving your vote to the non-watercolor that doesn’t even look like the topic!

It was at this point that the truth of this contest was becoming clear: the judges are inscrutable and whimsy and emotion factors as much into their decisions as artistic merit. This would have to be carefully considered by the artists…

Betta (Siamese Fighting Fish)

A salute to the judge that picked this, since it allowed liberal use of color! The strong difference between each approach made this a harder choice for the judges. Ultimately Bernard (on the right) won 3-2 but I sensed it was very close.

Some judges comments:
“Left is the first one that actually looks like a watercolor“
“Right looks like a goldfish!”
“Right is more three-dimensional with a beautiful impression of fluidity“

Incidentally I was very happy with the shading on my fish (the light spot on the upper back), which wasn’t easy for me to obtain. I don’t think any judges noticed it 🙂

Cute Domestic Housecat

This one was unusual since the judge added a condition: cuteness was key, and an image of a plain cat would be valued less than a cute cat. No judge had done this previously (or since), but as artists both B and I accepted the condition without comment. I took it very seriously and my creation is on the right, with Bernard’s on the left. Which one is cuter?

Ultimately the win was mine 3-2, but three judges split their votes, with the biggest being 0.3/0.7! Two judges commented that they gave me more points despite the technical skill shown in Bernard’s being greater since they assumed/understood that mine was in accordance with the criteria.

One judge decided Bernard’s was technically better and cuter with this comment:
“The definition of cuteness I will follow is ‘attractiveness that is pretty and endearing’. Left displays considerable skill in the choice of colors and the minimal application. The shadows on the face convey the soft shape and are extremely well done; the cat peeks out of the page with a perfect expression of indifference. The soft pink of the ears and subtle grey shadows lend strength to the brilliant blue/green eyes which make this exceedingly pretty and irresistably endearing. The cuteness factor is off the chart!“

Isn’t it interesting that we both chose white cats with grey shadows and both used pink as a secondary colour?

Gorilla

Another surprise choice, from a judge who I expected would have picked any number of other animals. Mine is on the left, and Bernard’s on the right. The judges wasted no time in their deliberation, and awarded Bernard the win 3.3-1.7 (yes, more split votes).

I went with bombast in my depiction, intending to evoke Kong silhouetted against the sun. But my intention exceeded my ability, and some of the finer detail of my pencil drawing was lost when wetted (see below).

Here are some judges comments:
“I can’t get over the expression of left“
“I’ll pick the silverback on the right; I like the use of light“
“Left is a tortured gorilla’s cream on behalf of all gorillas killed by selfish and greedy humans to satisfy a rich mans ego. The bold lines and dramatic colors evoke deep trauma and injustice. A world in which this typically peaceful giant is hunted and abused is an ugly world indeed and this artwork reminds me to be angry and sad and to do something to make the world better for all the beautiful creatures that live in it before human stupidity destroys all of it. Right is peaceful and gentle by comparison. The colors are soft and natural. A gorilla going about his day bored of any human observer. It is a fine artwork but the indifferent beauty depicted serves to intensify the impact of the emotion portrayed by left.“

Snake

Two judges are impossible to predict, one likes bold color, and two respond to dramatic imagery. This was my conclusion by this point, so to win I had to use bold colors and do more than a simple depiction of the subject. When Snake was chosen, the obvious choice therefore was Lucifer and his apple, and my depiction is on the left. I had been impressed by Bernard’s gorilla and queried him about his techniques. As a result this was the first time I didn’t simply draw a pencil illustration and wet it: I also applied the pencils directly to the wet postcard and mixed paints on a palette and applied them using a super-fine brush I cut down just to show the scales. As this one went into the mail, I was confident.

As it turns out the judges agreed and gave me the unanimous win: 5-0. I can see flaws in mine, but I think B had a few missteps here, not the least of being a lack of ‘mouth definition’ (which three judges cited).

Here’s some of the comments:
“Right looks like a cross between a snake and an alligator!”
“Left makes me think of a hidden danger in a gamebook, where the critter on the right is a tad eel-ish for my money.”
“Great texture in snake and apple”
“Use of the apple in left is very clever… The colors contrast and compliment to a lovely effect… The eye is odd but suits the supposedly friendly nature of the snake to tempt a sweet virgin to taste forbidden fruit!” (This was the only judge that commented on the biblical theme.)

And so, after six animals, the tally is: we are currently tied with 3 wins each! This is good for the contest, but hard for us. I was hoping for an early lead to I could ‘get experimental’, but with the competition as tight as it is every card matters and I must always think of the judges as I decide what to create.

Here’s some behind-the-scenes photos of some of my creations before I added water:

And here’s my cute cat in pencils:

One aspect of the contest invisible to judges are that we are both using an identical set of twelve postcards. This was an arbitrary decision of mine (I printed two copies of a 12-card set several months back) and only after we decided this did I realize this added an extra wrinkle: we couldn’t discard a picture and start again since we wouldn’t have enough postcards! So if we want to practice we need to use other cards. Bernard has done just that a few times, and he has also been sending me his practice arts, none of which were intended for judge submission. Here’s his alternate ‘cute domestic housecat’ and ‘betta’. He won Betta but I won Cat, do you think he could have won had he submitted this one:

As usual in about six weeks I’ll follow up with the final results. As of right now, this is anyone’s game 🙂

Monsters In The Woods

February 15, 2022

I recently learned of a folk history of nonexistent wild animals in the area of America in which I now live (the Northeast). Apparently in the 1800s and early 1900s lumberjacks in this part of the world would entertain each other around the fire with tales of ferocious beasts inhabiting the woods, and these tales would in time be spread across the continent, continually modified and embellished with the telling.

The beasts in the tales are distinct from cryptids, since (it seems) few people ever believed they were real. They were more the inhabitants of fairy tales told by grown men, and in some ways this makes them even more curious. Various writers chronicled the beasts in the tales, and some (such as the Jackalope) have become well-known to people even today. But until I read about these recently I had never heard of the majority of these ‘Fearsome Creatures’ (after the 1939 book by William Cox).

Here’s a few of them:

The dungavenhooter was a lizard-like creature that had no mouth but enormous nostrils. It was said to prey on drunk loggers in the state of Maine, and would beat them to death with it’s long powerful tail until their bodies turned to gas, at which point it would inhale them for sustenance! Perhaps this tale was intended to be a deterrent to drunkenness?

The gumberoo was a large creature of the deep woods, often mistaken for a bear. It had incredibly strong, near-invulnerable skin and was voracious, eating almost anything it could fit in its mouth. It was said they could be killed only by fire, and some legends said they turned to fire when they died, which explained forest fires.

The hodag was a chimeric beast with parts from many others: part frog, part elephant, part dinosaur and spikes all over it. This beast ranged in Wisconsin, and was said to be extremely ferocious for it’s relatively small size. In 1893, a local ~~prankster~~ hunter actually killed one (the photo above was printed in a newspaper) and after doubts emerged of the legitimacy of the corpse three years later he caught a living hodag and exhibited it at a state fair! Alas, it was soon revealed to be a hoax. If the hodag exists, it hasn’t been seen since.

The squonk was a small and lonely creature that lived in the forests in southern New York and northern Pennsylvanian (not far from here then)! The squonk was apparently so embarrassed by its ugly countenance that it spent its life hidden and crying in shame. Hunters reported that when cornered the animal dissolved into ‘tears and bubbles’! What an unusual beast.

The snallygaster was a dragon-like creature that inhabited the hills and valleys of northern Maryland. First reported in the mid 1700s, a series of sightings in the early 20th century led to a mini-hysteria to determine what this gigantic cyclopean metallic birdlike creature (sometimes with tentacles) that had actually eaten humans (although this was unconfirmed) actually was. The Smithsonian became interested, and it was reported that no less than Theodore Roosevelt himself became interested in hunting it. Or so it was said, although much like ‘reports’ of many of these creatures these claims too were part of a hoax to sell newspapers.

This is just a tiny example of a menagerie of strange beasts that once walked the imaginations of Americans. In the days when the forests stretched forever and the nights were dark, it must have been easy for a frightened woodsman to imagine that strange call in the deep woods coming from a glawackus, or a hudag, or even a wampus cat.

If you’re interested in more examples this wikipedia article is a good start.