2.8.2012
kitbashes
-
So, as I alluded to last month: There's an episode from season three
of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles called "Green With Jealousy" in which
the Turtles are dressed up in sailor suits, one of their many disguises that
makes them look less like naked reptiles and more like reptiles wearing people
clothing. Anyway, Playmates Toys produced an action figure years ago
called Midshipman Mike, but I always thought it would be cool to buy four
of them and turn them all into a quartet of sailor Turtles. Well, I
finally got around to doing it. This is the second time I've taken
four identical TMNT toys and transformed them into each of the four Ninja
Turtles, and let me just say that it really is an enormous amount of work,
doing four projects simultaneously like this. Anyway, without further
ado, I present to you Sailor
Donatello, Sailor Leonardo,
Sailor Michaelangelo, and
Sailor
Raphael.
I've got quite a few exciting projects planned for this year (I refuse to
give anything away, which means I will not be telling you about the Ray Fillet
I just got off eBay), but be forewarned that I've got a new baby coming in
June, after which I strongly expect things to grind to a halt (again) for
quite a while. It's just the nature of the beast. (No, I didn't
just call my unborn baby a beast. I haven't even gotten to know her
yet!)
In other news, I'll be submitting my comic strip to the syndicates again
after I finish weeding out the weaker ones and replacing them with better
ones. Why am I telling you all of this? Because now that I've
immortalized my intentions on the Internet, I have to do it or else you
will all know me to be a liar. (Which I am, of course, but I just don't
want anyone knowing it.)
By the way: e-book, people.
It ain't gonna buy itself.
1.11.2012
kitbashes
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This year marks the 25th anniversary of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles cartoon, so to comemmorate that, I'm unveiling perhaps my most
ambitious TMNT project to date—it's a
cartoon version of Rocksteady, the
mutated military rhino, as seen in the 1980's animated series. I had
to completely rebuild the original toy, which includes an entirely new head
sculpt and some mondo righteous accessories. (Did I get the vernacular
right?) Going forward, I have plans to cover every major character
from the show. I have ideas for a generic Rock Soldier, the Channel
Six News crew, and lots more. I don't want to state definitively here
what will be unveiled next, since my creative side hates to be locked down
on specific projects ahead of time. It squelches my need to frolic
and run free. (I will just say, though, that I finally got four Midshipman
Mike action figures off eBay and that I've been taking screen captures from
"Green With Jealousy." Make of that what you will.)
By the way, I think it's astounding that when I do a Google image search
for a phrase like "Turtles kitbash" or "TMNT kitbash," the first page of
search results is completely filled by images from my web site. It's
actually rather embarrassing.
Somehow I seem to have completely dominated the field without really
trying. What happened to all the competition? I know there are
other people doing projects like this. (Maybe all the pictures are
just on your cell phones or Nintendo DSi or something instead of the Internet?)
12.6.2011
e-book
-
What have I been up to lately? Well, for several years now, I've been
doing illustrations for my wife, one every Christmas, of this character called
The Butterfly Princess, who sort of symbolically represents her after a fashion.
Each drawing has been somehow related to the last, and over time I've
developed a small back story about the characters. She's even mentioned
that I could probably write a full-fledged story, given the amount of
material I've developed. Well, this year I decided to surprise her
and I actually wrote the story in the form of an e-book. I'm going
to totally sneak it onto her Kindle on Christmas Eve. (Shh, don't tell
her! I'm blabbing this all over the Internet, but it's still a
secret!)
Anyway, as many of you know, the ZMFTS has been up and running since 1998,
and during that time I've never made money from the site, never sold advertising
space, and never really asked for much except for comments if people liked
what they saw. Well, now I'm asking you to please take a look at my
e-book, entitled A Butterfly's
Tale, and buy an electronic copy if it strikes your fancy. It's
about 95,000 words in length and you can preview a fair-sized chunk of it
for free. I've set the purchase price modestly low (less than $4.00
USD) in the hopes of encouraging prospective buyers.
If you've enjoyed my previous writing (my fan fiction or my participation
on the fan forum alt.toys.transformers) and would like to help support my
creative endeavours, I would kindly ask you to consider buying my book.
(It really is in your best interest, since the more money I made doing
what I love, the less time I have to spend at Walmart and the more I can
putter around on the computer and add more stuff to my web site. See,
it's a win-win situation!)
As an extra added bonus, I will entertain every reasonable request as to
what happens in the sequel, which I expect will be finished by December 2012.
So, if you'd like to see your ideas appear in a published story,
read the first book and
then send me your suggestions!
As always, thanks for visiting—and for those of you who choose to buy
the book, I appreciate your patronage. (But not your patronizing.
That's something else entirely.)
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