For the Love of a Friend

It started with a plurk...

The included hyperlink sends you to a silkscreen print of Damien Hirst's "For the Love of God" - mounted, framed, signed, and numbered. I was very aware of Gatt's deep admiration of Hirst's work, so I knew she wasn't messin' around this Christmas.

As much as I adore Gattina, nine-hundred pounds was not within my budget. I needed to find another way. Google led me to the Skull-A-Day project, specifically, project #343 - Pop-Up Skull.

Of course, the paper portion of the skull was only half of the total project, I needed to encrust this with jewels of some sort.

Did you know that during the holiday season, craft stores will offer all kinds of crazy sales? Neither did I. In a matter of minutes, I became intimately familiar with the "papercraft" section of my local A.C. Moore and inside that section, I found rhinestones.

To complicate matters further, the rhinestones were available in several diameters, ranging from extremely-tiny 2.5 millimeter to bling-nasty 5 millimeter. I settled on 3.5 - 4mm: small enough to provide a lot of glitz, but large enough to work with without going insane.

And then there is Swarovski.

"Swarovski Birthday Card". The very idea just seemed SO outlandish - fitting with the overall theme of reproducing Hirst's work. I bought 3 packs of Swarovski crystals to mix in - they really do shine better than the standard rhinestone.

All that was left was the decorative headpiece for the skull.

Did you know that pear-shaped, clear, flat-bottomed crystals are nigh-impossible (yes, nigh) to find? Neither did I.

Long story short, I defaulted to Martha Stewart of all people. She apparently has an entire line of self-adhesive papercrafting embellishments for your stalkerazzi needs. Damn her and her legion of offshore sweatshop workers. She may be a bitch that served hard-time, but for me, she provided exactly what I needed.

The centerpiece crystal had to be sourced from a bead shop: One of those mall-kiosks that

specialize in pendants and make-your-own jewelry. Clear, pear-shaped, just-the-right-size. Excellent. Time for assembly.

Anyone wanting to try this for themselves can download the PDF pattern.

Let me just say that there's nothing like the feel of a fresh X-Acto blade slicing through cardstock.

Once the pieces were cut and scored appropriately, it was time to start gluing. Each piece was individually glued and secured. My only regret is that I did not keep track of exactly how many stones I used for the card, but I estimate around 1,000.

During the assembly process, I gained an entirely new level of appreciation for Hirst, and what he might have experienced in creating his own work of art. At around stone 60, I started having my doubts about the piece. At stone 125, however, my wife called me insane - and that provided all the validation I needed.

The background paper is also from the craftstore's cardstock selection. It seemed stronger and more elegant than regular black construction paper.

While white craft glue was used for the rhinestones, I needed a different kind of adhesive for the large centerpiece jewel. Regular craft glue was too opaque and hot-melt glue was off-color. Fortunately, my 3 year old daughter was caught playing with Mighty Mendit (she's all better now, the glue washed off in the bubble bath). That stuff is highly-adhesive and totally clear - worked like a charm.

After testing the folding characteristics of the pieces, making sure none of the stones were loose, it was mounting time. I used blue painter's masking tape at first - it was low-tack and allowed me to reposition the pieces until I was satisfied with the effect. Once the final positions were set, I glued the tabs down and reinforced them with black electrical tape.

The end result:

After writing my birthday wishes for Gattina inside, I boxed it up and mailed it off - hoping it would arrive intact. When you do something like this, you start having nightmares of crumpled paper and an envelope full of loose rhinestones spilling out onto a hardwood floor.

I named the piece "For the Love of a Friend" in homage to Hirst, but also to convey how valuable I consider my own friendships.

Happy Birthday, Gattina.

Maybe I will do a "Hot For Zombies" Pop-Up book next...

Cakeporn

Because I like to share with you guys: The birthday cake we made for my wife

A nicely-chopped ounce of semi-sweet, one of seven total.





My helpers






A shot of the inside: three layers, glued together with butter-toffee-mocha ganache





Plated, with fresh strawberries and mandarin oranges, whipped cream, and more chocolate drizzle.







Butter Toffee Mocha Ganache:

1 cup heavy cream
7 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, chopped fine
1 Tbsp flavored coffee grounds - I used a Butter Toffee K-cup from Gloria Jean's

1. Heat cream in saucepan over medium heat until bubbles form at the edge - cream will boil over violently if left unattended.
2. Add the flavored coffee grounds to the cream. Remove from heat and steep for 30 minutes - add more or less depending on strength of coffee you want in your ganache. Skim off and strain excess grounds.
3. Reheat flavored cream then pour over chocolate and whisk until smooth. Consistency should approach that of wall paint. Give whisk and spatula to helpers for cleaning.
4. Pour over cake and refrigerate for a smooth, glossy finish

Mashed

Two more combined photos:











Ever since learning about colorizing photos in Photoshop, I've become much more dangerous:











I'll be updating my Flickr page with more.

Comments always welcome.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Have a happy and safe Hallow's Eve.

The Haunted Stripclub

disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons real, imaginary, or other is purely coincidental.

It was a run-down, dilapidated sim. They say Old man Rust just let it all go to pieces once "the madness" started taking him. When they found him, they said he was trying to cut the evil out of his soul with a hacksaw. He's...harmless..now. After the operation. Lobotomy patients rarely cause any problems. He appears to respond to youporn videos of dwarves and emus.

"What are we doing here?" whined Calvin.

"You're not...scared, are you, baby?"

"Woman, I'll kick you in the nuts like I'm scared."

"Well, c'mon then, baby-boy". Yulia beckons him inside...wiggling those curvaceous hips and flashing that seductive grin.

Calvin mutters under his breath "Goddammit, I thought I was rid of this shithole..." He finds the circuit breaker for the room. Half of the lights flicker on, protesting their rude awakening.

From the entrance, they can barely recognize what was once a stripclub. Dust and spiderwebs appear to have overtaken much of the interior. Looming shadows consume the farthest corners. Squinting, they try to make out where the stages used to...

All of a sudden, they hear a metallic squeaking from above. The rhythmic, repetitious sound of...bedsprings?

"I thought you took all of the beds, Cal?"
"I did. I have all of mine"

Yulia and Calvin ascend the stairs to the second floor, the squeaking growing louder and louder. They arrive at the bedroom door.

Calvin yells "Tak, is that you? Could you and whatever-you're dating-this-week please stop?"

The squeaking continues, unfazed. Yulia stifles a giggle. Calvin reaches for the handle and opens the door.

The squeaking is deafening, they both avert their heads, covering their ears. Yulia finds the lightswitch.

The bed is empty, but the mattress continues slamming up and down, its metallic springs screaming for all their worth. Calvin recognizes something familiar and touches a spot on the bed. The mattress makes a few last gasps of rusty squeaks and expires.

"Oh, I see. Yeah, this is a Stoker Sex-Gen version 1.5. See? You can tell by the detailing. They were very buggy...lots of script errors. Didn't sell very well. Man, this is an antique. Hard must've been desperate to use one of these..."

"That squeaking." says Yulia with a shiver. "Ugh! If I had to listen to that all day, every day, I'd go..."

"..insane?" Calvin quickly answered. They both looked at each other and silently agreed to head back downstairs.

By now, their vision had adjusted to the reduced lighting. They can now clearly see the remains of the stage and the dancepoles. The stagelights were shattered, half of one stage appeared to be the loser in a chainsaw fight. Human-sized bitemarks decorated the barstools.

The poles all had deep gashes and dents in them, save one. Yulia hops up and runs her hands over the cold, dry metal. "This feels familiar" coughs Yulia as she mounts the dusty pole.

"It looks like Madman Hard took an axe to the others." Calvin peeks inside a hat, only to find a maggot-ridden corpse of a rabbit. "augh!" he screams, tossing the body outside.

"C'mon, Yulia...let's just go. We have better stripperpoles in our goddamn bathrooms for Christsakes..."

"Don't be such a buzzkill, Cal. I'm feeling that...thrill...again." Yulia quickly climbs to the top, executing an inverted downward spiralspin like it was her first stripper audition.

He cautiously looks around the club once more before taking a seat.

Just as he was getting comfortable with Yulia's one-woman show, the power goes out. Calvin curses Hard under his breath, like so many, many times before. The room is totally black and instantly grows cold.

Unable to see or hear anything, Calvin asks..."Yules...are you...?"

"calvin...please help me...."

A smoky glow envelops Yulia. Her body starts twisting, contorting in horrific directions. Her ankle pops with that sickening, wet sound you hear in butcher shops. Yulia starts screaming, crying for help. Her makeup is now a melted mess on her face.

Calvin is paralyzed in his seat, struggling to grasp what is happening...he feels a squeezing inside his own chest. He rips apart his shirt, tearing at the buttons. They both watch as Calvin's skin starts splitting, forming the words "a vingança é minha".

Yulia claws at the stage trying to make it to the door but the phantom mist refuses to let go. She looks back only to see her knee dislocate. She almost blacks out from the stabbing pain. A horrific laugh emerges from Calvin's throat. His body spasms in the chair as chains start wrapping themselves around his limbs, pulling downward into the floor. Flesh and bone give way as he's quickly reduced to a limbless torso, helplessly impaled on the shaft of the broken barstool. Blood pours onto the dusty wood flooring, his grey, pupil-less eyes roll in their sockets and he croaks the phrase "a vingança é minha"

On the brink of insanity, Yulia tries to concentrate...Russian? Italian? Latin?!?

Her left arm breaks in four places in a very ugly compound fracture. She howls like a tortured animal at the pain. Gritting her teeth, she struggles to the barstool, smearing the blood away with her one good arm, reading the carving in what-used-to-be-Calvin....listening again for the death whisper "a vingança é minha"

Portuguese!

She watches her world spin around, hearing her own neck snap. A chilling, tingling, merciful paralysis takes her. She swears hearing someone say "mwa ha har"...

Epilogue: Authorities are still trying to piece together yesterday's double-murder at Hard Alley. "The bodies were...disfigured." says Officer Dumart. "At present, there are no signs of anyone else involved. Investigators have also discovered the remains of a female neko ....possibly Mexican in origin....sealed inside a crude plywood cube. The cube itself was found submerged in the underground sewers of the club. Autopsy results are pending but it appears that the neko was buried inside the cube still alive."

I play with knives

My daughter is a big fan of Hello Kitty. So, it's no surprise what she wanted for a jack-o-lantern this Halloween.

We draw Hello Kitty faces all the time. This is the first time I had to do it on a vegetable. Veggie peelers are awesome.

Happy Halloween

Zombiecakes

Dessert is one of my hobbies. Having participated in Zombiefest 2009, seeing various RL ZombieWalks, and noticing a few undead-themed movies recently, I figured it was time to make a dessert-of-the-non-living.

Doing a GIS on Zombie Cupcake produced some interesting results. The brain-cake seemed too unpalatable to pull off, and I didn't have the right sculpting materials for the hand-rising-from-the-grave cake. I had marshmallows, some black frosting, and two children. Apparently, that was all I needed.


An important note about black cake frosting, it's actually concentrated dark green. When my kids started painting the frosting onto the marshmallows with one of their (clean) art-set paintbrushes, it gave the marshmallow a very dark-green, undead tint - perfect for zombieheads.

Happy Halloween, my friends.