Join the BBPPC!!!

Potty training is not for the impatient. A little motivation can help.

Download a printable sheet of clip-and-issue BBPPC cards.

If I have to explain the inestimable value of being a card-carrying potty trained human being, then you are certainly not as desperate for it as I was. Suffice it to say that by showing my card to Thing 1 (with MULTIPLE gold stars, and signed by none other than I.P. Frehley himself), he upped his game toot-sweet, which made the very competitive Thing 2 follow suit in short time. It's been a few years since my boys earned theirs but they still carry them proudly in their wallets.* As does Daddy, and that ain't gonna change for a long long time, if ever.

Now...what to do for Thing 3, the daughter...?

* If you have a child old enough to grab a toy or ask for one when you are in a store -- then you have a child old enough to own (and carry) a wallet. You will thank me if you give them one, I promise you.

Witch's Catalog Order Form

One of my most treasured books as a boy was The Witch's Catalog by Norman Bridwell, published in 1976. You might remember the cover:

You can click through excerpts of it at JustinSpace.com. Norman Bridwell was the author and illustrator of some of my other favorite books, though I didn't know that at the time. He was the one who gave us these gems:

He also did many others, including a certain series about a large red canine. But in The Witch's Catalog, he teased us with items our young imaginations wished we could really have. I mean, an invisible barrier to keep bullies out? And consider this spread:

Order a pet dragon??? With accessories?!? You can find whole books devoted to this subject nowadays, but Norman did it first, and that was pretty avant-garde for a 1976 children's book.

Though I knew magic wasn't real, I wanted so badly to believe that I didn't even care. I probably didn't even notice that the book clearly instructs the reader not to send money. But what did frustrate my young mind was the order form. Have a look:

That #%^**&#@ order form is not even 3 inches across! I remember trying to copy it onto notebook paper, as instructed. Had a heckuva time with it once I noticed two other glaring setbacks: one, it has blanks for PRICE - an attribute conspicuously missing from every item. Worse, it requires you to rub it with bat fat and flea tears!!!

Well, leave it to ol' Keith, amigos. You wanna have a go at this for old times' sake, or for some sadistic reason lead your kids on with something you can't deliver, WELL BUDDY I GOT YOU COVERED.

Download the PDF order form I made for you by clicking the image below.

Since the instructions clearly say "SEND NO MONEY," simply leave the Price column blank. You may include a note that you were so instructed by me, the Witch-Finder of Lilburn. I'm tight with the Great Pumpkin, no one will question it.

For flea tears, just rub the whole dang flea onto it, and per Wikipedia, BAT fat might be more common than you think. 

Boxes and Eggs

Added 8 items to the Etsy store today -- three new dragon eggs and a new set of the very popular Crusted Cthulhu Boxes.

Halloween 2013 - The Witch Hunter's Barn

The gallery at the Witch Hunter's Barn has been updated with fresh photos from 2013.

And so ends another year. Now back to ruining all my paint brushes.

Roots

This is one of the easiest props you could want to make. Here's my tutorial at Hauntforum.

Dry Erase Madness 7

Aquabat?

Dry Erase Madness 6

Dry Erase Madness 5

Dry Erase Madness 4

Thing 2 is six years old. About a year ago he created what he calls "Heart Monsters." Basically they are flying, heart-shaped, and ravenous. I loved the idea and included three of them in my Erebor poster. But he does NOT approve of my rendering of them as above, because of the veins.

From the hands of the young master:

He would like you to know that they can get EVEN BIGGER than this, and are sometimes cannibalistic.

Dry Erase Madness 3

Dry Erase Madness 2

The oddest thing in the Indian Ocean is not the abundance of aquatic eggs, it's the unfortunate Monodontic Eel. It has but one tooth, eyestalks on the opposite end, and generally poor health.

Dry Erase Madness 1

FOR THE CHILDRENNNNNNN

Day 1

Props in Progress

Done so little for Halloween this year...working on just a few captured specimens for the Witch Hunter's Barn.

These will be mandrake roots. I'll post pix when they are finished.

A few more pinned fairies on the corkboard, awaiting paint.

Misty Mountains Old

The Dwarven Song of Old Wealth. All 27 verses. In the halls of Erebor (The Lonely Mountain). 37x60. Words and runic alphabet by J.R.R. Tolkien. Illustration by M.K. Davis.

I had more details in mind for this one but as is typical these days, it was gathering dust on the drawing table. And hanging off of the drawing table! At five feet long and over three feet wide, it's honking big. But it perfectly occupies the wall over my stairwell. I had to tape a screwdriver to a bamboo cane to mount it.

The Tolkien atlas illustrates a much simpler, much more shallow Erebor. But where's the fun in that? I wanted a cutaway dungeon version more fitting for "hollow halls beneath the fells" in "places deep where dark things creep."

No attempt was made at consistency of scale or of even being reasonable with it, but what you probably can't see in this pic are many ladders, bridges, elevators, and tunnels. By the time I got to Smaug's heap, the notion of chalices and statuary in silhouette just didn't make sense anymore. But should I change my mind, I can always go back to it.

BIG THANKS to Mike Roberts for getting my initial layout printed on that wonderful paper. Don't know what it is but I wish I had a ton of it. It made a gorgeous clean print and has taken a lot of abuse without wrinkling or tearing.

Furlough is the Mother of Intervention

12 days into this furlough so far.  I s'pose it's time to seek supplemental employment. My portfolio at mkdavis.net is now freshly redesigned with a great html5 template from html5up, and a responsive, cross-platform lightbox.

Also, and more fun, I finally made good use of the YargCade domain and uploaded 5 cool Flash games!

Hook'Em

Hook'Em was an experiment that turned out to be one of the most useful things in the house when my boys were toddling. Seriously. Once you start it, all they use is the spacebar. The demo has only 2 of the 7 levels but if you chunk down the ten bucks for the full version, your younger kids will be occupied long enough for you to argue with Comcast, locate your sanity, maybe even shower. Guaranteed.

The full version also includes an Explore and Learn mode, which carefully explains to your little ones that they might not actually be able to pull in a whale with a rod and reel, and that some things are better left in the water.

Sharks!

Also a spacebar game, and nearly as attention-keeping as Hook'Em. In this case you get to choose between five sharks and basically eat everything you see. That's it. They love it. Clear a screen and if you carry a few things to the surface, a caged diver comes down. Ram his cage a few times and he soils his wetsuit. They LOVE that. Did I mention this is free?

Monster Maker

Choose parts to mix and match your monster, then send it out to gather more parts. Sick. Free.

Broomstix

Broomstix is not aimed at kids. Help 13 witches fly to the rendezvous point without getting hit by bats or eaten by the Great Pumpkin. It is rated PG for cartoon nudity and mild language. Free demo. Full version is in the works.

Shoggoth

Shoggoth is more of a toy. Eat things, avoid pain. My kids love it though. Free.

In Places Deep Where Dark Things Sleep

Details from another work in progress.

More Riddle of Steel Pix

It's framed now so the photos are a bit glare-y.

Update: prints are now for sale in the Etsy store!

May It Be - Calligraphy of Enya Lyrics

This one had been in my mental queue for years. I had lofty goals of detailed illustrations and personal elements but sometimes you just have to get an idea off the table to make room -- and go back to it later if you get a mind to. The song, if you don't recognize it.

CROM!

Thanks to Mikeyboy for posting a link to YargCade at CROM! Go there NOW for all your Conan Fandom goodness.

The Riddle of Steel

The Riddle of Steel is complete. Prints of the full-sized version (24x18) are now available for sale in the Etsy store.

Closer

Well finally I had some time to do a little more work on this. It's getting closer to done.

Been Sick

...real sick. Hope to post an update soon.

Conan Montage pt.6

The little drawings in the poster are simple by themselves but collectively should add up to a neat poster, I hope. I'm taking liberties mixing quotes with visual elements, and at first they might not make sense together. The finished product should bring it all home.

The Tree of Woe

Wheel of Pain Necklace

Studies for Conan as King. 

Too many details in the first one but my wife digs it. ;)

The layout of the second one is shamelessly ripped off from Patricia Smith.

Conan Montage pt. 5

The shape of the Doom symbol should be easy to correct now, and there's a lot more ink down. The Wheel of Pain necklace is now on the left. Look closely at the rod of the right-hand tapestry and you can see the animal faces from the wheel. I might not incorporate the anvil idea.