Living at a Museum

Welcome to my entry for the "My Favourite Museum" boneyard. Now because Traumador has published on the Tyrrell museum and I couldn't really hope to add much to what he's already said, I've decided to come at this topic a different way.

For many of us museums are a fun place to visit and explore, some us very lucky people even get to work at them, but only a few of us can realistically claim to have lived at a museum.

I am one of those few. While I worked at the Royal Tyrrell Museum's Badlands Science Camp in 2005, for all intents and purposes I LIVED at the Royal Tyrrell Museum.

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Though I worked at camp two years (2005 and 2006) it was only in the camps pilot year that I truly HAD to live at the museum. In this first year it was not certain how the general public and the locals would react to and treat our camp site. Being located just off the major footpath in Midland Provincial Park there was a lot of potential for vandalism and trespassing. So the staff were required to live on site to ensure that it was "secure".

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Fortunately nobody had it in for our camp stuff, and every year after the first staff have been required to NOT live on site. Probably because of we the first lot. Not that we were badly behaved, but just rather it proved to be an odd experience for us AND the museum as a whole.

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Now technically we lived in the camp's tepees, which, okay granted, weren't really a physical part of the museum. Yet they were just one step removed from being so. Being a mere 10 minute walk from the museum, and with no really infrastructure of their own to begin with (we didn't get a proper toilet at camp for 3 weeks!) we staffers ended up living out of the camp office and staff lounge at the Tyrrell an awful lot!

There had never been staff quite like us.

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In the morning we'd wake up tend to any on site stuff, and than trek into the museum as the opening shift was arriving. Making us among the first in the place for the day. We'd shower, eat breakfast (in the staff room, much to the annoyance of some of the big brass), and than get to work in the camp office.

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Our work day technically ended at 4pm like the other early people, but as all we really had to do was either go hangout in the badlands for the rest of the day or stay in the air conditioned and populated museum. So we usually opted to keep working until 7-8pm. We didn't mind not getting paid, there was a ton of stuff to set up before the kids showed up that first year.

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By the time we brushed our teeth, hit the toilet (again it took us forever to get one on site!), and hiked ourselves back to the camp, we were among the last to leave the building.

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Working at the museum two years previous had taken some of the magical edge off the place. Living there killed the magic off in many ways. The Tyrrell has never been quite the same for me since. Not that it is a bad thing.

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In some ways I'm closer to the place than the people who have been working there since it opened. It has a feeling of home, and that's because, apart from sleeping, I really did live in that place (and when the kids were at camp we'd sleep one night of the 5 in the Dinosaur Hall!).

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Now I've of course already posted about some of my work experiences at the museum, but mostly to do with the palaeo side of my job. Camp was a totally different set of experiences and rewards. I'd worked summer camps before, and I'd worked at the museum before, but combining the two has been my favourite job so far in my life.

Sure much of the magic was taken off working at the museum, but at the same time I gained something way cooler. I became Mr. Museum!

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Building a camp from the ground up is intense and you need the help and resources of all kinds of people. Being one of 3 people running around and rallying this help and those resources I quickly built an incredible network around the museum. It was so cool to get to know and work with nearly every department and branch of the institution. Even cooler is that I can still go in and visit most of them even these days! I haven't worked there in 2 years!

The other awesome thing about living at work is the bonds you make with your fellow staff. Now this is more an element of the summer camp, and not so much the museum (and I have the same thing with many of the Kiwanians), but these guys are more like family than co-workers or friends.

Of course I also have always loved working with kids, and that was pretty much all I did both those years from the beginning of July till the end of August. The fact I was educating, and doing Dinosaurs and palaeo was just icing on the cake!

What was even cooler was that due to our program being 5 continuous days of living (with the kids) at the museum, we had to fill up the time with some pretty unique experiences to make it worth their while. As of such the kids got to be, all but one step removed from, actual palaeontologists those 5 days. They got to go places and do things other visitors could only dream of... Of course as the staff member leading 6 camps all summer I got to do it ALL 6 times! Two years in a row!!!

Our collections tour for example. My first 2 years as an interpreter I got to see collections once a year. After two years of camp and the 8 collections visits, I got "tired" of the place... Not really, but it wasn't an elusive elite place anymore.

The educator in me had a field day. Literally sometimes (pun intended!). My big complaint with teaching for real is you can't have fun like this or be this silly in the skool system.

Another one of the things I had a lot of fun with was the program development. Due to our having SO much time to fill we camp staff invented probably 2 days worth of stuff that was spread out throughout the week for the kids to do. It was cool seeing the 6 programs I came up with go from ideas on paper in the pre-season, get setup and put together usually just in time for the kids to arrive, and finally see the campers try them out.

Granted not all of them were hits or without their flaws. The problem with only have 2 months (with no great play testing time) is that sometimes these ideas didn't work out. The most infamous of these was my "bloody" Corythosaur.

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Despite these set backs and minor crisis, I enjoyed them in a way too. I got to creative problem solve. Something I do enjoy about substitute teaching these days.

I also doubled my canoe experience those summers. Due to my being a certified (expired mind you) flatwater canoe instructor I got to lead all 8 trips of those summers. The red deer river was a piece of cake to boat, despite it being a "moving" body, and there were no truly scary moments or incidents. Mind you like all field outings there were many stressful moments for us staff, but the kids loved it.

However my favourite of favourite memories from camp though, were the themes. A summer camp theme is basically a improv interactive drama put on for the kids where all the events of camp are framed with a loose story. At Kiwanis these were put to minor to moderate use in my day there, and as it was my favourite thing I brought it to Science camp with a vengeance.

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There is almost nothing else I love more in the world than putting on a costume and pretending I'm someone way more fantastic or cool than myself. Especially around kids as they have imaginations enough to keep up with my own. That and they appreciate make belief for the fun that it is!

Taking my 3 years at Kiwanis and their themes, I perfected camp theme to a level that will probably never be rivalled at our budget! You can get the whole story about that here.

A huge bit of camp, that lives on into this day, was Traumador. He was entwined in everything we did at camp. Often "helping" introduce or lead programs, or in a few cases the one delivering the program...

So much was Traumador a key part of these good times, me and Peter realized that to keep something of these summers alive later in our lives Traumador was our best bet. The Tyrannosaur Chronicles owes its existence to Traumador being the heart and soul of camp.

Those days are sadly over, and they're not coming back. I'll always miss the unexpected nature of camp, and the way every day ended up being a thousand adventures (big and small). You never know what was going to happen. Whether it be a random visit from the hospital helicopter (not for medical reasons thankfully!) one minute, head off to canoe the river, dig or look for fossils, or get into costume as a villainous "minion" jump into your car drive to the field trip across the valley so the bad guys appeared to be everywhere!

I still remember this moment with crystal clarity. This picture was taken 30 seconds after I delivered my last program at camp ever. Here you see all my key camp tools piled together on a chair as you'd never see them during a camp. During camp they were my lifeline, and always in use getting me to the end of the day. Now they were just idly sit here ready to collect dust. Because camp would never come to them (or me) again.

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Yes I do miss camp often, but at the same time I also realize I need to get on with my life. More to the point there's bound to be something else out there that is as equal an adventure as living at a museum. So if you know what it is could you let me know.

Update: Phone Crisis

Okay lower Craig threat level to Orange striped Purple polka dots.

I will be keeping my phone while at Salmond.

The internet will hopefully be retained too, but this is a little more up in the air. If it is lost it'll only be for a week.

I'm still rather annoyed at the breakdown in communication on their part. With only a sign reading "Next week internet service will be lost" to go on there was a lot of room for imagination. I'm just glad when I asked the staff (all of whom knew next to nothing about any it) I did find out the phones were involved too.

So back to work. Which is a good bit of news. The work hasn't dried up. Despite only having two bookings for this week I've had 4 days, and nothing saying I won't get A CALL tomorrow making it my second 5 dayer week.

If it isn't one thing it's a *BEEP*ing other!

I'm getting sick of being a "real" person, and I haven't even made it a year.

So for a huge amount of this year I was waging a bureaucratic war to get paid, which I finally won.

I thought life was finally going to let up on me for a while. There haven't been any major issues, apart from Lady R getting sick a lot lately, and I've been getting tons of work...

Of course this is me we're talking about. As any of my friends will tell you, the universe will not let me do anything the *BEEP*ing easy way! Not ever.

Walking into the Salmond lobby this evening, I saw a sign that could very well spell the doom of my new success. They're cutting my Internet AND phone line next week.

Now the Internet I could maybe manage without for a month, but the timing is unbelievably bad. Especially given Traumador's big event next week (the same day as the cut funny enough!).

No, the part about this that has me furious beyond words is the phone line. This is where I get all my work from! If I lose my phone I lose my job, period. Due to the costs of mobile phone calls here in NZ, they won't call me on my cell (one of the many problems with a privatised school system, another example being the pay system!).

As for getting a "regular" job, Lady R has been looking for a job for almost a month, and with the current economic crisis going on, there are no jobs.

Now I'm writing this as of 10 minutes post reading the sign, and haven't been able to talk to the guy in charge of the communication systems. So they can't give me any answers till tomorrow. However if they can't make an exception for me, I'm royally f**ked, and yet again through no fault of my own!

Yeah growing up and being a "real" person is "awesome"!

F**K!

Help out Laelaps

Brian over at Laelaps is in the running for a pretty huge blogging scholarship (which he could obviously use), but he needs our help!

Click here and vote for Brian Switek if you support blogging, science, and especially palaeotology.

It's good to know my University knows who I am!

In my efforts to get the pay owed to me (oh I did finally get paid some of my money), I need to prove the extent of my education and qualifications.

Which means transcripts and similar fun things (like notarized copies of degrees and diplomas). In my effort to get a transcript from the University of Calgary it was very reassuring when my account came up as this. There's only one small mistake, but it is a key one. Can you see it?

Now I don't have many nice things to say about UoC. Their more of a machine, trying to process as many students with as little effort as they can, than an educational institution. I'd like to say this is a new low for them, but sadly its more the norm. Like that time I was forced to cancelling graduating due to the setup of their website. That's another story though.

At least I have yet a new nickname based on someone's misspelling of my name. Though Kristin's were much funnier for "some" reason.

Bruce Timm's Batman Gotham Knight

Among my favourite TV shows of all time, and definitely on the short of best comic adaptations in my book is Bruce Timm's DC animated series (Batman, Batman Beyond, Superman, and Justice League). Of course sadly after the fourth season of Justice League this line of shows came to an end, and Bruce Timm moved on to make direct to DVD animated movies for DC.


I'd been meaning to check these out earlier, but due to their very delayed release in New Zealand it hasn't been till this month I started to track them down. Finding Superman Doomsday in the bargin bin, and than Batman Gotham Knight at the rental shop I've suddenly got more than I can effective watch in my busy schedule.


Since it had to go back Gotham Knight got the first viewing, and I have to say if its the norm than I'm regretting the $8 on Superman (hopefully that's not the case, but that'll have to wait till another day).


So the very brief review is of course I'm very very glad I rented this, and didn't buy it.


In a style similar to the Animatrix a bunch of independent animation teams did some shorts on Batman which were than combined to make a movie. To call it a movie is frankly a stretch, and this product is in essence is 6 shorts that barely tie together.


If there is one thing this "movie" has its style. So much of it you feel it being shoved down your throat the whole time the DVD is playing.


Sadly they over crammed it so much with style they forgot to put in anything else. There are some impressive drawings of Gotham, Batman, other characters from the comics that appear on screen for huge chunks of time, but forget this supposed to be an animated show. Rather in some of these sketches (the second in particular) feel more like a slide show of the artist's sketch book.

The majority of this style derives from anime, and sadly in most cases from the type of anime I don't enjoy. Story, dialogue, and action take a back seat to establishing a setting or a mood as characters just sit there blankly starring into space, at each other, or where ever and shots of locations of things go on for tens of seconds.


Making for some really dull view frankly. This shot being a key example. The only difference between this still shot and the movie is that, after the crook holding the hostage threats to kill her, the fire moves and we get to watch that for about 10 seconds.

Making it especially boring is that to establish the effect of Batman, most of the creators feel that Batman should appear as little as possible. Sort of like the shark in Jaws. So instead we spend 90% of sketches with kids, COPs, or Bruce Wayne flash backs.

The opening short was certainly the worse. Which I thought was stupid. Opening on the weakest just seems silly to me.

In a classic cliche a bunch of street kids sit around telling their tales of run ins with the Dark Knight. Only these are truly from a kids point of view which portray Batman as everything from a giant bat, a robot, and a living shadow (ALL terribly drawn I'll add!) with Batman showing up for 5 seconds in the end of the short. In the actual Bruce Timm there is a brilliant episode with this concept only the kid's tales are all adaptations of different eras of Batman meaning you get lots of Batman rather than none...

From here on the sketches tried to feel interconnected, and be in the Batman Begins universe. Note I did say try to. The sketches that were good were those that really tried to stick to this format.

However due to the 6 different styles it jarred you out of this illusion quickly. If not for Kevin Conroy being the constant voice of Bruce Wayne and Batman there were some sketches I wouldn't have caught on to who was supposed to be Bruce Wayne (though one of them once you catch it was a GREAT anime-ized Christian Bale)

So out of the 6 shorts, 2 were amazing/awesome, 2 were meh, 1 was just too boring to be anything above meh, and the first was just awful.

The success of the 2 good shorts was the fact they had some story to them. Overall these shorts had no build of any sort other than again mood/style. Most of them just putter storytelling wise with some dialogue about a gang war, and nothing more than that until suddenly for no reason gangsters show up and shot at things till Batman shows up to beat them up.

Sketch 3 really broke this mould with a great little story of Luscious Fox designing a belt gizmo that deflects bullets for Batman. The problem with it is that it works too well rather than not at all a repelled bullet critically injuries one of the gunmen leading Batman to realize with such a device its not just his life he is putting on the line.

Sketch 6 works due to the great adaptation of the villain Deadshot to the Batman Begins universe. I'll take my quick moment to state I've been saying we'll see Deadshot in Batman 3 since immediately after viewing Dark Knight. Forget those stupid Penguin and Riddler rumours, how would they work in the ubber real Nolan movies? Deadshot does, and I really think we'll see him.

Sadly short 4's attempt at adapting Killer Croc was just lame. Between him being a big thug who sharpened his teeth and wearing a crocodile skin and his in the end being a lackey of Scarecrow's this short's story was all over the place. If it had more than 10 minutes it might have been a mediocre story, but crammed in like it was it was just all over the place and lacked any suspense.
So to sum up. Gotham Knight had style to spare, but not much else. The 3rd and 6th shorts are definitely worth a watching if you get your hands on the DVD, but overall its not worth more than a $1-3 rental that alone buying.

Excercise

Well me and Lady R have finally taken up physical activity as we've been threatening to do for 2 years...

Based on this cool animated GIF I found I bet you can guess what that is...

So yeah now that Lady R's been out on the court she's hooked. We've been to the gym 5 nights of the week for an hour playing. Sadly (but a little fortunately) we've had to take a break this weekend due to our muscles getting a little worn out.

At the same time I expect by tomorrow we'll once again be out there playing badminton again.

Good TV?!? Oh wait its old and cancelled...

Ever since the debacles that were Firefly (cancelled way too early) and Battlestar Galactica (jumped a shark being held in the air by a giant squid that was sitting on an aircraft carrier that itself was on fire... because fire is exciting like Battlestar was supposed to be) I don't watch TV anymore.

The funny part is TV doesn't even try to put up a fight. Its latest entries have been equally stupid as Battlestar or dumber. Lost the show where they make it up as they go, all the while claiming their so much smarter than the audience because they ARE making it up. Or Heroes the show which couldn't tell a story if not for time travel plot devices (I'd argue plot creating in fact... no time travel= no plot) to save its life. Sure I haven't actually watched more than a couple episodes of either, but I caught the trend and than had it confirmed by reviews I've read.

So it is nice to find a rare gem amongst this garbage. Mind you this show went the Firefly route. Cancelled. Fortunately 3 seasons afterward.


That show is Veronica Mars. Man is it good! Granted I just finished the first season, which by all accounts is the best. So it might go a little down hill from here. Still the first season was worth it alone.

The premise is in a very rich people town in California a software billionaire's daughter was murdered a year before the show. The murdered kid's best friend was Veronica, who herself is the daughter of the local sheriff. Veronica's dad is convinced that the billionaire was the killer, despite a worker at the software company confessing to the crime. Due to the billionaire being a local hero Veronica's dad is forced from being the Sheriff, and so he sets up in town as a PI with Veronica as his assistant. So throughout the show Veronica continues her own investigation into her best friends murder of course finding her father was right just not in a way either of them realize. All the while to make money Veronica takes on side cases from her fellow high school students and teachers.

I love it because it is a "real life" Buffy type show (in fact this is one of Joss Wheadon's favorite shows, and he makes an appearance in either season 2 or 3!), and it is written on that level. All the characters are believable and compelling. Even the bad ones.

Perhaps the most enjoyable aspect is how all the main high school students have regularly turning up parents and home lives. In Buffy the other characters home lives were alluded too, but rarely shown. In Veronica we get to see why every kid is the way they are through their home life.

Also the "real life" Batman aspect appeals to me. A big part of Veronica's high school life is seeing the bullies and asses have justice and revenge served on them. Yet at the same time she is just a teen, and makes plenty of big mistakes along the way.

Topping it off her father is played by Enrico Colantoni who is among my favourite actors.

So I guess TV still has a few diamonds in the rough. Now if only these guys would do a Sci-Fi show. Maybe it won't get cancelled till its second season too!

Hero-Clix I MUST own!

So for those of you out there who don't know I DO have one real addiction problem. Games.

Now in recent years I've managed to bring this problem mostly in check. Back in my late teens and early 20's collectible card games were one of my big socializing past times. However as I learned when a card game goes belly up (as they all eventually do... it's only a matter of time for you Magic players!) all you have left is a bunch of worthless coloured pieces of cardboard. So it was easy enough not to allow myself into that trap after most of my major games went under in the early 2000's (Star Trek, Star Wars, and Babylon 5).

I was clean for a good 2-3 years until a new game was launched to PERFECTLY coincide with my new comic obsession, and that game was Heroclix. What made this "dangerous" was that unlike a card game (of which many had been made around comic characters) this game left you with little superhero figurines, and if there is something I can't resist is toys!

Heroclix has been around for 5 years now, and as a result they've finally made nearly every comic character I could want or ever hope for. In fact the last few sets have been easy to avoid, minus 2-4 figs out of a set of 50+, due to the lack of characters I want...

Till the latest set which has ONE character I thought I'd never see ever. That is till about 3 weeks ago when Mike sent me an email with this attached...



They're making a freaking Batman Beyond fig!!!

Even better he is a common figure so though I still have to buy him, he'll only be a buck!

Trying to make the world a more interesting place

Glendon over at The Flying Trilobite has a great post about what inspires his art. Which got me thinking about my own "art". What makes me think or and do this stuff...

For starters Glendon is a MUCH better artist than me. Not only does the quality of his work prove this, but also the fact he has a much better rational for why he creates. I just wanted this stated before you head over there and look at his and than laugh at my stuff. I'm aware of the difference in ability believe me!

Unlike Glendon I do not have a central premise (in his case using modern science as an inspiration for artistic expression) for why I do what I do. Heck I don't usually even think about the emotions or symbolism of what I do. So why do I do it? Isn't that the point of art, to connect to others humanity through emotional stimulation through communal recognition of patterns and symbols?

Does this then mean I'm not making art. Am I rather simply creating stuff to fulfill some sort of useful function. Like how a trade or crafts person create things for use by people to help them live their lives. Or yet still does this mean I am truly crazy and bizarre, and that I make stuff for no reason at all?

I think the answer has elements of all three possibilities. One of the key issues I have, that Glendon does not, is that I am not particularly talented with any medium as of yet. Meaning that I have an immediate barrier to trying to communicate what I have inside to the outside world.

The only medium that I can conjure anything remotely descent with is 3D computer graphics. I started tinkering with these back in high school ages ago, when the dream was to do movie special effects. Sadly it wasn't to be, but I stuck with the 3D stuff as a hobby all this time.

The big break my talents got (if they could be called talents back then) came when Prehistoric Insanity started up, and we started making the summer movies. Here I had something more than ideal fidgeting to apply the program too. Which of course had been the purpose for my tinkering, and frankly the $1500 camcorder I bought a couple years before this (that hadn't gotten much use).


This logo made in 2003 for Prehistoric Insanity was the first time I made something for actual use with my 3D program. Not that the logo was for anything other than a flashy beginning to an otherwise crappy sketch video (to check out the only worthwhile clips click here), but my efforts to get something sort of looking like Finding Nemo (a movie that still hurts my 3D mind to watch) caused a drastic improvement in my abilities and product on Ray Dream (my program of the time).

Thinking back on this experience it gives me insight into my own artistic muse. That is simply to make stuff that looks "better" than the last thing I did.

Not the best thing to admit, but one of my key reasons for making stuff is simply to practise!

Lame I hear you saying, especially compared to Glendon's personal profound philosophy and methodology, and frankly I kind of agree. Yet it has gotten results!

Sadly I've lost a lot of my older work with the move to New Zealand, and the switch of computers it brought. Here I present to you a fragmented history of my practise muse driving me to render a better virtual Dinosaur.


Though there was a earlier version of this T-Rex, you get a pretty good idea of what my first Dinosaur looked like from this clip of the UNOFFICIAL Training Video.

With this as my starting point you can see my practise muse at work as I kept coming back to the Tyrannosaur throughout the years.


A huge step in my 3D Dinosaurs came in 2004 during my second year as an science interpreter at the Tyrrell. Without the need for staff training, I was given projects to keep me occupied for the slow first two months of the summer season.

With the education department starting to contemplate the transfer to digital media, they were very interested when they learned I could "do 3D stuff" with the computer. We decided a good use of my time in the office was installing Raydream on a terminal and me creating this little fossilization animation. Which I understand they still use to this day.

You'll note this is a totally BRAND NEW built from scratch T-Rex from my first, which I built on the museum's computer.

In 2006 a big change in how I made 3D stuff came in the form of Raydream becoming a new program called Carrara. I reluctantly swapped over, and to be honest despite that initial steep learning curve, it was one of the best decisions I've made.

This was one of the early products. A slick yet again new build Tyrannosaur (actually this was meant to be an Albertosaur, but that'd be splitting hairs).

Than in 2007 came the break through of where I might claim some skill at CG. Larry the Tyrannosaur. He was both a rebuild of parts of my Carrara T-Rex (he has a whole head for example), but also my first dabbling in photoshopped textures. Something I'd never done before.

With the lessons learned from this models use, and my much improved photoshop skills it was time for a new version.

So here is the current product of my practise muse. A pretty big improvement from my early days I'd say. Still it's no Jurassic Park either.

I thought another good example of this practise motivator for my art would be my efforts with virtual Trilobites. If even just for Glendon's sake ;p

So do I actually make art? I'm not sure. I definitely don't have formal training in it beyond high school. During this time my teachers would yell at me for drawing nothing but Dinosaurs and Spaceships. Which really hasn't changed. So were my teachers right? Am I not doing art.

Quite probably not. At least outside of the context I intend for them... Oh you weren't expecting a twist?

You see I have a practical function for my 3D much like the aforementioned trade or crafts person. Remember I wanted to be a special effect guy when I grew up, and though I didn't manage this in reality, I still pretend at it in my spare time.

As one of my favourite past times both at work and off time is conveying to the world just how boring I think it really is, Dinosaurs and Spaceships suddenly fill a key artistic role.

They symbolize to me the wonder and awe I used to hold for life and everything contained in our universe. Sadly I find myself typically surrounded by a world that wants things to be dull and small. Now Dinos and Rockets are almost sad reminders of how dull real life can be. So another of key my inspirations is trying to use these sci-fi sorts of things to remind me life had or has potential (see the dual temporal nature of my symbols) to be as awesome as I know it should be.

In my head things like this should be all the more common place!

Another thing that really drives my creative process, and is definitely a muse is the music I listen too. This will probably get a post or two of its own later, but for those of you out there who didn't know I listen to pretty much nothing more than soundtracks.

The reason soundtracks? Being that I have a very narrative/story driven imagination this music fulfills what I need... Though it has been argued as this is all I have ever listened to that is why my brain works this way, but its a chicken and the egg sort of thing for me.

Often it is nice to make the things that I think of when listening to some key pieces of music. This submarine was almost solely inspired by James Newton Howard's Lady in the Water score. Peter Bond jumped on it the next day, and we nearly made a movie about it, but it started solely as something coming from my headphones.

I have recently been trying to use my new "skills" for a legit "art" purpose. This is a sample page of the children's book me and my buddy Scott made last year. Still waiting to see if we can sell it successful.

Also I see something to bringing prehistoric animals back from deep time through this. I think this Anomalocaris could actually make the cut against any other out there. Granted just from this angle and in this lighting mind you.

My imaginary friend has also become a real inspiration. Which takes elements of my present and former life and makes them more exciting and fun. My current favourite has been the turning the Tyrrell's statue Albertosaur "Lillian" into Traumador's current crush.

So despite my lack of a single inspiration or a coherent post, here's looking to the future, and the almost art I'll be churning out! (This last picture being the spaceship from my most recent movie project Delta Patrol. Check out its production here).