And so the boy is 7 months old (and a bit, but thank god for backdated entries, right?) 😉 [[image:2012_0729_rafe07.jpg:Flanked by his sister’s cats Purrsley and Duchess:center:0]] *Mouse over pictures for captions Unbelievably, another month has flown by and Adik is growing and developing so quickly. Last month’s rolling and lunging has quickly become a fast-moving commando crawl. The child is mobile! He’s happy to just roam around the house. We do have to make sure he doesn’t get trampled by Yaya (who of course is oblivious of the fact that she could actually hurt her brother if she steps on him), and it doesn’t help that he always wants to follow her around and try to do what she’s doing. But it’s awfully fun to watch his little personality appear and see the things that catch his attention (and then gets taken away from him by Yaya) and the […]
Continue readingMonthly Archives: July 2012
This Pangolin is Precise
So it came to pass that if I needed to use the new Bamboo Pen graphics tablet, I had to upgrade my operating system. Long story short: I decided on totally replacing my ArtistX 1.0 OS with Ubuntu’s latest Long Term Support distro, which was 12.04 also dubbed “Precise Pangolin”. After installing the sucker, I finally came face to face for the first time… with the Unity desktop! Click on the thumbnail above to see the desktop, including the Dash HUD. Searching Ubuntuforums.org, I discovered how make a 3rd generation Bamboo Pen work with the Precise. I also reread on how to set up the Benq scanner using Snapscan’s binary file so I can scan using Sane or GIMP. Finally, I installed MyPaint I found on Ubuntu Software Center and discovered that it worked great with the Bamboo. Below is my first doodle-type sketch using the tablet in conjunction with […]
Continue reading48 Months (a.k.a. Fourth Birthday)
The big day arrived! Yaya is four years old, officially! Unbelievable! [[image:2012-yaya48month-02.jpg:Princess Fairy Yaya waves her wand:center:0]] It feels like Yaya cannot possibly already be four. Didn’t we just bring her home from the hospital last month? I guess time flies when you’re having fun. 🙂 * Mouse over the pictures for captions So her birthday came along a week after her birthday party. We had another busy month. It does seem to be that Vin and I sort of hibernate during the winter months, not doing too much if we could help it, but come the summer we seem to explode with activity! This past month we went to Bloomington, IN to visit the IU Campus and for Vin to attend a DVD launch party, and then a weekend trip to Vin’s hometown of La Porte, IN for a class party, and then to hang out with Becky in […]
Continue readingThe one with the be-earlied pre-Ramadhan party
So since July 22nd fell on the 3rd day of Ramadan, we decided to move up her party to the week before, on Sunday July 15th. We invited our friends and neighbors to what has become our annual cookout / birthday party. We did not have any overnight guests this year as Mandy was busy studying for the Bar exams (go Mandy!). We decided to keep everything indoors, other than Vin grilling burgers and hot dogs outside. Also, this is the first year that Vin did not have baseball in the morning – it’s a little hard to play baseball with two kids right now! 🙂 And so, the party was on! Happy birthday, Yaya! [[image:2012-yaya4thparty-03.jpg:Graeter’s Ice Cream Cake:center:0]] * Mouse over the pictures for captions We cleaned the house and I made the pasta salads the day before leaving only minimal cooking to be done on my part that […]
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Arise, Newer Graphics Tablet; But Not So Fast!
Once upon a time, I bought a Wacom Graphire 3 graphics tablet. With its stylus I made many a drawing, til its USB cable died screaming. Actually it died quite some years ago. In the interim, @plasticstitch had told me he had an unused Bluetooth-connected Graphire tablet and sent it by air mail to me where I made many more drawings. This device acted finicky with a Linux operating system, and I was using an Ubuntu distro. One day I upgraded to Ubuntu 10.04 by dint of installing the Ubuntu fork named ArtistX 1.0, and the device refused to talk via Bluetooth to the tablet. Today I bought a new tablet, a Wacom Bamboo Pen. Its matte-black housing looks sleeker than the silver-hued Graphire. I’d prefer to have purchased a Wacom Cintiq 24HD, but the Bamboo Pen is the only one I could spare cash on. Incidentally it’s the cheapest […]
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Some Sordid Sampling of Sahuagin
I’ve illustrated this piece for a new Troll in the Corner podcast series entitled “Monsters of the Shattered World”, written by Brent Newhall and edited by Quinn Conklin. Their first podcast portrays an adventuring party’s encounter with a shoal of Sahuagins. The artwork is mostly ink work supplemented by digital stars. Why digital? Because my toothbrush has yet to be trashed, salvaged and reused as white paint sprayer. Download Troll in the Corner’s Monsters of the Shattered World #1: The Sea Devils. Check out the bigger image here on DeviantArt.
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Westward RPG Critters – Part 3
This series of creatures I drew for Westward RPG from Wicked North Games is special. I was tasked with proposing and designing these beasts from scratch. Once approved by Wicked North, I started illustrating them with ink and water colours! Of course, the names might be changed by the writers during editing. Keep an eye out for Westward the steampunk western roleplaying game in space, produced by Wicked North Games to be released in the near future.
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Westward RPG Critters – Part 2
Here are four more preview creatures from Wicked North Games’ Westward RPG! Sure it’s a steampunk western set in space, but what sort of strange critters would PCs be up against in the wilderlands of Westward?
Continue readingThe Amazing Adventures of Yaya, Adik and Auntie Jo – Part 2
So, here is the second part of Jo’s visit. The second half of her trip was just as fun and action-packed. But first we come home and relax a little after the excitement of Indiana. [[image:2012-jovisit-23.jpg:Yaya, Auntie Jo and Adik (and Purrsley) play “trains”:center:0]] * Mouse over the pictures for more captions [[image:2012-jovisit-22.jpg:Both kids got milk!:center:0]] [[image:2012-jovisit-38.jpg:The Amazing Flying Adik!!:center:0]] We drove up to Canada during the second weekend of Jo’s visit. It was both Victoria Day weekend and Auntie Vera’s birthday that Monday! There was another family reunion, this time in London, ONT. The last reunion in Canada took place almost five years ago! This will be the first time the Canadian family gets to meet Yaya and Adik in person! Also the first time Yaya and Adik go to Michigan and Ontario. While Yaya has already been to Malaysia and has crossed international borders, this would be Adik’s […]
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