From The Land Down Underwater

This week fishermen off the coast of Sydney, Australia (where else) discovered this bizarre new species of fish, some two miles below the ocean surface. The ghastly fish has a repulsive-looking orifice for a mouth, but no actual face.

C'mon, guys, you're not fooling me— that ain't no fish. Back me up here, Whovians. That's a goddamned cybermat they discovered!

Prepare for deletion!

Fish Heads, Fish Heads, Roly-Poly Fish Heads!

Over the weekend I saw this new billboard for regional Mexican restaurant chain Hacienda (that means "house!").

OK, I get that it's supposed to be humorous, but I'm afraid it's gonna backfire on them. Somehow the image of an entire dead, raw fish wedged between two bun doesn't exactly whet my appetite, or make me want to rush out to Hacienda.

One of these days I would dearly love to sit in on one of Hacienda's marketing meetings, if for no other reason than to see what horrifying ideas they decide NOT to use in their advertising!

This isn't the first time bizarre ad Hacienda has run. You can see a brief history of their insane marketing here.

Overheard At Work: Scales

I work in a typical office, surrounded by many other workers in cubicles. Although I'm grateful to have a job I like, sometimes the vocal din from the surrounding coworkers is a bit overwhelming. Not to mention odd. Thank the gods old and new for headphones and Pandora.

The following is a 100% true actual conversation I Overheard At Work:

Woman In Lunchroom Kitchen: I love this brand of tuna, but sometimes I find these gross "skin flakes" in it.

Um… would that be the same thing as a fish scale?

A Slap In The Face!

Last year here at Bob Canada's BlogWorld I commented on the poster for the Christian disaster movie (in more ways than one) Left Behind. Specifically how the poster features a very bewildered-looking Nicolas Cage staring straight at the viewer.

His befuddled expression makes it look like for all the world like someone ran up and unexpectedly snapped his photo while he was waiting in line at the bank.

If you've ever wondered what someone would look like if you slapped them in the face with a fish, look no further than his expression right here.

Welp, looks like the Fish Slapping Bandit has struck again! 

I was in my local video store last night, and saw this DVD cover for Pay The Ghost. Note that our pal Nic is striking a nearly identical half-turned pose, just like he did for Left Behind. Best of all, he's still got the same puzzled "fish-slapped" expression on his face! Awesome!

He's sort of doing the half turn thing here on the Frozen Ground cover, while the floating double of his head assumes a less extreme, but still perplexed expression.

He's finally turned to face us here on the cover of The Runner, but... he still looks fish-slaapped!

So what's the deal with this expression? Does Nic not like having his photo taken, so the publicity people have to sneak up on him? Or does he simply not know he's in these movies? Did he refuse to participate in them, so the director's surreptitiously filming him Bowfinger-style?

Efram Moisterberg

Just a drawing of a little fishy guy. Kosher, of course.

When I was adding color to him my first instinct was to make him green, but that seemed like too much of a cliche. So I played with the color sliders in Photoshop and settled on a less common blue. I added a little bit of red to his face, belly and fins to give him some life.

I based his eye on that of some kind of lizard I found online. Not sure if the scale effect is working, but it's the best I can do.

I was just about to upload him when I realized I'd forgotten to add his underwear that were in the sketchbook doodle I did of him. D'oh! So I had to go back and quickly add his tightie-whities. For the record, here's the naked version that almost was.

 Drawn in Photoshop on the graphic tablet.

Here's the original notebook doodle. I know it looks like pencil here, but I swear it's drawn in ink.

And here's the more polished digital sketch.

Herschel Shellman, Undersea Elder

Herschel's one of the Elders of the Gillman Tribe of Atlantis. Likes to sit near the thermal vents on the ocean floor and have a nice schvitz. Can often be found shuffling through the undersea City Hall saying, "Oy, it feels like sinking again this place is!"

Drawn in Photoshop on the graphic tablet.

Here's the digital sketch I did of Herschel. I had to make his arms ridiculously long so that he could hold his staff out away from his head. The fish wasn't in the sketch and was an afterthought. To be honest I just stuck him in there to fill up space!

Catch Of The Day!

There's a really nice paved trail that runs right through the middle of my city. Despite the fact that it's in town, it looks and feels oddly secluded (as you can see in the photo above). I bet 90% of the residents don't even know it's there. I lived here ten years before I found out about it.

At one point along the trail is this giant fish sculpture. I'm not sure who decided it would be a good idea to install art along such a secluded trail, but there you go.


I don't know who made it or when-- there's no plaque or info around. The fish looks like it's made of tin or some other kind of metal, like a big steam punk robot fish. It's pretty darn big-- probably ten feet long. Despite being surrounded by the city, the trail is relatively quiet. The big metal fish twists and creaks in the wind, and is honestly kind of spooky.

If you look closely you can see that it looks like it's supposed to be hanging off the very end of the pole, but at some point the chain has looped over the pole. That must have been quite a windstorm to blow a giant metal fish over the pole like that.


Whenever I walk by it, it makes me think it's some kind of warning from some hidden race living along the trail. Like they're telling everyone who dares enter their territory to get lost, or you'll end up like that fish.


In case you were wondering, here's what the fish sculpture looks like from space.

Gillborg

This was a character I first started doodling about 10 or 12 years ago. I decided it was time to dust him off and draw him up proper.

I'm not exactly sure why, but this was a tough one! It took forever to draw. I think it was to do with the robotic suit. Normally my characters are fairly loose and organic, but this one had lots of mechanical parts that I felt needed to be more precise.

It took a lot longer than usual to color as well, on a ton of different layers. Most likely because there are so many different materials and textures involved, such as rusty iron, shiny aluminum, transparent glass, translucent water and fishy scales.

I'll never find the time, but some day I'd like to make an action figure of this character. I bet I could find the clear bell jar and the bottom cast iron basin shapes at the hobby store. Not sure how I'd go about making the legs and tentacles though. Or how I'd make the whole thing watertight. It would look cool on a shelf though. Maybe I'll just stick with an illustration.

Drawn in Photoshop on the graphic tablet.



Here's the original sketch of Gillborg. It's pretty much the same as the final drawing, other than changing some of the proportions a bit.



I found the very first sketch I ever drew of Gillborg, ten years or so ago. For some reason I drew two alien looking fish in the tank.