Gaze of the Gorgon

After painting Medusa, I created a little diorama for her by adding a rock from the street and gluing some previously painted treasure to its surface. Steal her gold at your peril! 
 

Mythic Treasures

Today I painted some very tiny representations of the Ark of the Covenant, A Cthulhu idol, the Holy Grail, and the Maltese Falcon. These efforts represent a combination of basecoating, dry brushing, and ink washing. 
 

Oregon Trail Mixup

Woe is me
I've posted again
AI artwork that's the same
A post repeat I much regret
Causing me to fume and fret

Thanks be to Jeff
Faithful reader
Who spots it when my effort's meagre

What can I do but
Add a poem
Edit title
Nourishing loam? 

Woe is me
A repeat post
Overstaying its welcome
Unfriendly ghost



 

Unicorn Klout

About a month ago I started experimenting with Klout, an online tool that purports to measure your online influence. I signed up because social media is growing in importance to communications professionals, and I figured I'd better experiment. Based on my usage of Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram, YouTube and this blog, Klout seems to think that I'm influential about five topics, as seen below:

Media, sure, video, okay, politics, makes sense, Alberta, of course, and...unicorns???

To the best of my knowledge, I've never blogged, tweeted, facebooked, Instagrammed or youtubed about unicorns. But I wouldn't want Klout to be perceived as inaccurate, so here are some things I know about unicorns off the top of my head, without googling for extra knowledge:

• Unicorns have been featured as important symbols in at least two of the films of Ridley Scott: Blade Runner and Legend.
• The Irish Rovers crafted a hit single in the 1970s that explains why we see no unicorns today (they missed boarding Noah's Ark). 
• For a while Think Geek sold a pretty cool set of plush action figures featuring a unicorn and some gored humans. 
• If unicorns existed, they would probably make pretty fearsome cavalry mounts, what with the horn and all. I certainly wouldn't mess with one.
• Despite their fearsome nature, women and girls seem to adore unicorns, if we believe certain gender stereotypes. 

All right, can I legitimately claim to wield influence on the topic of unicorns now? No? All right, how about a movie proposal...

COMING IN 2014 FROM PARANOID PICTURES

UNICORN VS. PEGASUS

In the time of the Greek gods, demigods, titans and the mortals caught between them, two noble, fearsome beasts lifted the hearts of men with their magnificence:

UNICORN...mighty horned stallion of the deep woods, symbol of purity, wild and free, no terrestrial beast its match!

PEGASUS...astonishing winged steed of the skies, faster than the wind itself, proud and haughty, far removed from the earthbound woes of mortals!

In a time of great darkness, as the rivers and mountains tremble, the gods will pit these glorious beasts against one another!

SEE the UNICORN gore the skeleton army, smashing it to smithereens!

SEE the PEGASUS swoop down and crush the skull of the cyclops with its powerful hooves!

SEE mortals flee in terror as these unstoppable steeds clash in the streets and skies of Athens!

UNICORN VS. PEGASUS

Pegasus versus unicorn!

All right, let's see if that affects my Klout statistics.

The Mighty Good Thor

With Thor, Kenneth Branagh, renowned for his epic adaptations of Hamlet and Henry V, makes his first foray into a field as intensely studied and debated as Shakespeare's canon - that of comic book superheroes, whose mythology and decades-long storylines are as hotly debated as the Bard's work...at least among admirers of popular culture.

Aside from the groundbreaking run byWalt Simonson, I've never been a fan of Thor's comic book, but I do adore this movie. Branagh has created a world awesome in its grandeur and majesty, a cosmology of epic wonders peopled by all-too-human gods and godesses, a place where science and magic have become indistinguishable. The towers and palaces of Asgard are truly a sight to behold, rivalling and even surpassing the beautiful landscapes of James Cameron's Avatar. The rainbow bridge linking Asgard to Midgard (Earth), made so famously iconic through the artwork of Jack Kirby, is brilliantly realized here - an artifact of advanced beings that looks at once a triumph of engineering and sorcery.

For all its grandeur, however, this is a very human story. Thor's pride and arrogance lead him on a painful personal journey; he is cast out of heaven and forced to live as a mere mortal in our earthly realm, providing much humour from the winsome and personable Chris Hemsworth in his breakout role as the lead character. As a stranger in a strange land, Thor is at first enraged by his predicament, then amused, then dismayed, and finally he begins to come to terms with his new situation and to enjoy mortals as people of value and worth.

For the first time in ages, Thor presents audiences with a genuine role model, which seems to me precisely the most important job of a superhero film. Thor has his faults, but he learns to be kind and compassionate to a fault, even to his enemies. His initial pride is soon cleaved away by events, leaving room for his better nature to shine through. When a powerless Thor risks everything to save hundreds of innocents, the moment is completely believeable and even moving. I hope children across the world are inspired by this film to be better people, the way I was inspired by Christopher Reeve's Superman and William Shatner's James T. Kirk.

Thor is not only a good superhero film, it's a flat-out good film on its own merits. There's far too much cynicism at the movies today; thank the gods for Thor, which wears its decency, hope and moral centre on its sleeve for all to see.

Four More from Singapore

Here I am at the most southerly point in Asia, on Singapore's Sentosa Island resort. After some amusing pantomime, a couple of cute Japanese girls kindly took this shot for me.

This is the fearsome guardian of Sentosa, bursting out of the fountain like an avenging spirit. Oddly enough, none of the visitors seemed startled at all.

This is a rear view of another of Singapore's astounding creatures, the Merlion. I entered the creature's very maw (albeit via a staircase inside the statue).

And here's the Merlion at night, during a spectacular lightshow and fireworks display.