Sea Adventurer Pappy

Buddy Finethy has recently been having some parody-fun reimagining various cartoon characters as members of the 1970s GI Joe Adventure Team line. You can see them here.

I couldn't resist playing myself. Here's my take on the Sea Adventurer. I used Poop Deck Pappy as a starting point instead of Popeye because, well, Pappy already has the beard. Note I did not call him the "Poop Deck Adventurer," as that is a strict violation of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

What, me post?

I haven't been posting here a lot lately, in part because I've been busy working on Minions for Hire shoots. Of course, I have some behind-the-scenes shots, but since these shoots are for toons that won't be posted for a while yet (I'm trying to hold myself to posting one a week under normal circumstances, in hopes that I'll build up enough of a backlog so I can pull it off like clockwork) I don't want to spoil the toons by posting the back-stage stuff yet. So look for some Minions DVD-extras here on Monday.

The requirements of Minions are inspiring me to create some stock sets and props that you'll probably see over and over as time goes by. Of course, you've already seen the cell-door I built, but there will be others. A major one I'm working on right now is an industrial-looking cat-walk with an open-grid floor.

The catwalk is something I've been meaning to do for a long time. I'm building it around an extruded and stamped plastic screen designed to keep leaves out of gutters. The stuff comes in three-foot sections, and so I'll build a three foot section of catwalk that can be suspended over a set, or used as a setting itself. The plastic screen will be shored up with strips of flat, rectangular molding attached to the side with screws and nuts, and by the hand-rails uprights, which I plan to make from sections of threaded rod.

I'm hoping the final result will be generic enough to look at home in a super-villain lair, a factory, a refinery, or a rocket gantry. If you've ever watched a James Bond movie, you know there are always Minions in the catwalks, where they have spectacular fist-fights with the heroes, be shot and fall over the railing, or just be blown off by explosions. I think I can get a lot of use out of this little prop. I'll post some construction photos, and hopefully this is something that anyone with access to a hardware store and a few hand-tools will easily be able to replicate.

One important development here is that I've replaced my trusty Canon Powershot A40 with a new Canon Powershot A530. It's smaller lighter, has more shooting modes, better movie function, a 4X optical zoom instead of 3X, and most importantly, 5 megapixels instead of 2. I've been very happy with the Canon Powershot family of digital cameras, and I recommend them highly. They take good pictures, and have a lot of control and versatility for compact cameras. I've been impressed with the quality of the optics, the image sensors, and the all-important software that backs the sensor up. They take good pictures. 'Nuff said.

The old camera still works great, and I'll pass it off to my daughter so she has a decent camera to photograph merchandise for her web-store (she does sewing and costume work). 2 megapixels is more than enough for typical web-ad photos.

Meanwhile, to fill the time until I can post some new stuff, here's a golden oldie in honor of the coming summer, to remind you to always wear your bug-lotion.

The Minions get their own blog!

(Update: Since posting this the URL for the Minions has changed. Find them a www.MinionsAtWork.com .

Since I know plenty of people who would doubtless enjoy the Minions toons I've been posting, and since many of them wouldn't necessarily be interested in the rest of what goes on around here, I've decided to give the Minions their own blog. Visit Minions for Hire to see the latest one, just posted.





You'll continue to see some behind-the-scenes Minions material here, such as this. I've decided that there are certain props and set-pieces that would be useful over-and-over in Minions toons, and thus it would be worth putting a bit of effort into making them. I finished the first one tonight, a cell-door for the Minions to (unsuccessfully) guard.

The door is constructed simply enough from a piece of foam-core board. It's trimmed out with wooden coffee stirrers that I snagged for free at the Safeway deli, some of those plastic twist-tie packers from toy packaging, a handle and hasp bent from small aluminum tubing, wooden dowels for bars, some small hex-head screws, and a "padlock" metal charm picked up at a craft store. The whole thing is painted and weathered with acrylic craft paint in various colors to give it a "rusty" look. The flash photo here is just to give you a clear look at it. You can see it with more realistic lighting over on Minions-for-Hire.

In-joke: You may be wondering why the hasp and lock are so shiny when the rest of the door is so rusty looking. Well, I figure people escape from this cell on a regular basis, so they get replaced -- a lot!

Minions #3

Minions #2

Minions

The first in a possibly on-going series...

Angry Joe Day entry, Jeff Goff

Here's one from Jeff Goff. The Dragon reference cracks me up, never a bad thing.

By the way, a reminder with any of these picture posts that you can click on the small picture in the post to see the full-sized shot (where available). If you aren't doing this, the text in some posts may be darned hard (or impossible) to read, and you may be missing out on some really cool details. So if it catches your eye, you haven't seen the whole picture until you give it another click.

Angry Joe Day entry - Jayne, the sergeant majorette

And here's one from Jayne. Looks like Joe is getting really desperate for work. On the other hand, who doesn't like playing a villain?

Angry Joe Day entries - David Eden 4

Says David:
"HeahÂ’s whut the baoys down to th daock waz asayin.

Lahst entry fer me, Steve!"





Love this on all sorts of levels: unusual subject matter, imaginative kitbashing, and that expression in the last panel kills me. Clearly Hasbro missed the boat (pun intended) when they make "Eagle Eye GI Joe" instead of "Bug-eye GI Joe."

Angry Joe Day entry - David Eden 2

Says David about this, "I am so ANGRY that Hasbro cancelled the 12” line that sometimes I feel…"