Books by Request!

I had a request for info about these books from a commenter on my DA page. Sorry that it's taken so long to finally post these images...



Dinosaurs (Eyes On Nature), 2002, Rebecca L. Grambo








Endpapers look like the work of Jim Robins (I very much like his work, see here for some examples), but many images in this book are only credited to an agency, so I can't say for sure.
Discover Dinosaurs, 2002 Glut/Dodson


Not sure why I chose this particular page to sample, but I guess it's as representative as any other.

Nothing particularly amazing, but they're fun.

Thrift dinos of 2011

I've looked everywhere for one of those 3-tiered wire hanging baskets for fruit and stuff to use in the kitchen (I even went to WALMART because I want one so badly,) but instead I found these--

Chap Mei Amargasaurus (I think) and Oviraptor (I didn't notice it was missing its hands until just now when I was taking the picture ;_; ), 1988 Carnegie Stegosaurus, a fugly yellow theropod (I think it was an Allosaurus or something from a Zallinger painting), what looks like a mutant Pinacosaurus, and a Protoceratops.

I had wanted those 2 small Chap Mei's, shame about the Oviraptor hands as otherwise it's a cute figure really... I love the Amargasaurus though. it's so unrealistic, the colors are great.

First of 2011

Sketch of Lucina (my character from the unnamed story) As it turns out, the 2011 rabbit wasn't on purpose, it was just a random quiet forest creature that ended up there.

Lucina and art are (c) me

Songs: Antony , Current 93 , Chrono Cross OST

I hid that trembling light in my young hands

I've traveled this far, wandering the abyss of time

I continued to search for you, though I know not even your name

I wanted to hand over to you just one single feeling

Times catches deep in its arms both love and pain

And erases them, but I remember them

And always will...

It's reverberated deep in my breast for I know not how long..
.
Though it's a whisper fainter than a drop of evening dew

May the prayer I spun towards the darkness of the frozen stars

Reach all the way to your distant sky...

Heavens to Margatroid

I don't feel very well today, but wanted to post something since I've been too busy to do so for a while.

Outing again as a nerd, random sketch I did of Alice Margatroid from Touhou Project, while I was waiting on a job interview. Alice is a youkai magician who primarily uses dolls in her attacks. Her name comes from Miss Murgatroyd of Agatha Christie novels...

Alice Margatroid and Shanghai doll (c) Team Shanghai Alice :)

Yoeko Kurahashi

Let's Build Some Kaiyodos!

I recently won an ebay auction for the (apparently) complete Series 3 set of Kaiyodo/UHA Dinotales miniatures. I haven't bought on ebay for a long time, but it was too cheap to pass up and since I just got a job and happened to have paypal money... well anyway I paid $35 WITH shipping and handling from Hong Kong, for 24 figures, which is way less than $2/figure. If you bought them individually they are anywhere from $3 to 15+ depending on the figure... you do the math.

I've had a really bad few weeks due to overwork, getting sick again, and exam week on top of it, so here was an afternoon well spent.

How do they fit all those into a tiny box that fits in my mail slot? Anticipation...



Turns out they were all sealed, i wasn't actually sure whether they were loose or not. First one is Trochosaurus, a cynodont thingie. Ruler for scale.



Partially-assembled Plesiosaurus skeleton. This was probably the most delicate figure.


I really love how this one came unassembled, it's the Maiasaura hatchling and egg... look at the detailed base with leaves on it. The plastic was a bit translucent red, painted over.


Detail where it's not even strictly needed. Shown: Glyptodon, Hemicyclaspis, and a trilobite.


Apatosaurus is one of my favorite. He just looks fantastic, the paint job is beautiful, he's so lively.


Looks so real I want him swimming in my aquarium. MARKETING IDEA: Cambrian creatures for your aquarium???? Is it done yet??



All of it assembled. Got this random shelf last week from a thrift store, don't know if it's their final housing but it was lucky I had it for now since I'd have had no safe place for such tiny things.

Weirdness: in the end I had 25 figures altho it's a set of 24. Ended up with three duplicates (a happy accident as it happens) and I don't have either Acrocanthosaurus, the live or skeleton, or the skeleton Deinonychus. I'm not that bothered, I got all the ones I REALLY wanted, not that I'd turn down Acrocanthosaurus but it's not really my favorite. I don't understand though how I got 22 here on my shelf, but am missing three from the set. Was the T-rex or another a 'secret' extra figure? Regardless, even with duplicates, even if I'd gotten a couple of damaged ones, etc, it was worth the pittance. I think the only reason it went under the radar was that the seller didn't label them as Kaiyodo but just under generic 'dinosaurs' tag. Would have been worth bidding higher, really.

Conclusion: If you've ever thought about getting some Kaiyodos you shouldn't hesitate. Despite the size they are every bit as quality as reputation has it. The plastic is hard almost resin type (?) and contrary to what you'd expect, the tiny little pieces snap together easily and soundly. They are very well made, and amazingly detailed. I love and treasure them... the only off one, Hallucigenia may need some glue on the tail end, everything else fit together with no problem.

AGENDA 21!!!!

Article

Holt and other tea partiers are taking their cues from people like Henry Lamb, a WorldNetDaily columnist and founder of Sovereignty International and Freedom21, groups designed to fight Agenda 21 and its ilk. He has been arguing for decades that the UN is secretly plotting to herd humans into crowded cities so that the rest of the world can be devoted to wildlife preservation.

Huh... is it wrong to think that sounds pretty cool?

Grab bag, now with MOAR Chinasaurs!

LOLcat for scale.

JPIII Tapejara
The only real damage is small paint rubs. It still makes a noise when you press a button on the back, although it's supposed to make another when you push the neck forward to open the mouth. This is really exciting for me.





Jasman T-Rex
Minor Chinese company that, according to dinosaurcollector, made some remote-control dino's, plain models and this in the style of Jurassic Park. Apparently it would have made noise and had glowing eyes when it worked.





Polacanthus
Playskool Definitely Dinosaurs from 1987.





This Thing
A 2010 McDonald's premium from some movie (?) that looks like a mutated ankylosaur. It seems to have done something at some point, because when you push the button on its back, it opens its mouth and a red fireball looking tongue thing comes out (also pictured: a horse-thing from Avatar, which does light up. Found another, different Avatar creature but its leg was broken T_T ) The tabs on the side move but don't seem to do anything now. What is it? I just threw it in the 3-dollar bag along with a Breyer colt in nice shape.



You can never have enough plates and saucers, or old Russian language primers (2 more saucers for kitties' wet food)




Assorted Chinasaurs, a few from last time and some from yesterday. Actually a few of them aren't bad for cheap knockoffs... and I really like the Monoclonius type in front.

Ugliest Dinosaur 2010 WORLD CHAMPION

GOOD LORD!!



Not only that, but its entire 'family' is pictured below. I don't think I've ever seen a more hideous bunch. I want them....

I have discovered that Sega makes Dinosaur King figures, and they are actually pretty cute.

Icky dinosaur 2010: Safari Apatosaurus
I saw this figure a couple weeks ago when I dropped by a local hobby shop. It looks really nice at first until I realized the neck is totally ****ed up. I guess it's supposed to be saggy wrinkled skin. I don't know what in hell possessed someone to dream this up, but for some reason it gives me a sensation of visceral disgust, like shivers in my gut as if it reminds me of something really gross that I can't remember. It's just really... repulsive somehow, and I can't get OVER IT enough to consider buying this otherwise nice figure.

I wonder if anyone else feels the same, or if there's something wrong with me.




Bought this on sale at my work place, out of the boys' clothing section. That is awesome.

UPDATE!!! I found out what those weird ceramic figures I bought were based on: Sinclair World's Fair figures (See the third photo) As a kid I actually had one of these figures that came out of a machine, but it was from the St. Louis Zoo and was an elephant. You put your money in and it molds the figure right there. Very weird... Anyway, you can see the fugly Trachodon and the fairly cute Stego here. I wonder if someone made a mold from the original figures and used them to make ceramic ones, or what...


Music that isn't actually Touhou this time


The animation they put to it is Touhou, but the music is totally unrelated. I really like this music and I don't know why.

Black Mountain - Queens Will Play This is not even Japanese. I heard it playing in the coffee shop I go to, and looked up the lyrics. It turns out some of their songs are really good. For all I know however, this is the most popular band in the universe and I'm the last person to hear them, so don't laugh at me if this is the case. All I listen to lately is freakin video game vocal trance remixes, Lithuanian neo-folk and random symphonic metal so I wouldn't know. (It wasn't always this way, for years it was chiefly indie rock and alternative and seeing lots of shows at tiny clubs, but I can't be arsed lately to pay attention and vocal trance/etc is more suited to what I'm creating at the moment)



I'm not sure what this is, but it's pretty much the best thing ever


In other news, I have to go to work at 4:00 AM this Friday because people are insane consumerist zombies... Well I suppose that's one way to have an adventure. Or screw up your sleep quality even more for a whole week, whichever. I foresee total physical collapse around noon when I get home

Rubber dinosaurs interim post

Found these at a thrift store last week, they're thin, hollow ceramic, bottom is unlabeled, just firing marks as if they were home made or something. Was something like this commercially available, I wonder? They're delightfully ugly, well okay, the Stego is pretty cute but the other one is rather unfortunate.



I can't remember where the models for these figures are from, I know it's some old illustration and maybe a vintage toy mold based upon such. Particulary the crippled-looking hadrosaur I know I've seen before. Maybe I'm just losing my memory. Can't find anything at the moment in my image collection nor on the toy dinosaurs site I had bookmarked.

This is new (to me)


JP Dilophosaur, ugly and wrong and he's missing part of a finger! But kind of cute anyway.




Old, found this trike and baby at an antique store in Portland. There was a sauropod (of some kind) figure with it, but it wasn't nearly as cute. To be honest Trike isn't my favorite but I still like this one. It's a resin-type figure and there's no mark or ID on it.


New Carnegie and Safari
I want the Inostrancevia and Miragaia... Guanlong looks 'shopped right now, so it's hard to tell how it will come out? T-Rex is cute, but I'm bored of rex. Kaprosuchus looks pretty lively, though.

These are really pretty models

__

I saw two dinosaur-related books at the store the other night and both of them were a bust. Is there a really good explanation for why the publishing industry seems to be violently allergic to non-3D paleo art right now, or is it just cheaper for them or something? Because all of it is horrible.

There was also another re-packaging of something-or-other into a Children's Encyclopedia of dinosaurs, judging by the fact that most of the illustrations were from this Dixon encyclopedia I just posted about last week... but I couldn't tell if anything else in the book was new.




There are actually three versions of this track, I discovered after realizing the one on my mp3 player was not the same as this one. It took a long time to figure out that the one I had was the original, while this was the Cross-Hearts/Re-miniscence version, and there's a third version on an extra disc from the 3-disc Re-miniscence issue (3rd disc is instrumentals.) Anyway, this is the most energetic version, but all of them are good. Since it's from the same game, which I've played lately (Perfect Cherry Blossom), I'll add this other one that I'm also obsessing over



It's from the same album(s) so all the above holds true for this track as well, but this is a mashup of two pieces (stage 5 theme, and ending theme you get when you complete the game).

Say what you like about the old bastard,

but he made some brilliant quotes

What the public once learned to believe without reasons, who could refute it to them by means of reasons? on the marketplace one convinces with gestures, but reasons make the populace distrustful.

--Friedrich Nietzsche

Need some more proof of this?

(I'm sorry, it's simply impossible to remember or keep track of the number of mindbendingly stupid things I see on that site every single day, so the crazy I've linked here is not even close to representative.)

Wish I could have been here today, but I can't find a job and have no money

EDIT: Apparently Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow were both there. Maybe it's better I wasn't.