Happy Birthday to me, I'm no longer 53...

by Mike Worley

Depending on how you count time, and how blogspot marks time, 10/28 would actually mark my last day of my 54th year and my "54th birthday anniversary" would be the beginning of my 55th year on the planet. Either way, legally I can't take advantage of the senior discount at Denny's for another year. Don't know if I want to.

I'll be working at the park my birthday evening. Worlds of Fun wants to squeeze more out of their Halloween Haunts. Not looking forward to it.

And I've found myself really anxious this week--more crabby, bitchy and moody than usual. I've been haunted the past few years with the knowledge that my grandfather passed away at 55. Guess I feel like all my sins have come back to torment me. Kind of a feeling of morose futility. Jeez! I sound like an Emo kid!!!

My wife and I once played the "if you knew this was your last day on earth, what would you do?" game. She asked me what I'd eat. My answer was what ever she "scooped on a shingle," or what ever we would normally get from a drive thru. Probably a double hamburger from McDonald's. Maybe a taco salad from In-A-Tub-Tacos. At that point wouldn't eating something exotic, expensive, and grossly over priced be rather stupid?

I finished up the drawing for my niece, and did it in color. Like a dope, I framed it before making a scan of it, so I took a picture of it instead. I may need to do an electronic version later on, but I can do the color in Illustrator. Here it is...

...and yes, you can see my shadow with the camera.

Some sketching, and then to bed.

Anatomy of a stencil, with apologies to airbrush artistes...

by Mike Worley

Most airbrush artists I've run into, at least those doing airbrush t-shirts and such, have a bit of distain for stencils. The feeling seems to be that stencil useage takes away from the "skill" or artistry involved in painting with an airbrush. I guess like anything, they can be overused, or become too much of a crutch. But I also feel that, when used properly, some really good things can be accomplished.

I think like any good use of media, playing to the strengths of a particular medium is imperative. My opinion. But equally important is the drawing in the early steps. Finding a balance of black and white to achieve likeness, structure, and dynamics needs to be incorporated, too. Hey, it worked for Alex Toth!

Since it's "Halloween," and we've been highlighting monsters, I chose as the subject matter the delightful monster who kills killers, Dexter Morgan as portrayed by actor, Michael C. Hall. Here's my initial stencil tracing, which was refined more by comparing it to the original source and photo, before putting the knife to it...


Here's what the stencil looks like after refining the sketch and then doing all the finished cutting...


The way I was shown by another artist, to get the stencil to work on shirts and so that it won't fray, is to build up layers of paint gradually...

Eventually, the color is built up enough, and at that point the paint is heat pressed into the fabric. The material for this is Pellon...


After which, it is wise to do the same thing to the reverse side...



Here's my first attempt at using the stencil on a shirt. My original concept for this is to try and do "blood spatter" since "Dexter" is both a forensic blood analyst and a serial killer...

Add a name, and maybe the thing is sell-able. If not, I made it for my daughter, any way, because she's a big "Dexter" fan. Nothing like making cheap Christmas gifts, eh?


And I tried it on a display square. Will it sell? I don't know. It's the last weekend at the park, and if the weather holds up, we might sell a few. After all, the idea IS to make some money. I just want to give things a different look...


I never did show how the "Edward Cullen" stencil could be used differently. Strangely, this past weekend, it was the "Jacob" image that sold better. Fans can be fickle...


And here's a sketch I dusted off to finish. It's for one of the girls I work with, and she's getting married sometime next year. She also wants a "nicer" one, more wedding like. And I've thought about doing it, but adding some Springfield denizens to fill out her wedding party. Maybe Duff-Man and Disco Stu for groomsmen. Maybe Patty and Titania for brides' maids. We'll see...


'Bye now, all ten of you who read this!

doin' what comes naturally...

by Mike Worley

I've been showing stuff that we've been doing at the park to bolster sales. At this point, it's all been about the Airbrush T-shirt shop. But one of my favorite operations happens to be the Rice jewelry we do. It's attached to our body art operations, and contrary to popular opinion, I don't really like drawing on people, especially scantly clad teeny boppers wanting henna tattoos on their stomachs or backsides, nor the little kids wanting facepaints. Not my thang! But the Rice jewelry appeals to me because it's an actual object. A trinket. But like everything else, sales have been down. So I came up with a sale with my body art lead to goose sales. To cash in on the "Twilight" craze, here's what we have...


I got the wild idea to add "moons" to the jewelry. Glow-in-the-dark moons. I searched Michael's and Hobby Lobby, but could not come up with a glow-in-the-dark bead. So I came up with the lame idea of using flourescent Sculpy and making them myself. Needless to say, it was little more than rolling boogers, something my wife commented on as finally putting something I'm good at to good use. She also said I took waaaaaayyyy too much time on each little moon. And they had to fit inside the rice vials, so they couldn't be very big. Here's the before...

...and here's my glow-in-the-dark booger/moons baked...

The only thing missing was the joy of flicking the boogers, and the feeling of projecting a snot rocket. But I can do that without Sculpy.

I did do some drawing, which was fun. Here's a Simpson-ized version of my Body Art lead, Jessica, first in black and white, then in color...



And lastly, an homage to the great William Campbell, creator of the "Weird-Ohs!" My own Wade A Sekund, based on his Wade A. Minute for the Hawk model company...


Be good!

Finally!...now if we could only get some good weather...

Jacob, my assistant manager, did all the "hard" stuff. The painting and such. Me? I just wanted the Airbrush shop to look drop-dead awesome. And I have some other plans for the other operations in my charge, too. They just aren't, necessarily, art/visually related. BID.

While monsters have been the theme, I remember as a kid, that "Captain Company" used to run superhero stuff right along side the monster merchandise in Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. And superhero merchandise is very much a part of the Halloween scene, including all the Halloween costumes. We get requests for some "superhero" type stuff to paint on shirts, so it seems fitting to include them on the "Halloween" displays...





Here are some examples of some Halloween specific designs. Maybe they'll work. Maybe not. The "skull/bleeding black heart" is our own spin on a design used at another park...

I wanted something with a bit of a glamour spin, yet with some unsettling overtones...

I introduced Jacob to the wacky world of Basil Wolverton. At least it looks different...


Worlds of Fun is running the slogan, "All You Fear Is Here," as part of this year's campaign. So we incorporated our own version...

...and here's how this looks over our first monster wall...


With the remaining "monster" portraits Jacob painted, plus the Twilight stuff and other designs, here's how the east wall of the Airbrush shop looks...




And finally, what that certain corner of our universe looks like...


If you're in the area, you ought to come out to Worlds of Fun for the Halloween Haunts. You could see our stuff for real.

...drinkin' homebrew from a wooden cup, the folks dancin' got all shook up!...

by Mike Worley

Nothin' like the lyrics to an old Chuck Berry song to start off! And to show off my purchase from this year's Renaissance Festival...MY OWN WOODEN MUG! WOO HOO!!!


My niece is getting married this weekend, and asked me to do a caricature of her and her fiance. Here they are...

Since they are going to be "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," they wanted something of an homage to the Brangelina movie from a few years back. To see the entire image, just click on it...

I guess I can't help channeling Ed Benedict.

Since "Twilight" is all the rage and the new movie is close to release, here's a shirt I did for my wife about a month ago...


Next, I hope to show the finalized version of the Airbrush shop's "last gasp" for the season. And my Halloween caricature for this year.

Leilah tov!

winding down...

by Mike Worley

There are only 3 weekends left to finish out the 2009 season. Everything still feels like a "work in progress," that there is still a lot to do, could be done, should be done.

Jacob, my assistant manager, finished up 3 more "monsters" on some larger shirt forms. Here's his "Freddy Krueger"...


This one is Christopher Lee from the "Curse of Frankenstein"...


Lastly, I threw him more "curves" stating, that while he can paint "ugly," there's more money in glamour. Dan DeCarlo once told me that if you can draw a pretty girl you're never without work. So here's Jacob's Ursula Andress from "She"...


Nor was I totally doing nothing. I tried some stuff with cutting stencils. I tested it on some damaged shirts(hence, why they look a bit grungy) before either doing them on some good material, or having Jacob give them a go. Here's a "Bob Marley" test...

but it looked better this way, I felt...


"Twilight" is all the rage for the moment. And why not try to capitalize on it while it's hot? Here's my first test of something with Taylor Lautner, the "Jacob" character...

...and this one, which we liked better...


I haven't given up on doing the image in black with a "moonrise" behind it. Jacob did this on a shirt for my wife...

She wants an "Edward" on the other side, which I'm still working on.

All in all, I think this one is the direction we'll go for the rest of the season...


My next post will actually have stuff I've drawn...PROMISE!...

HUZZAH!!!...

by Mike Worley

It was that time of year, again!!! Columbus Day and time to go to the Renaissance Festival! With my duties at Worlds of Fun, this is the only day I can use to go. And it marks another autumn.

I love autumn, truly I do. The sights and the smells. The colors! This year, at this time, it has been cold, so my wife and I bundled up for the day.

I love to browse at the Ren Fest. One of the first places we found was a "stone" shop with stone from the Holy Land. The lady at the counter was surprised I could read a little Hebrew, as they had a stone plaque with the "hand washing" blessing on it. My wife got a necklace with a Star of David etched on it, and had her "Hebrew" name etched on the other side. She also found out her Hebrew name is "Rivkeh." Here's the shop...


What I love about the festival is that there are so many different costumes, and everyone I talked to had no problem with having a picture taken. Here's a guy I just called the "featherman"...


"Renaissance" has become a bit of a general term, as the costumes range in time period, sometimes well into the 1700s. Here's a guy striking a bit of a "Captain Morgan" pose...


This guy was a hoot! That orange was very obnoxious. He is a magician, and did a great act...


It wasn't all shopping. Last year I rode the elephant with my son-in-law. I tried to get Becky, my wife, to ride but she was chicken. But she did take pictures of me riding a camel...

I keep thinking I heard her making comments to passersby about the camel with 2 butt-holes, but when I got off I only saw one. The camel's name is "Sultan," and he didn't look too happy having to haul my largeness around...


We got pooped fairly easy. They had a viking/celtic/tribal "throne" at one of the locations, so we took a break. Here's my queen looking regal...

It was made out of metal, so it was cold. Here I am...


There were regular processions of royalty and dignitaries...

Here's some pictures I found interesting...



We had the "soup in a bread bowl" for lunch, and "the queen" graced us with her presence...

We also had some costumed high school kids who kept squealing about a bee that kept buzzing around. Oy Vey!

There were a lot of pets around the place. Becky made me get a picture of this "purple poodle"...


And you never know what you'll find at one of the booths...


I've been toying with the idea of doing something with the fantasy princesses I drew earlier this year, so I took a lot of pictures for reference. We found a quiet area along a path and found this at one of the vendors...


We found the petting zoo, and Becky thought about petting the llamas...
...but decided against it...


We concluded our all-too-short visit to this year's Renaissance Festival by taking in "The Jolly Rogers." They always put on a good show, and one of them, Kurt, used to work for me many years ago when we were both much younger. Well...I was younger. He hasn't changed much except to shave his head. He's the one in the middle of this photo...

There were some "acts" that I didn't see this year. The "Limey Birds" weren't there, and another band whose name escapes me. They do a rendition of Hank Williams "Jambalaya" that I really like.

I talked to some of the vendors, and they told me that sales were down this year. Not surprising. Been there, done that, doing that! But I like going to this event. I like finding craftsman and stuff that is hand made. (Incidently, I finally got a wooden mug! I'll post pictures in a future post.) Maybe we've lost the excitement of "the circus coming to town," or the state fairs, and the like. Malls, Wal-Mart, machines, and third world labor have really done a lot to rid us of "magic." The kind that happens when there is a sense of wonder. A suspension of disbelief. In my studies of the Feast of Tabernacles from ancient Jewish times, going to Jerusalem was a joyous time of year, complete with vendors from all over, light, dancing, and even juggling rabbis. So to conclude this post, I raise my wooden mug and whisper a bittersweet, "Huzzah!"