Say Hello to "Dirty Little Figures!"

It's the name of my new Wordpress blog. Wordpress, I'm finding, is about a million times more flexible than Blogger, so I love it. This new blog will be specifically dealing with figure reviews and photo essays and, where I find it compelling, figure-related news.

Go check it out! And it won't just be girls anyway (I'd quickly run out of subject matter). I intend to have photo essays about my dragons and dinosaurs, Ninja Turtles and gaming figures too.

Dirty Little Figures

And don't worry--I'm not going to abandon this blog by any means. I just never felt comfortable using it for my figure reviews.

"Coming Soon"

Here's another "Coming Soon" post.

Someday soon, perhaps as early as tomorrow, I'm going to set up a sister blog that only covers my figure reviews, and I'm going to re-review all the girls I've already covered, but with better photographs (and largely similar text). The first new review will be Velvet up there. The text isn't done, but the pictures are. Haven't decided on the name yet, but keep an eye out. Most of my writing time has been devoted to Nintendo World Report. I did two articles this week and a third is on the way. Haven't had much time for drawing, unfortunately. I did do a nice sketch of Raphael (the Ninja Turtle) as an old, retired barkeep, though. I should...post that here.

I'm also going to re-color that Velafrons (below) and submit it to the Art Evolved! duckbill gallery. I'm long overdue to get back in the Art Evolved scene. As one of the original members, I feel guilty about falling completely off the map. My eternal excuse: life gets in the way. But expect some more sketches here before too long, including of newly-discovered Daemonosaurus, a toothy horror from New Mexico.

Velafrons coahuilensis & IV Status

My wife didn't make a color copy of this, but here it is! I draw this for a friend. It was between Velafrons and Coahuiluaceratops and the decision was made by asking her whether she liked Duckie or Sara more in "Land Before Time." I'm also starting a new paleo-artist internet meme:

"No Greg Paul skeletals were referenced for the production of this illustration."

Also, I had the I.V. taken out today. Only two weeks! I'm back to full power. I'll post a picture of my mangled arm later. It's actually not mangled at all. There's a large scab over the hole in my arm and that's about it. Whatever. Velafrons!

Charles Knight Rises From Grave; Pays Tribue to his Master

Charles R. Knight, history’s second-most influential paleo-artist, rose from his grave in Manhattan today and shambled toward Maryland to pay respect to Gregory S. Paul, recently named the Greatest Paleo-Artist of All Time by an intergalactic committee. Though undead, Knight seemed in good spirits as he dragged his rotting carcass south along the east coast. “I had always thought that I influenced him,” said Knight of Paul, “but it turns out this whole time he was influencing me through some kind of chronological wormhole thought interface that I don’t understand completely.”

Greg Paul recently attacked every working and amateur paleoartist in the world on the Dinosaur Mailing List, essentially calling them parasites who should bow down to him and rely only on his measured, hand-drawn skeletons as reference material while not being careful not to be influenced or inspired by his art. “When I look back at some of my dinosaur restorations, especially things like Leaping Laelaps, it’s hard not to see the GSP influence,” mused Knight while chewing thoughtfully on some poor guy’s brain. “Is this guy a creationist? His frontal lobe is all squishy.” Paul could not be reached for comment, but Metatron did give a press release regarding the event. “It’s about goddamn time,” he said, his angelic voice booming triumphantly.

Metatron shook hands with Knight’s fetid corpse, which instantly turned to ash, vaporized by the awesome holy light emanating from the Voice of Paul. Knight’s ashes swirling helplessly away from the podium, Metatron continued. “Mr. Paul wishes to thank Mr. Knight for making the trip to Maryland and we wish him all the best. We intend to have Mr. Knight’s Allosaurus Feeding on Diplodocus removed from the American Museum of Natural History and replaced by Mr. Paul’s classic and far more accurate Allosaurus fragilis Skeleton in Mid-Stride in Lateral View.”

After the press conference, Metatron ascended back to Heaven and many thought they could see a crazed, paranoid old man peeking out from the closed drapes on the second floor of Mr. Paul’s house. Witnesses also claimed to see a great many cats living in or about the premises. Scott Elyard, a noted Alaskan paleo-artist, added some scope to Mr. Paul’s attacks. “He seems to be irritated that people are using his skeletal drawings as reference material, but then goes out of his way to say that nobody should bother doing their own photographs or measurements because they won’t be nearly as good as his. He’s right, of course.” Where this leads him in his own art, Elyard merely stated, “I’ve given up dinosaurs. Nobody’s as good as His Pauliness, so I’m going into plants instead.”

In addition to his illustrations, Greg Paul is also known for his unique views on dinosaur taxonomy. His recent tome, The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs, completely revised the taxonomy of the ceratopsids, or horned dinosaurs. Where once paleontologists recognized more than half-a-dozen centrosaurine genera, Paul whittled that number down to just one: Centrosaurus. “Well, of course it makes perfect sense,” said Dr. Darren Tanke of the Royal Tyrell Museum of Natural History. “The differences between, say, Styracosaurus and Pachyrhinosaurus are so minor that the average non-specialist would think they were the same animal at first glance.” Asked to elucidate this point, Dr. Tanke continued: “Styracosaurus has a large horn on its nose, but Pachyrhinosaurus doesn’t. Styracosaurus has six elongate spikes on its frill, and Pachyrhinosaurus doesn’t—it only has two short spikes. One species of Pachyrhinosaurus has a sort of unicorn horn in the center of its frill, but Styracosaurus doesn’t. Additionally, Pachyrhinosaurus is almost twice as large as Styracosaurus. So it’s easy to see how the two could be mistaken for one another.”

Greg Paul lives in the Republic of Paulonia in Maryland.

Do Not Adjust Your Internets

Yep, that's me, sportin' a brand-new I.V. After unsuccessfully fighting off a nasty respiratory infection with oral antibiotics for a year and a half, the doc said it's time to just kill it with chemotherapy-strength I.V. antibiotics. Today marks my first full week with my new friend. My arm is connected via medical tubing to a small rectangular pump which shoots me full of one kind of medication three times a day, and another kind of medication once a day. I assume I'll be on this for two full weeks, maybe three depending on how tolerant my arm is of having a tube in it. But I haven't missed any work and I'm definately improving, health-wise. So don't worry, kids, I won't be dead tomorrow. I should be posting some Xenopermian stuff later tonight or tomorrow. Hovasaur vs. baby Walrodont = CARNAGE!