Alaska Robotics

I’m going on a nerd rock variety cruise with Marian. We’re going to have fun, I’ll take some pictures.

The most awkward, mushy holiday of them all is right around the corner. Valentine’s Day. Bah Humbug.

I do love the pageantry of it though… Decorated shoe boxes taped to the door of a classroom and butterflies doing aerobatics in every kid’s stomach. Students starting the day by boiling down huge hopes and dreams and the deepest, most secret passions into a thick stock and pouring everything into a few words on the back of a flimsy Scooby-doo greeting card.

The holiday gives kids and adults a chance to play at love by carefully selecting just the right micro-sentiment printed in a card or engraved on a chalky candy heart.

It’s fun, nerve wracking, and dangerous. A day to pay allegiance, embrace passion, and neglect your own healthy doubts.

A day to learn that when those butterflies in your stomach escape they often look more like rivers of industrial chocolate mixed with caramel and scrambled eggs.

Ok, I’m getting carried away. Valentine’s Day isn’t that bad. It’s nice that we have a holiday built around the concept of love.. but do we really need so much pink?

So this is exciting… Take a few steps past the security exit in the departure lounge at the Juneau International Airport and there’s a hidden alcove with a giant whale plane hanging on the wall.

I’m really pleased with the results and had a great time creating and installing the piece.

Here’s a better picture of the alcove with an early version of the whale Photoshopped onto the wall.

We couldn’t print on a single aluminum panel at that size so Jeannie (she’s really great) came up with the idea to do overlapping panels.

The design went through a lot of variations.

We struck on a design we all liked and I started inking and coloring the eleven foot image.

I tried for detailed simplicity, something that could be appreciated from a distance but wasn’t going to turn into fat pixels or hard vector lines up close.

We purchased the panels without any backing and had to figure out how to mount it on the wall. It was printed on aluminum by Bay Photo, they did a great job and at a reasonable price.

The aluminum prints don’t take adhesive very well but they’re light weight and look great. We tested out JB Weld and it adhered fairly well with some coarse sanding but in the end we decided to go with straight silicon.

Once we got the mounting boards into the wall studs we thought we should just leave the wall like this, it looks more like art than my art.

The panels overlap a bit so we had to mount them at different depths.

Who let this guy near the power tools?

This is me and Greg after we got the panels all squared up. Greg is the retired maintenance man who they keep around because he knows everything about the building. He was great to work with, easy going and very capable. I think he could have done this installation all himself but he was polite enough to let me feel like I was helping.

This is Jeannie, she came up with the paneling idea and kept pushing me to make the illustration better. We were both thrilled to see it up on the wall.

Well, that’s that. Go check it out next time you fly though Juneau and I’ll have some prints available in a month or so if anyone is interested.

• Comic – Fortification

I’m not sure why I thought building a physical version of a metaphoric healing process was funny. It actually seems like the kind of thing a god would do to protect his heart.

• Comic – Owl

I found out Athena’s owl is named Glaucus which means something like glaring eyes. Then I fell waaaaaaaay down the Wikipedia rabbit hole.

On January 19th and 20th we’re doing a screening of our work in Anchorage.

Thursday, January 19th @ 7:30 pm

This show is open to all ages and features content suitable for most ages. A bit of language mostly but nothing a proper twelve year old hasn’t already heard or seen.

Friday, January 20th @ 9:30 pm

This show has the same program but is limited to people over the ages of 21 because we’ll have the bar open. Should be fun!

Both shows are at the Alaska Experience Theatre on classy 4th ave. and tickets are available online or at the door.

If you’re going to make bad decisions, make good bad decisions.

• Comic – Rebound

The Northwest Film Center celebrated their 40th birthday by hosting a 40 second film challenge. They’re a really great organization and resource so if you’re in Portland be sure to stop and see what kind of classes and workshops they’re offering.

Thanks to Izzy Christenson and Mircea Brown for collaborating with me on these fun little projects and thanks to Stephanie and Marian for helping out with the sets and vocal coaching.

You can see Mircea’s real documentary on Vimeo or catch it at the JUMP Society Film Festival in February. It’s not about base fishing. It’s about happiness.

… And of course a big Happy Birthday to the Northwest Film Center! You guys rock!

I made this as a greeting card for the Juneau International Airport, it’s a modified version of a giant aluminum print I’ve been working towards. You might already have one in the mail but I wanted to share it here for anyone who might have missed it.

I hope you have a the best Christmahanaquanzika ever… and a Happy New Year!

A little Zelda fan art inspired by Corey Godbey.