zombies
If you were following my blog last year during Festival of Fear, you may recall my post where I talked about wanting a certain print from Toronto artist Ghoulish Gary Pullin. Sadly, he didn't have any in 2009. I still walked away with a beautiful Frankenstein print (that looks fantastic framed, by the way), but when you have your heart set on one particular thing, it's hard to let it go.
It was the Fido image I was coveting. Not only is it easily one of my top zombie movies of all time (plus it's Canadian, and it has Billy Connolly as a zombie), but the artwork is stunning. So it should be no surprise that the very first thing I did when my table was set up on Friday was head over to Gary and lay claim to a copy of the print (pictured right).
The surprise (at least to me) came on Saturday. My table was buzzing with people (at the convention it went in waves: it was like you either had no one around or 5 people at once wanting to buy something), and in the middle of packing up an item I look up and see Gary.
No, that's not the surprise.
As promised, I added five Undead Heads adjustable necklaces to the Ghoulish Goodies Shop yesterday.
Note the beautiful model sporting my wares. I think he's a little thin, but hey, that's advertising right?
Today I'll be making official announcements on twitter and Facebook to let the rest of the online ghoulies know they can pick up a couple of items here. I won't be posting more than 10 items at a time, and every few weeks I might switch out items for sale. I'll be sure to make announcements on the blog.
Funny enough, there has been a lot of communication and a few sales behind the scenes through email. People took my suggestion of "Ask and ye shall receive" to heart and contacted me about items not in the shop. To them, I say thank you for taking the initiative and enjoy your new creatures (they are headed to the post office this morning). So don't be shy if there's a question you want to ask about something you may have seen here in the past that isn't listed as a sales item.
I need to take a moment to give a shout out to Zombie Command. I've been following their blog for a while now, enjoying all their undead-goodness. They recently gave me another reason to love them when they held a giveaway to celebrate their birthday, and I was one of the many lucky winners.
And the prize?
A fabulous zombie t-shirt generously donated by Crazy Dog T-shirts. They have a series of Zombie themed designs.
Awesome.
Yetch gave me some eye pins for Christmas, and I've been side-glancing them ever since, wondering when I'd use them.
I decided to jump into the deep end of pendant-making last week. Here's the results: a number of undead heads. Some turned out pretty cool, some a little weaker than others, but I'm finding my feet. No two are exactly the same.
As spring approaches, the mind turns to upcoming shows (August will be here any second) and ideas for new items to sell. I think these little zombies will fit in nicely with the rest of the display.
Now I just have to learn how to tie those slip-knots on adjustable necklaces...
Was looking for the perfect image to celebrate New Years and found The Zombie's First Love by Justin Reed. I'd come across a few images that had potential, but they were all disqualified because the bloggers didn't post who the artist was. Not only were the images not sourced, but when I tried to track down a specific illustration that is common around the net, I saw that it was being sold on zazzle (or another made-on-demand site) on merchandise by someone who obviously wasn't the artist (there were a number of images, all different styles, being sold).
Fa la la la la, la la la brains.
I've just finished my first batch of Zombie Wreaths. I've never sculpted a zombie head before, and may I say it's very fun to do.
I'm still figuring out exactly how I'd like them painted, but I'm pleased with it. I had no idea what my style of zombie heads would look like. I was concerned they might be too cartoonish, and I didn't want them too gory either (though I couldn't resist making a few with their brains visible).
This set (pictured below) will be coming with me to the show tonight. I've also made some zombie severed hands and feet, but I haven't figured out exactly what I want to do with them yet.
Give a man a fish, you'll feed him for a day. Give a man a corpse, you can feed him and put some cash in his pocket.
I joke, but the following story is gruesome and unnerving. Yetch brought it to my attention this weekend, and I've been haunted by it ever since.
In the city of Perm outside of Moscow, three homeless men were arrested after dismembered parts of a 25-year-old man were found near a bus stop.
The men - all with criminal records - attacked the young man with a hammer and knives. How does this story get worse? Here's the statement from the prosecutor's main investigative unit for the Perm region:
After carrying out the crime, the corpse was divided up: part was eaten and part was also sold to a kiosk selling kebabs and pies.
No one can confirm if the human flesh was actually served to customers.
Question: what kind of food establishment buys mystery meat from homeless men? In all the sources I've found about this story, not one mentions whether or not the kebab shop has been shut down or even fined.
I've been toying with Christmas project ideas. To get into the spirit, I decided to start with transforming some little wooden nutcracker soldiers to reflect a darker side.
Who knew the zombie apocalypse would spread via a pizza delivery guy?
This is just one of the thousands of factoids you'll find in Zombies for Zombies: Advice and Etiquette for the Living Dead.
It's bad enough that you've been infected. Worse still is your lack of direction. You don't have any friends to turn to for an open, calm dialogue about what you can expect in the hours to come. Don't despair.
Zombies for Zombies is a motivational guide designed specifically to make a profound difference in your accidental, strange new life. You say you don't want to become another one of those ghastly creatures you see on the news out in the Tempe Containment Zone? You don't have to - if you follow the great advice inside...
Yetch and I headed down to the CBC building. One of the things I love about living in this city is one minute I'm at my desk, the next I'm in a studio audience waiting to see one of my favourite film makers.
There were a few undead mingling with the living (including the woman responsible for starting the Toronto Zombie Walk. She happened to be looking over as I snapped a picture of the sign). Dead or alive, everyone was excited.
