LIMITED EDITION PLUSHY HELPS ANIMAL RESCUE IN JAPAN

Dan Goodsell is doing a great thing! He's created a new limited edition plushy named Aisu, a cherry ice pop that's part of the Mr Toast family of characters. There is only 100 of these for sale and all proceeds go to help Animal Rescue in Japan. Act quickly as I'm sure these will sell out fast. Each Aisu comes with a hand drawn numbered tag by Dan. Help an important cause and treat yourself to a cherry ice pop that’s guaranteed not to melt! Click here to purchase.

Even if this plushy sells out, you can still donate by clicking here.

For more ways to help Japan visit here.

DR. ZAIUS - FAUXTOGRAPH #3

For my third fake photo we turn to everyone's favorite simian from the Planet of the Apes, Dr. Zaius.

THE GREEN ORB

Ouch! I got tired of everyone pinching my blog, so here's an abstract art video I made today and it's green. So there! Now quit with the pinching!

DON BLUTH DRAWS DIRK THE DARING FROM DRAGON’S LAIR

Below you’ll find an excellent video from one of Don Bluth’s weekly animation seminars. He gives a great lesson on characterization and we get to see the animation wizard draw Dirk the Daring. Watch the embedded video after my short meet and greet post.

The video reminded me of the time I met Don at the 2000 San Diego Comic-Con.


Yep, the pale faced one is me and of course the other guy is Don. (It must have been wear your baseball tee day at the con!)

I’ve always been a Don Bluth fan ever since The Secret of Nimh, but especially after Dragon’s Lair. I spent many half bucks (it was one of the first fifty-cent games) trying to master the coin-op video game back when it ruled the arcades.

It’s always a big trill to meet anyone who inspired you during childhood and Don fit that bill for me. Such a super nice guy with so many great stories! He was there promoting his new animation magazine Toon Talk and was selling a no-brainer of a special deal. Purchase a one year magazine subscription and get a free sketch from Don.


I snapped at the offer and he drew this awesome sketch of Dirk!


Besides owning an original Bluth sketch, the cool thing was watching him draw. Here’s a photo of Don drawing my sketch.


Now you can watch him draw Dirk in the video below. Lead on adventurer... your quest awaits!

Be sure to visit Don Bluth.com where you’ll find information about Don’s animation tutorials along with tons of other great stuff.

JAPAN NEEDS YOUR HELP

Prayers go out to Japan during this time. Please consider donating to the Red Cross for disaster relief. You can simply text REDCROSS to 90999 to give a ten dollar donation or visit the Red Cross website here.

If you have a blog, you might consider adding a Red Cross button or any other trust worthy relief organization button to your blog.

LET'S ALL GO TO THE MAJESTIC

Last summer we took a detour on the way to Chicago and visited the town of Streator. This Illinois town has a gem of a theater known as the Majestic. The 85-year-old theater had a complete restoration in 2007.



We were hoping to see Toy Story 3 here, but the town had a power shortage just minutes before we arrived.




We waited in the lobby hoping the power would come back on, but it never did. Even though our matinee was canceled, we did enjoy viewing the theater’s collection of old movie cameras on display in the lobby. It was too crowded and kind of dark for photos, but I did manage to snap a photo of the logo from a VistaVision camera.


After a nice visit with the owners we moved onto Chicago. And yes we did catch a late showing of Toy Story 3, but in a modern theater. One of these days, I hope to get back to the Majestic and catch a flick. Maybe next time the power will stay on!

The Majestic's website can be found here and their facebook page here.

MARIA OF METROPOLIS - FAUXTOGRAPH #2

SINGING TEEN-AGERS

FLEA MARKET FRIDAYS #54

Yesterday I found this nifty fifties school music book that would make Pat Boone proud! It was published by Ginn and Company in 1954 and it has some nice illustrations. The book lists the illustrators, but doesn't list the pages they worked on. The illustrators are Ruth Wood, Elisabeth Booz, William Cummings and Constance Joan Naar. I've scanned my favorites from the book. Enjoy these mid-century goodies!

MY PAL THE WEBSITE MAKER

Shannon, Shannon, bo-bannon
Banana-fana fo-fannon
Fee-fi-mo-mannon
Shannon!

Sorry about that, but I just could not resist singing the Name Game song. Now that that's out of the way, we can move forward with today’s post. It’s a plug for one of my oldest pals and one of the swellest gals around. You guessed it! Her name is Shannon. Shannon Kaufman is part website maker, part T-shirt creator and part cake baker with a sharp eye for design.


For the past eleven years, Shannon has been developing websites for a wide range of clients mostly gaining work from word of mouth. Recently she created a new website that showcases her talents and abilities. When you visit shannonkaufman.com you’ll find examples of some of the different websites she has created. Besides building websites, she also develops attractive email newsletters for companies that are seen by millions. Maybe you’ve seen her work in your inbox and just didn’t know it!

For fun, Shannon enjoys creating T-shirt designs and competing in the Shirt.Woot Derby over at Woot! Luckily her logo expertise helped in creating a winning shirt along with some top twenty designs. In 2008, her top tee design called Anatomy Test was popular enough that she was able to treat her family for a trip to Disney World! Here’s her winning design -


You can view Shannon's Woot shirt gallery here and be sure to visit her Zazzle page to order some of Shannon’s designs. I swiped a few images of some of my favorites to show here -





(In my best Homer Simpson voice, “Mmm... cake!”) I recently learned that Shannon is quite the cake maker baker person and let it be known that I’m a fan of cake, especially when it looks like it stepped out of Super Mario Bros.


(Now I just need to talk her into making an Atari 2600 cake!)

Please check out shannonkaufman.com!

Oh, oh! I was just informed that Shannon recently discovered yarn and for her first creation she made an Angry Bird. So I’ll leave you with this last image.


Remember the longer you stare at this Angry Bird the more angry it will get.