Moving Right Along...

The time has finally come to say goodbye... I'm sad to say you won't find any further updates on this blog...

Because it's moved!

From now on, all bloggy blogs will be blogged in my brand new bloggery at:

www.skahfee.com/blog

Oh, did I mention Skahfee Studios has an official website now? Check out www.skahfeestudios.com!

You sunk my entertainment industry!

Ok folks, I hope you won't mind if I stray a little off topic here. I've been working on a whole new home page for myself, and I have a bunch of new products that will be rolling out (as soon as I make them...), but today I want to talk about...Battleship. As in "you sunk my..." The boardgame, now the movie! Coming soon to theaters near you!

Ok first off, if you haven't seen the trailer yet, go check it out before you read on, I'll let you form your own opinion before I beat you to death with mine.


Ok so, now can I say..... WHAT. THE. FUCK???

Look, Hollywood, I get that times are tough and every studio has properties that are huge before the movie is even released these days. Boy wizards, superheroes, book adaptations, comic adaptations, sequels, tv-to-movie, theme park rides. But, freakin' Battleship??

The obvious rebuttal, if you know me, is that I freakin' love the Clue movie from the 80s, so maybe Battleship will turn out well. And maybe it will.. this trailer actually looked OK before I knew what it was (and look, there's Erik and Hoyt from True Blood!) But here's the thing... this degrades and insults everybody involved: filmmakers, audience, studio, everyone. Two reasons why:

1) Nobody gives a fuck about a Battleship movie. I can see exactly where this idea came from, but it reeks. Studio execs see Transformers is hugely successful, and Thundercats is back on TV, and all these other properties that hold nostalgic value for Gen X and Y are taking off on the big and small screens, and they;re desperate to get their hands on another one, but do you imagine there is a single person on this planet who went "squeeeeee!" with joy when they heard there was a Battleship movie in the works? No. There wasn't. Not one. And I think the studio (I havent bothered to notice which it is) knows that. I think they are betting that name recognition ALONE will sell this flick, that their audience doesn't even have to LIKE the property, they just have to RECOGNIZE it to want to fork over their cash. I am hoping that they are wrong, that people are smarter than that. I guess we'll see.

2) THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BATTLESHIP!!! You know why? Because there is not a single plot, character, or thematic element to Battleship. It's just about two fleets of ships duking it out with one another. And they didn't even get THAT right. Fleet of ships vs invading alien force is decidedly NOT Battleship. If anything, this looks like a sequel/re-make/"reimagining" of Battle LA from last year. If they remade Hunt for Red October or Das Boot, THAT would be closer to a Battleship movie than this.

3) Ok, I said two points, but this one is just hanging out there: You know, as well as I do, that some poor-ass actor is going to have to debase himself by saying the stupid line. You know the one. You know you do. Let's all say it together... "YOU SANK MY BATTLESHIP!" AAAAARRRGH!

Ok, I feel a little better now. Just don't get me started on that Hugh Jackman Rock Em Sock Em Robots abomination.

Oh Yeah... This is Working Like Gangbusters!

Hooray! Today's a good day because I'm posting another new piece in my shop. Please be sure to check it out there for some larger pics (and, shameless plug time... the option to make a purchase!)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind is one of my favorite movies... as all of these pieces are. The movie represents a really unique blend of humor, weirdness, and pathos into something that really sort of sneaks up behind you and knocks you out when you aren't looking.



Jim Carrey's performance as Joel is a huge part of the success of this movie. I've always loved Man on the Moon, and his performance as Andy Kaufman is pitch-perfect, but Andy's over-the-top, zany, bug-eyed personality really is right in line with Carrey's persona. His performance as Joel, while much less noticibly "actory" is just perfect.. He's not flamboyant Jim Carrey, he's just a neurotic, vulnerable, awkward guy. Perfect.

The (almost) end where (SPOILER ALERT!!) Joel has failed to fight the memory erasing procedure and is saying goodbye to Clem is just beautiful and completely gut-wrenching. "Meet me in Montauk" just gives me shivers every time. Even if the rest of the movie were not great (which it was), I would watch this film over and over again for just that one line.

As is traditional in these posts, here are some fun facts about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

• In the part where Clementine disappears suddenly as she and Joel are watching a circus go by, Jim Carrey did not know that Kate Winslet was going to be gone when he turned around. Carrey's face appears so saddened. When the sound blanks out in the final film, Carrey is actually saying "Kate?"
• Clem's changing hair color is not only a representation of her character's fun-loving but flighty nature, it is also used to help illustrate where each scene falls in the chronology of her relationship with Joel.
• The name of the memory-erasing company in the film is Lacuna Inc. In the study of ancient manuscripts, a "lacuna" is a hole where part of the text is missing.

Work in Progress

Hi all! Just a quick post to let you know that I'm busy working away on a new piece. I'm taking a break from a massive 4-piece project to work on something a little less involved.

Here's a peek at how my process works.. This is one small section of the piece, where I am laying out the image in blocks of color.
Eventually, the colored areas will be replaced by blocks of text in the same color. Then, a background is created, and a new typography piece is born!

Here is my Elf piece, an example of what the finished work from this process looks like:


I'll post a few more times to show you the journey to completing this piece. Anyone want to hazard a guess about this piece's subject?

Getting back to business

Flight of the Conchords mug by DailyGrinder

Okay, so "back" to business isn't really true. The fact is that I was lucky to launch an Etsy store that sort of created its own success. Probably largely due to some very popular keywords appearing in my items (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Big Lebowski, etc), a LOT of customers just found my shop on their own, and gave me a hugely successful holiday season 2010. I didn't promote, I didn't advertise, I just made sales and shipped product.

Now that things have slowed down to a more steady pace (although sales still haven't stopped.. I'm counting down to 300 sales!), I'm going to start doing all the things I know I need to be doing. I'll be more active here at my blog, on Facebook, on Twitter, and all over the Etsy community. I'm not looking to "advertise" as such, so much as just become known in the community and contribute something worthwhile, and hopefully that'll lead to some additional traffic through my shop.

The most "advertising"-ish thing I'm doing right now, is trying out a great tool over at Statsy.org, called the Clockbot. It's a nifty little tool that lets you schedule automatic relistings of your items, putting them back on the top of search results again. I've noticed that sales seem to follow sales, and I'm thinking that it's actually me relisting the sold item that's generating the extra attention. I scheduled a week worth of postings, so we shall see!

Daddy long-legs... and dead things. DEAD THINGS MIKEY.

After a long hiatus (although that isn't technically true, as I have been doing some other work that just isn't quite ready for primetime yet), I've got a new piece to show off. As always, you can check this out in more detail at Skahfee Studios.

Besides being a hugely warm and fuzzy memory from my childhood, The Goonies also reminds me of the most awesome trip I have ever taken; our weeklong exploration down the Pacific coast. Visiting Astoria, and seeing Mikey's house, was one of the best parts of that trip.


Seems like just about everyone feels like a Goonie at one time or another, especially at the age that I, and many others of my generation, were when this movie was released. We really identified with Mikey, Chunk, Data, and the rest of the Goonies, and we really wanted to see them succeed.

More importantly, I think this movie really speaks to our sense of adventure. I don't know anyone who has seen this movie and didn't wish at some time that they could save the day by going off on a wild journey to the buried treasure that would make everything okay again.

Here are some fun facts about The Goonies:

• The pirate ship was completely real, and all the scenes involving the ship were filmed in/on it. When the movie wrapped, the ship was offered to anyone who would take it, but nobody did, and it was scrapped.
• Director Richard Donner can be seen as on of the 4x4-riding sheriffs who find the kids at the end of the movie.
• Fratelli means "brothers" in Italian.
• The Goonies was Josh Brolin's movie debut.
• The movie was mostly shot in sequence over the course of 5 months.
• Mikey's house still stands on a hill overlooking the docks in Astoria, OR. A sign at the foot of the driveway welcomes visiting Goonies.
  
• Here's the Goonies oath, which didn't make the final cut: "I will never betray my goon dock friends / We will stick together until the whole world ends / Through heaven and hell, and nuclear war / Good pals like us, will stick like tar / In the city, or the country, or the forest, or the boonies / I am proudly declared a fellow Goony."

Ringing in the New Year

Hey! Remember me? The guy who used to blog here from time to time? Long time no see, right? Well, I've got excuses, and some of them are halfway passable.

My big business-related news is that the holiday shopping season was a huge success at the Skahfee Studios Etsy store. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I shipped something like 120-130 orders! I can't believe the reception I've had from the Etsy community, and I am so happy and grateful!

I also learned that my hypothesis when I got into this business, about how all the work in creating the art would happen up front and then shipping actual orders would be a piece of cake... yeah, that proved to be not entirely accurate. December was a blur of boxes, packing tape, styrofoam peanuts, and hours long excursions to my printer, multiple locations to purchase frames and shipping supplies, and the post office. Not to mention that boxing up just a couple orders at a time took a LOT more time than I thought it would!!

A few days before Christmas, the holiday rush finally broke, and I spent the next two weeks enjoying my favorite time of the year. There was family, food, music, food, beer, presents, food, video games, and uh... a fair amount of food. In Southern California, we miss out on white Christmases, but we do gain the ability to comfortably grill outside way into winter. Woohoo!

So TLDR: December was awesome because I sold a ton and a half of my prints and I had an amazing holiday season.

The bad news is that, while I can't deny that December was extremely productive, I didn't get to produce all the other things I was hoping to. Namely: some Christmas-themed prints, and my novel.

Christmas will have to wait, but the novel is a huge priority for 2011. Kelly and I sat down and, in place of resolutions, made a project plan for some 2011 business goals. Amongst mine:

• Launch my own web-based store, separate from Etsy or any other service. (I have an intentinally bare-bones site right now at www.skahfee.com)
• Look into several sites such as deviantart.com where the site takes the orders, prints and ships the art, and I take a commission.
• Redesign and relaunch fatdudedesign.com, start actively looking for web design work
• Finish a good amount of pre-launch work (including many, many finished pages) for my webcomic.

Besides that, 2011 will include a move up the Pacific coast to the Portland area, a family reunion (in-laws) in Iowa, hopefully a trip back to Chicagoland, and hopefully something super awesome for our 5th (!!!!!) wedding anniversary.

Oh and we hit our first milestone for the year already, by starting the year credit card debt free!!!

I hope everyone else's 2011 is shaping up to be as fruitful (and hopefully just slightly less eventful) than ours!

-S