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Saturday, October 31, 2009
James Toback has just given us an incredible documentary on Mike Tyson, the youngest Heavyweight Champion to ever win the World Title. My fascination with Toback's other films, such as Two Girls and a Guy and Black and White, eventually grew into a fascination with Tyson, because Toback himself was fascinated with Tyson.
What is character?
I did everything he told me to, and I won. I won every championship at the amateur level--and I started believing in this old man . . .I turned my whole life over to boxing. He brainwashed me so much. I was like his dog. If he told me to bite, I would bite.It's like a father and son relationship even though he is my manager and trainer.Cus trained me to be totally ferocious.He spoke with me every night about discipline and character, and I knew that nobody--physically--was going to fuck with me again.
A poignant moment in the documentary comes when Tyson is recalling what D'Amato used to tell him about the different fighters in history, and what made each of them great in their own way.
I have a great deal of respect for Cus--I believe everything he said. His word in boxing is Bible to me. When he described fighters, he talked about their good points. He talked about Jack Dempsy's ferocity, he talked about Rocky Marciano's will and dedication; when he discussed Muhammad Ali, he talked about character. He said that's the only reason why Ali is the best--because he had more character. I thought that was funny--I was a young kid. As I grew older, I realized what he meant.
But I want to try to answer this question, "What is character?" Because I believe that some of us, like Mike Tyson, have enormous talent, skill, and intelligence. Remember D'Amato's words, "Each great fighter has something different; something that makes them great."
To answer this question, I hold up two icons of boxing, Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali as examples.
A boxing match provides an illuminating metaphor for spiritual fitness.
But let's be honest, who can stay on top forever? Nobody can. Which is why those with the most character stand out from the crowd--and this is not the usual crowd--this is a crowd made up of Presidents, Olympic record breakers, and world champions of every stripe from chess to literature.
In the world of boxing, Muhammad Ali was a three time World Heavyweight Champion, and "suffered only five losses (four decisions and one TKO by retirement from the bout) with no draws in his career, while amassing 56 wins (37 knockouts and 19 decisions)."(1)
D'Amato: "The only reason why Ali is the best--he had more character."
Now I think about my life and how quickly things change. States of emotion, my outlook, my thoughts. And, it seems, every day is different from the last one. Like Tyson, there is turmoil in my life, and I wonder if I can still fight like I once did.
I'm not even talking about suicide. I'm talking about being unable to fight, unable to win anymore. You need character to win. You need character to fight every day, and then to do it again the next day.
We each have our struggles. We've all been on the razor's edge before . . .
But if I've learned anything from my past, it is that there is life after death. I may sink into despair because of the choices I make. I may be unable to enjoy the most basic things, sleeping, eating, loving . . .
All it takes is a series of unlucky events, like the events that destroyed Tyson's career, to knock one of us out of the ring--
Friday, October 30, 2009
Art Paw will have a table at the West Village Trots & Treats event here in Dallas.
11:00 - 1:00 pm Sat. 31st.
3636 McKinney Ave.
The event is to benefit the Katy Trail. Come on out and bring your pups. All of the vendors will be giving away goodies.
Lipatov on deviantart.
Keywords: concept ships digital illustrations designs by from alexey lipatov ukraine dnipropetrovsk russian contemporary futuristic retro hover bike kiev moscow
By vectorstuff. Free for you - enjoy! All european countries with flags integrated.
1 AI : 600 KB
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Once again a small set of mixed silhouettes.
Author unknown. Only for personal use.
1 AI : 1,8 MB
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In honor of the 2009 Bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth, the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency has released five HO (1:87) scale paper models of historic Illinois buildings associated with Abraham Lincoln. Five more buildings in the series are expected to be released before the end of the year. In addition to the Lincoln Bicentennial series there are also ten "Main Street" papercraft buildings available for download, eight of which are Victorian style architecture, with the remaining two building being Art Deco and Prairie Style. The templates for all the architectural models are free and may be downloaded here.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
This is the V-RAPTOR, a retro futuristic air fighter designed by Paulo Konno. It was all designed and sculpted in AliasStudio. The images were rendered in Bunkspeed HyperShot, except for the raptor specs.jpg which presents a brief conceptual specifications description of the fighter under its Alias model.
Keywords: digital concept spaceship flash images paulo konno age 41 working as a car designer for general motors since 1990 bachelor`s degree in industrial design
This one is from vectorstuff. So enjoy! The vector map of the United States of America with stateborders and flags of all states.
1 AI : 7,8 MB
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A small collection of vector graphic designs for Tattoos or other stuff.
1 AI : 1,7 MB
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The world famous Zippo lighter vectorized.
Author unknown. Only for personal use.
1 AI : 400 KB
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Wednesday, October 28, 2009
It is starting to feel like Christmas around here. We are getting really busy. As soon as I get caught up I will take some time to post our holiday deadlines and maybe throw some snowflakes on the site. Now is the perfect time to order. I am busy, but still have the time and energy to play around and create new grounds and new color combos. Both of the grounds above are new hybrids created from old grounds.mikebot blog and website.
Keywords: concept spaceship artwork design by mike mccain concept artist living in the seattle area grew up in richland washington attended the university of washington works at for moonshot games
Apparently the real life Frankenstein Castle near Darmstadt, Germany now houses a restaurant and dinner theater! As part of the restaurant's 2009 Halloween festivities they are offering on their website a nicely done, printable 3D Frankenstein monster mask (kind of looks like Boris Karloff doesn't it?). The link for the PDF papercraft template may be found here. Instructions for assembling the mask are in German only.
And another nice Coat of Arms vector work. This ones from Australia.
1 AI : 800 KB
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The australian vector maps and the territorial flags are made by vectorstuff. Enjoy.
If you have any vector wishes of maps or flags just drop a comment or mail us.
1 AI : 1,5 MB
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Nice arabic vector calligraphy. I think this means "Bismillah - In the name of ALLAH."
Correct me if I'm wrong.
1 AI : 100 KB
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Some vector silhouettes of dancing people.
Author unknown. Only for personal use.
1 AI : 1,4 MB
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Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Today I am working with Charlie. If you check out the image above your first instinct may be "oh wow what a great snapshot". In many ways it is a nice capture. Charlie is smiling and he seems pretty well lit. It also looks like a great day was happening and he must have had a very happy day at the beach. The only thing missing here really is resolution. This image is 148K which is terrific for sharing on the web, but not so terrific for enlarging. Check the image below to see what happens when we bump a low resolution image up in size. When you enlarge a low resolution image you are asking the computer to fill in information that is not there and the result is jagged pixelation. So my first step is always to smooth out the messy pixelation and then once I see what is left, I go in and add in missing detail.
Charlie in progress aboveIf you are thinking about ordering a custom pet portrait keep these things in mind:
#1 A 1mb image file or larger will result in a portrait with tons of yummy detail.
#2 Dragging a friend's photo off of facebook or Flickr will result in a low resolution image unless you can click around and find the original high resolution version.
#3 Your camera has quality settings and you need to set yours as high as possible when shooting.
#4 I will attempt to work from just about any image sent, but try to send me a high res image for best results. I can always enhance what you give me, and yet the portraits that you fall in love with in the Art Paw galleries are usually the ones that started out with great high resolution photos.
#5 Check out our photo tips page for more help and information about proper file resolution.
Video Below Of Another Low Resolution Image In progress
Tons of art... karanak.deviantart.com
Keywords: concept spaceship art design by alexey aka karanak residing in irkutsk russian sci-fi concept art
Sonnet 44
If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
Injurious distance should not stop my way;
For then despite of space I would be brought,
From limits far remote, where thou dost stay.
No matter then although my foot did stand
Upon the farthest earth removed from thee;
For nimble thought can jump both sea and land
As soon as think the place where he would be.
But, ah, thought kills me that I am not thought,
To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,
But that, so much of earth and water wrought,
I must attend time's leisure with my moan,
Receiving nought by elements so slow,
But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.
(Shakespeare)
One more thing: The bone in the film is a wishbone:
The wishbone, known in anatomy as the furcula, is a sternum bone found in birds which is shaped like the letter Y. It is used as an attachment point for the wing muscles. It is so named because of a tradition: Two people pull on each side of such a bone, and when it breaks, the one who gets the larger part is said to have a wish granted.
The mechanical sculpture in the film is by Arthur Ganson. Some of his stuff is really awe-inspiring. Check this Machine with Artichoke Petal #2
Of course, it may bring to mind other art machines (Rebecca Horn, but also manyothers), but what I really appreciate here is the simplicity. Modest art is something to be cherished. It also reminds me of some of the musical experiences by the Portuguese musician Nuno Rebelo:
Even the really simple ones are really something: Machine with Chinese Fan
Is it kitsch? I don't care.
(via)
Monday, October 26, 2009
What kind of an internet monster is geenstijl.nl? Almost twenty thousand pages on Saturday. Woah.
Keywords: concept ships featured on dutch blog geenstijl.nl founded in april 2003 attracts around 75,000 visitors each day and counts as being one of the top 10 news sites of the netherlands
Here is my contribution to the collection of free Halloween papercraft on the Internet this year: a guillotine! I had downloaded a 3D model of a bloody guillotine by designer "Smirnoffka" earlier this year thinking I might do a papercraft of it sometime and finally decided it would work best as a Halloween papercraft. I chose to scale the guillotine to the size of a Barbie doll because there was something just so ironic and disturbing about associating smiling Barbie with a gruesome instrument of death. :) Here are the details of the template:
Scale: 1:6
Finished Size: 12.5" (31.8 cm) height
Number of sheets: 3
Number of parts: 18
Difficulty: 3/5
Download
Note: No Barbies were harmed in the making of this papercraft. :)
Me & Dan as Frida Kahlo & Vincent Van Gogh............................
If you need some help getting in the holiday mood go on over to the Skull A Day Blog and search for Skull Mosaics. You will find some pretty cool stuff.
Check out the terrific Day of The Dead photo set by Cindy over at Flickr. Cindy has some lovely work posted there, including a pretty pup or two.
Other Fun Links of Interest:
http://www.halloweenartexhibit.com
http://www.halloweenartgallery.com/
Halloween Art Guild at Ning
http://mexicansugarskull.com/
http://www.mexic-artemuseum.org/
