A Trip Through The Mind

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I think there was something in that coffee. The whole world's looking like a big bowl of jello... And I'm the only one eating it.

Why, then, can't the whole world enjoy the colorful deliciousness of gelatin desserts? If everyone would just harmonize with their soul, maybe one day we can all get down with the wavy sensation.

Are we all not just an incarnation of the one they call Jiggle Bones? I'm really starting to hope so.

Presently, I'm trying to imagine how this wallpaper would taste. I can't fully wrap my head around it, to be honest.

My staring contest with this pool of magic reminds me of a time when I thought Nintendo Power was a mind-altering gelatinous drink that was packaged in a can. A Nintendo Power subscription form that I received in the mail around the age of four or five is to blame for this. For some whacked reason, it featured Yoshi opening a can labeled "Nintendo Power," with a clear jelly bursting out of the can.

Maybe it wasn't jelly, maybe it was supposed to be Sprite or something, but whatever. The point is, Nintendo really fucked me up with that ad. For a brief period of time, I thought that if I could obtain and ingest this substance, I could see beautiful colors, and maybe even fly.

Well, it turns out that such a thing does exist. The question is, was this can of Nintendo Power just some clever cover for new gelatinous form of LSD? Or do I be trippin' right now?

I want to give a big thanks to Psychedelic Blogs for the inspiration on this one. That's a far-out site over there, and it really got my mind going. I didn't really plan on a psychedelic look for this wallpaper, but after perusing the aforementioned site, there was no way I couldn't try to make something groovy.

Why Are You Staring At Me?

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I'm not sure what happened with this one.

They asked us if we were happy, we said we didn't know. Next thing I knew, this was in my portfolio.

Regardless, I've reasoned that disco fever may have been involved.

It may not seem quite like it, but the inspiration for this particular background was actually a small assortment of dark, evil artwork over at Dark Backgrounds. Hats off to the various contributors who produced those wallpapers.

Also, Happy Halloween to all you sinners and saints. May the glory live on well into the morn, and all opposition be crushed by your mighty fists of steel!

You Are Only Coming Through In Waves

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Part three of the Comfortably Numb series.

This particular work came from a blackout session, so I'm a bit fuzzy on the details. If memory serves, it's about an emotionally distant man fighting a war within his mind, with only the barest of signals making it through to the woman near him.

She might be a researcher examining his psychological condition, but that one's really lost on me.

I don't know about you, but I'd be flipping shit if I saw waves of distorted reality meshing to my form like that.

Looking this picture over a bit more, I'm actually reminded of night terrors, and those weird dreams where you feel like you're falling and then you wake up in mid-spasm. Don't those just suck?

It may just be me, but I always get a little embarrassed after that happens, even though there's nobody around to laugh at me. In a groggy daze, I usually say something along the lines of, "Woah, fuck, why aren't my legs broken?", before rolling over and going back to sleep.

Come to think of it, I actually kind of like that. Anything that involves waking up very briefly and then experiencing that sensation of drifting off to sleep again. That's part of the reason I have alarms set to go off every hour and a half after 1:30 in the morning. The other reason is the acute fear of going so far inside my mind that I get lost and end up going braindead. Talk about not being able to find your way home, shit.

The alarm thing doesn't always work out, though, and on some weekends I'll find myself waking up from a twelve-hour coma, having missed every single alarm and wasted a good portion of my day. One time I was out cold for twenty-one hours, and although I've never found any evidence, I have a strong suspicion that the asshole who served me my food at Waffle House had spiked my waffles.

Also, you ever do that thing where you completely spin around in your sleep and end up with your feet on your pillow? I've done it twice, and both times it happened while I dreamed about my kindergarten teacher making Pez dispensers out of living people. That scared the hell out of me. Take my advice for what it's worth: If you ever find a bag of mixed pills under a bridge, do a three-sixty and moonwalk away. There's probably a real good reason why someone left it there.

A Distant Ship, Smoke On The Horizon

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Part two of the Comfortably Numb series.

This is a direct visualization of what I see in my mind when I hear the lyric which is the title of this piece. There seems to be some sort of subtle, quiet appeal to a ship drifting across the ocean horizon. I don't know why that is, and frankly, I'm not too concerned about the 'why'. It just is, and while some may not think it be like it is, it certainly do.

The ship in the distance is the USS Texas (AKA San Marcos), one of the US Navy's first battleships, launched in 1892.

Why did I choose to craft and incorporate that particular ship? Well, it seemed a good idea at the time.

There Is No Pain, You Are Receding

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Part one of the Comfortably Numb series.

Although the artwork doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the meaning of the song that is the series' namesake, the lyrics have always captivated my imagination. This work happens to be the result of what I felt at the time that I created it.

My interpretation varies each time I hear the song. This time it happened to be a shell-shocked SpecOps soldier holding his slain friend in the aftermath of a firefight deep in the jungles of French Indochina.

Of course, I suppose Apocalypse Now also had a little something to do with it.

There's something awfully horrifying about the thought of dying thousands of miles away from home, at unrecorded coordinates in an unnamed jungle that nobody will ever think about again after the conclusion of the operation.

It makes me wonder, sometimes, if we're all destined to suffer a similar fate of our own. When we die, how well will we be remembered? Will we be remembered at all? Oh, you might be remembered in the immediate aftermath of your death, and for a few decades afterwards. Once a few generations pass, though, chances are you'll simply become another "ancestor", all your wit and charm and charisma forgotten as the last people you knew in life meet their end as well.

In a way, I feel like perhaps the soldier lying dead in the wilderness is representative of all but the greatest and most noteworthy of public figures, all doomed to be forgotten sooner or later. All the more reason to live it up while you can, really. Who knows, perhaps through some crazy alcohol-fueled antics something could occur to plant you in the public consciousness as a historical figure. I'm not saying it would be something good that you'd be remembered for, but you'd be remembered, so there's that.

So yeah, memento mori, or something.

1917

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This piece is based on an older work of mine involving a Soviet GP5 gas mask and a surplus M1951 field jacket I had lying around. I can't seem to find that picture, as I made it years ago and have long since lost that hard drive's contents to the cold abyss of cyber hell, but I'm happier with the results of this one anyhow.

Y'know, it would really be a bitch to be caught by one of those bayonets. I mean, that thing can skewer two people back to back. Just imagine a blade piercing into your belly and out your back. Yikes.

Anyways, if you crave color, I've also rendered a couple of colorized versions of this image.

I didn't want to go overboard without reason to, so I only did red and blue for the time being, but I do like to cater to different color tastes. If you'd like to see one in your favorite color, please let me know in a comment. I'd be more than happy to add a custom one for you!

Bloodbath In Paradise

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This piece may not seem to have a lot going on, and that's because it doesn't. It's a minimalist piece, but certainly not in the traditional minimalist sense. It's a piece meant to leave you wondering.

If you're not wondering, "Hey, what's going on here?", well, then you've missed the entire point, I'm afraid.