Sweet Frosted Sixteen

Sweet Frosted Sixteen:

We have a long history of silly frosted birthday cakes....but perhaps, like the napkins, we are dwindling down to the end times.

The sixteen years-ancient birthday celebrant was flummoxed as to what to select for his cake image this year. 

(His recently turned twelve year old brother was too cool for the whole enterprise. To be clear: not too cool for colored frosting...just too cool for pictures made of colored frosting.)

Somehow at the very last minute, we arrived at the cute-beheld-spectacled cat image for the Sixteenth. 

I can’t explain it’s significance, but I can only observe that it says something to him. 

He’s not much into cats, real or imaginary, so that’s definitely not the answer to the mystery.

At any rate, it was an easier frosting project than, say a particular Dark Souls character wearing a certain kind of armor, sitting in front of a bonfire, or three characters from Skylanders, or the Predator riding on Godzilla, just to name a few.

I have included the original image for reference. I did change the glasses from black to acid green because, while looking cool, black frosting can be a bummer to eat and to clean off the couch after the 14 teenagers have left.

I apologize that the original cat image is uncredited. We don’t know where it came from, and Google has been unforthcoming. If you know, please do share.

Someone once contacted me to ask if they could reproduce our napkin of Princess Leia riding a Tyrannosaurus Rex in the frosting of a birthday cake for their four year old daughter...to which of course I said: absolutely! 

So certainly we like to give credit where credit is due... though of course I don’t feel the need to be credited for the birthday cakes of small children. But it was amusing to be asked for permission. Sorry, again, I do not have an image of the cake handy.

Fourth of July Snack

We were going to see the latest Jurassic World movie today to celebrate our independence from weekday routine. But one kid was not feeling well enough to consider consuming a large soft drink and a tub of popcorn, so we are festering at home instead.

Alas, no bomb pops were consumed either.

Incredibles’ Jack Jack and Jurassic World’s Carnotaurus

Which One Will Prevail?

We haven’t seen either The Incredibles 2 or Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom yet, and we are going to have to choose one movie to see first this weekend.

I think we are leaning towards The Incredibles. 

And clearly Jack Jack is going to kick that Carnotaurus’ butt anyway. It can’t even stand up to the tyrannosaurus long enough to eat Chris Pratt in the preview.

Not that we will miss an opportunity to see dinosaurs eat non super humans. 

Definitely not.

Unicorn, Raptor, Wade, Rocket and Groot

Much anticipated spring movie characters with weird, awkwardly drawn, pink furry unicorn:

Yes of course we saw the Avengers Infinity War. 

And we will not miss Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom, no matter how ridiculous the premise necessary to allow dinosaurs the opportunity to eat humans again.

Deadpool 2 presents another challenge. 

We were able to all watch the first Deadpool movie courtesy of some fancy editing by mom on the iPad. While our eleven year old son has definitely viewed more material inappropriate for his age than I care to admit here... I will probably have to put the popcorn bucket over his head if we see the movie in a theater.

Proposed Sidekicks for Doctor Who in Season 10

Just some suggestions...

Yes, I know that they have already announced who the co stars will be for Peter Capaldi's last season. We even saw the Christmas special.

This napkin post is rather delayed, I am afraid. We had the conversation about who should replace the dear departed Clara quite a while ago. The kids both thought that a new sidekick should be someone other than another young attractive Caucasian woman, but could not agree on what sort of person should be next. I have assembled a cast of their favorites as potential companions.

Doctor Who is not really on our sons' minds right now, but as the tenth season is coming up soon, I thought perhaps it was time to post this one.

My younger son was happy to point out some of the many drawing failings on this one. Deadpool is too small,  the pug in the foreground is awkwardly posed. And, he would like to add that pugs aren't necessarily his favorite dogs right this now.

This napkin is definitely more about quantity rather than quality. Back when I was drawing two napkins a night, I used to have a rule about no more than two characters at a time. It made a lot of sense.

RaptorPool for Dinovember 2016

Or perhaps it is VelociPool?

 (Just not DinoPool, my sons say, as that has already been done.*)

In honor of #Dinovember: A Merc with an extra toothy mouth. (I debated about covering up his mouth, and teeth, with a more accurate mask, but in the end, I just couldn't do it.)

A couple of days ago, I was picking out some images from the last year, and I noticed the overwhelming prevalence of Deadpool napkins. So here is yet another.

A classmate of my older son was over for a visit recently, and I overheard him declaring that Deadpool was the only superhero that still interested him at his advanced age of 14.  While my sons are still compelled by other supers, Deadpool definitely stands out for them also.

Wade is the only superhero with a R rated movie... Could there be a connection?

*The T-Rex DinoPool in "Deadpool Kills Deadpool" from 2013, which also featured the much-beloved-at-our-house PandaPool.

Dinovember Foot Rub

Are you my mother?

Dinovember is an idea created and promoted by two plastic dinosaur toy owning parents, Refe and Susan Tuma. They supposedly convinced their young children that their dinosaur toys came to life during the night by posing the toys in various scenarios around the house so they would be discovered when the kids got up in the morning. Every day of the month it would be as if the kids' dino figurines have been up to something: eating cereal in the kitchen, congregating around the pieces of a vase they broke, or more improbably, cleaning the bathroom. Since the Tumas have spun their Dinovember Facebook page pictures  into a successful picture book, the dinosaurs have become more adventurous, breaking eggs, practicing dentistry, and even running for president.

Alas, we are much less ambitious (and successful) at our house. 

While I was all in for Inktober, making a creepy drawing everyday in ink for the entire month of October (managed to convince at least 300 followers to depart our Instagram account during the one month!) I didn't think I could manage a whole month of dinosaur related posts.

But here's one at least.

Our kids' favorite spot after a hard day at school is our disintegrating Costco couch. They often ask me to "snuggle" on said couch with them. What the younger on really wants is for me to rub his feet while he watches YouTube videos. 

After reading Marvel's "Moongirl and Devil Dinosaur," the kids agreed that it would be good to have one's own dinosaur.

Particularly if you have one that will rub your feet....

My younger son looked at this napkin and asked, "Mom, are you a dinosaur?"

(The dinosaur was based on one entered in a Stan Winston dinosaur competition by Tom Rush. I did not come up with the turquoise coloring on the Velociraptor's face, but it paired nicely with my sons' shirt and socks)

Independence Day Hot Dog Contest

Nathan's Coney Island hot dog eating contest: 

A NYC July 4th tradition.

It's still #SharkWeek for us.....& always #DinosaurWeek

Birthday napkin

Sam, one of the kids' two aunts had a birthday last week. 

The kids wanted to be portrayed riding a dinosaur on the napkin/card. 

So here they are, sort of. 

The dinosaur ended up rather non-descript. I considered making it more of the feathery/prickly "Dinosaurs Among Us" bird like dino, but couldn't in good conscience put a kid in shorts on such an uncomfortable creature. It ended up a muddy, undecorative creature.

As usual, my portraits of  the kids were not stellar, but I did manage to accurately capture the sullen expression on my younger son's face. 

Dinosaurs Among Us

Dinosaurs are still around today.
But can they use Instagram?

While my kids have never been remarkably obsessed with dinosaurs, they have always been interested in them, and particularly appreciate a Dinosaur astronaut (see the excellent graphic novel "The Midas Flesh," or the kids books starring "Captain Raptor" for instance) or one holding a weapon or a piece of technology.

Last week I went to an after hours Instagram event, #EatDrawGram, at the exhibit "Dinosaurs Among Us" at the American Museum of Natural History.

It seemed odd to be in the museum unaccompanied by a small child, or two, or a whole second grade's worth....But it was certainly a pleasure to see the show as a solo adult. As my evening was still somewhat curtailed by the kids waiting at home, I did not get to #Eat, #Draw or #Gram while there... But, several days later, here is the drawing to be "Grammed" (could that be a word?)

The simplistic takeaway of "Dinosaurs Among Us," if it needs to be said, is that contemporary birds are dinosaurs, and that prehistoric dinosaurs were very feathery.

My sons are definitely enthusiastic about the idea of feathery dinosaurs. Although I think what they like about the two on this napkin is that they look furry. The dinos are covered in prickly protofeathers, however, and are probably not particularly fuzzy or fun to snuggle with....or able to take pictures with a smart phone.

You can see all our dinosaur themed napkins, including the Star Wars Characters Ride Dinosaurs series.

Spooky Scary Skeletons

A Unicorn, a Velociraptor....and some guy....send shivers down your spine....and are really hard to draw.

As usual, I discovered that the phrase that my older son has been contantly repeating recently was not of his own manufacture, but was actually proliferating on the Internet.  My first tip-off came when one of his friends came over to, yes, play video games, and said the same phrase over and over in the same tone of voice.  (Again, I have been consistently sleep deprived for well over a decade, so it takes a lot for me to catch on.)

At any rate, "Spooky Scary Skeletons" is a 1996 song by Andrew Gold, a video of a classic Disney animation with the song that has over 5.3 million views on Youtube, some Minecraft video spin-offs, etc, etc. I am just going to say that there's a link to the "know your meme" page on the topic because I don't think I can begin to unpack all of it right now.

My son asked for unicorn, Alien and velociraptor skeletons doing a high kicking "Michigan J Frog" style dance.  I was definitely not up to the challenge.  I had a hard enough time just drawing some vaguely anatomically correct skeletons and trying to put one in front of the other.  And what does the Alien skeleton look like anyway? (No doubt the answer is available online somewhere...)

The original Disney short of the dancing skeletons is truly inspired and inspiring... and I should have done better. Maybe I will give it another shot.

My son had something more like this in mind...with skeletons. Easy, right?

StarWars.com Coverage of Napkins

Amy Radcliffe wrote a nice post about our napkin series "Star Wars Characters Ride Dinosaurs"

You can see it at this link.

Thanks Amy!

Judy and Yoshi from Dr. McNinja Web Comic

Last night we were catching up on "Paleontologists, Politicians and Prologue," the latest installment of Christopher Hastings' webcomic, Dr. McNinja.

The kids love the over-the-top randomness of many of the characters and events in the story.  The Doctor's secretary and driver is a large gorilla named Judy. Gordito, Dr. McNinja's 12 year old moustachioed sidekick, rides Yoshi the raptor.   When we came to an image of Judy the gorilla giving Yoshi the raptor a piggyback ride while he imitate Gordito, both kids said, "I want that on my napkin!"

I was just not capable of rendering the exaggerated facial expressions of both characters late last night.  The picture is a lot funnier in the comic.

Flying Creature from Doctor McNinja

The kids were very taken with the weirdness of this flying Dinosaur creature
in Dr. McNinja's "Paleontologists, Politicians and Prologue."  The female, eye patch and epaulet-wearing president of the United States uses it to exile her treasonous vice president to space, while she and Dr. McNinja ride in its mouth.

Interest was expressed in having this creature on a napkin. By the cold light of the morning, it was clear that my rendition was more lame than fantastically weird. Too much pink and purple too....

Greedo Rides a Baryonx

Star Wars Rides Jurassic World Dinosaurs #18:
A Rodian bounty hunter and an obscure dinosaur share  a teal color scheme.

Our older son encouraged me to do a couple more Star Wars/Dinosaur napkins because I had missed two dinosaurs that uses in the LEGO Jurassic World game. I don't think the Baryonx actually appears in the movie,  It is represented on the Jurassic World website with some pictures that illustrate the very pretty markings on its skin.

I did pick Greedo mostly based on color...And maybe out of motherly perversity, as Greedo was sometimes played by a woman.  (Type "Greedo" into Google and it will prompt:  "Greedo was a woman")

Yes, I know Greedo the character was not really female.  The expanded universe stories and appearances in the prequel "The Phantom Menace" all indicate his maleness. But the old set photograph of the actress Maria de Aragon as Greedo sporting some nice color coordinated pumps while standing next to George Lucas was too much for me to pass up.

 Perhaps Greedo would have been able to shoot Han Solo first if he had been wearing more sensible shoes.

Wampa Rides a Giganotosaurus

Star Wars Rides Dinosaurs #17:
(The series jumps the shark)

Sometimes when it comes to drawing or other art and crafts activities, the best results happen when you are not trying.  Sometimes all of the trying hard on other work pays off in a surprising way when a situation makes it impossible for you to give something the usual amount of time or focus.

Sadly, this is not one of these occasions.

If anyone cares, the Giganotosaurus species "included some of the largest known terrestrial carnivores." A Wampa is the monster that hangs Luke Skywalker upside down in an ice cave on Hoth at the beginning of "The Empire Strikes Back." But I can't imagine anyone reading this who is not already familiar with Wampas. (Except maybe my mother... Hi Mom!)

It was a bit of a running joke over the last couple of weeks: that if we did not come up with a good idea for a napkin before the kids went to sleep, someone was going to end up with a Wampa on a Dinosaur. Who knew that I was going to do such a poor job drawing the Wampa.

My apologies to Wampas, Giganotosaurs and their enthusiasts everywhere.

Han Solo on a Stegosaurus

Star Wars Rides Dinosaurs #16

Han looks a little melancholy. Maybe he regrets shooting Greedo. Or maybe he's wishing for a cooler dinosaur.

Commander Wolffe Rides the Pachycephalosaurus

Continuing to scrape the bottom of the obscure dinosaur barrel:
9Star Wars Rides Dinosaurs #15)

Commander Wolffe is kind of a hard-headed guy, isn't he?
I originally ruled out the thick craniumed Pachycephalosauruses as being too small to ride, and too hard to pronounce, but here we are.

It is summer camp not Quaker school, so guns are allowed, kind of.

Luke Skywalker with Brachiosaurus

Yes, I am aware that Tatooine would be a rather inhospitable place for Brachiosaurs.
(Star Wars Rides Dinosaurs #14)

Having decided to draw the wistful, horizon-contemplating farm boy Luke, rather than the Force-trained, light saber wielding Luke, somehow the Brachiosaur scene from Jurassic Park came to mind.  Sam Neil tells the kids that the Dinosaur is just like a big cow....although probably not one that you would find on a moisture farm.

Card Game Inside Jurassic World's Mosasaurus

Zara says, "Go Fish."

One of the  napkin ideas I proposed to the kids while we were biking to camp yesterday was to draw the Indominus Rex, the Pteradactyl and the ill fated assistant/babysitter Zara sitting around a camp fire toasting marshmallows inside the Mosasaurus ala Gepetto and Pinocchio in the whale.  (Belated Spoiler Alert!)

The kids' responded, "Oh, that's what happens at the end of the LEGO Jurassic World game!...Except they are playing cards and using a flare for light."  I decided to follow the LEGO logic and draw the characters playing cards and using the flare also because... firewood would be wet... and where would they have gotten the marshmallows anyway? (We need to keep these napkin images plausible after all)

 I always appreciate LEGO games' humorous lack of fatalities. As I mentioned in a previous Jurassic World themed post, Zara's death in the movie by Pteradactyl and Mosasaur seemed unnecessarily nasty and it feels nice to provide her with an afterlife.  I discovered last night, while trying to find an image of her, that interestingly, she is also the first female death in the history of the Jurassic Park/ World franchise. Gender politics aside, unlike all the other deaths, her demise was particularly memorable in its awfulness and  has been an ongoing topic of conversation for my sons long after the movie.

I did not find any images online of the LEGO game card game scene until I sat down to post this today.  It appears at the very end of the game.

The kids said I did an ok job anyway.