skonen_blades

I notice these are getting longer. I guess that's good.

There's a book out where this artist takes kids drawings and does them up proper style with the ability of his craft. He has this cool foreword:

It started simply at the Jersey shore in 1998. While I played in the water, my six year old niece, Jessica, an avid drawer herself, snatched my sketchbook from my towel and filled it with strange creatures. As she went off to play, I marveled at how each creature stood without the benefit of a skeleton, and how the shoulder of a beautiful woman could be attached to her jawbone. Kids just don't worry about proportions or judgmental criticism - they just draw - and that's the reason they surpass adults in creativity.

The problem is was that few of my students respected abstract expressionism. Basically, if they were going to draw comic books, they'd need to make up figures, buildings, vehicles, and landscapes - but also elements like mystical dimensions, explosions, mutations and things unseen, all of which require abstract design. When drawing the insides of a demon's belly or the outer reaches of the subatomic microverse, there aren't any reference photos.

Awesome.

Check the book here.

It’s all about the transformation.
I remember entering the room. I was eighteen, cold, naked except for the paper underwear, bred for this and still nervous. I suppose terrified is more like it. Even after the rigorous physical training I was still very skinny. My breathing came in quick gasps as I struggled not to cross my arms or shiver. I came to a stop and stood at attention in the middle of the circular metal trapdoor grill under the light. I was barefoot. My head was shaved. My identification tattoos and punishment wires were out there for all to see. Gooseflesh ran over me and I could see the little puffs of my breath. Primed and ready. They drugs they had given me this morning to ease the transition were working. I felt more alert and attentive than ever. I felt curious about the future, eager to take part and slightly dreamy. I also felt a little itchy.
A blue light scanned up, over and through me.
I saw some indicators come up on some panels in the darkness. Just like in the instructional videos.
I’d been confirmed and we were a go.
I wish I could say I felt the moist eyes of my family and friends staring out hopefully from the observation enclosure. This was a proud day for most people. Most families gave one kid up to the SAPCorps. If you gave a child to the SAPCorps, it meant more birthing privileges.
SAPCorps was also the country’s orphanage. In some cases, it was also the juvenile detention center. I could still remember the day when I found out that this wasn’t a hospital and that my parents and sister were gone. That was ten years before. The doctor who had told me also remembered, I think, going by the scar on his face that he didn’t bother to get removed and the fact that he had requested to pull the lever for me on this occasion.
He looked down at me. Doctor Fines. My stepfather, for lack of a better word.
He twitched a smile at me. We were being monitored but other than that, it was just the two of us. I stood in the middle of the trapdoor. Our relationship had always been antagonistic but defined and limited. I don’t think anyone on the outside world would have referred to him as paternal but he was the closest I had.
“David.” He said. He nodded at me.
“Sir.” I replied. I stared straight ahead, willing him to get this underway.
“You ready?” he asked.
“Absolutely sir. Let’s do it.” I replied. I trembled a little.
“Here we go. I hope that…well. Here we go.” He said and flexed his hand on the handle.
He yanked back.
The trapdoor opened and I fell down the well into the liquid.
It’s all about the transformation.

I look down at my skin and see the moonlight reflect off its purple brick like surface. I see the little octagons that my pores have become breathing in the night air. It’s good that they do seeing as I don’t have a mouth anymore. I was a lucky one. My transformation turned out to be beneficial to the military. I’m dwarfstar dense with my human intelligence retained. Nothing manmade can really stand in my way and most conventional projectile weapons can't harm me. I don’t seem to have internal organs. My arms are huge and my legs are thick and short. I still have eyes but they’re hyper sensitive and covered up with military visiongogs. It’s been this way for years now.

I’m standing in the rain in the night time graveyard beside the grave of Dr. Fines. He died two days ago. I can’t define what I’m feeling. We’d talked every now and then but his death was sudden and I didn’t find out immediately. He was my last tie to my humanity. The last person who could remember who I was ‘before’.

I turn and walk away into the night and back to base.



tags