SUNSHINE and WARM WEATHER ANTHEMS

Ah Spring. Lovin' it. Spring in Central Ohio is usually, day-to-day, either gloriously sunny and summerlike - or gray and cold like November. Knowing that the latter is heading out the door like a stumbling, oafish drunk that has yorked on someone's shoes and generally overstayed his welcome, I choose to focus on the sunshine and the upcoming long, lazy days of Summer - the realm of cookouts, camping, roadtrips, fresh veggies from the garden, and blessed vacations. And as I sit here listening to cheesy (but potently nostalgic) hair-metal of yore on Pandora, I am reminded of the music of the season, songs that became part of the soundtrack of Summer. Even though the days of completely carefree gallivanting are over, I still love songs that remind me of Summer whether they are literally from Summers past - or new songs that just sound like songs that should be played while driving with the windows down on the way to a beach. Summer anthems, baby. Here's just a tiny smattering of songs that, for whatever reason, stir my zeal for the sunshine months:

Peggy Lee - "It's a Good Day"

Steel Dragon - "We All Die Young"

Walt Mink's whole album "Miss Happiness"

Johnny Cash - "Ring of Fire"

Hans Zimmer - "You're So Cool" (True Romance soundtrack)

Coldplay - "Clocks"

Delta Spirit - "Trashcan"

U2 - "Beautiful Day"

Poison - "Every Rose Has Its Thorn"

Pretty much anything by The Sundays

OneRepublic - "Good Life"

The last one by OneRepublic I just heard on the radio earlier today and is what inspired this post. And laugh all you want at Poison - but how can you sit in a car on a beautiful day and NOT sing along to that?

Share with me your own Warm Weather Anthems and crack a cold one, friendo - those days are comin' up fast.

Btw, the drawing above is another oldie - plucked out of my White Wolf vault - I believe it's from a Mage: The Ascension book. I had to go THAT far back to find an appropriate pencil drawing to accompany this post!

And one last thing for those of you that don't know yet - I has me a little book called AGGREGATE and it has all sorts o' fun pencil drawins in it. Have interest? E-mail me! - steve2@rottface.com

A LI'L CLASSIC D&D FOR YA

I unearthed a fairly old drawing of a scale-mailed halfling trying to look tough in some ancient and perilous cavern. I'm too lazy to go find out which long-forgotten D&D book it was in. Geez, I make it sound like this was from the 80's or something! No, it was probably from around 2007(?) - but it seems like decades ago. Nothing special here - just a little spot illo piece that I thought was worth posting just for fans of really classic D&D subject matter.

Subsequently, the final painting I did for this piece was a big pile of crapola. It was one of those instances where I had something in mind, it didn't work, and I wasn't able to recover. Such results I colloquially refer to as "turds".

Post-CONTEST Post

So, the very first drawing I did when I came up with the album cover contest idea was this drawing here. It's based on what I thought was the cover of an album I have. Turns out, long long ago when I first bought the CD, I had reinserted the little album book with the inside artwork facing out and had never switched it back. Only when I looked it up on the ol' internets did I get reminded that it ain't the cover! So, anyway, simply for shits-n-giggles, this drawing is a tribute to the INSIDE cover of what album?

Oh what the heck - first to guess it right gets an envelope full of free crap.