Surfs up! It's my birthday.

It's my birthday today! I'm excited besides the fact it's looks gloomy and dreary looking outside, I'm just glad I finished my work in time for a weekend holiday for my 26th birthday.
I finished the inks for the children book I'm illustrating, Amy Goes Surfing written by Julie Labossiere. The link will lead you to a sneak peak of all the pages I illustrated. The book will be published and sold on either of these sites Lulu or blurb.com. I will post you a link when it is online.
Now that the pencils and inks are completed the next portion of the work is to add color. But first, I need to take a break and marinate in a hot tub of my own primordial goo, as I will watch my fingers wrinkle up into tiny flesh dunes.

Axle's Street kickers

Finally, the business card designs are completed! Axle's Street Kickers is progressing, I have several orders this month making the days wonderful as they come. I'm getting great feedback from everyone. Thank you.
People have asked about my shoes, and the questions they have considered most frequently is its longevity. Any people that purchase their shoes elsewhere can get the same design, it's not exciting to know someone else has the same shoe. But if you have a pair of new all white canvas sneakers, hightops, or boots, you can get them customized here. I use surface protection on all my shoes after I complete the design, it is original art and unique. You can have them made soon, takes less than a week, prices vary. Wear art on your feet, walk fashionably on the street.

If you would like to make a donation of white canvas sneakers, I would appreciate the support, and I can send you some business card so you can show and tell your friends.

The Green Box

It's Sunday, Sept 27, I'm holding a green box on my lap. It's for Nathan's birthday. I was prepared to take pictures I thought. I renewed the batteries to my camera.

It was a two hours lapse riding to Rome, Ga in the rain. The weather cleared nicely before reaching the greeting sign that said Welcome to Rome. I was tickled by Rome's landmark, it was Roman columns made from red bricks. I studied roman architecture to know the columns were Doric.

Nathan's parents Mr. and Mrs. Garner were very friendly and hospitable. They commissioned me to make a pair of shoe's designed for their son's birthday present. Immediately, Nathan came running up to me with his younger brother when I arrived. We all watched as Nathan sat the green box on the living room floor. We waited till Mrs. Garner had her camera. Then, Nathan pulled the lid off the box. I was exhaling the tension within my muscles when he reached inside and lifted a pair of red shoes out of the box. It was like I had forgotten my keys in the house, but only to find I had a spare in my wallet. I was relieved his shoes were still inside the box, as if some magician would try to trick me in a moment of suspense. I saw excitement in his eyes, and I heard awes from everyone in the living room. It was heartwarming to see him wear them. A day of satisfaction for Urban Ronin.

Remember how I mentioned I was prepared to take pictures? When I arrived back to my hideout, I tried posting the pictures I took at the Garner's house. Unfortunately, it wasn't the batteries this time, I forgot to save them on my memory card. How bad is that? Thanks to Mrs. Garner taking photos, she was nice to send me hers instead.

Young Athletes On Ice

Golden Eyes, May 09 Ink and markers

Last weekend, was the Anime Weekend Atlanta convention with my friends' Laura and her husband Zach on Saturday. Laura has been mentioning the convention for weeks; it’s one of the biggest anime conventions in Atlanta she says. It was already planned in her agenda that we were going to see the largest Yaoi forum. If you haven’t heard Yaoi is an acronym for Young Athletes On Ice. What does that have to do with Anime? Apparently, Laura has been raving about her manga interest, and she asked me benignly if I would sit in the forum with her, forewarning me there would be crazy fans. Zach and I had no idea what we were up against.

Our night at the convention ended with a big surprise. What’s so popular about Yaoi? Laura, Zach, and I stood in a tremendous line as we waited for the doors to open into the Yaoi forum. There stood a girl not far in a colorful maid costume with a paddle in her left hand that had embedded “I love Yaoi.” I was becoming skeptical why there would be a paddle involved with Young Athletes on Ice? A lady with a walkie-talkie addressing head counts for door tickets came up to me and asked if I had any understanding what line I was in. I responded quizzically, “I think I‘m sure? I know what this line leads to.”

“Good, you’re in the right line.” She walks off.

I turned to Laura with a questionable look of, did that just happen? Laura’s noncommittal gesture of the conversation just seconds ago says not a word. I sensed something flatulent, like a faint stench of comprised mischief looming in the air, especially around Laura.
The line started to vanish behind the double doors of two women patrolling the entrance, advising everyone to show their identification cards before entering beyond. Why did we need to have identification cards? Laura, Zach, and I waited at least thirty minutes and more before we could enter and I didn’t see anything to indicate we needed to have our Identifications. There were three groups of chairs inside: left, middle, and right. We sat in the left row of chairs; I sat on the outside of the row, next to the middle group. On the right corner end of the room was a large projection screen. I began to notice more people with engraved paddles that read I love Yaoi. Some of them were dressed in costumes. One in particular, was a pale Caucasian male dressed in all black leather gloves, shorts, a vest, and an English patrol hat. He went to the front of the row of chairs making an outlandish display of vulgar dance. Women and men cheered and screamed for the guy in leather as he paraded around the middle row of seats in his ridiculous outfit, clapping and spanking himself with the paddle that read, “I love Yaoi.” Then he stops in front again. He makes a gesture to the audience for one of the men or women to spank him the first time, the one whose lucky to break the paddle on the first try wins a prize he says. Unfortunately, the force of flesh against leather and wood smacking together didn’t produce enough force for the young male to break the paddle on the leather guys’ ass. I looked over to Laura and she’s grinning from cheek to cheek. “What has she got me into?”

Afterwards, a normal female introduces herself as she comes up to center and announces the Yaoi event. She gives a cheerful speech, and addresses audience to the projection screen to watch a fifteen-minute segment of Yaoi presentation. I won’t explain what I saw on the projection screen, but it was definitely not for the innocent eyes.

Yaoi is a popular Japanese term for female oriented fictional media that focus on homoerotic or homo-romantic male relationships. The acronym for Yaoi is… there is no such thing as Young Athletes On Ice! Don’t say I didn’t warn you.