Thank you very much for visiting.

As I am seeing that the forums that I have available to me to post works to is dwindling, I've finally broken down and opened my own site.

The Art of The Mad Plumber

I've much to learn and there are many refinements to the site that I need to make. It is unclear to the ultimate potential that having my own site can have, but it might be a curious experiment to find out. Users with criticism and advice are welcome to speak up.

Again, thank you for your visit and I hope you enjoy your experience.

Thanks for visiting and thank you for your continued support.

Etsy Store Open:

Taking the earlier advice of another user, I've decided to take advantage of the account I've set up on Etsy to sell the drawings that I've done. I typically check my account everyday since I am unsure if I will get email notifications about activity and sales. From my experience of selling my Star Wars collectibles on eBay, I'm assuming that Etsy operates on a similar system.

Click here to visit The Mad Plumber's Shop

I understand that I don't have a very large catalog as of now. I hope to add more works through the work schedule I've set up to address many of the projects I have set up in my database. Your patronage is appreciated.

Suggestions Welcome:

At this current time, I've got four graphic pencil illustrations taped to my drawing board that I'm addressing on a daily basis. I was also experimenting with some watercolor paintings, but the results are not very satisfying and I will be reducing my scheduling dedicated to them if not completely scrapping them. I also have an AutoCAD model that I am continuing to build. I also scheduled time to perform research on future projects.

My mother recently rendered a suggestion for a graphic pencil illustration and, while I generally don't like many of her suggestions, I actually thought it was a good idea and have added it to my project database; I'll probably do some research for it fairly soon. So, I also thought it wouldn't to be too bad of an idea to get some input from my audience as far as their own ideas of what might make worthwhile projects.

At this current time, those of you who are interested in making reasonable suggestions as far as future subjects and works to address are welcome to comment. Please note that should I come across a suggestion that I think is worthwhile adding to my project database, it's not necessarily a promise to do it. Still, your input is greatly appreciated.

Again, thank you for your continued support and have a safe and wonderful day.

Thank you for visiting and your continued support.

My effort to sell one of my latest works, "Neferteri Shepherd in Graphites", at the flea market has not worked out very well. I originally took it in good humor and as somewhat an honor to find out that "patrons" were trying to peek at the parts of the drawing that I had hidden with carefully-placed tags. However, it has been my more recent knowledge that now these "patrons" were tearing apart the tags to look at the adult portions of the drawing. It has been very much a bother to me that people who have no intention to buy my works are deliberately sabotaging my efforts to sell them. Furthermore, I've also learned that there's been thefts at this flea market, forcing me to conclude that my drawing is no longer safe there. I've withdrawn the illustration from the flea market and am now looking for an alternative means of finding a buyer.

I am considering this forum a possible venue for this. I would like to hear from any users genuinely interested in purchasing my drawings.

Here is what I have available currently:

"Neferteri Shepherd in Graphites"
A graphic pencil rendering of Neferteri Shepherd, a Playboy Playmate who posed as Miss July 2000. The illustration was rendered on a 9 inch by 12 inch sheet of smooth Bristol. The drawing has been installed into a Timeless Frames black solid wood frame, measuring 12 inches by 15 inches by 0.75 inches. The drawing is protected by a sheet of glass and a hanger has been installed to allow hanging the frame in portrait orientation.
Price: $35.00 plus shipping (Proof of age is required before purchasing)

Any users genuinely interested in purchasing my works may contact me via private message to discuss the matter.

Send private message to MadPlumber

Again, your continued support is appreciated and I thank you for taking the time to read. Have a safe and wonderful holiday season.

Thank you very much for visiting. I wish to extend a "thanks" to all my watchers for their continued interest in my work. Your favorites and comments are much appreciated and I am glad to have your support.

My search for a new drafting job has not been as fruitful as I had hoped. So, in the meantime that I waiting for some work to show up, I will be working on drawings to sell at the flea market. I am also considering experimenting with the idea of opening up drawing commissions via this site.

For graphic pencil drawings, I am considering a $20 to $30 range. I will ship the original, unique drawing to the customer. For an additional $6 to $9, I can also frame the drawing. Subjects may include famous actors, family members, or glamour models. For those of you unsure of what subject you desire to commission, I have a small library of potential subjects that you can consider. Sorry, but I can only provide shipping to mainland United States.

I can consider digital illustrations as well, but my fee for these are uncertain and they do require the use of multiple softwares. Fees for digital illustrations are negotiable.

I am not comfortable handling every subject as I've seen displayed on this site. Those of you who have a fair familiarity with my work or with some of the subjects that I've added to my favorites are probably aware of what subjects I will and will not address. If you are unsure, you are free to ask. If I say "no", please do not take it personal. I am not willing to take on subjects that express political propaganda, racism, misogyny, and other hateful prejudices.

Other services I can consider, at an understandably higher fee, are Excel spreadsheets, Access databases, and Visual Basic applications.

Users interested in commissioning me can contact me via private message. Again, please do not take offense if I should say "no"; I mean nothing personal by it.

Click to send me a private message

Your patronage is very much appreciated and, again, I thank you for your visit and continued support. Have a nice day.

Thank you for visiting. I would like to welcome my new watchers and express my gratitude for those who continue to watch my work.

As the weather has become nicer, it has afforded me the ability to bicycle to the local library. I enjoyed a peaceful and serene moment to read some of my books, away from the noise of every piece of television tripe ever produced. I encourage all of you to take some free time and spend it at your own local library.

The Monster Book of Manga: Girls

This is another procedural drawing book by Ikari Studio, whose book Erotic Manga: Draw Like the Experts I had treated myself to years earlier. The book features 51 projects of varying content, with characters ranging from six-year-old girls to elderly women. Like Erotic Manga, all the projects are roughly broken down into six or seven steps. While nudity exists as one of the steps in the creation process, none of the finished works are nudes or erotica to the level of projects featured in Erotic Manga. The work is very professional-looking. One thing I would note is that this book does not include the rejected conceptual sketches that precede the execution of the project. The quality of the works and the process in making them tends to suggest being done completely within graphics software such as Adobe Photoshop or Corel Painter.

Agile Web Development with Rails

After glancing at some literature on the internet that was of some interest to me, I sought to read about "Ruby on Rails", which is framework for the Ruby programming language. However, I realized that Ruby on Rails was not going to aid me in what I was interested in. Furthermore, I might have to study Ruby itself before really getting immersed in Rails. However, having studied several languages already and understanding the paradigm of object-oriented programming, I might not really need to specifically study literature on Ruby and I can probably get though the book after examining the appendix. Studying Ruby might be dubious, though, since I don't see many job postings that even mention Ruby as a desired language.

Sams Teach Yourself HTML and CSS in 24 Hours

Web development is something I'm looking to add to my skills and to also use to my own personal benefits. I've only touched small, simple concepts in the task of HTML writing, but I've found it to be child's play in contrast to programming languages. Since the internet has already become the de facto medium, understanding the basics of HTML should be mandatory for those seeking expertise in the computer sciences.

The Artist's Magazine

I've resubscribed to this magazine which features beautiful art and talented unknowns. As I said, only today have I found the peace to read a few articles. Contributors feature advice that varies from art-producing techniques to the criteria for creating your own art websites.

While I was at the library, I learned there was a local art club that will be meeting next Tuesday. It was a little surprising to hear that as I assumed the community I lived in to be knuckle-dragging philistines. I also need to consider if I will go the Crosby Festival of the Arts; I'm well aware that I'd be going to it alone.

Again, thanks for the visit and have a good day.

[The Mad Plumber? VHS Tape @ Amazon.com]

I was just digging around and I found this. Huh ... I thought I had come up with an original pen name. That's always my aggravation; somebody's already beaten me to the punch in everything I've done.

For those of you who don't know, Peter Weir is also the director of The Mosquito Coast, a film I watched some many years ago. I feel it's one of Harrison Ford's most unappreciated films and you ought to take some time to watch it yourself.

Well, that's about it. Everyone have a great and safe New Year.

I have to admit that I have something of an affinity for video game music. I suppose the games I've played have had that profound of an effect on me. I guess it makes sense since I am aspiring to make video games myself; so, I should be plenty versed in the genre. I might alternate my interest, though: for a while, I might listen to video game music, then I'd go back to listening to Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, and then I'd get into listening to the soundtracks for Star Wars and RoboCop; variety is the spice of life.

Anyway, here's a couple of websites of key interest:

[Zophar's Domain]
This site might perhaps be amongst my favorites. Besides hosting an array of programs that enable game ROM hacking as well as several popular hacks themselves, Zophar's Domain also features a vast library of game music files. Formats include NSF (Nintendo Entertainment System), SPC (Super Nintendo Entertainment System), USF (Nintendo 64), PSF (PlayStation), and PSF2 (PlayStation 2). Most of the content on this site is stored in ZIP or RAR format, so you will need [WinRAR] to decompress the data. Zophar's Domain also features various programs that enable you to play these music formats, but my most preferred method is ...

[Winamp]
This audio player is a favorite of mine. I find it to be very mobile and I usually transfer it to whatever office I'm working at so that I may enjoy music. Zophar's Domain and Winamp's own site feature plug-ins that allow you to play game music content that you downloaded from Zophar; experiment (with caution) and find out which ones are your favorites. However, usually when I take Winamp with me from workplace to workplace, I normally only use it to play NSFe (a variation on the NSF music format) and SPC files since these formats usually have smaller file sizes and the other formats seem to really tax the computer's resources. I believe that if you "go Pro" and manage to find the right plug-ins, you'll be able to create MP3s from the game music files that you can play on your portable player like I did.

[Galbadia Hotel]
The vast nature of this site is jawdropping. Galbadia Hotel is a comprehensive library of soundtracks either rendered from official soundtracks or independent efforts. I'll be damned to know as to how they managed to rip soundtracks for some of the arcade games! I've not heard of a lot of the names here (a lot of them seem to retain their Japanese titles) and I suspect that anime soundtracks are also in the mix here. You will notice that there are no soundtracks for any of Final Fantasy games available here, and I feel the most logical reason for that is ...

[iTunes]
If you have an iPod, then you use iTunes. If you browse the store, you'll be able to find a couple band remixes of classic game tunes probably worthwhile looking at. You are also able to find the soundtracks to several of the Final Fantasy games for those of you who might be die-hard Nobuo Uematsu fans. So, iTunes: it's a buck a tune.

[OverClocked ReMix]
The influence that video game music has had on those with actual musical talent is quite remarkable. This site is host to several remixed versions of classic game themes, sometimes incorporating unusual genres to take a particular spin on the theme. Though while I feel at times that some of the remixes are in bad taste, generally the administrators vigorously screen, critique, and moderate content before it is available on the site.

[Video Game Music Archive]
I felt this site was worth honorable mention. This site features a staggering library of MIDI files written by fans, updating obsolete game machine instruments with the MIDI instrument library. The quality and comprehension of each of these efforts vary; some are pretty good, some don't really sound like the original song at all, and some are like a fork on a ceramic plate. The MIDI file enjoys the luxury of being small, but unfortunately is unplayable on any portable player I know of. However, I feel there are MIDIs in this library of good taste and are excellent and civil renditions of classic tunes. This may be a site of interest to those who have music-producing software and are interested in playing or making music.

[VGTunes]
I thought I should also give an honorable mention to this one, but I don't know much about it. It is a very sophisticated-looking site that features soundtrack ZIP files for download. Several of the soundtracks available for download state that they require a [FilePlanet] subscription. I can't give much information on this; explore at your own caution.

I have recently learned that Richard Wright, the keyboardist for Pink Floyd, has succumbed to cancer.

The cynical part of me feels that the good artists of the world are being replaced with unworthy, self-proclaimed celebrities. Pink Floyd is my undisputed favorite group, and I initially took it with much shock when I heard on the radio that alumni Syd Barrett had passed away two years ago. However, there was also a part of me that believed that Syd Barrett really didn't care for life, so I didn't feel entirely bad for him leaving this world.

With the demise of Wright, it feels my world has become much smaller.

Wow. I was taking a random visit over to my friend [Cap'n Tsubasa's journal] to wish him further luck on his venture only to learn of a rather nasty turn in the whole affair. I'd appreciate those of you with Fur Affinity accounts to pop over and lend him some kind words and say a prayer that he's still in one piece. Thank you.

Tagged by  laureliobsidianfang

The first player of this starts with the topic weird habits/facts/dislikes about yourself; and people who get tagged must write in their journals about their six weird habits/facts/dislikes as well as state this rule clearly.

In the end, you need to choose the next six people to be tagged and list to their names. Don't forget to leave a comment that says, "You're tagged."
Okay, six things about me:
1. Habit - I have a tendency to lock doors everywhere no matter what part of the day it is or where I am. This is much to the annoyance of everyone else who lacks all the keys I have. Okay, I guess that's a pretty lame one.
2. Fact - I have partial colorblindness. Whenever somebody finds that out, they immediately pull out a Sharpee pen and ask me what color it is. I respond with my middle finger and ask them what color it is.
3. Dislike - I dislike having facial scars as they have been the subject of derision ever since I got them at 15. It's an odd dislike, however, because I cannot imagine being without them, I consider them earned, and I don't make an effort to hide them. So, I guess what I actually dislike is being called a freak.
4. Habit - I think I used to have the habit of, whenever I played Super Mario Bros., pausing the game before I'm about the perish in a hole. I think the habit arose from the trick in Mega Man 3 where you can push a button on the second controller and save yourself from death via bottomless pit.
5. Fact - If you played "The Empire Strikes Back" and muted the sound, I could probably recite every piece of dialogue on time from memory. Now that's nerdy.
6. Dislike - I dislike televison. No, in fact, I loathe television. I shut it off every opportunity I get it. Mind you, I don't dislike certain television shows (i.e. Mystery Science Theater 3000, etc.), but I absolutely hate seeing that my family is watching a movie on television WHEN WE HAVE IT ON VIDEO!!!

I absolutely don't mind being tagged, and I am flattered to be thought of. However, I don't think I'm going to tag anybody else because I've normally given up writing journals in Fur Affinity because I don't think anybody reads them, I'm not big into chain letter schemes even though I see that this is just an innocent and harmless little means of getting everyone to know you, and I don't think anyone would appreciate being tagged by me personally.

Thanks for visiting.

Again, I would like to thank all my viewers and visitors who had taken the time to stop by, despite the scarcity of the portfolio that I am showing at this time.

This particular entry is directed to my [Furry Art Pile] brothers and sisters. When I created Varia, the Japanese cat from [Hello, Kitty!], to act as a strong opening entry, a large part of me still expected to be glazed over and ignored. Instead, I was pleased to have garnered a respectable level of attention for only that one drawing. However, nothing could prepare me for what I saw next.

I began watching [Fat Panda] some time ago, who had graciously lent me his comments for my drawing. He then had shown me something that blew my mind: [his own sketched version of Varia]! There are many artists in my watch who enjoyed the luxury of popular avatars and flagship icons, but I never imagined I created any sort of runaway character. Fat Panda's sketch, I feel, breathed life and tangibility into Varia that I couldn't do myself. This has made me reconsider revisiting the character in future works. So, many thanks to [Fat Panda] for his sketch and I encourage others to visit [his gallery].

In the meantime, I have moved a Nailkaizer drawing to Photoshop where I'll be going over it heavily with my tablet. My brawler game is still in the very early stages as I am designing the engine object classes that will help me keep processes nicely organized. It is safe to say that I consider my sister fired from writing for the action game I planned and will go on without her when the project comes up. My Ayame Fudo head is still very rough, but I think the shape is coming out generally better than before and I've learned of a tool that will not only increase polygonial complexity but also execute automatic smoothing.

Thank you for visiting!