Sad, really

Apparently my life has become mundane. This is a sad thing. Perhaps with the coming of snow, something mysterious and wonderful will appear.

Mystery ... Mushroom?

What are you, strangely phallic objects that sprung overnight from a loosely mounded dirt pile in my front yard?

Are you some sort of horrible fungus?

What is the disgusting black-brown sludge oozing from beneath your crown?

Are some sort of horrible, quick growing Styro-shroom?

Or is my yard just happy to see me?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I hope everyone had a safe and Green holiday. All holidays should be about drinking, eating good food and being Irish!

WIP Ronan The Leprechaun III

The finished sculpt, with the first layer of sealant and paint applied...

WIP Ronan The Leprechaun II

Film Review - WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

Welcome To The Jungle
2007, Unrated, 83min

This movie kind of annoyed me right off of the bat, because the skulls on the cover were so obviously the same skull twice. Little thing, sure, but a bad sign of things to come. Essentially, this is a story about 4 vapid morons who drunkenly decide to wander into the forests and find the long lost Michael Rockefeller. It's all filmed handheld style, as they're making a "Documentary" they plan to sell for a million bucks. I loathed every character in this movie. Not a one had any redeeming qualities. Clearly, this was heavily inspired by Cannibal Holocaust, but instead of being terrifying and horrible, it was boring and incredibly predictable. I, much as I assume the screenwriter, could have described the entire story, sight unseen from the toilet. The gore effects, what little there are, are pretty good, but the story is bad, the acting is worse, they do absolutely nothing to capitalize on the lush scenery, and in fact re-use certain areas multiple times to an almost amusing extent.

Honestly, this could have been a fun Scooby-Doo meets Cannibal Holocaust mash up if they actors had any kind of chemistry and if they'd added a bit of humor to the far too long build up, but instead, it pretty much fell flat in every way. I did enjoy the making of better than the film, but primarily because I could see what was going on without getting motion sickness. For the love of GOD, please stop doing the handheld thing for a while... please!

2/10

WIP - Ronan The Leprechaun

Ronan, pre-mushroom cap

Ronan the Leprechaun

Ronan The Leprechaun

2008, Sculpey

Spotted napping in the forest in Southeastern Idaho, this little fellow jetted shortly after this photo was taken. He was later spotted napping again, but our dogs alerted him to our prescence and he took off. Someday we'll get our hands on some leprechaun gold....

Look everyone! A Fairy!


I don't really have anything to say about it, apart from the fact that he seems to have some jaunty lederhosen, and questionable taste in hats...

Idaho Cursed Soil

As anyone that grew up or lived in Pocatello, Idaho for any amount of time can attest, the city is a kind of vortex for odd things. The strangest of which, is without a doubt, the pull the city has on it's residents. While most people in Pocatello want to leave, most fail. People leave the city in droves every year, most of them returning mere months later in defeat. It's not that the outside world is too much for the residents, or that they realize some horrible mistake and return happily, nothing like that, they have no choice. The city of Pocatello, ID is cursed, the very ground itself prevents the people that live there from escaping. Those blessed few that do leave and stay away attribute their success to many things, but in some cases they were clearly never truly residents to begin with, and the city rejected them. Others, in a desperate attempt to escape the vortex bring the very soil that had trapped them along, allowing them to leave the little valley and escape into the world beyond. You can find small bottles of cursed soil across the country, all carefully secured in fear that it should spill, the wind should whisk away the dirt, and the owner would once again succumb to the siren call of that distant little city. Irresistible...

Specimen #101 - More Views

A few more photos of the specimen.

The Worm immediately after being sealed.

The Aged Specimen

After not seeing the piece for over a year, I was nervous to see how it had held up. I was pretty particular about the mix of sealants and colors I used, but I was worried that I'd walk in and it would look like a hunk of Sculpey floating in a jar. Luckily, time had only served to make it better, A bit ooky, washed out, and just the right amount of particulates floating around in the liquid.

I love the look of the floating debris in the jar...

Smile for the camera!

Specimen #101 - Unidentified African Worm

Specimen #101 Unidentified African Worm
The Cowell Cabinet Of Curiosities

This was the first of my creations, a gift for my brother. Created out of a late night and some wicked thought planted in my head, this has been the largest of my sculptures thus far, and it's been interesting to see how the layers of material have been affected by the long immersion in liquid. I've since refined it, but this piece still looks great in my brother's cabinet of curiosities.

Pendleton, OR - September 14th, 2008 - 11:57am

Mysterious chalk outline of a giant foot found on the sidewalks of Pendleton, Oregon. Each of these outlines were well over 4 feet long, origins unknown. The overactive imagination of a child with some chalk, or the police outlines of some Suspicious Sasquatch Shenanigans? I'm afraid it may remain a mystery.

January 16th, 2009

Ever since I was a wee child, my brother and I have been interested in things that go bump (Or slither, or ooze...) in the night. Whether it was aliens, Loch Ness Monsters, Sasquatches, Gremlins, Faeries or Ghosts, we devoured them with a passion. As we grew older, rather than souring these things, time seemed to make them better. More mysterious and fun. We've both begun amassing a pretty good collection of oddities, and I've started making ones as well, humbugs for collections of the unknown, and in this blog, in addition to posting fun links and photos, I hope to post some of my pieces, works in progress, and more. If anyone has any cool stories, photos, links or ideas I'd love to hear from you! Email me at avalon_ink(at)yahoo.com!

Bewildering Bugaboos!

Jake, The Alligator Man Welcomes you!

Welcome to my new blog, dedicated to things in jars, unknown beasties and creatures and anything strange and wonderful I happen across.

Within you'll find some works in progress of my own, as well as links and photos of everything slimy, repulsive, reportedly impossible, and miraculous that I can find!