Perhaps you've heard the legends of the "vampire pumpkin?" Or perhaps you use your time too productively to pour over the Internet's endless discussions of obscure folklore and paranormal weirdness. Personally, I'm of the former category, and the legend of the vampire pumpkin has lurked in the corners of my mind ever since stumbling across it. Ah, the intriguing and amusing possibilities of having a completely harmless undead gourd. Ineffectively rolling toward the living blood it so craves, despite lacking a mouth, teeth, or any means of drawing or consuming that blood whatsoever. An all too rare type of monster that poses no threat, and is surprisingly simple to bring into the world... As a follower of paranormal weirdness, and as someone with active disdain for conventional notions of plausibility, I had to try it for myself.
The exact requirements for pumpkins turning vampiric are, as myth and folklore tend to be, inconsistent, and unclear. Almost as if they're garbled and confused retellings of delusions, or outright fabrications with no basis in reality at all. But such are the obstacles any who wish to peer beyond the veil must face; clear guidance is a luxury afforded only to the known and mundane. When exploring the supernatural, one must simply walk forward, guided at best by gut feelings only the barest scraps of unverified hearsay. So to begin, I sifted through those scraps.
At the myth's lowest criteria, pumpkins are said to turn vampiric when simply kept in a home for more than ten days. I ruled this option out immediately. If it were that simple, many people, including myself, would have already accidentally found themselves beset by undead gourds, and the question of vampire pumpkins would have been answered long ago. Similarly, merely keeping pumpkins intact past Christmas should have also yielded self-evident results by now, if that were all it took. Thus, I narrowed in on a set of purported requirements much less commonly met: Pumpkins that have spent a full night bathing in the light of a full moon after reaching at least one year of age. Few are the pumpkins that last long, and if so, then few are the pumpkins who could have joined the ranks of the living dead.
With that goal in mind, all that stood between me and vampire pumpkins was cultivating the pumpkins themselves, keeping them safely intact for a year, and letting them spend a night outdoors on the appropriate full moon: A deceptively simple goal that took me years to realize. There were many setbacks to simply growing pumpkins at all, such as surprisingly voracious deer, and many a safely grown pumpkin was felled by rot and decay before its first birthday. For some years, a blighting fungus didn't allow me to grow pumpkins at all. On top of that, the nights where I live are often below freezing by October, meaning that by the time a pumpkin's first birthday has passed, it might very well be killed by the frostbite of that crucial lunar night, before it can transcend life and death entirely. And sometimes I forgot to put the sufficiently aged pumpkins out on full moons at all. As such, it took years of trying, but my perseverance finally paid off this year. The necromantic experiment whispered of in legend was realized via the elder pumpkins you see below- photographed for research purposes before any exposure to moonlight, surely eagerly anticipating their imminent digivolution into Vampumpkinmons. What happened? Read on for the shocking truth... IF YOU DARE!
I placed the pumpkins on a patio table, in full exposure to the entire night's supply of eerie lunar radiation. At that point, all that was left was to wait, while the eldritch forces of the dark beyond worked their twisted magic. Despite the unnatural forces I was attempting to unleash, anathema to nature's very design, all was quiet, calm. The hush of a world afraid of what was to come.
The next day I gathered the pumpkins, and as you can see from the results, the transformation was quite drastic indeed:
Look at how dramatic that lighting is... How unnatural it now seems, to the point of appearing blatantly and intentionally artificially manufactured! Unmistakable proof of supernatural forces, or perhaps RGB light strips and carful placement, at play. Without a doubt, shocking changes came over those pumpkins- two more even spontaneously appeared, and definitely not for compositional purposes. And not even just the lighting- their location, their relative placement, so much is different... Those pumpkins did not return as they were before. The transformative powers of the full moon are real.
However, even as of a few days later, actual vampirism itself has not shown any sign of developing, unfortunately. The pumpkins have shown a newfound interest in the goth lifestyle, but they still aren't moving in the least, or showing any signs of an unquenchable thirst for the vital life force of the living. Nothing apparently evil or aberrant about them, unfortunately. Nothing spooky or paranormal at all here, really. Quite the disappointment.
...Or was it? For it turns out I omitted one key detail, for the sake of story craft. In truth, the ritual of the vampire pumpkin did not actually go entirely as needed, for the night of the October full moon, while fortunately above freezing, was unfortunately- yet it in its own way, thematically appropriately- A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT!
Hardly a single moonbeam was to be seen beneath the roiling blanket of inky clouds filling the sky that fateful night, and as you might recall, the legendary conditions in question required an entire night of moonlight. So in the end, the pumpkins were never fully subjected to the necessary conditions, and the story was not truly tested. Thus, we have ultimately reached the most terrifying of results: Inconclusive ones! For after all, what is more frightening than the unknown? ...The known, that's what. Duh. I mean, what's scarier- just saying there might be an icy wraith from beyond the void behind you, or saying that there's definitely an icy death wraith behind you right now, turn around and look, its bony grasp is almost around your neck, SERIOUSLY, IT'S ABOUT TO GET YOU, WHY AREN'T YOU LISTENING? DON'T YOU FEEL THAT COLD SHIVER OF ITS BALEFUL GAZE? JUST TURN AROUND NOW!
See, the second, no-question one was way scarier. Proof that the known is scarier than the unknown, and by extension, that this whole vampire pumpkin experiment wasn't scarier for failing to yield a definitive answer, just disappointing. Oh well, I'll just have to keep trying. Maybe the next full moon won't be freezing cold either, and I'll have a spookily, seasonally inappropriate update shortly before Thanksgiving. And short of that, there's always next year. One version of the legend does claim that pumpkins have to reach three years old rather than just one to become vampires anyway. So like a lost soul that just won't forsake the land of the living, the vampire pumpkin legend may never stop haunting us. OOOooohhhoooH!
In any case, happy Halloween everybody! And you can relax, the icy death wraith is gone now. ...OR IS IT!?
Commissions Are Open
What kind of commissions you ask? Pretty much anything you think I'm the right person for. Could be stuff similar to what's already in my gallery, could be something else entirely.
And what's the pricing? That depends on what you want, obviously a fully colored illustration takes more time than a simple sketch and the pricing would reflect that. So give me a description via note, email, or whatever and I'll give you a price. With that being said, don't expect the cheapest prices around.
As for payment, like most, I use Paypal. Commissions are prioritized on a first pay, first serve basis if necessary.
After having been deathly quiet for the longest time, I've finally gotten caught up on matters here and am ready to bring this page back to life. Again. Of course, a lively presence here requires new submissions most of all, but a relatively fresh Journal entry really helps a page look active as well. And that requires writing one, which has proven surprisingly tricky. Not because I have nothing to say - lacking thoughts and opinions I'd love to shout at the world is not even remotely the case - but because I no longer feel sure what a dA Journal is really for. I used to more or less see them as an all-purpose blog attached to the gallery, and maybe that's what they truly are. But over time, possibly due to my own internet opinion blasting fatigue, I've felt more and more that if people are watching me for the art I (sporadically) post, a random Journal notice in their message center alerting them to a rant on video games or politics or the like is just an unwanted annoyance compared to the Nintendo fan art that the people clearly come to this page for. As such, though there are many times I've strongly considered posting a new Journal about whatever was grinding my gears at that particular moment, I've ultimately opted not to clog up the collective social media system with the billionth internet rant that, I assume, nobody needs or wants. Thus, my Journal submissions have become pretty sparse these days.
Still, if for no other reason than making it extra clear a page isn't dead, I'd say it's good to have a Journal on the front page that's less than a year old, so I had to write something. As those of you who bothered to read this can see, my brilliant solution was to write a Journal about why I haven't been writing Journals. Because obviously, if people don't even want Journals about other things, a Journal about Journals is absolutely the best way to solve the problem and not the worst choice possible. ME AM GOOD JOB SMART.
Sarcasm aside though, let's get to business: I'm looking for advice regarding the purchase of a replacement for my ancient trusty Intuos 2, the first graphical tablet I ever owned. It gave me many years of excellent, if somewhat small, purple and grey service, but those days are gone. And perhaps most tragically, not because it broke, but because of a lack of driver updates to match the progress of everything else. Windows changed how it accepted graphical tablet input as of Windows 8, but Wacom never updated the Intuos 2 drivers to fit the new system. Thus, while my good ol' tablet worked on my old computer under Windows 7, and even when that same system was upgraded to Windows 10, functioning under a fresh new installation of Windows 10 is not to be, due to no longer having the Windows 7 legacy interface to fall back on. I found that out the hard way when much to my surprise, my new PC refused to acknowledge my poor old Intuos 2 in any way. So I must say goodbye now to my old Intuos 2, which is almost certainly my single most used piece of electronics ever. So many other devices have come and gone in far less time, but my Intuos 2 worked flawlessly all along. So great was its dedication that in the end, only a lack of driver support could silence it, which is truly an unjust end for such a stalwart device. Cut low by the idleness of another as the final reward for never abandoning its duty, can anyone deny that this is a world where justice is but an idle fantasy of those who would, and can do no more than, dream of better?
Melodramatic calls for drawing a nihilistic world view from the overwrought eulogy of one PC accessory aside though, there is a point here. I can't use my old Intuos 2 on my new computer, and I'm thinking of trying a non-Wacom-branded competitor. Not because I have any problem with the quality of Wacom products, but because dang, just getting the modern equivalent of my Intuos 2's capabilities is more than I want to spend as things currently stand. I was really hoping everything my old pad did would be their current cheapest option, but nope. Apparently this is one technology that somehow isn't coming down in price ever. ...Unless you look at competitor's tablets, in which case they offer a drastically better price for what is claimed to be equal to or even better than my old Intuos 2. And if the claims are true, getting a pad that delivers everything I already had plus a bigger functional drawing space for significantly less money than a contemporary Wacom replacement would be very nice indeed. Problem there, though, is that questionable choices are easy to find but a clear winner is not. Seems like the reviews are kinda all over the place on everything aside from Wacom options, which remain the clear choice, unless their relatively hefty price tag is an issue. And suffice it to say, it is. So at this point, instead of reading more reviews and just picking something with my fingers crossed, I figure it couldn't hurt to ask if anybody out there reading this has had any good experiences with a cheaper Wacom competitor. A recommendation from another artist would really help make me to make a choice, or at least narrow down the options. There's gotta be something out there among those off-brand competitors that's got the quality but not the name, seems like it's that way for most every product. The trick is just figuring out which is which, and only experience can verify that. So please, share with me your experience with other graphical tablets, it'd be very much appreciated. I've gotta get a replacement here, I've already done one small project without a functional tablet for my main monitor, and that turned out to be even more of a pain than I expected. And with how pessimistic I am, that's saying something. I wish I could just shrug off the cost of a new Wacom and be done with it, but finding a good cheap alternative is the more likely near-term solution. And the best solution all around if one of those cheap alternatives is just as good as a Wacom.
DA Ads: Fool Me Twice, Shame On Me
See, it's kind of a funny story why I started using an ad blocker in the first place: I got poison ads in my dA browsing, and only my dA browsing. I was just browsing along as usual and suddenly my familiar ugly dA drab green page goes to a big scary warning screen from Chrome saying bad things are happening on that tab and it stopped them. After the third time it happened in about a week, having made sure my system itself wasn't compromised and confident it must be bad ads in dA's rotation, I decided to install an ad blocker and the problem was definitely solved from then on. As such, the recent orange requests (and seriously, I still hate that new Core orange color by the way,) to turn my ad blocker off were a bit of a moral dilemma. On one hand I understand the need for ads, on the other dA has a known history of giving me bad ads. Ultimately, considering those original bad ads happened years ago, it was with some trepidation that I decided to turn my ad blocker off. Everybody deserves a second chance, right?
After that setup, you've probably guessed where this story's going. I had my ad blocker off for about three weeks before dA itself reminded me why I started using blockers in the first place. I wasn't even on dA's tab when suddenly its tab came into focus on its own, now on some page with a pop-up message box claiming my computer had been scanned and found to have all sorts of malware. Malware I had to call them to fix, or they'd cut me off from some unspecified network somehow. And once I actually got that message to close, dA's previous tab itself was on some totally separate page trying to pass as an authentic Microsoft support site, but a totally wrong address. And it started playing an automated voice reading exactly what the initial pop-up said, because yeah, cheaply voiced error messages are definitely what you expect from the real Windows support page experience, right? Obviously it was a phishing site, and obviously the redirect originated in dA's tab, since that's the one inactive tab the browser suddenly jumped to. My first step was to turn my ad blocker back on and continue as normal for about two hours, since on the off chance the problem was coming from inside my computer, turning dA ads off shouldn't make a difference. The problem didn't happen again, but just to be safe, the next thing I did was scan my computer with three additional security apps beyond what I already use to be sure my system wasn't compromised, and the worst I found was a few cookies. As such, confident that once again the problem was entirely the result of a bad ad from dA, I left the ad blocker on, and now I've gone nearly a week without further incident. I'd say the evidence is pretty conclusive at this point.
Thus, until DeviantArt can give me some definitive and meaningful assurances that it's finally made sure no more malevolent ads will be served, I'm keeping my ad blocker on, and I'd recommend the same to anyone else. Not because seeing ads is such a problem, not because I don't care about fairness and the reality of running a business, but for essential online safety. With bad ads still sneaking into the rotation, and ad spaces auto-refreshing regardless of user activity no less, getting served ads here is a risk I'm not comfortable with. Otherwise, at any time my dA tab can be hijacked by who-knows-what, and nobody should be expected to tolerate that. Such practices make returning to parasite mode not merely justifiable, but the prudent choice.
...Well, semi-parasite mode. I'm not one of those accounts that posts nothing, and some of the people viewing my stuff probably don't have ad blockers, so that's some revenue they're getting from me regardless. And speaking of getting revenue, I'd be a lot more likely to go Premium/Core again and avoid ads that way if they hadn't jacked up the price along with the name change, at the new prices it just doesn't seem worth it. Though as a matter of principle, avoiding malware by cutting out the ads shouldn't really be a selling point in the first place. Also, if money is so tight they gotta price gouge subscriptions right out of the market, maybe dA could try saving some money by putting reasonable restrictions on those pages with about a million animated gifs up front that take forever to load. Those gotta be guzzling some server resources while mostly just being annoying.