altivo: (rocking horse)
Here's the new adoptee about to be rescued from his shipping box:

Box birth


And after he had a few minutes to decompress, here he is with a couple of his new packmates:

Family shot


I'll get the entire muttley pack together for a candid shot later. The new guy is a Wild Republic Natural Poses wolf (30 in.) and is now the biggest wolf I have, slightly larger than the Cuddlekins guy. I love his huge paws. [Edit: Here's the whole pack in one plushpile.]

And in other action, Roth and Hiller (the real one) arrive in Westvale by bicycle to exchange notes with Sergeant Rufus.

Today's installment here.

Cumulative word count: 30127 (now three days ahead of schedule)
altivo: From a con badge (studious)
No, I'm not making this up... er, well, maybe I am. But it's fun. Read it and see.

New installment here

Cumulative word cound: 19930

Went to the Audubon meeting to hear a conservation district guy talk about restoration, which was actually interesting mostly because he admitted that no one really knows what they are doing.

It got even more interesting when we got to the Q&A period and someone asked him about oak savannas, which is one of his specialties. I actually understood what he was saying and the theories he advanced. In short, bur oak savannas are not expanding or reproducing here at all. It turns out that the reason is white footed mice, who eat all the acorns. No, not squirrels, but mice. He has all the evidence. Yet the oak, the squirrel, the mouse have all co-existed for millennia. One natural predator of mice that was widespread here a century ago is missing today: the gray wolf! Another even bigger mouse-eater is even less likely to be successfully reintroduced: the Massassauga rattlesnake. All very interesting.

And it snowed more today. None of it lasted though.
altivo: Clydesdale Pegasus (pegasus)
Just saw this animated (CGI) feature and we loved it. It's silly, funny, sweet, and still real. And the art is great. Really enjoyable. Dennis Hopper and Danny Glover really gave life to the old alphas, too.

While I'm a serious fan of traditional hand drawn animation, I have to admit one thing that's great about CGI is that it has let a lot of smaller studios and newer people get their vision out there on the screen. Especially for the canines, but everyone should like this one.

I rate it four and a half apples.

Ice Run

Feb. 15th, 2010 04:33 pm
altivo: Clydesdale Pegasus (pegasus)

Ice Run
by ~altivo on deviantART
So here's the next picture. Still having trouble keeping the lightweight paper stretched during repeated wettings, so the next one will go on heavier stock.

The setting is based on photos (and my own memories, though that was in summer) of Siskiwit Bay, on Isle Royale in Lake Superior. The three wolves are created from an amalgam of reference photos. They are crossing the ice in late winter, when the snowpack has melted and refrozen repeatedly. Thus they kick up some surface powder but leave no significant footprints. Larger sized view available by clicking the thumbnail.

(For those interested in technical details of the painting, Argos has them here.)

Ice Run

Feb. 15th, 2010 04:33 pm
altivo: Clydesdale Pegasus (pegasus)

Ice Run
by ~altivo on deviantART
So here's the next picture. Still having trouble keeping the lightweight paper stretched during repeated wettings, so the next one will go on heavier stock.

The setting is based on photos (and my own memories, though that was in summer) of Siskiwit Bay, on Isle Royale in Lake Superior. The three wolves are created from an amalgam of reference photos. They are crossing the ice in late winter, when the snowpack has melted and refrozen repeatedly. Thus they kick up some surface powder but leave no significant footprints. Larger sized view available by clicking the thumbnail.

For those interested in technical details, Argos has them here.
altivo: Horsie cupcakes (cupcake)
Thought I had escaped without being asked to fursuit for Summer Reading but the question came today. I agreed to do Argos (since the theme is Reading on the Wild Side, and they are featuring all sorts of wild animal stuff) but only if they find a story to read in which the wolf is NOT the villain. This tends to be harder than you might think.

I found two candidates myself. One is Footprints in the Snow by Mei Matsuoka, in which the Wolf decides to write his own story about a kindhearted wolf who follows tracks in the snow to find a friend. The other is Winston the Book Wolf by Marni McGee, in which Winston loves to eat books because the words are so delicious, but when he gets trapped in the library by an angry librarian and her helpers, a little girl named Rosie helps him to escape and teaches him a new way to enjoy words. Of course we had neither in our library, so I had to request them from another library in the consortium so I can review them. This will force me to make the improvements in Argos that have been on a back burner since MFF last year. The director suggested a third, The Wounded Wolf by Jean Craighead George. Based on an actual incident that was observed by a wildlife scientist, the story tells of a wounded wolf who could not hunt due to a foot injury (possibly caused by a trap) and who crawled into a shelter in the rocks but rather than starving to death, he was fed by the pack alpha who brought him food daily until he recovered and could rejoin the pack. That one is a lovely story but perhaps a bit complex for the under ten set to comprehend.

Other than that, the usual W-day. Long and tiring.

Gloom most of the day, but it didn't rain.

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