Tonight I finished the 550 piece Legend of Zelda puzzle I started a few days ago. I picked it up at Goodwill last year and I'm glad I finally got to it. Usually I do 1,000 or 1,500 piece puzzles with my grandma but this one I did by myself. Tomorrow I'll put it back in it's box maybe look for another Zelda fan to pass it on to.

Today was not the most productive of days but I did make some progress on this 550 piece Legend of Zelda themed puzzle. 

My buddies and went hiking along the coast at Wilder Ranch State Park this morning. While we were there we saw a vulture eating away at a dead seal thru it's eyehole. Pretty fucking metal! Afterwards we went to a brewery in Capitola for beers and lunch then off to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk for more beers, deep fried Oreos, a train ride, bumper cars, & arcade games. After coming home I didn't have much energy to do anything else besides draw a couple new button designs on the iPad. I drew six of them last night. The plan is to have new buttons available for the next First Friday Street Mrkt in September.

Today, my grandma and I started working on the new puzzle I got us last week. It's been a tradition over the last few years when my grandma comes to visit that we do at least one 1000-1500 piece puzzle together. Although it feels like much longer, we usually finish it in a couple days. Grandma likes to start by going through all the pieces and pulling out the edges and starting with those. She tries matching them to one another by color while I reference the poster, or box, to try and figure out where the pieces go. Today we came close to completing the edges after a couple hours. Grandma split when it was time to watch her novela! 

I drew myself as the titular character from the original Donkey Kong video game just for funsies. Fun Fact: Mario made his first appearance as “jumpman” in the Donkey Kong arcade back in 1981.

It feels like an adventure, exploring new places with the help of a map. Instead of carrying a sword I got a small pocket knife. My phone’s gps serves as my compass. Grant Park has wild pigs and Hyrule has moblins. Today (Wednesday) I came across a hallowed out tree that looked like the the entrance to level 1 from the original Legend of Zelda for the NES. I was wearing my Zelda: Wind Waker mask today too FTW.

I did something I’ve been avoiding for months, if not years. Getting wrapped up in a video game. I didn’t want to spend countless hours in front of the tv but here I am. I started playing “The Legend Of Zelda: The Minish Cap” a few days ago and now I’m hooked. I spent all day Tuesday playing it and even though I’m enjoying it, I’m also feeling a little guilty, like I should be doing something productive.

The Layla-Mae & Phoenix sticker sheets are ready to print! I’m waiting on the client (my cousin) to let me know how many of each he wants. Then I’ll print them out on adhesive vinyl sheets, cut them and mail them out. While I’ve been waiting I pulled out the spare Raspberry Pi, attached to a 7” touchscreen, that I had laying around. I installed the latest OS and managed to get Disney+ to run on it, but not very well. I also tried installing Retropie, to play old school video games, but had no luck getting that to work. I’m on the lookout for something cool to with my second Pi computer but everything is either lame or above my skill level.

I have a 27” monitor that was given to me a few month ago that I finally want to put use. I want to use it in 3 different ways: 1 - Connected to the DSLR that’s mounted overhead on my rig so I can see what the camera sees while I record myself drawing. 2 - To watch movies & shows via a streaming device. 3 - A monitor for a Raspberry Pi computer running a retro video game emulator as well as regular computer capabilities. I thought it’d be a simple task but the monitor only has one HDMI port and no speakers or audio-out ports. I haven’t tried connecting my camera because I need a mini-HDMI to HDMI cable, which I don’t have. I connected my Raspberry Pi but needed speakers so I went to the store and bought a set. When I came back I played a couple games for a while after connecting the speakers to the computer. Afterwards I swapped the Pi for an old Roku Streaming Stick but gave up when I realized there’s no way of getting audio from it without buying a separate piece of hardware. So now I’m looking at HDMI switches that also export audio to get it all to work. The shit never ends.

Tonight I took apart the two puzzles my grandma and I worked on while she was here at the house these last few weeks. It was fun working on them for hours but it was frustrating taking them apart. (as seen in the video below) I dropped grandma off at my aunt's house this morning and we agreed to do a new puzzle together the next time she visits.

Today my grandma and I finished the 1000 piece puzzle we started a couple days ago. Afterwards, because the air quality was good, (from the wildfire smoke) I went on a 5 mile hike/walk through Alum Rock Park and just a few minutes ago I sent off the revised design for that little job I'm working on. Time for bed.

My grandma and I started a new puzzle today. It's a collage of a bunch of old school games & toys. Together we did the border, minus a few pieces, before she went to bed. I took a break then came back to do a little more. The next thing I know it's been 6 hours and I've completed half, if not most, of the puzzle. 

My grandma is visiting and, since we have plenty of time to kill at home, I thought it'd be a great time to start a new puzzle together. We did one a last year and it was a lot of fun. It's really interesting to see how my grandma tackles the puzzle versus the way I do it. She groups pieces by color then starts trying to put them together. I like grabbing pieces then looking at the poster to figure out where they go. That's how we roll. We're a few hours into this puzzle, and as you can see in the picture below, we're using two tables to work on it. I think the puzzle we did last year only took us a couple days and I kinda hope this one takes a little longer. If we finish early I'll probably go and buy another puzzle and maybe a game to pass the time with grandma.

Today I finished inking Brains/Guts (just need to white-out the mistakes,) made a Happy 420 doodle for all the stoners maaaaaan, and digitally inked an old drawing I made called "Pac Man Must Die" 

I didn't do anything artsy all day so I started digitizing an old sketch on the iPad before bed. So far, it's not looking how I want it so I might erase and start over again tomorrow. So let it WIP...

I came across a picture of a Tiger Electronic game on Instagram today and got the idea to draw my own. Tiger Electronic sold a bunch of these cheap LCD games back in the 90s based on arcade and console games. I think I had the Double Dragon handheld. It was a piece of shit compared to the real game. They all were.

*batteries not included

The Chiefs might have of beat the Niners in the Super Bowl LIV but Sunday wasn't a total loss. I brought Baby Niner Jacket Face out of retirement and knocked out three doodles that I really-really like.

This is what I drew during my longer-than-usual dinner break at my event tonight. It's heavily inspired by the arcade & pinball games I played at Emporium in San Francisco before the gig.