El pollo diabólico, I presume?
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that one was Post Office Chicken an illustration plate to my collected prints of wild and feral chickens of the island.
pollo diabólico they all are, but you may be confusing with my actual nemesis, El Gallo Apocalypto.
good eye, señor!
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Boy every update i have for the wood shelves i have seems to always be negative, and i hate to be that guy. But i worked up the energy to finally apply the oil coating on it, i mixed the two small bottles of Part A and 1/3rd of the Part B which helps it cure faster and poured it onto my boards. Started spreading it and quickly realized the amount of oil i had was not enough to cover both sides.
I spread what i could onto one side of both boards, drove to get more oil and finished coating everything but now i’m worried that when it all cures it might look uneven or weird because i had stopped and started with the oil at different times but we’ll see. Being optimistic for now and will need to wait a week or two for the curing to happen 
In the meantime me and my SO are slowly working on fixing up the front yard landscaping. Got a lot of weeds to kill.
Edit: Quick update, i won’t know for certain until i get a thorough look at the shelves i prepped but i took a quick look this morning and they seem to be curing fine. As impatient as i am i will do my best to wait at least a week before i try to get closer took, but i’m hopeful that the oil coating is turning out fairly even.
Next step would be to find the studs, and install the heavy duty brackets i got. I have a laser guide so i’m like 80% sure i can do this right when the time comes 
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Ok I got a tangible update on my shelves I’ve been working on. The curing went well! I think I could’ve done a better job but it’s still what I wanted so no complaints
Putting up the brackets on the wall was a pain in the ass. The studs were incredibly difficult to screw into and had to pre-drill to get it to work. Still need to put up the second shelf but I was eager to at least put up my cat’s final remains on the one that I did install. Need to figure out what else will go up on it, and will need to touch up the paint on the wall.
Ignore my messy desk
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the clients that we built bunk beds for had us do them in another room.
I seem to have forgotten to take a finished picture. too bad, they came out better than the first set.
then we redid their laundry room and made a little cabinet in a bathroom.
they had a similar setup but the shelves were too little for their folded bedding and towels. the old bench cabinet didn’t have cubbies and had a hinged top that opened upwards; pretty awkward.
the client wanted the cubbies to have a shelf for shoes and then the right one goes all the way back and will fit their laundry basket.
then we raised the washer and dryer so they didn’t have to bend down for the front loaders. the cabinets above were existing but they had to be raised also.
bathroom cabinet
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I have my shelves fully up as of last night. Been slowly putting up some of my figures I haven’t had any space for. I still have some room so hoping to fill it out more as i organize my stuff, but for now i’m fairly pleased with the set up
Edit: Been brainstorming how to make the shelves a bit more visually appealing beyond putting up some figures and stuff on it. To tie it all together i was thinking of making a fairly basic diorama, maybe silhouettes of trees or something similar that i can put behind the shelves. I’ll mull it over and see where i end up
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We put shelves up in our living room many years ago, what really set them off is putting an outlet on each shelf.
If there’s a wall outlet under those shelves it really easy to fish a wire from that outlet to the shelf.
A couple year’s ago I swapped them out with TP-Link Kasa outlets. Now the lamps are all very easy to control.
Our daughter got us a cool digital frame that she can add photos to from anywhere. It’s fun to notice that she added something.
And I just noticed the lights are out on our wreath, project tomorrow.
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Very nice looking 
I had considered adding lighting to the shelves, i have some ideas but it’s good to know that i could route wires to where i need through the wall.
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Uh ohs.
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Well, crap. That would leave my area with RWNJ Hobby Lobby and barely trying Michael’s.
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Any more local, mom-n-pop art supply stores around you? Or maybe a Blicks?
But people wonder why consolidation of industries are bad… this is a perfect example. Fewer options and often one worse than the next… 
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This is the situation we are in right now. Those two are all that is left. Very sad for what was once a fairly vibrant sector.
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Decided to try my hand at the oil pastels for this humane society fundraiser thing. We get a photo of someone’s pet, and they donate $25 to the shelter and get a portrait in return. Might be from a little kid of a professional artist or someone in between.
I’m not exceedingly happy with my portrait, but it feels like a good first effort with a new medium. If anyone has tips for oil pastels in general, I’m listening!
The photo:
Isn’t he a beauty? His name is Freddy Mercury. Here’s my drawing:
The pastels felt quite clunky when trying to do the detail work in the eyes and other places.
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The drawing as-is can be worked further thankfully. I think it’s got a pretty good start, the blocks of color and shapes look right. Pastels are a bit more out of my comfort zone and i really haven’t worked in that medium much but from my amateurish and vague memory: You can keep working it and building up layers of color, you could use a spray to seal the existing drawing and colors and it’ll give you a good textured surface to continue building up details. Details you’d want are the subtle highlights of the black fur. It’ll give it some dimensionality, you can use some colored pencils or pastel pencils to give you a finer control if you haven’t using them already.
But like i mentioned above this isn’t my preferred medium so curious if someone has more experience and can give better advice. If anything i could look around online for some how-to’s and see which one looks like it’d be most helpful to you.
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Um, not sure how to take that, but I think it means my current drawing is unacceptable as is?
This used to be a safe space, lol.
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I wasn’t saying the drawing was bad, i meant that if you wanted to add more details and work it further it’s at a good place where that can easily be done
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No, it’s okay. I wish it didn’t look so goofy, but from working with watercolors I’m trying not to “overwork” it. Seems I need to get over that for this new medium.
It’s a great tip to work on the shading of the black fur.
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Overall the drawing/representation of the cat looks and feels right to me, so that gets a “great job” from me. If you’re afraid of messing it up you can scan it and have a copy printed on some nice thick paper so you can use that to test going further. Spray some sealant on it to give it texture since a printed drawing is going to be too smooth for pastels. Alternatively don’t be afraid to take this further and if you mess it up it’s still a valuable experience and you can give it another go
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