More Downtime

Listen: I have to get on a bus pretty soon, and go to somewhere I don't live, which means it's tough to do robots. Come back on Tuesday!

Robots are Now For Sale

Keen observers might have already noticed the impossible-to-miss Etsy sidebar to the right of these words. "What does this mean?" one might ask themselves. It means I would like to offer nice, on-paper style robots. For now most things for sale are going to be digital prints of things, but someday originals might be available - it depends entirely on interest. Oh, and let me assure you that anyone who goes so far as to pay actual human money for some thing that I did will receive both an enormous amount of grattitude as well as some roboty bonus like a sketch or something.

The shop is Here.

Right now there's not much for sale, and this is because I only plan to list things I personally feel are Very Good and Worth Paying For. If there's a robot you don't see listed that you're interested in buying then let me know in a comment, because I am into the idea of supplying demand.

088 (This Again?)

Ink on paper, assembled and beautified in Photoshop.

The thing is pure evil, which makes it fun to draw, and each time I get it on paper it gets a little closer to complete. It reminds me of things I'd do in elementary school - enormous, world-searing creatures and machines inspired by those damn video games on cartoon television. I wish I could animate - this would get its own short in which it started by killing innocent townsfolk and finished by killing whatever army was sent to save the remaining townsfolk. I still don't know what his feet look like though.

Also: a few prints of this are going to be for sale. I just decided that.
Look - I wasn't kidding!

___________

By Mo Martin

A cog. A washer. Filaments of copper and tin and aluminum. Little things. Cold, regular things. But they come together. Are you you yet?

Then power, snapping, racing, twisting through these small things, and one coil can sense the other, and they know how far one is from another, and they do not feel like a they, but like one. And the one can see with bulging, glowing eyes. And the one hates itself. Are you you yet?

Then as consciousness unfolds throughout the pieces of metal, the hatred burning, racing behind it, something that isn't it intrudes. Nothing much. It is pink and blob-like. But the metal knows It, feels Its sweaty touch on every inch of itself. And the hatred knows this is how it came together, this is why it is what it is, a thing that shouldn't be.

It's only a matter of seconds to rip through It. It takes nothing at all to ignore the strange, high pitched noises and fleshy rips. The metal regards this new liquid all over it. This blood, suddenly finding the name in some dim corner of silicon. It slowly begins to take itself apart. A cog. A washer. Just tiny metal objects to be cleaned. And in the midst of these tiny acts of self care, the metal-that-sees-itself finds the hatred is gone. And you know yourself, as more than metal connected to metal. You're robot. You're killer. You're you.

You're you now.

087 (We Can Always Use Some More Electrical Equipment)

This heap started its life as an assignment in the three hours I spend every week at the SMFA wishing everyone around me would shut up and stop talking about their kids or whatever art class. The specifics of the assignment are useless, all you need to know is that we were given a shit-ton of wire and I left that evening clutching an anatomically inaccurate rib-cage. Long story short: I bent it all the hell out of shape and shoved a projector bulb on top of it. Keep an eye on that projector bulb - it's too good not to incorporate into robots multiple times.

________________


by Mo Martin

"What's the hunk of junk in the corner?"
"Tsk, some people have no taste for classics. That's the armature from one of the old I-40 models."
"I-40? That's some morbid shit, man. Besides, I call bullshit, they were destroyed after Jan 3rd."
"This model was decommissioned before Jan 3rd, it didn't kill anybody. I found it in a junkyard - did it just move?"
"Oh ha ha, buddy. Anyways, what did you want to - Oh my god!"
After the screams and tearing, a small, rusted, creeping noise at the windows. A scratching. A latch lifting.

086 (Actually Good)

I started this on Thursday just absolutely prepared to hate it. Then, a few hours ago, I got out the ink and the brushes and the Lousy Thoughts and let things fall into place. I am very satisfied with the result.

________________

by Mo Martin

The last of the bullets bounced off its chest. In a last desperate attempt, he threw the gun at its burning yellow eye. It was only the effort at aiming that drew his attention away from possible escapes, and to the eye . . . which was glowing green now, and the terrible whining song had begun . . . and he loved the Monster. Not Monster! He loved his shining King. He loved its pistons and oils and wiring. It was such a perfect creation. And he was so . . . wrong. Such a filthy mass of skin and fat and bone. His love was the only beautiful thing about him, his love for the towering metal deity. He remembered that the gun (how was it back in his hand?) had one more bullet in it. He would shed this hideous form, until he was just sparkling electricity, food for his God. He would let the love survive.

085 (Incomplete Enough)

This is what ink does on some Terrible Paper. Maybe I'll give it a Rest of It someday. Whatever.

084 (More Guns for Hands)

________________


by Mo Martin

It was easy to ridicule them, with their matchstick frames. We'd all be home in a month, they told us. Even those intimidating A.R.M.S of theirs were rumored to have no accuracy whatsoever. But as it turned out, the didn't need it. Only some of us were home in a month, and no one envied them.

083 (I Didn't Do This)

These two robots were drawn by a guy named James who's currently a client where I intern. Despite his passion for drawing he frequently has "writer's block for drawing" when presented with a clean sheet of paper. He asked me what I thought he ought to draw, and I gave him the only natural answer. I think he'd be pretty into the idea of having work on the internet, and he said I could keep the drawing, so I don't think this is an ethical trespass or a violation of confidentiality, you know?

082 (catching up)

081 (Old Shit)

I found this in the same place I found this. I hate it, but I'm way behind schedule and in no position to pass up freebies.

See you on Tuesday

What? Tuesday? I thought this was "The Daily Robot"

Yeah, it is, but listen: Yesterday was Valentine's day, and had I done a robot yesterday it almost certainly would have been either some sappy piece of technological sentimentalism, or - worse - another downer piece of anti-love bitterness, as is so often the case with things that people do on Valentine's day. I opted to avoid these two cliches not by making a neutral, un-holiday-related robot, but by not doing anything at all. Because I was busy all day.

Now, to address why you won't be hearing from me until Tuesday: In about an hour I'm going to be indisposed with extreme prejudice for up to the next twenty-four hours, so I won't be able to go around drawing robots left and right for you monsters. Deal with it. Here is a picture of Gort to tide you over for the next day and a half.

080 (Really Attacking Some Lighting Effects, You Guys)

079 (Familiar Faces)

This thing has made Appearances Before.

078 (With Regards to Illustrator CS4 and Capcom)

"Homunculus." Messing around during Art Time at the Program, finished up in Illustrator. Ripped-off poorly (like so much of what I do), from the Pantheons of the Mega Man Zero series.

077 (Part 3 of the Series "Robots from the Margins")

Not literally from a margin as this was drawn on the cover of a folder sometime in the spring of 2008. The folder has been with me since fall 2005.

076 (Part 2 of the Series "Robots from the Margins")

I couldn't tell you what made this happen.

075 (Part 1 of the Series "Robots from the Margins")

Do you know what is easy? Going through old notebooks and pulling from their depths sketches of robots. That is what's happening around here right now, and for a couple days following today. Try not to accidentally learn anything about clinical psychology while you're here though, this education was expensive and I don't like the idea either of sharing it or of anyone being able to read my handwriting, since I certainly can't.

074 (Back in Business)

That's right y'all (did I just type that? What time of night is it, what kind of night was it?). I won't apologize for the weeks without robots, as this furlough was only semi-voluntary. And really, who wants to dwell on the past? The past is boring, and full of things that aren't soulless, merciless, killing apparatuses. Let us focus on the future as it was described to me in a vision of our humble scribe, and subsequently depicted in ink by me as an elaborate birthday present.