“scorched earth policy”

July 12, 2026

Camping bookings open for Rocky Paddock in April. I’ve been teasing myself checking availability every month or so, knowing the time wasn’t right, yet.

Yesterday I did a lazy search to get to the booking page, thinking early September would be the go, and crashed headlong into a post saying the site was closed due to safety, those pines all too old and set for removal.

It hit me hard, another link to Michael going.

The week had already been a bit tougher than normal. Seeing a tour announcement for Swervedriver, playing “Raise” in full to celebrate it’s 35th anniversary. That night was his cousin Anthony’s 50th birthday, another event he wouldn’t be at. I cried and the seed for this drawing of mourning began to grow.

I cut the board, ready to get started that day, wedging it into the drawing schedule. But got interrupted, Ashley was in the area and offered to pick me up. Turning a quiet night, driving with a couple of light beers, into a session. Getting me merry to celebrate a friend’s birthday rather than dwelling on an absence. Not forgetting, a side conversation with Michael’s aunt at the end keeping him there.

Today I’m following the gist of the policy, turning this drawing into a footnote, not looking back at what is gone.

“green shoots / growth targets”

July 5, 2026

So I wanted to draw something bright, something positive, after that last one seemed so drab.

Feeling positive, the work side going well, making friends, getting confidence. The family side on a calm plateau, feeling like I was going to catch my breath.

But teenagers want to fly, want to change. None of us realising the plateau was me clinging to the cliff face, holding us up. Maybe their wings will lift us all.

“tonnage”

April 19, 2026

After the joy of “AD&D” I couldn’t nail what to draw next. There were some interesting ideas that looked negative but weren’t, inspired by my time in the packing area, turning some old ideas about repetition into something more zen.

Then a great idea that will be super labour intensive and challenging, then this quickie that raced out first. Drawn in one sitting, finished in three weekends.

Maybe still a bit Sisyphean and open to a negative reading, nailed to it with no turning back, showing actual physical pain, but loving it with no regrets.

BEER NIGHT

March 22, 2026

We’ve had too many people die during our kid’s lifetime. G-pa. Nana Wilma. Great Nana. Poppy. Auntie Margaret. Scott. Michael.

Michael was the first where I was also mourning the loss of a part of myself, the person I could be around him. I never had to explain the backstory, my cousin who knew the pressures of growing up in the Taplin clan, had met the friends from the three phases of my life, had been to nearly all of the fifteen houses I’ve lived in, and slept at most of them. Whether art, pop culture, music or whatever, he got the reference.

The beer nights had started pretty casually but turned into a solid tradition over six years, especially once he moved to Gawler. That house was a sanctuary to him, but also to me over an intense couple of years. It was a fraught process to organise at my end, navigating anxieties and guilt trips and rescheduling, never certain until the last minute.

The process of unwinding started as soon as I sat in the car in the driveway. Picked the music and sent a message to Michael. I’m on my way.

I’d never understood why people loved road trips, the concept of Sunday drives, until those journeys out to Gawler. Somewhere in that time I gained confidence in driving, loved the speed and the curves through the hills. An inextricable part of the event, the decompression and anticipation.

I got to be someone else at his house. Not a father or husband or manager, not even a responsible adult. Off the leash, back out on the edges. Talk shit, play air guitar, blow off steam. Bring out any beer or put on any music without judgement. Maybe with debate but always with appreciation.

I didn’t realise how much I needed those nights until they were gone. Auntie Fran always thanked me for seeing him so much and supporting him, but I was mostly doing it for me.

The start of 2024 was rock bottom. Counselling started the climb back up and making this game was another part of the process. Remembering and grieving the beer nights, but letting them go. Letting Michael go.

I was ready for the next step before the game was, and it sat mostly done but untouched for a year so. Adobe’s price gouging prompted me to cancel my subscription and I realised I had to finish this first.

Celebrating but not forgetting.

“Advanced Drinking & Drawing”

February 3, 2026

A year ago today I took a hard left turn in life, risking my family’s financial and emotional stability to change jobs, from a government desk drone to a factory shift worker. Luckily the bet paid off!

This idea came six days later, and seemed very unlikely. Not miserable. Zany even. Some other intense ideas lapped past. But I made it the wallpaper on my phone and kept looking at it.

Partly inspired by the cover of the 2nd edition AD&D Monster Manual II, shaped by a crazy reference photo mockup, and finishing in a hot streak of days off during the brewery holiday shutdowns. I love the final work, one of the few full background drawings I’ve ever done, but there’s still something about the raw pencil that gets lost along the way.

By accident it was finished for this anniversary, and hopefully in time to be included in an exhibition at the venue…

the meaning of life

November 5, 2025

A few weeks back I did an overnighter at Rocky Paddock. There were a few tears but it was a great night, sitting by a fire at site 24 drinking beers.

Definitely time away to recharge, reclaiming the place and not needing to write myself off. Writing haiku and reminding myself to think about the good memories.

Scrawled at the end of the beer reviews, a poster slogan, not ironic or sarcastic. I had grand plans to do it as an elaborate hand lettered thing, set it up on a cliche poster mockup with wooden pegs and a cactus on the side. Funnily enough after the last two drawings also involved custom lettering I lost enthusiasm!

Working on the laborious scribble writing I remembered back to 1991, a visit with the Gover St crew to somewhere nearby at Mount Crawford. Tripping, I had crawled into a thorn bush and gotten stuck, had an epiphany and was writing down the meaning of life. Slowly. Scribbling out the letters, convinced that an out of control four wheel drive would come down a nearby track, would kill me before I could finish and reveal it. But didn’t write it any simpler or faster!

There was no ultimate neutral standpoint to contemplate from, but not everything after was crap.

Ironically I’m working on this while drinking heavy duty laxative to prep for a colonoscopy tomorrow. Shitting the past indeed.

“mendicant”

October 19, 2025

Quoted verbatim from the notebook…

“Inspired by the kintsugi reference in an over-elaborate “Midsommar Murders” episode, was an idea to do something to show the breaking / fixing of my world. Initially a wild dream to do something actual (porcelain skull, oops, been done lots of times!) to doing something simple with white and gold paint (skull or bust), to something elaborate (frankenstein statue on plinth, empty broken plinths on either side, lots of broken pieces on the ground. Even the name got wanky and complicated “Interstice”. A second car journey brought it back on target. Just head and shoulders bust, green + blue + white joined by gold.”

There are a bunch of things that I didn’t quite nail (textures, cramped head space) but it was one of those drawings that kept me excited to get back to it. First large format figure since Melbourne, and some on the fly decisions that worked well (making the wreath gold not white, challenging myself to paint gold not use gold metallic ink.

“drone #4”

July 20, 2025

A joy to draw, geometry with a bit of technical experimenting, combining two different ideas.

The first was definitely more angsty, the amp robot with a rotating set of heads, constantly headbanging, with a conveyer belt of beers, constantly drinking. This was at the end of last year when I thought my brewing escape plan had failed, listening to music of anger and despair and drinking too much.

The second was after the escape plan had succeeded, about my experience of driving late at night on empty roads or amongst streaming car lights, listening to spacey heavy music and feeling like an astronaut flying through space. (Shift work can get a bit spacey!) I only had a vague idea, inside the cockpit of a battered old spaceship, star fields blurring.

Serendipity was joining the two together, happy enough in life that I didn’t put indicators on the dials, my anger and despair tuned down.

Is it that the unhappy drawings are more meaningful that makes them more satisfying to work on, or are they cathartic? A test will be the next couple of ideas bubbling away, fun concepts. I’ve found the playlist for not being miserable too…

The original drawing, un-inverted

Drones #3, #2 & #1 and I just realised this should have been #5 after this one!

“midstream”

June 7, 2025

Funny that I don’t have as much to say about the pictures that make me happy. This one is about making changes in life, countering the old saying… the original idea had them standing in water but I chickened out at the thought of the upside down rippled reflections!

Inspired by seeing this old picture, the birth of the monkey/donkey avatar.

The drawing isn’t perfect, and it calls out some of the bad stuff, but it was great to work on. I cooked up a reference mockup using objects from Sketchfab which really helped, foreshortening is tough. (I cropped off all the selfie photos of me in underpants posing!)

Got a great idea for the next one too.

53

May 11, 2025

15 years ago today I took Michael to get his turtle tattoo for his birthday, his 40th. It was before we had fancy phones, and there are no photos of the day.

2 years ago he died, and I realised how few photos of him I had at all. The best moments of each year were spent with him, a rough morning selfie and lines of cans the only evidence they ever happened. The last couple of months were tough, with his 53rd birthday in hospital. He was my cousin on my mum’s side, my best mate.

They say everyone is unique, but maybe he was a bit more so. A rebel in the true sense of the word, subversive and destructive, with a burning sense of fairness and how everything could be done better. Happy to wait in the trees for his chance to throw a brick through the window.

He was definitely a contradiction. A perfectionist who wanted complicated solutions but a procrastinator who often couldn’t get started on them. Paranoid to the point of delusion about surveillance, he installed a tracker with a sim card on his motorbike, so that a company in eastern Europe knew his every move, to get the exact ride data he wanted. Loyal and generous to the point of going short of food to buy presents, but capable of flipping friendships into implacable feuds.

1 year ago my cousin on my dad’s side, Scott, committed suicide. We weren’t close, the last time I’d seen him had been a decade earlier at our nana’s funeral. He’d just turned 53.

Our dads, brothers, never got along, so the families didn’t meet up much. From a distance he always looked like a tough cool guy, plenty of mates, great at hardcore sports like waterskiing and kickboxing.

This year is my 53rd, and if I die I’m going down swinging. Not as an office drone, not wondering what those other paths would have been like. This tattoo is to remember Michael, but it’s mine.

Thanks to Jaya at XO Temple for his amazing work. And for politely bypassing my bad ideas!