Gift made for my boss. Our company’s mascot is a caterpillar and my workmates are very supportive of my craft so I thought it would be nice to have so original art in house.

Young robot nobel girl.

Built my own fisheye lense from a door spyhole and some junk I had. Takes some mighty fine pictures and the price was right.

The spyhole will run you anywhere from $5 (160 degrees) to $10 (200 degrees) and then you just need to mount it. I used an old Ikea table leg cover, measuring cup and some other junk I had lying around.

A BUS-y day from Thomas Hat on Vimeo.

Kim and Niall Pt 1 from Thomas Hat on Vimeo.

Kim and Niall Pt. 2 from Thomas Hat on Vimeo.

Stop motion into for my sister in law’s wedding photo montage.
Congratulations Kim and Niall!

Some more work in progress shots from the making of The curse music video

Whale in the ocean from Thomas Hat on Vimeo.

Part of a video for Josh Ritter’s "The Curse" for the line "He watches the sea from a porthole in stowage."

Work in progress!

So yesterday was my first show ever. How rad is that*? I sold a mess of robots to some awesome folks, made some new friends and even bought a print! Kris did an exemplary job with decorating, packaging and directing the look of the table.

Customer comment of the day: "They’re all different... like people!"

There was a lot of awesome people and it made for a grand ol’ time. I was even approached by someone and asked to have my work in their store on consignment. Pretty exciting!

*Very.

Kris suggested I make button packs for my show so we both kicked it into high gear to get some buttons made and ready for Sunday. they’re designed and templated so wish us luck.

Made up a new card for the show on the weekend. One that reflects my robots

I’ve done a necklace before which got some critical acclaim. So I figured I’d try again.

This will be on sale at the Bazaar of the bizarre

Neat little thing made from an old clock and some found bits. Not sure what it’s for but it looks great on my desk.

I’ve been accepted to be a vendor at the Bazaar of the Bizarre in Toronto on April 25th. If you happen to live in the area why not stop on by and say "I know you from the internet"?

Doors open to the public at 11am and all other important information can be found on their website: http://thebazaarofthebizarre.org/

Come see me in one of my rare public appearances!

What a horrifying robot!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted sketches and we just got a scanner soooooo...

This is a piece inspired by my lovely wife. She has an odd love for pigeons which I have come to admire and share.

So the day has finally arrieved! My package from B.C. containing my artswap piece from Michael Parker came right to my door. It’s a family day miracle!

I sent him "Old Friends" and in return he sent me the above titled "Nothing Personal": a beautiful piece of altered art from watch and piano parts. "Nothing Personal" is outstanding. So many interpretations too, as a beast or as a robot, as a fight or as a parts scavenge. He also snuck in a touch of my favorite of your previous works "almost there" with the trailing off of parts. Very subtle. I don’t know how he managed to tell so many different stories all with one work. He has an amazing talent.

I also sent him one of my older works which he bought for a friend’s birthday with the most valuable of currencies: parts. "Nothing Personal" came with a massive metal box filled with wood, metal, and even a speech by Kurt Vonnegut! I’m very excited to get this all into my workroom.

This was a great experience and we’re working on setting up a page on reddit for more people to take part in Art Swaps like this.

I would sometimes go visit him. He lives in that abandoned building on Cumberland. We’ll sit on the roof, talk about old times and sometime’s he’ll ask me about my new life.

"So how are your real friends?"
"They’re good... Teddy and Jess are having a baby."
Silence.
"Maybe when it’s born you two could, y’know, be friends. Come out of retirement?"

A car horn honked and someone yelled a rebutal

"Maybe..."

We sat in silence as we watched the stars glow into existance.

"I miss you, buddy" He said.
"I miss you too,"

I sent this as part of an artswap with fellow redditor Parker. My piece from him is speeding cross Canada on bison express as we speak. I will report on it when it arrives

Bioshock 2 comes out this week! I took some inspiration from my good buddy Parker on the west cost of Canada and his wonderful clock part paintings to come up with this little tribute to the series.

Developed by the SR Corp. the AutoGent was designed to be 55% more dapper than any known gentleman. Each AutoGent came equipped with a pocket watch with which to compare a train’s schedule with it’s actual arrival time and comment thusly.

The Titanium tophat is just that and for appearances only.

No. 7 from "The Metallic Marauders"

The Masked Capacitor is a legendary robot bandito. Stories are told of his daring robberies of priceless human and robot artifacts alike. The liberated items were commonly fenced on the #000 market and the returns were left on the doorsteps of the robo-slums

No. 6 from "The Metallic Marauders"

The knighted robot Sir Angus the redpainted is a decorated hero of the early robot wars. When talks opened up to the human leaders, Sir Angus was able to convince them that all sentient beings whether biological or mechanical are all worthy of existence and the right to live their lives and build their communities. The now pacified human leaders were there eviscerated by laser beam and the robot wars were won.

No. 5 from "The Metallic Marauders"

Fantastic Nicoli gained his subtitle by his deep understanding of human trains. In fact it was his pioneering spirit file that gave rise to the practice of destroying bridges to have trains full of unwitting human passengers to be delivered directly into the maw for immediate consumption.

Trying to work with the tablet.

No. 4 of the Metal Marauders.

Experiment "C" was the 3rd iteration of a set of tests conducted by the great robot minds of our time including Dr. Cycloptic. The goal was to build a robot that so thirsted for the destruction of the humans that it’s robo-will would keep it self repaired during a human retaliation. "C" Failed in the sense that it refused to engage in battle to keep itself alive.

There is no known documentation for Experiment "A" outside of the test range daily records which only read:

Name: Experiment "A"
Date: 447465600
Result: Catastrophic Failure

Experiment "B" is still held under high secrecy after its initial test which was deemed a "Success*" but required modifications which are still in progress.

No. 3 of the Metal Marauders.

Sir Cranston Kneebreaker is the socialite of the marauders. Always front and center in any news report or photographs. He is known to pose for the media before stomping them flat while ensuring that their cameras go unharmed.

No. 2 of the Metal Marauders.

Kaufman Thumbtack is the accountant of the marauders. He assures that all their financial affairs are in order and schedules appointments to burn the cities of men.

Galileo is always looking to the stars and wondering. What is out there? Who is out there?

This also makes a nice wallpaper 1024 x 768 1280 x 1024

No. 1 from "The Metallic Marauders"

These are the three youngsters of the Marauders. Charlotte Badmotor, Isaiah Tinbox and Dawn La Geare (left to right). Though they are the youngest and smallest of all the robotic families they are hardly the tamest. They’re commonly seen playing with their food.

Welcome to 2010 my friends. This marks year 2 of my creative conquest and I think I’m doing quite well. A handful of interviews with some really intersting people, quite a few sales and even a gallery showing!

I’m ready to hit the ground running now with the holidays over and peace returning to the lands.

So I participated in the Reddit Secret Santa this year and I don’t think I could have got a better recipient. He mentioned in his description how he likes to make art out of found objects so what better gift than the gift of unspeakable horror?

I’m glad he liked it so much. And I got a new friend.

His work is also awesome: Watch part paintings, Framed Bass, Logic 3

I’m all christmas giddy and I have my hot chocolate with mint teabag. Time to listen to Fairytale of newyork.

Comics time!

Illustrayed and submitted to Threadless. Third time’s a charm!

I finally had a few hours to scrape together to get back to the Loo Garoo Story.

I decided to re-wallpaper the room as the boy shared the colour pallet with the former wallpaper almost exactly and he seemed to just blend in. Colour theory is really something I should work on...

Anyways. here’s a shot of the new room with more clutter and the boy out of the covers ready to take on the world.

Tommy was a boy just like me or you,
but Tommy had a problem: The Loo Garoo.

Sorry for the lack of updates. I’ve got a big project on the move. Here’s a taste.

The worst game ever conceived by man

From left to right: Hotbath, Trophy and Desmond.

I have some big plans for these little guys.

Who is that handsome devil?

Weeeeee!

People often ask me how my creative process works and It’s not easy to explain. I spend a lot of time collecting knick-knacks, odds, ends and other junk and keep it in a repository of miscellanea.When I have some time to spare I like to go and pick and choose from the parts I have and see how they look together with each other. I’ll often pick something up and think "This could be an arm, or a hand or a body" and I’ll begin searching for accompanying pieces and parts.

Any project I undertake has countless revisionary stages where one trinket is switched out for another, rotated and whatnot.

The pictures above are a pretty standard state of my work desk. There’s a boardroom sized pad of paper underneath which I always keep out in case of emergency ideas and inspiration.

I don’t go looking for inspiration, I wait for it to come to me, to reveal itself one piece at a time.

Former pocketwatch turned arboretum.

The next threadless design is up here. If I can trouble you for a vote.

Under the sea voting has now ended with a 2.3 Average. I hoped it would be higher but that’s not back for my first try, no?

Hey, if you could, would you vote for my design on threadless.com. I love you?

Robot Royalty

"Double planet" is an informal term used to describe a planet with a moon that may be large enough to be considered a planet in its own right; a common definition is that the objects orbit a centre of gravity that is above their surfaces. The formal term is "binary system". Similarly, there are also double asteroid (or double minor planet) systems such as 90 Antiope, and double Kuiper belt object systems such as (79360) 1997 CS29 and 1998 WW31. As of 2009, there are no official double planets.

Wikipedia entry

Despite the first one still pending approval, I’ve submitted a second design to Threadless.

Links to vote will follow pending approval.

Getting used to this DSLR

I’m submitting this design to threadless and maybe they’ll make it into a shirt!

Working on business cards. I’ll be part of a Book launch gallery for local ’zine Steel Bananas. This will be my first show ever! How do you like that?

Not sure what happened here but the Portuguese copy deck for this website has a Fido Dido as a letter...

My good friend,

I trust you are well as is your new lodgings.

I am writing you to recount a most curious event that took place this morn. For today was like most other days in which I ride the light rail with all the vagabonds and harletts but with one slight difference. For you see, soon after I de-trained at my terminus station, I began to make my way to the lower level where I could hop aboard a second light rail headed in a perpendicular direction. (What high technology, these days! Two trains in a station! If I hadn’t seen it myself, I’d think the statement quite mad!) Mere second before I had reached the descending staircase my arm was grasped from behind. Thinking it was a collegue I turned my head round to see what was the matter. The arm in question did not belong to a collegue at all but a member of the hoboist movement! A scruffy fellow I’d stretch to call ’gentleman’ whose air smelt of tobbacco and a long evening. When our eyes met, I assumed he would beg for coin and be on his way, but not this fellow. He proceeded to make a gesture of his index and middle finger to point to his eyes as if to draw my attention to his watchful eyes. I say, I was quite stunned! So stunned in fact that the only response I could give this miscreant was a blank stare, a slight bobbing nod and an almost inaudible "yeah". With that he lessed his grip on my person and I continued on dazed at the events that had just transpired.

It is my opinion that a lesser man would wish for something better to pass his lips in such a situation, but I believe you would agree that my reaction was spot on.

Wind in your sails, my friend.
Thomas

Hello,

How are you? I am fine.

I fixed the work page so the secondary images can be clicked on now. I know,this is huge news. CNN is following this story around the clock.

Also: A new robot.

I’m doing some serious robot work, folks. Keep an eye out for more lumbering into the future.

My order:

• 1 Large Peppermint Tea
• Black
• Single cup (They always double cup and it’s such a waste)

What I recieved:

• 1 Large Green Tea
• Cream
• Double cup

What they got right:

• Tea
• Large
• Colour (Peppermint is green?)

I’m workin’ away on the new site. This will be more of a portfolio than a blog. I’ve come to lothe that word. Anyways. Hold tight while things work themselves out.

I just imported all the old stuff from the former site and I’m trying to import more older enteries. The worst part is that now the site can handle big images well and all I have is tiny web friendly ones of my older work since all the raw images are/were on my laptop which was burgled a few months ago and since I’ve sold a lot of my work.

Ah well upward and onward.

Bloooop

Boboms on parade! One of my favorite enemies from the Super Mario world done in a cute paper style.

The robot with the painfully Orwellian name.

Made from parts graciously donated to my by a fellow Toronto photographer/artist.

Did some picture taking on a visit to the Toronto Art Barns. Really nice place.

Photography still isn’t my think but I’m getting used to the new DSLR

First papercraft in a while.

When some people think of "The great beyond" they think of heaven. I think of space.

Concept sketch for a contest entry. My theme is "the great beyond" and my media is going to be paper collage.

I really hope I can get my scanner working soon...

The gourmand is a rare sight, a robot who loves the art of food. Though he cannot taste any of the food he makes, he is a cook of great renown.

What have I done to deserve this?!

The dapper young ’bot about town

Swoon

A gift for mother’s day

Names and descriptions to follow.

Concept sketches for a commission.

I got both lovely pieces from the nicest woman you would ever care to meet. They belonged to her late husband who was clearly an electroics enthusiast. They came along with a stack of electronics catelogues and a "Popular mechanics"-esque type magazine from 1944!

Random sketches from a while back

This idea was taken from a doodle done at work.

I’ll be taking an animation workshop next week at the National Film Board of Canada. This got me rememberin’ about an aptly titled short film(?) I made at a 24 hour "Art-a-thon": The robot who built himself.

Done in flash and without the needless clutter of "Play or Replay buttons".

Without further adeiu: The robot who built himself

http://www.langfordadventure.com/

Design by Adam Winick

Build by Thomas Girard

Site includes:

• Full back end functionality to change almost anything on the site.
• News section with tags
• Two layers of order (Category>Adventure Region>Adventure) and functionality to skip over sections with just one item inside.

Not much left to do now.

Finally finished. My commissioned job for the awesome dudes at Tiny Cartridge.

A birthday present from the in-laws.

I’ve been playing around with this little script. A ’Captcha’ based on colours. I’m not sure about the progression of Captcha cracking but since it functions differently from the norm it might provide an upper hand.

It works by generating a random string of letters and numbers and assigning them random colours and the user is asked to type in only the characters of a certain colour. The only problem is this may stump colourblind users as well as bots.

It’s not completely foolproof but just something I was playing around with.

Anyways it’s free to use, modify and whatnot but in the spirit of GNU, you cannot charge for it or else!

Posemaniacs.com is awesome.

Instead of working, I did this...

Trying to get some ideas for the Tiny cartidge work.

Papercraft inspired by a nightmare

Stories were passed down from those who were old ones when the old ones were young ones. They told cautionary tales about the masked men in the woods.

The masked men in the woods would come hidden from behind the trees at the edge of the wood, slowly at first, creeping, skulking and silent until they would launch into a horrifying gallop towards the towns. They were hard to see with attentive eyes but you could catch a quick sight if you were caught off guard. "They were thieves! Dirty rotten thieves!" The old ones would say, "Taking things that don’t belong to them!". Trinkets and baubles mostly, little things you would miss and they presumed you would go looking for. The search would lead you deep into the woods, much deeper than decent folk dare to wander and slightly deeper than young boys claim to have gone. Once you’ve gone that far they’ll come down from the trees, "and you won’t even know because they sound like the wind in the leaves and nothing more!" What happens next is anyone’s guess.

We caught one once, but he faded away as we held him down and all that was left was this.

A baby shower gift for the soon to be born baby of friends.

Self portrat
Self portrate
Self portrit
A drawing of me. I didn’t have a mirror and thus could not see if I had or did not have antlers. I though it best to play it safe.

My first sewing project done on a medical leave from work

Full build of the Scarborough Hospital foundation website.

Features I was responsible for:

*Full featured back end system that allows copy to be changed, videos to to be uploaded, events to be added
*SEO friendly URLs
*Page structure and CSS

Design By Adam Winick

They look even better framed and in the daylight.

Inspired by Italo Calvino’s story of the same name.

Based on the theory that the moon is progressivly moving farther away from earth at ~3cm/year. Calvino writes of a time when the moon was close and folks would take a boat out when the moon was full and would climb a ladder to the moon and collect it’s cheese. The main character, ’Qwfwq’, falls in love with the captains wife and tries to get left behind on the moon with her.

This is my tribute to this beautifully written story. It is part of a collection of short stories by Calvino called Cosmicomics.

Behold my spoils from my trip the the CBC prop sale!

The index card box seen here contained a sample of old index cards along with a selection of alphabetical dividers and 2 hand written notes and one typed from July 1948!

Twice upon a Whale

Far off in space is a few towns atop a sleeping whale.

Have you ever seen such an unholy union?

The Brotherhood of the Catastophic Automaton

Available on my etsy site.

The Horrifying Doctor Cycloptic

The Horrifying Doctor Cycloptic

Dashing Gnasher

Dashing Gnasher

The Hulking Gargant

A pretend pirate, at least...

Pirates have always been my thing. but like many I had to trade in my eyepatch for a keyboard and take up arms against the unyeilding sea of client requests.

This is a tribute to those like myself who keep a candle burning in the back of their minds for when adventure finally does come calling.

The Hulking Gargant

Gentleman Vernon Spinetaker

Gentleman Vernon Spinetaker

Mr. Atticus Pinch

Mr. Atticus Pinch

Picture for our wedding invitations

Tree O’clock

This item was bought by a gentleman as a wedding gift for his fiance. It’s quite an honour to have something I made given as such a special gift.

The wise old owl

In memory of a real tree

Clockwork Metropolis Prototype for one of the "Invisible Cities"

This is how rainbows are made

Saint Cinnamon

Scrapbooking paper on acryllic paint

The Unslowable Octobot

Compusmith Goodsmasher

The Irrate Dr. Tungsten

Archibald Arcwelder

Chain Master Sparticus

The Abominable Clanking Horror Society!

The cities of man will burn beneath our metal feet!

Yes... yes... YES!

Puny humans, bow before your new overlord!

The first of the robots series

Soon, my army will be complete...

A cuddly unnamed horror from beyond the stars

My entry to a contest at TIGSource. A retro demake of Dead rising for the Xbox 360.

Download

Everything’s better down where it’s wetter. Take it from me!

A modern adaptaion of the man of La Mancha

A comissioned designed logo for a line of baby creams and oiils and such.

Pyramid Head of Silent Hill fame toned down to a softer and cuddlier form.

Three very true facts about your favorite natural earth satelite,

Concept art for a game that was never finished (or started)

Papercraft inspired by Shadow of the Colossus.

My first papercraft. A tribute to the monster movies that made me who I am today

Try it out!

A quick snippit of code that generates a random space invader! Earth will tremble before our 36 byte visages! Now with colour!

Code:(Download)

My sister wanted a creepy cheshire cat tattoo. This is my second concept sketch (the first was ’too cute’)

A wonderful man by the name of Doug contacted me through my site and offered me a box of old slide and camera equipment. I had the privilage to meet Doug and his wife, have a chat and have a look at some of his photography work. It was great to sit down and talk art with someone with vastly more experiance than myself but at the same time be very down to earth about it.

I’m itching to start working these pieces into some new robots.

Stay tuned!

Procedurally generated heightmap program in python with the pygame libraries.

Generates a set of islands and landmasses randomly and smooths it out so it looks more like real land (in pixelated form)

(download python code)

I won’t go into the details but it was just a devil of a time.

Pigeons a pleanty

Concept art for a game that was never finished (or started)

A bear mask made for Halloween that sadly went unused.