Staying focussed

* Post ten of any pictures currently on your hard drive that you think are self-expressive.

* No captions. It must be like we're speaking with images and we have to interpret your visual language just like we have to interpret your words.

* They must ALREADY be on your hard drive - no googling or flickr! They have to have been saved to your folders sometime in the past. They must be something you've saved there because it resonated with you for some reason.

* You do NOT have to answer any questions about any of your pictures if you don't want to. You can make them as mysterious as you like. Or you can explain them away as much as you like.



( Read more... )

Well, I finally pulled Goodbye Chunky Rice off my shelf and gave it a read. I don't know why I left it there for so long. I think it has something to do with the fact that I am currently broke and I have to savour my books before I can head up to Dublin again to pick out some more. Or maybe it was because I loved Blankets so much. Whatever the reason I'm glad I read it. It was really touching and heartfelt. The characters were really odd and funny and well written. And oh man I love the way Craig draws so much. (Seriously I always feel like I'm six whenever I write about stuff I like)
I might do some more of the characters as well as finish this one. This is pretty close to how Craig draws the characters. (am i that unconfident with my "style?") I'll draw all of them but I want to do the siamese twins Livonia and Ruth next. There's such good character design through out. Every now and then I pull out Blankets to re-read or just admire his art work. I think I'll be doing that with Chunky Rice too.

For comicnrrd  this time. That grey scrawl is supposed to be a tattoo. The reaaaal one will be better.

[Edit]

No prizes for guessing what I'm watching tonight.

This is veeeeery rough but...

It's incredibly rough and the postures off and the lightsaber looks weird but you get the idea.

Would the following people... (joshpm, tinymonster

 and tedprior, comicnrrd, mariswicks  andjoey_shabadoo, ryanpeq ,super_jentendo  and joedecie )

Mind if I did the paintings with markers instead? I don't really have the time with repeats coming up and study all day to devote the time needed to get good at painting. I feel like a frigging worm for waiting this long to get around to these. I'm gonna try to get a nice brush pen, some decent paper, (anyone know what size the paintings lucylou does are? that size paper but not necessarily that kind of paper. Maybe it's a4/a3), and some decent colour markers.

Would anyone know what a nice range is to use? I want to get a good selection of colours. penrodpulaski recommended these to me.

So for the next couple of weeks I'll be posting rough doodles for these and throwing around a few ideas.

Oh and joedecie that means I'll be redrawing your one. It's been so long ago that I doodled that that I can't even look at it anymore.

 

I want to get these things done before September so I move on to doing commisions and making minis for the thing.

[Edit] Man, that light saber is really bad. I must remember to only use the brush pen when I'm at a table. My hand is shaky as shit.
 

Will probably fit in 2 more.


Wasn't kidding about looking like crap either.

Wanna fill this up with kids. These are pretty fun to draw. There are like a million on my terrace running around screaming, hitting things with sticks. That age (7-12) is the best. Oh, and I used my letraset markers for these. (Cool grey 1,3,5) I think I'll get the cool grey 2 and 4 (especially 4) because there's a big difference between three and five as you can see in the next one.


Boy that shadow's really fucking distracting.


As the summer progresses and my exam repeats near I look more and more decrepit.


Drew a cardinal. Have to get a reference to finish it. Oh yes, did you know blasphemy is illegal in Ireland now? It's true. Keep an eye, out I have some crazay* shit planned. To get you in the mood watch this brilliant documentary about Mother Theresa by Christopher Hitchins. Here's part one, two, three.

I'm also planning to make a electric picnic playlist to familiarise myself with some of the bands I don't know and make you dudes totes jealous. Any idea what program I should use?

*That was a mistake but I decided to leave it.

These played before the films and usually lasted about 8 minutes but no more than twenty,

Season One
Commando Cody (Part one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and nine) (Couldn't find any of these, sorry)

Season Two
The Phantom Creeps (Part one, two and three), X marks the spot

Season Three
Alphabet Antics, Snow Thrills, Speech:Using Your Voice, Aquatic Wizards, Catching Trouble, The Home Economics Story (1st part, 2nd part), Mr. B Natural, Posture Pals, Appreciating Our Parents

Season Four
Undersea Kingdom Part 1, Junior Rodeo Daredevils, Undersea Kingdom Part 2, General Hospital(Part one, two and three), Johnny at the Fair, Circus on Ice, Here Comes the Circus, Hired! (Part one and two)

Season Five
What to Do on a Date, The Truck Farmer, Body Care and Grooming, Is This Love?, Cheating, What About Juvenile Delinquency? (1st part, 2nd part), Last Clear Chance, Design for Dreaming

Season Six
A Date With Your Family, The Selling Wizard, Uncle Jim's Dairy Farm, A Day at the Fair, Why Study Industrial Arts?, Young Man's Fancy, Keeping Neat and Clean, Are You Ready for Marriage?, Out of this World, Speech: Platform Posture and Appearance, Money Talks!, Progress Island U.S.A., The Days of our Years

Season Seven
Once Upon a Honeymoon, The Chicken of Tomorrow (1st part, 2nd part) 

Season Nine
Century 21 Calling, Robot Rumpus

Season Ten
A Case of Spring Fever

My favourites?
Aquatic Wizards, Mister B Natural, The Home Economics Story, Johnny at the Fair, Hired!, Last Clear Chance, Design for Dreaming, Why Study Industrial Arts, Keeping Neat and Clean, One Upon a Honeymoon, 21st Century Calling and A Case of Spring fever which (I'm pretty sure was the 1st MST3K thing I ever saw)

Enjoy!

Electric Picnic lineup.



I HAVE TO GO TO THIS
[Edit] This is from the faq.

Q: How much beer can I bring in with me?
A: 48 cans per person.

Nice.

If you don't know what MST3k is click here or here

These are my very favourite episodes categorised and linked with full video where I can for your enjoyment.

Oh the Japanity!
The 5 Gamera films
It's basically Godzilla but with a turtle
Gamera
Gamera vs Barugon
Gamera vs Gaos
Gamera vs Guiron
Gamera vs Zigra

These next movies taught me that japanese people hate underpants
Prince of Space (we like it very much)
Invasion of the Neptune Men (Oh no! Not the Hitler Building!)

This is basically a japanese version of Planet of the Apes
Time of the Apes (I don't care)


Existential Excercises in Nihilism
These are the most depressing films ever made, with unredeemable characters with no morals and no redemption. Some of these films are downright Lynchian.
The Brain that Wouldn't Die
Attack of the Giant Leeches
Manos: the Hands of Fate
Night of the Blood Beast
Devil Doll
The Leech Woman
The Undead

Coleman Francis
MST3K covered all three of Coleman's films. When you watch them you'll discover why I put him in his own category.
The Beast of Yucca Flats
Red Zone Cuba
The Skydivers

The Christmas Films
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
Santa Claus

Good old Fashioned B-Movies
Collosus and the Headhunters
Danger Death Ray
The Deadly Mantis
The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Loving and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?
Revenge of the Creature
Villiage of the Giants
The Amazing Transparent Man
Squirm

The Seventies
Not a great decade for film making if these are any indication
Laserblast
Parts: The Clonus Horror
Riding with Death

Oh no, the EIGHTIES
Are all these films from the eighties? Who knows. My sleep addled brain certainly thinks so.
Alien from LA
Outlaw
Zombie Nightmare
Escape 2000
Space Mutiny
Hobgoblins

The Nineties
Should that be ninties? Nineties? Sounds like nin-e-ties. Whatever.
The Final Sacrifice
The Touch of Satan
Werewolf (Keep an eye out for Joe "Not Martin Sheen" Estevez)
Future War

The Joe Don Baker Collection
Never before has a film's hero been so puffy.
Mitchell (Not a great episode but I needed to round out this category)
Final Justice

British Films
These films are so british their British-ness just comes of the screen.
The Deadly Bees
The Projected Man

Goofball capers
These films will make your eyeballs hurt
The Wildworld of Batwoman
Samson vs the Vampire Women
Jack Frost
The Pumaman
Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders

The Rest
I... I couldn't figure out where to put these...
Space Travellers
Last of the Wild Horses
Girl in Gold Boots

All are google video where possible but if you can't find an episode you are looking for here is probably the best bet.

New to the show?
Here's the making of Part one, two, three.

Outtakes part one, two, three, four.

Where to start? Revenge of the Creature, Night of the Blood Beast, Prince of Space, the Final Sacrifice or Santa Claus. They're all great though.

Favourite Episode? Lets see... Samson vs the Vampire Women, Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders and Jack Frost.

Worst film they've ever done? Manos.

It looks kinda like crayon physics except you can do more.

[Edit] Oh yeah, and it's FREE.

I was trying to figure out sweet road by Animal Collective

Yes that was the best video I could fine of that song.

I didn't figure it out but I did come up with something that sounds similiar.

D-------------------------------------------------------------------------
A----------5--------------------------------------------------------------
F#---------------------3-------------------------------------------------
D-----4-----------------------------4--------------2--------------------
A----------------5--------------------------------------------------------
D-----------------------------5-------------2----------------------------

Play quickly a couple of times and then play open d chord quickly like 1-2-3-4.

You will quickly notice that it sounds nothing like the song up there but I never did say I was good at figuring out tunes did I?

Unnnnnnnghh... I completely forgot about this. The blasphemy law PASSED in the Dail. It just needs to get voted in the Seanad and then the president can sign it in.

Well, I know there's only one Irish person reading this but can you spread the word that there'll be a meeting this Saturday between 2-5pm in Wynnes Hotel Dublin. (That's whoever wants to, not the one Irish person)

I don't think I'll be able to go because I have to study.

Free speech is important guys.

I don't know if Hanna is a morning person or not, maybe I am just projecting.

I coloured in CMYK, dithered it and then converted it to greyscale. Maybe the colours I used were too dark? I meant to add shadow anyway.
I know she rarely colours in her characters I was just experimenting.

Wanna show me what's what? Oh and my brush pen is just.... holding it.... hooooooolding iiiiiiiiiit.....

Oh, hang on I figured out there's a slider for pattern size. Never mind. If you still want to try to colour it your more than welcome!

Oh, bollox. I just realised I left some white on the side. Shit. I think I prefer this one. Not sure though.


Made the lines brown for this one. It does an ok job of bringing all the lines together. It makes the loaf of bread look awful though!

I was at home with no internet so I couldn't use any of your excellent advice I had to figure out my own way of doing it.

Oh, and if you want to have a go at colouring, the plain line art is right here.

For notebookery. Wanna feel prepared when it arrives.

Can't figure our lineart though. I wanted to colour this quickly. No matter how often I dick around with the levels curves and convert to lineart there are still tiny dots of white.

Maybe it's a bad scan. I'll try it again later. Still working on that Pikmin picture.

I think at this stage it's more of an all grown up version of Olimar's daughter than a gender swap of Olimar. Not even sure what that would look like actually. He's pretty androgenous. Oh, haha! I just remembered that time I turned him into a sex fiend! Oh man...


As you can see I had no idea how to make line art back then. Which was... August last year, dang...

Oh, and here is my character from fallout 3

His name is Anath. I thought that was a cool name.

Some great books this month!

The Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson. This is probably the best book of his that I've read with the possible exception of A brief History of Nearly Everything
Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. This was hands down the best book I've read so far this year.
French Milk by Lucy Knisley. I ordered this for my birthday in March back in December but I only got it a few weeks ago. Totally worth the wait though!
Pyongyang by Guy DeLisle. I remember hearing about this guy somewhere a while back and picked this up because I'm interested in North Korea. Guys, what a find! Keep an eye out for it.
Skim by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki. I've heard about this one for ages, even with all the hype it exceeded my expectations. Beautiful.

Oh, and here's what I'm working on at the moment.

chamonkee  was talking about doing gender swaps on characters so I decided to try out Olimar from Pikmin. As I was doing it it kind of turned into something else. Maybe Olimar has a daughter? I wish I had a lightbox because already I see things that I'd like to change with it.

*The waist of the skirt could do with being higher.
*Better placement of the bewbs and buttons around the bag strap.
*Open the bag so she's reaching in and taking out some pencils

I'll try my hand at doing a background too, and maybe put a pikmin in. Oh, and you wont hear too much from me because I'm studying for some repeats in August but I'll pop in every now and then to comment on your journals and post some new art. Oh and I'm reading The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene at the moment. It's pretty trippy. Oh, also my character from fallout 3 is at level 13 now. (Nice) I thought I was pretty invincible until I got attacked by a death claw and two of those hideously mutated giant bears.

EEEEEEEEEEEEE My half of Lucy's art trade is in her office!



(It's to the right of her screen)

It isn't any good but there it is anyway.

[Edit] Uhhh... left?? Too drunk, not gonna lie to you guys.