Operation Devil Sauce

Gave the ol' project in today, as, judging by the various personal messages people have set on Facebook, everyone else has. Can't help but feel I didnt do enough REAL work for this project, but then I guess it was focusing on research more than anything else. Still...maybe I'm just lazy? Yeh, that's probably it.


I've been toying with some new inking ideas recently. Though I do prefer to work in flash when it comes to drawing mostly, playing with photoshop for the majority of this assignment has got me inspired. Problem is, I dont really have access to a scanner at home (My printer/scanner is still back home, and I cant really be bothered to bring it here. Plus I dont really have the space) and these things I want to try will require hand drawing. I guess I could use the scanner in college, but I dont really like the idea of using it for personal stuff. I wonder how much a cheap flatbed scanner is?


On a scale of one to ten, how geeky would it be to get a T-shirt printed off that says "Level 89 Sock Maker"? I've always wanted one, and I noticed the other day on the way home that theres a custom clothes shop. They design hoodies, sweatshirts, t-shirts, etc. Now, they probably mostly do work for business, but it couldnt hurt to ask, right? I was thinking something like this.

That is quite an old image now. A character profile from a webcomic I tried to get off the ground a while back (Called the radioactive frying pan) but was to lazy to bother to update it. Anyway, this sort of brings me onto my next idea. I've always been a big fan of the idea of being part of a website team. I've had a few websites in my time, but not REAL websites, im talking more about the sort of website you make when your 13 and show your parents, and they're amazed since they don't really understand just how easy it is to actually make a website nowadays (I just typed "nowadays", is that allowed? I don't want to offend those guys and gals down at oxford...). Now, for those of you who into the internet "scene" (I feel like I should be wearing a black beret after using that word), and have been watching out for traps, getting rickrolled, firing lazers, being disappointed since the pool is closed or just posting pictures of cats doing various things with humourous captions on numerous internet forums, you probably know how webcomic websites work. Some guy, usually working in a dead end job, wants attention, so he picks up a pencil and some paper and scribbles some shit on it. He adds a speech bubble with some kind of generic sarcastic comment or perhaps just a poor attempt at a joke if he's american. He does this once a week, in the hope that people will pay attention, at which points he starts to bitch about his life and maybe try to sell some custom t-shirts. My idea is similar to this...kind of...without the t-shirts.


I've gone off a tangent again. Lets go back to my original idea shall we? From what I have seen of the class thus far, there are alot of extremely talented people knocking about. Thats right, im talking to you! Yes you! No, not you person sitting in the chair infront of the screen, the person behind you. We have webdesigners, photo-edittors, aspiring animators (That would be me) and just digital artists (That would include me again...what? Its my blog, I can talk about myself if I bloody well please!). Now, we could all just get deviantart accounts and emo it up. And dont get me wrong, as fantastic as that would be, it would also be a little bit...well...crap. (Oh how I do wish I could have used my favorite word right there, but no, apparently im not allowed to swear because the examiner has a weak stomach. THATS RIGHT, IM TALKING TO YOU MR. EXAMINER! YOU CANT HOLD ME BACK WITH YOUR SWEAR WORD-HATING WAYS! Whats wrong with swear words anyway? Literature has evolved. They're no longer seen as the vile lowly outcasts of linguistics that they once were. No sir. They are enhancers. They are the Red-bull of language. The Caffine of Spoken Word. The Viagra of Sound! Im going off on a tangent again...).


My proposition is simple. A website run for the class, by the class. A space within which each person (who cares to) adds a little bit each week. It doesnt have to be anything specfic. It could be anything at all. Sure, we have blogs, but lets face it, they're a bit drab and pointless. A website where each member of the class has a section her or she can update with images and posts would be much easier to browse and probably alot more fun for the posters themselves. We're also alot more likely to get outside viewers if a website is run. (Who really types in www.blogspot.com and starts searching for blogs by digital media design students? lets face it, no one does). It would be nice to get some public input on work (be it course related or not) and we could even get a little webcomic going amongst the digital artists (much like the creators of Cyanide & Happiness). Its something to think about at least. I'll probably mention it to some of you on monday, since its pretty unlikely more than one person is going to read this.




This is Moe hammerhead, the talking Muslim shark...yeah...and im posting this because...well...erm...I guess any mail is good mail, even if its hate mail...

verdana is the font of choice

Well, in yet another fantastic move towards my future success, I have managed to forget my external hard drive today. Considering I had hoped to print off all the research stuff I'd done, this puts me in something in a pickle, as I was hoping to hand in all the work tomorrow. It also means once again, Im stuck with noting to do. I would probably forget my own head if it wasn't attached to my spine. I spent the first part of the lesson just looking through Wikipedia and looking for written history on the actual comic history, something until now I haven't really explored. I guess it is something that I do need to look into, but im more of a visual thinker. Don't misunderstand, I do love to read. A Great deal of my free time is spent on wikipedia just looking up random things, for example, did you know that in Demonology, Amon is a Marquis of hell?  He is the Seventh of the 72 demons to appear in King Solomon's Key. 

  My fascination with random bits of information and historical myths started, funnily enough, when I was working at PC World. Basically, it was the worst job you could ever work, and frequently you would be given till duty. Now, because PC World does price matching, the tills had internet access, which also meant you could use internet explorer. Whilst most non-relevant sites were blocked, Wikipedia was not. Since I so frequently had till duty, mostly in the quiet hours of business, I would spend my time reading wikipedia. I started off on basic stuff like, the background of Mr. Blobby (A subject of great interest to all the great academic minds of the 21st century) but quickly became bored with the novelty stuff. I've always had a interest in myths and stuff, I mean essentially, its works of fiction from the past, so I decided to look into them. By the way, harry just asked me to mention that he "Luvz wikipedia LOADS". He also asked me to type it in an incoherent wa

y, but this is the best I could muster without making him seem like to much of a blubbering idiot. He also wants me to mention the fact he's ginger. I guess this goes back to what I mentioned in my last blog about subconscious social self-defense mechanisms. Now he wants me to remove it all. Fat chance.

  I've gone off on a tangent haven't I? Well, One O'clock is creeping round, and I've managed to get a bit more research done, which I'll  be sticking into my sketchbook tonight. I think its going to be an all nighter to get everything perfect. I've also got to find this "Clarks" shop so I can get some spray mount, a scalpel and a big ol' metal ruler. So yar, I'll sign off here. Oh, also, I got my USB pen back, and it still has all my stuff on it, so I'll upload something from it, since I did promise a picture-per-post.

(This is a character from a webcomic I started working on before coming to Brighton, that I haven't picked back up on. The comic is called Dead Collectors, and I'll probably be continuing it at some point. I managed to get one strip completed so far, which i'll also upload at some point).

The Mysteries of life...

Some days I wake up feeling like an activist, thinking to myself "People need to do what they can to help the enviroment and stop global warming", other days I wake up thinking "Eventually our sun will implode into a black hole and consume the entire solar system, so whats the real point in it all anyway?". Most days however, I wake up thinking neither, but if they were to reflect how my day was to go on, today I definately woke up thinking the later. Maybe im just a procrastinator by nature to such an extent I dont even realise it, but I just couldn't get anything done. Im trying to put the "Coup de grâce" (Wikipedia defines this as "a death blow intended to end the suffering of a wounded creature", which sounds about right) on my poster for this topic. Im happy with what i've produced so far, but its left me...uncomfortable. I should probably expand on that. I'm not talking about uncomfortable like when you find out the guy next door is a registered sex offender, or when you discover a third nipple. No, im not even talking about uncomfortable when you remove your headphones and hear the end of one of Harry and Bob's conversations. Something is missing, I havent been able to put my finger on it all day.

I like the layout, I even like the little quote I stole out of my shiney new book in a desperate attempt to justify the £21 I spent on it to myself. But its not a poster. Not yet. I tried adding a big Title in the middle, in a sort of "BANG" speech bubble (We've all seen the Adam West batman series, dont pretend you dont know what I mean). I tried some nice neat text at the top, I tried mixing up some text and shapes, but nothing has met my extremely mediocre standards yet.


That aside, I managed to get the cable for my camera sent to me, so im going to set the poster aside for a moment and get some more research down into my sketchbook. Its quite a pain, to be honest. I mean, obviously I went through a thought process to come to where I am, and I should show that in a sketch book, but my mind is a scary place, and I dont like going in there very much. I tend to act as a think, and not really make a note of how or why I do things. If I see something I like, I'll do something about it, I dont tend to sit and think "Hmm, well, the contrast of colours of that Advocado are essentially bringing the rest of the image to life, the technique is marvelous, I must make a note of it", its more like "Do it".


It kind of reflects my personality. I direct this at you reader, because if someone is going to be reading it, its going to be someone from my class, which means you know me, which means you havent known me for long. I tend to do things as I think of them, so let me warn you, try to take most of the things I do and say with a pinch of salt. If I say something insulting, I probably didnt mean it. If I do something incredibly rude, such as set your automobile or other choice of transportation alight, I was probably just acting on an impulse. Why am I even telling you this? I dont know, I just started typing and this is what I typed. The same goes for my personality. I was made aware (I dont notice them myself) last year, by a work collegue, that I have roughly 4 different "Personalities" and I switch between them on a whim. Now, I know we all like to think we're a little insane, its kind of the "In" thing these days isnt it? But like I said, its not something I noticed myself, it was pointed out to me by a work mate, and then confirmed by various others.


Speaking of which, it kind of makes you wonder, "Why do people always say "Im a little bit weird" or "Im a little bit geeky" or "Im a little bit insane" when you first meet them these days? Is it like an automated social defense we develop? You know, kind of like "If I tell him im a little insane then maybe he wont notice these giant tendrils pertruding from my forehead" or "If I tell her im a bit weird maybe she'll be ok with the fact that I have a baboons heart". But then, its even become COOL to be weird, you get people dressing up in these ridiculous outfits and acting in ridiculous ways that you just know they're putting it all on. I mean, Burberry! Have you ever seen anything stranger? If its socially acceptable to wear Burberry, I dont see why it would be frowned upon for me to run rampant in the streets weraring a cape waving a sword around. I dont think that sentence made much sense, but there is no way im going to go back and edit it.


So, lets talk animation for a second. Anyone in the class who's a fan of animation, I say this to you, check out the Studio Ghibili stuff. You've probably seen Spirited Away at some point in your life, whether you realise it or not, but they have produced some really incredible and beautiful feature length films. In terms of animation, my favorite by far is "Tales from Earthsea". The Animation in this film is just incredible. It actually totally changed the way I think about animation. The film has pretty nice artwork too, and the story isnt too bad, but its clear the focus with this production was just a really immense deducation to incredible animation. Theres a "comfort" level there you just dont get from most animation. I wont explain what I mean by that now, but if your curious ask me. Of course, all their films are pretty intense, and all worth a watch. Of those I'd recommend watching as soon as possible, theres "Tales from Earthsea", "Spirited Away", "Howl's Moving Castle", "Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence" (this one sort of depends whether or not you enjoy anime or not, but its still worth a watch), "Princess Mononoke" and "Grave of the Fireflies". The studio has been animating since the mid 80's, so they've produced a really nice mix, which are all worth a watch. I mean, they've done loads more, all of which you should watch in my opinion, but take a look at those ones in particular.


Well, I could continue, but I need to crack on with some work, so yeh, on I crack. But first, a shower...







(When blogging from home, I will try to add a random picture I've drawn in the past or whipped up then and there, to spice things up a bit. This particular one was drawn to put on my bedroom door at home, to stop people from banging on my door and waking me up).

Hmm...

I'm currently sitting in class a bit bored. I don't really feel like I can produce much more of relevance today, so Im just kind of wasting time by writing my blog.  Sure, I could probably force myself to work, but after photoshop crashed for the third time, I kind of feel anything I force myself to produce is going to be relatively sucky. Matt is putting stuff in his folder next to me, and Harrison is writing stuff into his sketchbook. I am listening to the song "Waiting for the world to change" by John Mayer. As I finished typing that sentence the song finished. Give me a second to find another song. Right. Okay, now im listening to "Trains" by Porcupine Tree.

So anyway, I moved house at the weekend, which is pretty cool. I've slept so much better in the last few nights, and its cool to be able to use the kitchen as and when I want to. Just went on a break and came back. What to write about? Money is getting tight, im going to have to get a job soon me-thinks. Problem is, I need to go home for christmas and holidays, and every few weeks, so it needs to be a job with flexible hours that will let me take unpaid holiday when I need it. For now im just going to apply at a Tesco's Express and if they're tight with vacation time, i'll just quit at christmas.

So how is my poster coming along? Well im pretty happy with it, its not astounding, but it fights the specification (I think) and thats what I was going for at the end of the day. The fact im happy with it at least shows it not total crap, since I am generally my own worst critic. It is missing something at the moment, but with any luck i'll be able to figure out what that is and give it the final touch. Harry just decided to peer across at what I was typing. I cant really be bothered to write anymore. Meh. Thats it for now.

Posters...

Well, I spent all of today working on my 3 poster designs. After Julie came over and pretty much destroyed my previous ideas I decided to rethink my angle. I came up with some new ideas, and at the same time developed some of the existing ones. Im pretty happy with what ive produced, but am a little worried they're not "flashy" enough. I've always been a fan of the "less is more" way of thinking. I dont like clutter. But I could just be lazy? Oh well. Guess I'll find out what people think tomorrow if I can ever get these damn files to burn onto CD...

My History & Animation...

Ok, so I caved and im going to write a little bit.

Warning - I do tend to ramble and go off subject frequently, read at own risk...


The main reason I'm on the course I am, "Digital Media Design", is because I have a great love of both animation and digital art. I'm far from a pro in either department but I'm hoping to improve vastly in the next three years. Everything I know and do is self-taught. I always felt pretty constrained back at school when it came to art, being told to produce this like such, and do that like this. I remember back in year 11 I suggested the use of photoshop to an art teacher (this was about 4 years ago now?) and she told me that wasnt art, and then went about complaining that the way I had drawn something was wrong. (She wasnt exactly the biggest encouragement when it came to free thinking and originality). When I finished secondary school I was left not wanting to study art again for this reason, and when I went into college I studied an ICT topic. Whilst studying that, I really got into Flash and started to spend alot of time on it.


At first I was mostly influence by videgames and webcomics that friends had linked me too, and infact tried to set up my own webcomic, called JUD Junkies. It was a failure, since at the time I was still sort of coming to grips with actually digital editting. At first I attempted to draw and colour in photoshop, but I wasnt happy with the results. After a few trial-and-error attempts I found a method I quite liked. I started drawing out my characters by hand, scanning them in to photoshop, cleaning up any cracks of speckles left by the scanning process and thickening any blacklines I didnt think would survive through to flash. Then I would import the scans into a program called "Steamline", I never really toyed with this program, so in all honesty I dont know what its main purpose was, but I would use it to convert the pixel-based images I had scanned into vectors. This then allowed me to import into flash and edit images in here. Flash gives some of the most nicest lines ive come across, and they're so easy to alter and shape. As time went on I got better at using flash, as can be seen in most of my webcomics, then I bought a tablet and really got going. I stuck to using the same method for a while, only using the tablet now and then I decided to start drawing things fully digitally. I got mixed results at first, but finally found a style of producing work that I liked, usually drawing 2 or 3 layers of "rough" lineart, in several shades of gray, and then on a new layer, of the top, drawing a final, neat layer of the final lineart. Whilst this sped up the process a great deal, by the point I had already given up on my webcomic. I still prefer to work in flash due to the incredible results that you can get and the ease of use with a tablet, however, im also trying to get myself to work in photoshop and illustrator more.


As far as animation goes, its something I really enjoy, though so far I have only really dabled. I've produced quite a few simple, animated .gifs and few animated "cartoons", though nothing longer then 2 minutes really. In the future I hope to produce more interactive animations, maybe even some flash games.



So there you go, I warned you I rambled. This post was originally going to be about why I like animation so much, and some suggestions on some really good animations to watch...oh well, maybe next post.

Cripes...I forgot my old account...

Well, I went to post in my blog today, but I forgot my login for it, and for some reason, no matter how much I tried, couldn't get blogger.com to send me my user name or password. So Im starting a-fresh. I guess I'll "Repost" my first blog under this...


"Today I woke up at 8:53, it was cold, I did not want to get out from under the sheets, but I had to drag my sorry ass into the shower so I could wake up, ready for that damn course im doing at brighton college. Honestly, I hate getting up early, and having to see those damn class mates of mine so early in the morning...jesus wept, sometimes I just want to kill everything that moves...

Only kidding, this is my first blog, and if I should ever choose to update this thing, which I probably will since I do like to ramble an rant, it'll probably follow my life at Brighton University. I currently live in Phoenix Brewery Halls, where we are suffering from a pigeon epidemic. They "poop" EVERYWHERE. If the kitchen window is left open, you better believe they're going to fly in and crap aaaall over the kitchen table and work top...but I'm going off the matter at hand. I dont actually have the internet at the halls right now, and whole process for setting it up is pretty crappy, what this essentially means is I wont be updating this blog anytime soon...so yeh. More to come? Possibly, but lets hope not eh?"



So yeh, after all that aggro I cant be assed to write about my day now...