I know it's not Friday today silly! This is for a website called Illustration Friday which gives out a topic every week and you draw a corresponding picture. This week's topic was "Thanksgiving" and since we don't celebrate it here in Scotland I kinda made a wee scene instead. This one is a bit of a rush job because I'm pretty busy right now but I kinda like it. I'll try to do this every week.
Owls & Mice
Hello again. How are you? I'm quite tired.
I'm trying to post something every day on this here place. I guess when I've nothing brand new, I'll post something old that maybe hasn't been seen by too many people. Here we go:
This is a kinda test idea thing I did for a comic I was thinking about. I never got much further than this, but it's still something I'd like to follow up. I reckon seeing the owls and mice duke it out would make a good silent comic. Kinda like in Monkey vs Robot by James Kochalka. I'd probably focus a lot on their wee cultures though, because it's really damn hard to work out how the mice would kill the owls. Maybe other animals could get involved.
Popcorn & Juice
A wee doodle of some popcorn and some juice. Just like at the cinema!
Oh, I've been playing with Google Analytics. It's a free thing that you can sign up for that tells you about all the traffic and stuff for your blog or site. It goes into crazy detail about what people searched for to get there and what they clicked etc. It's full of graphs and maps and logs and junk. Google rocks!
This Is A Poster
I knocked this out real quick for the Alter:Ego indie night up at Stirling Uni. There are buses people need to know about:
I'm struggling a bit with graphics and stuff these days. It's a time thing I think. I used to spend forever getting everything just right and I'd end up with something I was really proud of. Having to bang stuff out in an hour or two results in a disproportioate drop in quality which isn't so cool. I'm real rusty on graphics and type and stuff these days, but doing stuff quick stuff is getting slightly better. Too much drawing and not enough designing I guess. I'll practice more.
Oh no, I played some computer games!
I've been playing a couple of my favourite games again recently and thought I'd give them mad props. They're not totally rare or anything but as far as computer games go they're pretty much the tastiest dishes by the best chefs and served by the politest waiters. If you've not done nothing but shooting or racing for a while then get your grubby mits on these.
Shadow of the Colossus was out last year maybe. It's a sad, stripped down, silent affairthat'll blow you away. It's the gaming equivalent of the elephant at the zoo being put to sleep because it's too old and it's for the best.
I'm not gonna start a gaming blog here so I wont go into mad detail but damn, just buy the thing. The character design is some of the best I've ever seen and it's got more atmosphere and depth in its slight story than any corny RPG epic.
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ICO, made by the same folk a few years back is a related game and maybe my favourite ever. Again, it's all vague and atmospheric and seems to come from a very different place from every other game cutting about.
You play a boy who escapes from being left as a sacrifice in a massive castle and all you've got to do is find a way out. Along the way you meet a girl and pretty much just move from puzzle to puzzle trying to keep her safe. It's ruddy-bloody brilliant.
Both games are out on PS2 and ICO is even a re-release that you can get for like £20. Get the nice box for Shadow of the Colossus with the postcards and such. You can get the first edition of ICO on ebay maybe but it's cost you a pretty penny.
Gimmie Five
Ok, hello! A small post today to get me back into writing this.
I've got to finish off a bunch of things such as tidying and finances before I can sit down to draw, so nothing new today. It's annoying because there are about 3 fairly important drawingy things coming up and I've not got the foggiest what I'm gonna do. Not the foggiest.
This is a picture I did for the "Complete Control" exhibition at Flesh in Edinburgh. My friend Concetta bought it which was really nice. It's called "Gimmie Five".
I had the idea to do a few more of these playing other games such as "Slappy" or "Knuckly" but I never really got round to it. The Flesh exhibition was really good with stuff from Elph, Rue Five, Gopherhead and all that crowd. I hope they put on more in the future. My favourite thing was by Alexa Cameron but goddamn it was huge and expensive so I didn't buy it.
Bye!
Blog News
Hello.
I've decided to start using this place again because I need to put some stuff online and I like blogger - it's pretty slick. Instead of starting a new blog from scratch I've just deleted and editied a few terrible posts from this one. It'll hopefully start looking a little nicer when I work out the html junk and I'll eventually twin it with my new website when it goes online.
As far as content goes it'll be a combination of what I'm working on and what I'm looking at.
Cheerio x
Remember guitars!
I was trying to draw some watercolour things for ages, four at once, but they were going nowhere. I had to give up - they just looked awful. Sometimes you can see a picture in your head but your hand just says "sorry buddy, today I am not doing this". I got up all angry but sat back down and decided I would at least draw something. I did these guitars in a few seconds and I like them.
See you later.
Red & Black pictures!
Hello. It's been a while.
Here are some little red & black drawings I've been doing recently. They've been posted in bits and pieces in lots of different places. I thought I'd them here though because this place is good for making things look nice and such. They're a bit bigger than a postcard in real life and are in wee frames.
I did 4 for the 'Rouge' show at Flesh in Edinburgh. I was in such a hurry I didn't get a chance to scan them though. A couple of them were maybe the best but nevermind.
I gave a few of these ones in at Flesh a few weeks later as well. I have no idea what's been done with them. If they still have them you should maybe buy them or something. That'd be pretty cool I guess.
Another two were a birthday present for someone. There are two more I might post if I don't do anything new but they aren't so great. If you click on these little ones you can see them big and look at all my mistakes.
Sorry if this post looks all crummy. The way it looks right now to me is okay but you know how things can be with alignment and junk.
What else is happening? Not much really. I'm going to send some emails and phone UPS now but that isn't very exciting really. I hope you are doing something more exciting than that. I hope you are going to have some nice food outside in the sun or buy that thing in the shop you've been wanting.
Maybe I will post something else soon! Bye.
Another drawing!
Look:
I could be wasting my time with these things.
A monkey
Hello. Welcome to the blog. There were originally a few posts before this one but I've deleted them because they were kinda rubbish.
Here is a picture I drew ten minutes ago. It's just a doodle to see if what I'm thinking of is a good idea or a bad idea:
I quite like this monkey and his petrol station even if the building is shockingly drawn. If I take my time on the next one it will have been a good idea.
Bye for now!