That's that then. I'm pretty much done university wise until the end of the summer. When I will be facing the dark at the end of the tunnel. The final year of education.

Anxious to get my results for this year. I feel I've done some of the best stuff I've ever done, alongside some seriously half-arsed projects (that you haven't and probably won't see on here), so I'm expecting a quite good but not outstanding mark.

Intend to do lots of personal stuff and also fingers crossed to clear my backlog of requests and such in the coming weeks. I could be very pessimistic and point out that I've made similar claims numerous times before and not entirely followed up on them but that sort of attitude isn't really what I need right now.

But enough about me.

How are YOU doing, unsuspecting reader?

As a result of my idiotic procrastination and apparent desire to keep life as stressful as possible, I seem to have ended up with the majority of 2 projects to finish in under a week.

If all goes to plan, no less than TEN comics of varying styles and pseudonyms will stem from my hand over the next 5 days. AND a short, fully scored animation also tackling various styles and subject matter.

My down key doesn't work properly.

This is stupid. I may not survive this.

I got back from Chicago a couple of weeks ago now. It was only a 5 day trip but it was a lot of fun and a cool experience. I'm now off from uni for 4 weeks (well, 3 and a bit now) and now have a project to do based on it. Which I don't really have any strong crazy ideas for, but I'm sure something will arise.

Sorry for the lack of updates lately (I realise I'm essentially apologising to a website here, but I don't care). I haven't done a great amount worth uploading of late, lots of okish sketches and doodles and some uninspired (and unfinished) project work. I'm gonna be (hopefully) doing some pieces just for me and maybe developing some of the comic/narrative ideas that have been a brewin' the last few months. And then getting on with the chicago project which I'm determined to make the best thing I've done this year. Which shouldn't really be that hard.

I'm done.

I'm off to Chicago tomorrow morning!
I'll let you know all about it when I get back.

Fact: If you screenshot my grand 40k you get a request.

[link]

So yeah, I have started a tumblelog on Tumblr. If any of you watchers have one I'd love to follow you on it. It's a very simple blogging setup. You just post single images or videos or pieces of text with little or additional information. You can do this very quickly with a bookmark button you can add so you can keep a little log of the cool things you find on the web. And you can reblog things found on other peoples tumblrs with a simple click.

So if anyone is interested I'm going to be keeping a daily log of inspirational images, artists and pages I find on my many procrastination fuelled web adventures. It'd be great to see what all you look at!

Also, I have recently tarted up my main blog and would love you all to take a lil look! [link]

Oh, and Happy New Year!

It seems like it's time for a new journal update, although really I don't have anything to say. What have I been up to lately..
I've been doing a lot of looking at, thinking about, worrying about and stressing over artwork a lot. I'm not doing as much drawing as I should be/would like to and when I do do artwork I'm not sure if it's what I should be doing, am I furthering myself, am I enjoying this? Who knows..

I'm plodding through though. I hope to get a bunch of art-type things off my chest and off my back over the christmas period, but the big fat leech in the corner that is university work is looming already.

It's not been a good year but I'm looking forward to christmas and the new year. Hopefully 2009 will be a symbolic fresh start and I can get the hamster wheel of motivation rolling again.

Oh god, I must apologise if my recent artwork has appeared a bit too lurid or contrasty. I've been working on my laptop since summer and only after putting it side by side with my real monitor have I realised how off the colour is. It's actually really annoyed me to come back on here to see that none of my pictures actually look as I intended them to.

In case I don't get round to doing another of these, I hope you all have a wonderful christmas.

[link] <-- My blog, not as updated as I had hoped, but please subscribe because if you don't, you never know, I may have a spurt of enthusiasm, and then you'll miss all kinds of interesting and cool stuff and that'd suck for you.

I am hereby announcing my ascent into the blogosphere.

[link]

I'm going to be posting a mix of my final stuff, my sketches and doodles, works in progress, stuff that I've seen and liked, inspirational youtube videos, interesting links etc. I'm gonna try and post dailyish and it's going to be more a journal of things I've actually done and looked at than a journal of summing up the mundane events of the last week.

I don't envision there will be flocks of people following it intently, but you know, why not add it to your favourites.
Or better yet, add it to your RSS feed reader! If you don't have a reader, then get with the times homes. Click on your google account, open up the reader and get subscribing.

My internet is still being incredibly, incredibly lame, but I've worked out that if I unplug it and plug it in again, I get a guaranteed nice connection for about 10 whole minutes!

The connection in this room is driving me mad. I wouldn't mind so much if it was consistently slow or something, but it wildly veers between fine and completely unusable at random times. It will be working fine, then effectively cut off for about 10 minutes for seemingly no reason, often just as I try to post something or send an email, probably just to piss me off. All the more annoying is that certain people in the house don't seem to have a problem..

It makes web adventures very frustrating. I have 500+ pictures in my devwatch and 1000+ blog posts to sift through in my google reader and it's barely worth trying to go through them.

Oh yeah, and I turned 21 recently.

Right, I am back in Loughborough and back on my course. I've moved into a new house and I live in the loft, which in many ways is cool. It has pros and cons. I don't have a proper window. But I do have a cool little tunnel that leads to a small window that I can stick my head out of and look across the rooftops. I have the worlds smallest and most useless desk. But I do have lots of floor space and for the first time in my life, a staircase in my room (who hasn't dreamed of that?).
The summer project I slaved and panicked over came to a bit of an anti climax. I only showed part of it very quickly, but I did get a pretty positive response, so that's all good really. I'm having a little trouble getting properly into the swing of my current projects, but I think this will drastically improve when I get some decent places for storage and (hopefully) a new and more sizeable desk.
I've got a bit of a backlog of things to upload here, dA hasn't really been my priority, but now my routine is starting to form I'll get it all up and begin the flow of new goodness.

Cranial Discharge

That bears no significance to anything. It just popped into my head and it sounds cool so I'm typing it here so I don't forget it.

My Grandad died on Tuesday. The last couple of days have been tough and extremely strange. Everyone is holding up relatively well though. It's been a terrible few months, for him and for all who loved him, but I think there is a feeling of relief that he is finally at peace now.

He will be greatly, greatly missed.

Things aren't too good here. My grandad's been ill for quite a while now. He took a few turns for the worse lately and he's in a hospice now. He doesn't have long left and he's not well at all so it's an emotional time for all the family really.
So as of most of the last week (excluding a brief few days with ~LauriLover86) and the immediate future I'm staying at my grandparents house to be with the rest of the family. Most of this side of the family live close to each other in Teeside, though it's a 3 hour drive for us, hence staying away from home.
It's a strange time and I'm experiencing things I've never had to deal with before.

Of course it isn't the best environment to work in and I'm lacking most of my stuff so my summer project is only slowly chugging along and I'm never really in the mood for it.

And so much for summer. It's been violently pissing it down for what seems like weeks now.

Comment and I'll:
a) tell you how I know you
b) associate you with something - fandom, a song, a colour, a photo, etc.,
c) tell you something I like about you,
d) tell you a memory I have of you,
e) ask something I've always wanted to know about you,
f) tell you my favorite pic of yours,
g) in return, you must post this in your journal.

If you comment you must post this in your journal lollz.

Nicked from ~The-grimm-reeper

So maybe I have been slacking a bit. The regularly kept journal I am meant to be doing this summer is not being kept all too regularly. But this was completely predictable, so s'all good really. I'll get there.

Cool things of recent times.

I went to Latitude Festival and saw bands like Sigur Ros, Death Cab for Cutie, Franz Ferdinand, Elbow, Interpol, Blondie, Joanna Newsom, The Breeders and comedians like Bill Bailey and Ross Noble. There was lots of other cool arty stuff, theatre groups, an awesome sideshow freak show puppet show, nice tree-ridden scenery and pink sheep.

WALL-E! I thought it was amazing. Maybe Pixar's best. The animation was mindblowing and it was entertaining and touching throughout.

I bagged Of Montreal tickets.

Sam & Max. I was bought Hit the Road many years ago and it was probably the first game I ever finished. I finally played through the episode you can play for free on Gametap and it was great and has replenished my love for the freelance police. I shall be purchasing soon.

Psychonauts. This was recommended to me by someone here a while a go and I happened to notice it was playable for free via also Gametap. It turned out to be one of the most entertaining games I've ever played and I played through the whole thing over the last few days with my girlfriend. It's a straightforward platformer at heart, but the quality of the level design, writing, voice acting, humour, artwork, characters and animation are stupidly high and make for a very entertaining experience.

Everyone should check out gametap [link]. You can pay for a years subscription and have access to a massive library of games at your disposal. However you can download it for free and there is a decent selection of games you can play full for free, including the amazing Psychonauts, an episode of sam and max, tomb raider anniversary, hitman, thief, bloodrayne and loads of arcade oldies.

Or maybe it's best to avoid that kind of thing and just do your work.

I've been pretty absent from dA for a while as any one who checks in may have noticed. A few things have happened since the last check-in.
I finished my first year of uni and came out with a first for the main body of work which I was very pleased about.
I packed up and moved out of my room at Harry French halls, where I have been dwelling for the better part of the last 9 months and came home.
I went on holiday for a week to the Algarve in Portugal which was fun and has provided quite a bit of inspiration for the summer project I have been set. To keep an illustrated journal as often as I can throughout the summer. Naturally I've only just begun and I'm gonna backtrack through the events of the holiday to make what will hopefully be a quirky little documentation of my experience there.

In two weeks I'm going to latitude festival, which should be cool. Lots of good bands playing and a bunch of good comedians too. I'm hoping this will provide inspiration also.

Expect art soon. Maybe.

You were always way better than Neil Buchanan.

Well I finished my 160 project on time. I'm contemplating what to do with it now. I'm thinking about cutting it up, scanning them in one by one, and piecing them together into one mega-deviation. Or 10, 16 piece deviations, but I think the first idea would be cooler.

I have a break now. 4 weeks off, but numerous projects and personal aims. My checklist goes as follows.

- 5 Illustrations based on Lord of the Flies, The Time Machine or Under Milk Wood
- An A3 sketchbook full of observational drawings based on a certain location
- My input for a group presentation on the narrative techniques of Graphic Novels
- A photographic storyboard with an alternate version
- A poster/flyer done as a demonstration of my photoshop skills

- Competition entry for weezer albumsix boards. DONE
- CD cover for albumsix boards tribute album. DONE
- WAY overdue drawing I owe my cousin.
- Tattoo design for my aunty.
- Bunch of drawings and strips for the oft-delayed webcomic.
- Miscellaneous other things I owe people

Hands up if you think I'll manage it.