Misty Road

A misty road from stoke-on-trent to Edgmond. Well what I can remember of it as I was driving along whispering "Silent Hill......Silent Hill!" in a weird voice.



HAPPY NEW YEAR PEOPLE OF THE BLOGGING WORLD.

New years resolution:

(It's a 3 part resolution)

• To draw each day
• Finish my crafty projects instead of just starting them
• Launch my own website

Ciao 

Birthday presents and the such like

A few days late as it is no Christmas day, a wonderful white christmas with cars sliding to and from every where quite dangerously. Any way here is my birthday joy in picture form.

 The overwhelming joy of birthdays above.
I received:-

• Robot necklace
• Pyjamas
• Oriental serving set
• A mouse from the Gruffalo
• A sailor-esque t-shirt
• Art deco mug
• A zombie guide
• The first walking dead comic
• Bunny suicides book
• How to live safely in a science fiction universe
• A pencil ring
• and finally some chocolates (can't have a celebration with out them)

 This is also a hand - made card by my good friend Emma (also known as Teacups and joy) she knows my love of the clangers ....

sorry just had a pause to have an arguement about Doctor Who with my dear mother and her inability to tell the difference between volume and channel selection. >_<

so she decided to make it extra special for my birthday. Which is really nice because when your birhday falls so close to a major event people tend to overlook it. Not on purpose but it just happens when there;s so much going on.

To end I shall just say Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Till next time x

Waiting for my birthday ... : )

Just popped a few more logs on the kithcen woodburner. The Beagle was shivering, little mite.

I've just got home today for Christmas, packed more clothes than I could physically wear in three weeks and transported my P.C in its entirety back from Stoke-on-trent. I find it really hard to start writing now a days I used to write so much when I was convinced I'd be the next J.K Rowling, maybe I should try writing 500 hundred words a day then I'd find it easy to translate my scribbly thoughts.

Any way back home and its my birthday tomorrow so pretty excited, I'm turning .... ba ba baaaaaa .... 22. So much more sophisticated than 21 I believe, but its not that much of a difference really, I never have many big plans with it being so close to Christmas. A lot of people have spent their money on presents,  decorations and giant turkey's, so very little is left for paintballing or laser questing. Though I did get to see the new Harry Potter with some friends, it has to be my favourite one so far cinematography wise the imagery was just breath taking. Yet there was a scene of a certain sexual nature which never should have been and involved bleaching of my eyeballs shortly afterwards.

I finished my First semester of my final year. Though I learnt alot about time management, the more I look at it the more I think I could have done so much better, ah well onto the next semester.

Here it is:
The Beagle and the Shoe

Sorry only displays youtube vids for some reason :(

For  the rest of the night I believe is to be based around wine and comedy on BBC2.

Shall be posting soon about a project involving a burlesque egg called "Mistress Ouef"

sleepless nights so close to deadline

I have about 6 days left till a massive hand in and such little animation done (and so much left to do)it would make an industry professional qualm at the very sight of my schedule.

I am one of those people who is very good at making lists yet I either under estimate or over estimate the amount of work I can get done in a day, so my notebooks are full of so many to do lists the only one that doesn't make me feel inferior is my grocery list.

A few days ago I decided to get my sleeping pattern in order, to get my full 8 hours and lose the excuse of late nights for late starts. It lasted a day O_O as you can probably tell as I'm posting this at 2.32 a.m. Damn that one day of getting up on time was good, maybe thats why I don't want to go to sleep, afraid I'll sleep in and miss my Animation futures hand in. Thats the minor project which I've been slaving over the last few days and though it looks awesome and brought my folder to a quite substantial size (so much so I think it could be used as a deadly weapon if the situation ever occurred) it has left me irritable incomplete and sleep deprived.

I can't even drink till after my hand in because one glass of wine and my animation turns very questionable :S

Here is one visual achievement, I love my little business card design.

Top = back
Bottom = Front

P.s yes it is me and my mussy hair

I shall now love you and leave you. Sleep tight and appreciate those 8 hours if you are one of the lucky few getting them :)


Over and out x

Jellyfish postcard design

For part of our Animation futures we have to design postcards to send wit our C.V's . So I went back to the first model I was really proud off when I first started learning Maya.

Meet Jelly she's a little hippy jellyfish who just wants to be loved, she's almost a little personification of myself I made for a project called my small world. After re-creating her in this little pose for a postcard  I think I may go back over my original animation and work more on my timing. I realised today theres something special about looking back over past work. Especially improving on what you already have feels more rewarding as the ground work is already all there and your just fine tuning the details.

I'm even tempted to make little shorts with her as she is so awesome :)

Original small world: -  Click here to see Jelly in action


p.s ignore the intro and outro it was a last minute requirement so they could all be edited together

Hot cocoa and fuzzy meeps

Hey guys it has been too long since my last post and so much stuff has happened.

~ I've been to the euro gamer convention down in fair Londinium (expect a post on this soon)

~ My Third year has started like a whirlwind, 3 animations in three weeks. I almost died

~ Only recently everyone had been catching freshers flu and I was quite proud of the fact for once my immunity and I were on the same page of "lets not get ill". All until today when the dreaded lurgy came to smack me in the face. If I'm lucky this will just be a fluey - headache sort of deal, if I'm not it will go straight to my tonsils and lay me out flat for a week.







I'm keeping positive though that I will get better and the world will keep on turning just as it was. I've been really good, drinking loads of water, no coffee or energy drinks which is usually my staple diet for uni (bad I know but hey at least I don't smoke). I've made myself a little hot chocolate to make me feel better, I always make it the way my dad does so it reminds me of home.

Image via Wikipedia
• 3 tsp of hot chocolate
• half milk (microwave)
• half boiling water (so its not too milky)

Today has been a day of storyboards and drawing, its strange how long it takes to get back into the swing of things when you spend so much time in front of a computer. The storyboard is for my individual animation based on my puppy Bodie and his love for shoes.

Here's one of my cartoon versions of Bodie, he's evolving through many different versions at this point in time but chunky legs and big nose are the way I'm feeling at the moment. I'm not sure whether he should walk like a normal dog or a more grommit style kind of walk.

And here's me as a fuzzy meep.


Well I should return to my grindstone in preparation for tomorrows presentation.  They joy!
If your looking for a new book to read I fully recommend Gail Carriger's series The Parasol Protectorate / Alexia Tarabotti Novel. Ive blasted through the first 3 like a whirlwind, telling anyone who would listen about how concerned I am for the main character. I find its an interesting take on the well over-used Vampire/Werewolf genre combining it with a Steampunk Victorian era, a biting wit and plenty of English tea :)

See you again soon :D

Pirahna 3D

This was the little comic I created after seeing Pirahna 3D, while I was buying the tickets which Cineworld now sell everywhere apart from the ticket counter. It's absolutely crazy no matter what time of day I go the ticket counter is always closed yet you can buy them at the pick n' mix stand and the popcorn stall but not the one place specifically designed for the distribution of tickets. Maybe its the recession, trying to cut back on staff so they think kill two birds with one stone and only staff the snacks. Well back to the point, I went to stand at the Pick & Mix  stall as the queue was smaller to be met with the same gormless expression and drawling speech, as if you've just woken them from some heavy sleep. Only to realise I was being charged extra for the glasses that they always used to ask you to recycle at the end of every screening.

 Apparently its not enough to charge you extra for the film but now they want to charge you for the pleasure of seeing it with the glasses.

On the other hand the film was quite good, as long as your not expecting shakespeare its quite appealing. Its b-movie gore and tits ahoy, it made me cringe and jump out my seat at all the right moments. The special effects were a good combination of CG/ Animatronic & visual fx, which really inspired me, so I might try out how realistic you can make CGI injuries.

Reading at the moment: Feed by Mira Grant

Its amazing in detail and I love anything in the Zombie genre that really goes into the science of the rising undead.

Zombie Goldfish

Zombie goldfish under construction:

I figured why should human beings have all the fun when a goldfish deserves  just as much of a disturbing afterlife.

Here's another zombie from a few days ago, I used him to test out a tutorial on inking on photoshop. I'm really trying to get more into my photoshop work since I've been hoarding imagine fx magazines for ages and never trying the tutorials.

"I am still learning" - MichelAngelo

lazy days and chipped nail varnish

I write this blog wrapped in a big marsmallow coloured fluffy dressing gown, in bed due to the sudden decline in temperature and summer deciding a few weeks of heat was enough for a year. Now the cold is setting in, no longer can you lounge around the house in nought but a t-shirt and jeans, oh nooooo you must now wear three cardigans and a ski hat, turning all the radiators up to full and lighting wood burners a plenty. Until your kitchen reaches the temperature of most tropical countries, then and only then do you relinqish your insanity.

I don't like the cold can you tell?

This is my memory of last winter and as beautiful as the pictures are it was really and I mean REALLY frigging cold, even venturing down the shops had to be prepared for like a trip to the arctic region. any way the sudden change in temp has got me a little antsy O_O

Moving on ... I've been looking at this blog thinking why don't I update enough, to which my brain replied "because we feel we haven't done anything worth posting about", "oh" I said. So in remedy to this I am getting my butt back in the driving seat animation wise. Get this I was so focused about making a website and keeping a blog that I forgot to keep animating!

I mean its all very well and good trying to get your name out there and staring at other peoples achievements, wishing and praying you could be more like them that you forget to focus on your own. So from now on I will focus more on the sweet and tasty product instead of the fancy packaging, because in the end your work should speak for itself.

: )

p.s saw Scott Pilgrim vs. the world and it rocked my tiny white socks off!!!!!!!

Go see it *click me!*

laddered tights and slippery days

Today has been so slippery it has slipped away from me entirely. I got my haircut by the hairdresser I used to go to before I moved to stoke, the trouble is before my parents moved it was only 20 minutes away. Now its an hour at best and to be honest the money I save on the hair cut is being eaten up by the petrol I use to get there and due to my sat nav crashing and a lengthy jam on the M6 I can sincerly  not be frigged anymore. This is a lost day that could have been used to do a number of amazing and creative things, instead I sat in traffic and drove around the busier parts of Birmingham.

Bodie aswell today, thats this Bodie below ------

Decided to attack my new tights, laddering them beyond repair so they now will be used to create tiny tight toys of some sort, like this one I bought from birmingham market a few weeks ago.

10p well spent.


However on a lighter note Cex fest was pretty cool, good people and an open bar which you had to buy with cex top trumps, you could get more cards by playing the managers for them.

this is me, Rafe and Hanson on the way to the field with passion fruit rum and energy drink vodka to bring on that party feeling :P

8 hour sleeps and lengthy books

Good morning star shine the world says hello ... ok I know its not morning but I got in at 2 a.m last night after a night of sobriety for a friends birthday and ferrying friends and boyfriend to and from said party. Not that I'm resentful of being the taxi, I mean I offered and I wasn't going to partake in a drink any way, due to a recent illness and trying to save all my drinking stamina for tonight at Cex fest.
Which is the annual mini drinking festival for the workers of Computer Exchange and their better halves a.k.a moi.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

I've been going for the last four years and over those years I have discovered a few key facts to get you through a night in a field with an open bar and questionable portaloo's

1 - Wear old shoes and trousers, it is a field and weather permitting is never the place to wear your new heels

2 - Don't get paralytic through the enticement of an open bar, you will say what you don't want to say to the people you don't want to hear it and arguements are a guarantee

3 - Bring tissues/ water/ a torch and a sense of humour

4 - enjoy yourself



I will endevour to take pictures tonight as well as the last three years I forgot :-S . I've also realised without 8 hours of solid sleep I am a walking wreck and energy drinks can cause more havoc on a dodgy stomach than alcohol can.

Image via Wikipedia

Any way I'm psyching myself up for tonight as this is the first year we will be having our own mini bus to get there instead of being cramped together in one long coach ride picking up every store before commencing on the lengthy trip to the venue.

My recent immersive addiction is this series of books

Image via Wikipedia

Stone of tears by Terry Goodkind

Check out this mans work, his descriptions drag you into another world :-D

the start of a bloggy adventure

Well this is my first blog. I guess I'm writing this just because its my first blog and until you get past the first it builds everything up in your mind that the first has to be this amazing, stupendous piece of literature which blows the world away and lands you on the cover of a magazine. Its not though, its just a blog.

When I was little I wanted to be a writer and illustrate my own books that way I could combine my two passions, writing and drawing. Then when I finished my A-levels the drawing part kinda took over and I ended up doing an Animation degree, due to certain twists of fate and me walking into the wrong open day lecture thus hurling me into the new and exceedingly complex art of making stuff move. As I will soon be starting my third year I'm really starting to focus on bringing my animation to a more professional level.I'm going to make my own website, sort of an online portfolio, bring my drawing skills back up to par and expand my knowledge in my field.

So here is my start a blogging site so I can start organising my life and therefore my work.

I get annoyed at my own procrastination sometimes, I feel guilty for not feeling 100% motivated and enthused a 100% of the time. I guess we always see someone who seems to be  accomplishing more than we do faster than we ever can.

I will watch a film tonight and start fresh as a daisy tomorrow, all storyboards and photoshop.

Thing I liked: - The small dramatic child who ran into the party I was painting for and screamed "They can't breathe!" hysterically pointing at the bouncy castle

Dislike:- my inability to leave the house on time :(