Holy Rhino Daily Dev!

Remember the painting of the Rhino priest I showed you earlier? Well, the other day this very pic earned me a Daily Deviation at DeviantART, meaning that along with a number of others, it was featured by a gallery director [in this case, by one of the two directors for the Anthro gallery] for a whole day. Man was I ever thrilled by it, it shot my spirits so high I could barely type into my Livejournal because I was shaking! I got a shedload of favourites flooding my inbox as a result, and well, I don't know what else to say about it.

I always wanted a Daily Dev someday or another, and every day I looked and looked to see if I got one. And it's a good thing I got one on one of my anthro pieces, because it shows that those are just as appreciated by many people as my fanart. Maybe I should do more stuff to do with anthros and animals more often!

Anyway, for good measure I shall post some oekaki work I did a few weeks back.

My hips don't lie...

This pretty much sums up how I've been feeling recently. For about two weeks now I've been having this dull ache in my right hip and it worsens whenever I move around. I've tried having hot baths and using freeze gel, and I've tried to rest, but nothing seems to work so far, so I guess I'll have to suffer it for the time being. I could really use a hot water bottle right now. [Art was done in a friend's oekaki].

Blackpool 2007

Last week I travelled to the north west of England to have a short holiday in Blackpool, one of the most popular seaside resorts in the United Kingdom, well known for its long line of dazzling illuminations and being home to one of the country's tallest towers.

We left home in the morning on Monday, and were on the road for over six hours driving nearly 300 miles, including the time when we had a flat tyre and stopping twice to have a few snacks and going to the toilet etc. By evening, we finally arrived in our caravan park which was about six more miles from the actual town. After we unpacked and set ourselves up for the next few nights, we had a look around in the town, had a meal in a chippy [which I hate because chips and egg are the only 'vegetarian' things to eat, nothing healthy at all], and mucked around in arcades and the Central pier, where I could see the sun setting into the sea... I can't tell you how beautiful that was.

As it got darker, the lights were coming on, so we then drove up to see them again. Since we were constantly on the move, I had to take some video clips with my camera. The whole line of illuminations was a never-ending five miles long, and had various themes such as sirens, small characters and even Doctor Who, not to mention a giant disco ball and some road side displays. It was pretty cool to see those first hand, I must say! By the time we went back to Fleetwood, it was night time, so we stopped at an ASDA store for a few bits and went back to the caravan.

The next day, after a lengthy wait at a garage while some new tyres were being fitted into our car, we went to Blackpool Zoo, were we got to see several animals such as orang-utans, giant tortoises, capybaras [they're like giant guinea pigs], tigers, lizards, monkeys and parrots, the latter of which were being displayed at a special time which we sat through at one point. There was also another part called Amazonia which was like a walk through dome where all these squirrel monkeys were roaming free and jumping everywhere. It was a good thing I brought two SD cards, because I almost thought that I had no room left on the first one I used!

Despite almost being harassed by some kind of black and white goose for my lunch, we had a great day out there.

Wednesday was even more epic - we went most of it in the Pleasure Beach, where me and my mum went on most of the white knuckle rides except for Bling, including the all mighty Big One. Now, I have to admit, I was nervous when I went on this one, but it was such an awesome ride down a 230ft height! Other great rides included InFusion, Space Invaders and Valhalla, which was one of the best water rides I've been on, and I don't even like water ones!

After all that, my dad dragged me into a steak house which I didn't want to eat at, but fortunately they had a vegeburger that wasn't that bad. This was followed by yet another drive up and down the illuminations area much later at night when the sky was pitch black and you could see them a lot better.

The next day started with a good visit to the Blackpool Tower, a rather posh looking place which started with an aquarium, and had a massive ballroom that reminded me of Moulin Rouge. It was just so beautiful in there, what with all the red and gold designs and a guy playing on a wurlitzer organ.

But the bit that really made the day was when me and my mum went up the lift and into the top of the tower - while my mum was shitting herself scared, I was amazed by how I could see the whole of Blackpool from up there! Sadly the weather wasn't that great that day, and my camera's battery kept going flat whenever I wanted to take a good shot, but that's not to say I didn't take any pictures from that high up at all.

We then went around the shopping centre getting some bits for ourselves and for our family. I bought myself a plush of Plankton from SpongeBob SquarePants from a shop called Who, which to my astonishment had a life-sized Rayman statue on the upstairs floor. It wasn't for sale, but I really didn't think I'd ever see one, certainly not in Blackpool anyway. I also got the second season of SpongeBob on DVD, and a DVD of the entire Sonic SatAM cartoon from their HMV. I'm surprised I still have some money left after all the other crap and spent it on!

We left Blackpool the next morning, and drove for yet another six hours, coming back home in the late afternoon. I thought it was a great holiday, we got to do all those things in such a short time, and it was a whole new experience for us all. I can't imagine what this blog would say if we had gone to Great Yarmouth instead this year.

We're in talks of going to Spain next year, where my sister is currently at.

Some more sighing

Guess what, I'm in a bit of a rut again. Since I got my old tablet working again, I've been wondering, do I really need to get a Wacom yet? Don't get me wrong, the old one is a dodgy old thing, but it still works and serves me well. I can remember when I first got it I couldn't draw on it at all! Trust me, you don't wanna see the first pictures I did in them. Ever.

I did a bit more tidying up in my other wardrobe recently and found more sketchbook type paper. There's the thing about me, whenever I'm out shopping, I always buy stuff like sketchbooks, pads and pencils even though I don't really need them, which is why I have so much stuff that could last me well into the next decade or two.

There was quite a few things I needed more than all that stuff, such as a new pair of non-in-ear headphones [I wanted to avoid using the shitty iPod in-ear ones whenever I could because my ears are infected again and they make it worse. That reminds me, I've got to get some new medicine for that], a new microphone and some new ink cartridges.

Artsies!

I've been on such a creative flow since I got the old tab working again, I thought I might have took some time to do some art in it. It gets just a little dodgy at times, but hopefully it'll last me for long enough, considering that it's a 4 year old Aiptek Hyperpen 6000.

Hello back to you Berk.

It's supposed to be Simba of Lion King fame, but gone quite horrible wrong ;D

Fishie! Man, either GIMP's brushes suck or I suck as CGing.

The latter I spent the most time on, since I was trying out the ink tool, which, with the right tweaking, proved to be more effective than using the brush. Thing is though, it's really difficult, and there are times where you have to flip and rotate the picture just to ink with the tab more comfortably. But as they say, practice makes perfect!

Good news everyone

Today I was cleaning out my wardrobe, when I found my old tablet, and I thought, maybe if I tried to install it again it might start working again. So I went looking for the software discs, but for some reason, every time I put both discs in, the computer kept crashing, and I tried to use CD recovery programs to get the setup out. I got very impatient after about 3/4 hours, so I went to see if there was somewhere on the net where I could find a set up, and much to my luck, I did. And even better after a little tweaking and changing of batteries, it works! Even in GIMP, where it previously used to bugger up on the old computer!

So there, I'm happy, but I'm still saving up to get a wacom, for when this old tablet dies again. Damn, I'm on a creative flow now, and it's close to my bedtime.

And again

I had yet another bit of palava in the last weekend. On Friday, I was just doing my usual business with my PC, when all of a sudden the screen went black, yet the machine was still on. I thought the CRT monitor had blown again, as it was only going into standby mode. Luckily my dad's mate came over later that evening, and he had a look before telling me that the graphics card had blown.

The next day, my dad took it over to his mate's house for a further look, and sadly, the PC was rendered unusable, so I had to go without it for most of the weekend. Not only that, the folks were away for the weekend too, so I had my sister come to "look after me". She ordered us all some pizza and I just spent the evening up in my room playing Paper Mario on the Gamecube.

Yesterday evening though, I was given this new PC that I'm using right now. It's not as good in terms of physical specs as my old one [lack of SD port, half the hard disk space I had], but overall it's a better PC than I thought it'd be. It's also a good thing I have my external hard drive where I keep most of my files, so all isn't lost... It also came with a flatscreen monitor which has a whole lot of USB ports in.

So what am I doing now? Well, I've got to see if we can get a new line of ink cartridges for my printer which seems to have buggered for some reason.

Oh, and have you heard the new songs by Nightwish yet? Now, although my favourite album by the band is most definitely Oceanborn, I'm really excited for this upcoming album, which is one of many things I'm looking forward to in September. I like the new singer's voice [seriously, I would had absolutely fumed if they had chosen Lady Angelica as once rumoured], and the music is sounding as great as ever, so what's to complain about it?

Finally did something original...

And by that, I mean not a copyrighted character.

There's loads here that I need to work on in future, but I'm proud of the fact that I can pull such an artwork off. This comes from a number of drawings I've done of anthropomorphic animals which were derived from a book about animals I love to look at everytime I go round my nan's. It's just that the way the animals have been depicted that make me imagine something human about them, like this creature called an olm - makes me think of a jazz musician for some reason - and some bird called an umbrella bird that makes me think of Elvis. If anything though, I just HAVE to make a picture of a cock-of-the-rock, which is basically a bird that looks like it has an orange segment on its head, not to mention how funny its name is.

Wish the weather here would better itself...

Life I guess...

I can't say that I've had anything truly exciting happen to me in the past couple of months. So I think I'll make a low down:

The job. I work as a retail assistant at a charity shop, the PDSA [People's Dispensary for Sick Animals], where I spend about two hours either changing over clothes - that means taking them off the rails, replacing their tags with a new date on them, and taking them back again - sorting through donation bags having to throw anything that's in poor condition, and steaming, which is like ironing but it's like a hoover with an iron at the end.

The only catch is that I don't get paid for it, as for all voluntary jobs. Luckily it's only down the road and a ten minute walk away, so I don't need to take the bus there and back. The people I work with treat me fairly, we can all get free snacks and drinks, we can even buy stuff we find in the sort before they get put out on sale, so what's to complain about? Well, I can't seem to feel the difference for me yet. Of course I'm getting more exercise by walking, and when I want to I can take a walk in the park, but all in all I still end up sitting here on this PC for hours on end, so I don't know if two hours is enough for me or not. But I guess any time I spend there is experience, which is what I'm aiming for.

Next thing is art. So yeah, I've had another commission and I made a new piece of fanart of The Trap Door that I submitted to DeviantART today, but other than that I don't seem to draw much other than silly little doodles. The other day I tried to do some oil painting, but all I seemed to do was just smudge paint all over the piece of canvas and getting everything dirty at the same time, hands included. Perhaps I need to study more, like the local park for example. I love it there, from the bridge and brook to the view at the top of the hill. Running down it with the dog like I did some time ago was thrilling, oh why can't I be bothered to do that on a regular basis? One day, I need to take my art supplies to the park and actually get recordings of it. Feck only knows how that would help me in terms of both my artistry and my health.

Lastly, last month I finally got to stay for a night round my sister's flat in Westcliff. Though I felt withdrawn from not having internet, it was brilliant to get away from the humdrum that goes on back at home. So that night, we spent it watching telly mostly, from stuff that's on Virgin TV On Demand or my DVDs that I brought over. The next day my sister took me to the shopping centre in Southend, where I bought a couple of Tria Markers for real cheap in an art store that's just as heavenly as Hobbycraft, and that's before something funny happened. On our way home to her flat, we stopped at a bagel shop where this nutty woman looked at me and said "Have you seen Happy Feet?" She also kept saying to the shop owners things like "What part of Israel have you been too?" and "Do you have desserts here?"...oh gawd, we just wanted to finish our bagels and get the hell out of there. It was a fun day nonetheless, and it's time like that I feel I'm at my happiest.

Before I go to bed, I must tell another funny yet embarrassing story. I was at work on Tuesday where I was tagging clothes, when one of them fell down. Clothes that fall down piss me off, so I bent down to pick it up, and my favourite jeans had ripped a massive hole! God this was so embarrassing, I had to keep my arse covered so that nobody could see it. Since I work in a charity shop, I could easily buy a new pair for just 49p, so that was what I had to do. The thing about jeans is that most of them have legs that are too long for me. I loved those jeans I had, because they fitted me well, though not perfectly since my arse is too big for them now. Something tells me that I have to cut down on the candy.

I'll leave you with a small illustration.

God I love Stoppit & Tidyup.

Welcome to my crib!

Everyone once in a while, I like to tidy up my bedroom, because well, seeing so much shit all over the place just isn't very nice at all. So without furtherado, I show you my nice [well, almost] clean bedroom!

This is where I spend up to 90% of my waking time. I forgot to tidy up around there, as my desktop usually gets really messy with glasses, wires, discs, candy wrappers and my sister's make up wipes. Oh and there's my new guitar, and my sister's old CD player that she gave me. All too often will you hear songs by Enya and Lesiem playing out loud on this, hehehe!

This is where I keep some of my junk, like DVDs, CDs and SpongeBob products. I've been collecting SpongeBob things for about 4 years now, and it's hard to fund out where to keep it all! Underneath this shelf is my printer, scanner and my games consoles [PS2, Gamecube, Dreamcast and Mega Drive].

Recently I was given this desk where I shove most of my art materials onto now, along with this nice lamp I got for my birthday. It's a bit narrow at the top, but it's big enough to hold an A4 piece of paper I guess. I'll tell you something though, it's better than doing drawings on the floor like I used to. I also stuck all my watercolour paintings on this wall for inspiration and decoration.

And here's a close up of the desk. It's pretty damn nice to keep all your tools, books and that in place, and man does that lamp make such a difference?