Traditional Toolkit!

Better make this one as quickly as I humanly can, it's really late here...

This past week as been nothing but dog walks, tidying up and laughing at Britney's head. But I've been wanting to do this for a long time now.

Well, I have to come down to this and say that in recent times I've become such a traditionalist. It was only when I realised that I had LOADS of watercolour paint left anf I thought, why not use it?

So I pulled out my camera and took a few shots. I must warn that this will be an image heavy post, so dial-up users brace yourselves!

Well, here's most of it. Markers, paints, pencils and all other bits and pieces are kept here.

The rest is kept in here - oil paints, Karisma pencils, a couple of pallettes and a box of spare Copic markers.
Here's where I keep all my sketchbooks and pads. I tend to buy a lot of them over time, and I get though them so quickly drawing all kinds of crap in. I usually get either A4 or A5, but I happen to like 10x7 inch ones best now. Just the right size.

Paint, masking fluid, a Nutella jar used as a water jar, and white ink. I have black ink as well which isn't shown here. The pallete below is the latest addition to the toolkit. Personally I don't really like tubes that much, so I decided to use the paint in "pan" style...

Pens, pencils and erasers are kept in this little tin. This could do with sorting out big time, since I shoved all kinds of pens in there, however old and worn out they are. You can also see a few plastic rulars and a cutting mat, which is obviously more durable than cardboard.

Brushes now, and as with the pens, I keep an assortment - meaning old and worn to brand spanking new ones. I use old ones to mix paint and apply masking fluid on.

These are Faber Castell Polychromos pencils, and in the tin are gouache paints. I hardly ever use the gouaches, and I've barely touched the pencils in forever. They're such a bitch to sharpen, now I remember why I sharpened them with a knife rather than a sharpener!

I just LOVE these - Copic markers. I've used these for about a year now and they're perhaps one of the best types of traditional tool I've ever used! Shame they're so expensive and hard to get hold of! I have to take a train ride to one shop I know that sells them. There's also one Kurecolor too which I used to be able to get locally. They can be just as good as Copic, but not many colours are available.

Now here's all the random crap I keep. I really should get rid of some of this, since I don't even use it. It just ranges from crappy old oil pastels [oil pastels a few of my artistic mortal enemies along with charcoal] and a toy water pistol.

And here's the rest - curve rulers, sharpeners, knifes, scissors, adhesives and the rest of the bunch are kept in here.

Of course, just because I have tons of art materials there it doesn't mean I've stopped using Photoshop! That's one of my more important tools for when I need to do stuff like colour adjusting, colouring, inking and cleaning.

Youtube is getting on my wick...

So yeah, I'm a Youtube user. I go round looking for free cartoons and other bits of TV other have uploaded to watch, might add to favourites, and probably give a comment on occasion.

Of course, Youtube are heavily backed up by third parties such as Viacom, so they are rampant on the removal of copyrighted material almost as soon as it's uploaded. I myself have uploaded copyrighted material many months ago, but for a number of completely different reasons I wish I hadn't!

It all started back in March when I first joined, and after a while I just uploaded a bunch of random crap. It was only when I got a copy of Rayman: The Animated series on DVD from a French seller on Ebay in April last year when I decided to upload all four episodes. Much later I was asked to upload several Count Duckula episodes by a friend, and that's where the troubles started.

In July 2006 11 videos containing Duckula episode parts were flagged. From then on I decided not to upload anything to Youtube again, but that didn't stop the subscribers coming in. As of now I have 57 subscribers, some of which are rather empty in everything. I'm guessing all they expect of me is more Duckula episodes, or perhaps more Rayman content. Either way, I'm not uploading them there. Disabling comments and bulletins won't be enough.

I keep getting asked to send episodes to people I don't even know through email - and they don't get to me just from Youtube, they come from MSN Messenger as well. It just takes too much of my time to upload the same file over and over again to different people via Yousendit. Plus I'm not on the best connection out there, so my upload rate is crap to no end.

Of course I'm a bittorrent user, but I occasionally use that for series I might not be able to get on DVD anywhere, such as Animals of Farthing Wood and Harry Hill's TV Burp. When I do get DVDs, say of Count Duckula, I'm most likely to replace the downloaded episodes with the legit ones that I can rip from them. That doesn't mean I fully support piracy though.

What I don't support is the sale of copied CDs and DVDs, which in the long run may ruin the CD and DVD playing systems they're run on. But then so can legits, but not as badly. I think this is because they make the system work much harder than legit ones - I should know because I used to play pirated games on my Dreamcast an awful lot in the past few years, and in the long run they wore my console out and I had to get a new one, so I'm no longer playing pirates on it.

Shame I said that, because I once had to buy a set of burned DVDs of the Detectives on eBay for my dad. Thankfully they were of good quality for TV rips, but that's not always the case. Most of the junk they sell on ebay could be of really poor quality and are not worth buying, even if it's that one series you loved so dearly. With downloads however if they're not up to your standards, all you need to do is press Shift and Delete.

Piracy is such a hard issue for me to talk about. So let's just say that if I was asked to say if I supported it, my answer would be yes and no. I can't wait for CD and DVD recycling banks to come locally...

Back to Youtube, well I've been thinking for a long time about whether to close my account or not. I think I will anytime soon now.

Five years younger

Oh I wish I could actually look like I'm about to hit my 20s. And to have an ID. Because today I went out shopping with my mum, and I was about to buy a copy of Look Around You 2 in HMV after seeing that I could actually afford it now. However when I got to the till, I was asked for ID. So basically that clerk must have thought that I was under 15 years old! I had to get my mum to pay for it then, and so at least I have the DVD now.

I feel embarrassed. I really don't like looking like I'm 14. I'm 4'11'' tall, have a babyface and I wear bright, child-sized clothing, while hating to wear jewelry and make up. Therefore, I must be about 5 years younger than I actually am. It was OK when I was last asked for my age when I tried to buy a South Park video way back in 2000, when I was actually 12 going onto 13. But not now.

Looks like I'll have to stop wearing kids clothes and look out for really small more grown-up clothes I guess. Maybe then my fat arse won't ruin them.

Next post: I'll be showing you my toolkit! I.e the kind of things I use for my artwork.

Blah...

Last night was one of the worst ever. Most likely my fault though because I was up until about 2AM finishing my commission painting. I have an art trade to get through as well, along with stuff for my Duckula fansite which still isn't complete yet, so it's best I work on these come the next week. Not too much though at one time though, unless I want to feel totally out of myself again.

Well I've been trying to take nasties off my mind by purchasing more DVDs than I ever did - just within this week I got "SpongeBob SquarePants: the first season boxset" [I've been wondering where in this country I could get a copy of that] from ASDA for £12, and in HMV I got lucky with Stoppit & Tidyup. Got kinda pissed when I went in Virgin and saw that The Trap Door was £8.99 when I paid £20 for my copy in HMV! Ah well. I'm gonna try and nab some comedy shows on DVD, like Look Around You and Big Train. And perhaps a few Dreamcast games while I'm at it.

My copy of Rayman 2 on Dreamcast has somehow stopped working, the console won't pick it up or anything. I even tried a boot CD but it still wouldn't work [I can't really play some of the pirate games I have anyway because my TV doesn't support 60MHz]. At least I have the PS2 version though, while that one seems more complete the graphics aren't as crisp as the Dreamcast one.

I also found a bunch of moth maggots on my wall as I was taking some of my sister's posters down...I've had these little pests infesting my room for about 2 years now. In fact, they've been infesting the whole household! I hate having to kill them but I have no choice really if I want to get rid of them.

Snow

Yesterday we had quite a blanket of snow.


Above here is a rather rubbish attempt at joining a panoramic of nearby park which I went down yesterday morning to take some snow shots. Snow really doesn't last long in this part of the country, so I thought I'd might as well go and make the most of it while my other was away. Trouble is though while there were some things I really wanted to photograph, my camera had run out of battery.

So I ended up walking over the place hoping for the camera to gain a little bit of energy back. I then stopped and looked over at the brook under the bridge, watching its gentle flow below me. After that, my camera was still flat so I decided to go to the empty basketball course and build a snow Duckula [see my Duckula blog for more on that]. Oh boy. As I didn't have gloves on my hands were so cold that I couldn't turn my front door key to open the front door.

I'm surprised that I didn't get ill after all this.

Oh, and I got another commission the other day.

Whoo-hoo!

I got my first commission today. Ever. I'm so happy! And guess what, it's not FANART! This is most an exciting new challenge for me.

Otherwise, last night I decided to sort everything to do with all my games, DVDs, CDs etc out. While I was doing that, I got out my old Dreamcast. Tell the truth I have two - one broke down so I had to get another. But believe it or not, after at least two years of being stuck in that dusty old wardrobe, it still works! All I'd probably need now is a nice new packet of button cell batteries for the Dreamcast's VMU so I can play Chao Adventure.

Yes, that's right, I've been playing Sonic Adventure again, for the first time in several years. Putting the disc in the console feels just like it's Christmas 1999 again. I used to play this so much I even managed to get all 130 emblems. I used to think I was such a hardcore gamer because of that, and getting millions of points in one round of Columns. Nowadays it's not so much like that. Hell, I even died on the first level of Sonic Adventure while playing it yesterday!

So many memories...and I've yet to start all over with Rayman 1 on PSOne! It's funny how we use things a lot when we first buy them and then leave them to collect dust on a shelf.

Changes and that

First off, if anyone out here's got me in their RSS, sorry about the crazy posting. I've decided to merge my personal blog [Robocoddess] into this one, so I can post both personal stuff and art here. That eventually meant the termination of Robocoddess sadly. I've decided to look into this layout's code as well and changed a few colours, fancy stuff may follow soon.

Far as the real life is concerned, well my sister and her boyfriend came down for the weekend, because tomorrow she's turning 21. It was my mother's birthday yesterday, so what better time to celebrate? Well it wasn't much more than a not-so-posh buffet thing. Didn't eat much other than the cake. And for some reason, I was eating pineapple when my tounge went all tingly and horrible...kind of worse than what tomatoes do. I'm still feeling it a tiny little bit. Man, never reacted this badly to pineapple before!

First art of 2007

Allow me to show you the first major fan artwork I made in 2007.

This is based on the 1987 CMTB cartoon "Stoppit and Tidyup", something I couldn't really remember seeing until very recently. After watching all of this and the studio's previous work, "The Trap Door" [I bought the DVD yesterday], I actually like this a little bit more. For something that looks like 'cutout' animation I thought it was very well animated. I love the weird voices as well, especially Tidyup's [well, if you call those 'voices' that is], along side Terry Wogan being the narrator.

This artwork made use of my gouache paints which I hadn't touched in more than two years, along with my usual watercolours and black and white ink. Also used Karisma pencils for the outlines. Might not look so 'official' here because I made it from memory in my sister's room, and man did it give me a backache or what? Took me a total of four hours.

Believe it or not, the CMTB cartoon I remember most is "Bump the Elephant". I can never get over that theme tune, so I'll be leaving while singing it in a retarded manner.

Ooow....

My ears are literally on fire. It's no fun being a music fan and having earphones constantly plugged in each day therefore causing ear infections. I've been getting these in both ears for almost two years now. It's funny, ever since my right one became deaf it's been more prone to getting infected than it did before then.

The weather here's been rather mad too. Yesterday I went down to town to get presents and cards for my mother and sister, whose birthdays are within the next 4 days. The wind was terrible, and the second I walked out of the door, I yelled "Jesus Christ!" while rain was splashing all over me. Still, I got to the bus stop, and it was a good thing I had enough pound coins! The bus fares have shot up to two pounds now, and on my way home I went on the wrong bus! Gah!

Well it's still very windy out there right now. A surefire way to keep me from sleeping, along with both my parents having televisions on.

The next week should be slightly different, what with all the birthdays and all. I hope my sister likes the card I drew for her before Christmas.

Things

I think I can hear my dog crying again.

My little mutt had her womb and ovaries removed on Friday, and at times she has to wear one of those cone collars...well, she doesn't even like having ANY collar on, let alone a veterinary one. All she does when she wears it is cry for the attention to have it taken off. She only has to wear it for eight days from now.

Man...if anything, I could really do with a total rearrangement in my room, now that I have it for my own. I have SO much stuff - CDs, games, VHSs, DVDs, books and magazines etc - yet I just don't know where to put it all! For the moment I've shoved all my VHSs under my bed, moved my little table nearer to the window where the lightbulb actually is, and made just a start in cleaning up my wardrobe. I'd love to have a nice new working desk to make my artwork on, and maybe some more shelves to store all my old sketchbooks in.

Oh I've been listening to Enya an awful lot in recent days. It's such beautiful music I couldn't leave my iPod alone, hehehe. I bought the Watermark album last week - the one with the ever classic Orinoco Flow - but the Memory of Trees album which a friend sent me on Christmas Day is my absolute favourite, next to the Celts which I downloaded. I just love the haunting vocals and the ambience, and how they're sung in all kinds of languages [including made-up ones]. Makes a change to the heavy symphonic metal I used to listen to I suppose.

I'm after a number of DVDs as well, such as Trap Door, SpongeBob SquarePants season 2, and Look Around You 2, and looking forward to the future releases of Ducktales and Count Duckula season 2.

I'm hungry. I'd whip myself a nice spring onion sandwich, but I used my last one!