The image to the right is a digital painting of a barn owl that I've been working on for quite some time. This accounts for approaching 40 hours work ...mostly due to me being really inefficient in my method, as only half of that was detail work. I completely lost the will to go on half way through and ended up leaving it aside for two months before I could finish it off!As always this was drawn entirely in Autodesk SketchBook Pro using the digital airbrush tool, the eraser and nothing else (well, apart from a pen for the signature). I used a Tablet PC where I draw directly on the screen.
The reference image was a stock photograph from deviantART, taken by the extremely talented Kev Lewis.
I also have my most ambitious fan art project yet on the go, involving four different characters and eight complex props. I've spent more than 24 hours on it so far and I've just about finished the line art! The colour should (hopefully!) be a lot quicker now...
On top of that I'm planning a secret costume for the BiCon 2009 'Crime And Punishment' Ball, which I'll hopefully start making next weekend and when that's finished I'll be kicking off an even more ambitious long term Doctor Who fan art project...
I'm going to two conventions in August so I won't be able to do National Art Making Month (
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naarmamo) again, but I am planning a Doctor Who project that'll overlap with NaArMaMo and hopefully keep me motivated. Last year I drew a Doctor Who new series monster or character for every letter of the alphabet, this year my ambitious project is to draw or paint individual covers/posters to represent each the 30 TV seasons of Doctor Who so far, and likely the Eight Doctor and the 2009 specials too. I've always found that my favourite Doctor Who art involves multiple images from one story combined in an interesting composition. I think my biggest influences are the Target Novelisation covers that were a huge part of my childhood. I've got 30 seasons to cover, so I should be able to try lots of different styles, including tributes to some of the most influential Doctor Who artists. Obviously this is likely to take me longer than a month, so the deadline I'm giving myself is to finish all the seasons before the Matt Smith Series 5 starts in Easter 2010... I'll likely be starting in early August once naarmamo's kicked off - wish me luck!- Music:The Daily Show
On Tuesday, I mostly obsessed over an expose of animal ingredients served in LA vegan restaurants especially the revelation that Taiwanese mock meats tend to have extra ingredients like whey, egg white and even in some cases meat that aren't listed on the label! However Taiwan's law has now changed (as of Wednesday) to give them the world's strictest food labeling laws. I discovered that two canned faux meat products I buy are Taiwanese, and decided this was 'karma' for not paying attention to food miles when it comes to canned products...
I also didn't have insomnia, was too hot, amused by http://thereifixedit.com/ as it's Fail Blog meets MacGuyver, meets Heath Robinson, and impressed by how good Robin Hood series 3 had been compared to series 1 (so bad that I skipped series 2).
On Wednesday, I reminded people there are three Torchwood Radio 4 Afternoon Plays, Wednesday to Friday (leading up to the 5 episode Children of Earth Torchwood mini-series on BBC One Monday to Friday next week). The first play, Asylum, is on iPlayer now and available outside the UK too.
I was also too damn hot with temperatures up to 32C in the shade and high humidity, but I still ended up going to the city centre (in a bus that had no air conditioning and was delayed by a traffic accident for 40 minutes - they should've marketed it as a mobile sauna instead!) to meet
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whisperkit for vegan cheese burgers and free (albeit late) carrot cake and vegan ice cream. We had a good conversation, so much so that whisperkit ended up following me home to talk even longer.I also possibly ruined a t-shirt due to eating oily food, complained about yet more remakes (American Werewolf In London?!) and sequels (I Am Legend 2?!), and recommended an amazingly cool fan animated music video for Chameleon Circuit's An Awful Lot Of Running featuring a lot of fannish goodness.
- Music:Chameleon Circuit - An Awful Lot Of Running
In which Nat doesn't have insomnia, is surprised by basic features of CakePHP, eventually notices how hot it is, discovers what Blue Peter has turned into, has a visitor, avoids rain but not humidity, and reviews the iPhone 3GS' battery life and multitasking...
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In which Nat spends time with more family, photographs an embarrisingly bad childhood art project, travels home with ease and almost certainly doesn't have a trojan...
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In which Nat and parents visit Anglesey Abbey and enjoy the art collection, Nat has hayfever and a nose bleed, a rainy day barbecue is achieved without getting rained on and various pieces of technology are set up or upgraded...
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In which Nat is too hot, sniggers on the train, ends up with stomach ache but nonetheless has a good time celebrating a birthday with relatives...
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In which Nat is still sleep deprived and still might have a trojan, notes a report found that you live longer at BMI 'Overweight' than 'Ideal', and that Microsoft has been making bad decisions, goes for a walk, takes a photo of some ducklings and bumps into
skibbley at the station. Then breaking news reports that Michael Jackson may or may not be dead at about 10:30pm and everyone goes a bit crazy trying to find corroborating news sources for about an hour and a half...( From Twitter timeline @thirtysix... )
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In which Nat feels very tired, actually finishes some art, receives Doctor Who Magazine #410, comments on Jakob Neilsen recommending removal of masking on password fields, performs a good deed, is wowed by a folding UK plug design, does two hours overtime and doesn't get to sleep until almost 3am...
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In which Nat is sleep deprived, discusses Doctor Who Target novelisations (listen via BBC radio iPlayer to On The Outside It Looked Like An Old-Fashioned Police Box if you like them too!) and Terry Pratchett book recommendations, notes that unit tests take the 'rapid' out of 'rapid development framework' and actually gets some art done...
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In which Nat posts links to weird caterpillars, political twitter heckling and iPhone games, notes the iPhone 3G S's relatively poor battery life, goes for a walk, passes 6,000 pageviews on deviantART but needs to cut back on time spent on there, and still has insomnia...
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In which Nat gets very little sleep, accidentally sees both dawn and dusk on the summer solstice, configures the iPhone to have WiFi and (eventually) imports contacts and calendar entries from the old phone. Also watches Psychoville, goes shopping and completes Peggle...
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In which Nat accidentally becomes nocturnal, attempts to teach someone vector art over the phone and otherwise spends the entire day playing with iPhone apps, unsurprisingly... Incidentally, this summary is being written at 4:40am...
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In which Nat gets an iPhone 3G S delivered at 9:30am and spends the rest of the day talking about it, configuring it and downloading applications ...and is still awake when LoudTwitter shipped this at 2:30am. Also posts links about flexible web layouts, Digital Britain and a new series of Red Dwarf, and gets an unexpected hard sell for identity protection when only phoning up to confirm receipt of a new credit card...
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In which Nat still has insomnia, thinks of a BiCon ball costume idea that's too good not to do, may or may not have a trojan horse infection, continues to fail to get the new remote control to work with MythTV, brings the iPod back to life with a mains adapter, has an iPhone dispatched, criticizes O2's tethering charges again and spends an evening setting up an iTunes music library. Also links to this emotionally moving montage of Iranian election protest images & Iranian protesters' twitter messages...
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In which Nat still has insomnia, actually manages to buy an iPhone 3G S on upgrade and attempts to configure a Logitech Harmony 525 universal remote control to work with MythTV. Also includes discussions of Red Dwarf novels, Property Ladder as morality play, and how power users and spammers use Twitter, plus links to lots of weird and wonderful photographs and videos involving bizarre animals, puppets, dance and the theremin...
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In which Nat has insomnia, comments on the final Digital Britain report and O2's unfair 'tethering' charges, researches good iPhone cases for dyspraxic phone droppers, watches surviving episodes of The Daleks' Master Plan and experiences bizarrely timely iPod death...
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In which Nat's credit card details are used by criminals, Nat freaks out a bit, runs malware scanners and scours over past credit card statements. Also Primeval is cancelled, the Royal British Legion pwns Nick Griffin of the BNP and Doctor Who podcasts become worrying...
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I haven't done this in the past because I have friends and family who use my LiveJournal to follow what's going on with my life and use this place to see everything; journal posts, art and twitter feed all in one place. However I've had enough feedback now, from half a dozen people, that people don't like twitter timelines on their friends list and if they want to see them, they'll use twitter. I'm not going to stop re-post entirely as Twitter is not a good tool for archive - it only allows you to click 'more entries' a limited amount of times.
I already made a DreamWidth account a while ago which doesn't include Twitter so people can follow any updates I make without seeing twitter by following that account. I am going to post art updates there too, although I originally intended not to (as otherwise there'll be almost no posts there!). So if you don't want see LJ-cut twitter updates, you can follow my Dreamwidth and move my LJ off your main reading filter.
This has been a difficult decision as before this point I had an equal amount of positive feedback about Loud Twitter, from people without twitter accounts who wanted to see the updates, people without LJs who wanted to see the updates on my LJ updates page and people on twitter but only following low volume tweeters who wanted to see my updates in 'digest' form rather than on their twitter followers. I think the tide has definitely turned now, probably due to increasing numbers of LJ users primarily posting twitter feed re-posts. For people who did want to see my tweets, they'll still be here, but LJ-cut, and they'll of course always be available from http://twitter.com/thirtysix
Hopefully the prose summaries I'll be adding will be a good compromise against people (like myself) who generally hate LJ-cuts, especially those that don't give a good indication of what's below.
In which Nat is sociable in Birmingham, has credit card issues, travels home and drops a cake...
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In which Nat is sociable in Birmingham with
gerwinium, meeping, englishdude, spacefall, windiain, barakta, kimble and a vegan chocolate cake...( From Twitter timeline @thirtysix... )
Aggregated from my Twitter timeline by LoudTwitter
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