Thank You

The first Discworld novel I remember reading was ‘Maurice and his Educated rodents’ I remember picking a copy off the shelf in my local library, and I can’t remember how old I was probably somewhere between 13-15

Then I remember being 16, sitting on the fence outside the ‘animal centre’ on my campus when I was on the ‘summer school’ for my introductory diploma in land and environment, not knowing anyone there and reading Guards Guards.

I started accumulating his books at a steady pace, picking up second hand and often very ‘well loved’ copies from my local charity shops and bootfairs.

I devoured them,  often reading books out of synch and yet that never really mattered it seemed. It was easy enough to do so, easy enough to pick up what was going on in this fantastic world that was carried by elephants and coasted through space on the back of a turtle. A world that whilst fantastical sometimes seemed very similar to our own.

A world where absurd things happened however a lot of them when you looked at them a little bit more were very similar to things that actually happened, what people thought.

A world where it wasn’t all about noble warriors and wicked witches, a world where there was the ‘little people’ where mention was made of just how living in a fantasy universe would affect day to day life, a world where the farmers were just as important as the wizards. A world where I was told about what the innkeeper was thinking beyond him being a background character, a prop even for the main characters.

A world where not everything was prophecy and grand quests, a world where I would quite happily read about the day to day duties of keeping order in twin cities that had regulated thieves and zombies who wanted rights.

A world where they told you, showed you how the world worked rather than it just being a backdrop. A world that told me just how long a coach took to make a journey or how long it took for crops to grow and didn’t just treat them as boring details no one cared about.

A world that lived, a world that breathed, with a heartbeat where it wasn’t just focused on a sole hero on a quest, it focused on everyone.

Thank you Sir Terry Pratchett.

A Return? Hopefully

So according to the last time stamp on this blog, my last post was made in December 2013

It’s now January 2015 so I feel that it’s rather overdue for an update

As a general update on myself? I’m doing pretty well, I’m in the second year of my HND Animal Science program, and during the summer of 2014 I picked up a bit more volunteering work and I’m posted in a Lemur Walkthrough enclosure at a local zoo and it’s been pretty fun. Also funnily enough as part of ‘enrichment’ work on my course we get to do practical work at the same zoo so that’s been interesting. I even got to get up close to a snow leopard.

Drawing wise? I seem to be getting back, slowly. Around the end of December for some reason my urge to draw did come back and more specifically working on drawing with my tablet rather than sketching and scanning. And so the following are a few bits I’ve draw up.

This, had quite a long time before it was finished, I started it September and finished it up in December, this is something for a really cool and talented person I know from Tumblr known as ‘karanan‘ online  from the SWTOR fandom (seriously go look at her stuff) the character on the left is a ‘second gen’ swtor character, Axi Revel, a smuggler/sometimes pirate depending on whose definition you’re going on the kid of my Sith Inquisitor, Lyee and the in game ‘Love Interest’ Andronikos Revel, and Nan’s character on the right is one Roscoe Siscovin his Imperial Agent character, and these two have been causing some chaos together fpr a little while and have been having a great time doing so.

Lira, a ‘second generation’ SWTOR character of mine that is the daughter of my smuggler Fira and the in game ‘love interest’ Corso Riggs, who grows up to become a doctor

The one, the only, Hellboy

A little something I drew for a good friend of mine I know through the swtor community on Tumblr. The green guy on the left is my Miralian Jedi Knight, Sylarvi and on the right is my friend’s Human Jedi Knight, Karuki

So hopefully, 2015 continues to be a return to my ‘old self’ when it comes to drawing, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Where the Hell Have I Been?

So it has been a long time since I have made a post of any decent length on this or my other blog.

As you can guess, I’ve just not been here.

The last few months have been interesting. After getting nowhere with jobhunting and getting progressively more and more fed up with being unemployed and even more so with the job centre I ended up going screw it and applying for a HND in Applied Animal Science.

I got in, and so since September I’ve been back at college, studying hard and generally being a student and it’s good. I love it and it beats being unemployed and I am in a much better place mentally than I was before hand.

However, a slight disaster befell me not long after starting the course, long story short. My laptop was a casualty. And so I had no laptop of my own, which of course meant no access to a scanner or art programs. So I couldn’t really do anything. Not that I stopped drawing mind you but I didn’t get beyond basic doodles.

And also being a student again, hasn’t left much time for drawing.  And once again I don’t really know where I’m going in regards to creative pursuits. I know this is highly unlikely to progress beyond a hobby but at the same time I wish to progress and create.

I will not say I will be posting more, I’m not sure if I can uphold that. Or if I will be making any projects or doing anything.

So for now, the future is as clear as mud. As always.

-Tumbleweed-

So, yet again it’s been a long time since my last update.

Still trying to get myself back to drawing. Taking a while.

My course is progressing well, and I’m enjoying it and generally in a much better state of mind than I was previously.

Also two months ago an accident befell my laptop and I thankfully now have a replacement, however I still need to set up my scanner and my tablet and photoshop etc.

New Starts

So, I’m offically enrolled on my course. I am so glad of it, as it means I will finally be getting off jobseekers allowance and hopefully things start looking up. I’m not going to go off on a big psuedo-philosphical spiel but essentially the las year has just been rough, and I’m glad I’m out of it.

I also have my laptop back.

I’m making slight progress on the art front, getting back slowly

In light of my last post

After that ramble of artist anxiety.

I have actually started putting pencil to paper again, it’s helping actually as it seems if I draw it keeps my various other anxieties in check. Still most of what I’m doing it only doodles but I’m sure I’ll get myself back to polished work soon.

Now, let’s just hope my laptop gets back to me soon.

Adventures in Gif Making

Been a while hasn’t it?

I’m slowly getting back into drawing after having an intentional haitus that was way too long. But I’ve in the last week been tinkering with making gifs. This has been triggered by me getting the full version of Fraps so I’ve decided to try and gif up parts of my swtor gameplay.

Here is what I’ve done so far

Making said gifs has prooved interesting as I’ve had to of course first convert my footage into a usuable format then make said gif flow right and of course been contending with gif size limits. But this is an interesting challenge to say the least

Hiatus (is hopefully) Over

First things first, my laptop is back so that hopefully means I will be able to blog properly again and means I can do art

I finished that workplacement, nope no job, suprise, suprise

Had an interview at the weekend that was quite disappointing, not so much what I did but the shop put me off. Nice going.

And my last biggest piece of news is…

I got into the Applied Animal Science HND, so that means come September I’ll be in education again! I’ll be going back to my old college but going in on a university level course which I admit feels weird as I’m going back to somewhere I’ve been before but things will be different. Also I’m not going with my best friend which also feels weird as I’ve gone through all my other courses with her.

So things seem to be looking up, finally!

Another Unwilling Haitus

Hey, so as you remember my laptop (which has all my art related programs on it) needed to go into the shop for repairs.

And simply put, the problem has come back and worse so now it is back in the shop. So there’s a slight dampner on the art.

I’ve also been shoved onto one of the jobcentre’s ‘brilliant’ work placements so for the past month I’ve been working 32 hours a week without being paid to do so, I was strung along with the promise of a job interview but apparently nope, no interview for me.

And well I’ve just been finding it a bit hard to be motivated to draw as of late.

My Quiet Return

I managed to get a new scanner, so here have some art

Centuar archer

This started as ‘I want to draw someone with dreadlocks’, she’s a herbalist

Random fluff with my smuggler Fira and Corso that took way longer to draw than it should’ve

Working out stuff for a newish character her name is Axi (shortened name most likely) and she’s the kid of my Sith Inquistor Lyee and Andronikos Revel

Had an idea for a Monster High Kelpie character, I sort of want to call her ‘Marey’ and she’d have an overall hippy/new age traveller look going on