Fireman Sack's Big Birthday Adventure

Before we begin I may as well point out that if you visit the blog for the art (You poor fools) then you might want to skip this post because there's no art in it. Well, some sort of art, but not the type you usually get. I'm not really sure why I'm even making this post - it doesn't really belong on here, but I guess it does explain part of the reduction of art output over the last two months. The rest of the reduction I've gone into before; and I've mentioned this too in passing, so you may as well see it.

Little Big Planet 2 may be the greatest time suck ever invented by man. It's a game, but unlike other time sucks such as RPG's or MMO's the actual game is really quite short. It has that in common with those FPS games with a focus on Multiplayer like Call of Duty or Homefront (Which you should totally buy...), but it's online experience isn't really the focus either, although it has 4 player co-op and verses portions. No, Little Big Planet 2 is a time suck because it allows you to make your own levels. The original LBP allowed this too, but LBP2 takes it to another level entirely (Har-Har).  My son loves the game proper, and I'm addicted to making (mostly dreadful) things.

If You Can't Draw Just Scribble

ScribblerToo is one of those web based doodling programs. It's not unique in this regard, there are rather a lot of them around. Usually the process will go something like this: Friend links to sketch program, I take a look, sketch something dreadful, decide I'd rather be doing it using something else (such as a pencil, or Artrage, or my elbow dunked in poo - which would still be preferable to some of these packages), close webpage, forget all about it.
ScribblerToo has a hook though - it does something that I'm not sure I can do in any other package. The best way to describe it is as "Painting with Cobwebs". Every time you draw a line it works out how close it is to another line you've already drawn, the closer the line the more likely it will be that it forms a "web" connection to it. The easiest way to understand is to try it yourself - Don't fret if you can't draw because it works just as well on abstract stuff. It's called ScribblerToo for a reason y'know? Well, two reasons, I'll get to the other in a moment.

And Then Two Come Along At Once!

It's been ages since I've done a speedpaint, but it's been even longer since I actually posted any. Time to make amends.

In fact I have far more to post than I thought I would. In my addled brain I was under the impression that I'd posted some at the end of January, but I didn't. Given this, and the similar comments I've made in the last two posts I have to assume I had a particularly vivid dream where I went on a posting frenzy. You know, the sort where you wake up and think it actually happened? Happened to me yesterday in fact; I dreamed it was Monday, woke up, panicked because I was late for work and then realised it was Saturday. Typical.

You Wait All Day for a Bus...

Aaaaand I'm sick again. This time it's more of an extended yuckiness than an all out explosive fluid explosion like a cold or the trots, but still. I joked with my wife about a month ago that it would be great to go a whole week without someone in the household being sick. It was a joke at the time, but now it's not so funny. Here's a rundown of the last few weeks (This isn't all about sickness by the way, just showing how events like to pile up - but feel free to skip over if you just want to see pictures).

Sketchy Von Sketcherson

I've been putting off updating the past few weeks because I didn't feel I had enough to warrant a post. Eventually, yesterday, I thought I should probably just gather what I could so it didn't look like I'd gone to Bermuda and been lost in the Triangle. Imagine my surprise when I discovered a huge amount of stuff to post. Well, alright, not huge, but far more than I've happily posted alone in the past.

A further surprise was discovering that very little of it was all out bad - this is funny because while drawing it I thought most of it was dreadful, and bemoaned losing my mojo to sickness. Perhaps I just lost my perspective... Or perhaps I've lost it now because I'm sick, again (I know, this winter's been crazy for teh sikcies). Either way, there's no good or bad this time, just "Not so bad" and "Not so good".  I'll start with some portrait sketches.

Social Profiling № 4: Annette

Up until last week I knew bugger all about She-ra. Actually, that's not entirely true; I knew that she existed (in a not existing because she's fictional kind of way), I knew roughly what she looked like, and I knew she was the Princess of Power (and Eternia) and sister of He-Man. How I knew even this is a mystery to me as I've never seen an episode of the cartoon, or seen one of the action figures (as far as I can recall). I have to wonder if she made guest appearances on He-Man and I know her from those, in much the same way as Dora the (bloody) Explorer and Go Diego Go (hell of a name that) turn up on each others shows and yell at each other for half an hour at a time while solving simple issues in the most complicated way imaginable*.

Anyway, I knew very little about her, but this is no longer the case thanks to Annette, as you will see...

Social Profiling № 3: Larry

If you've strolled into this post you can see what it's all about, and the previous related entries here (for Owain) and here (for Steve). OK, so hopefully everyone's now on the same page. Good.

I was hoping to get this posted about an hour ago, so it would count as an extra post for January, but sadly poor old January is now going to miss out on it due to a series of cockups. Actually only one cockup was responsible for the post's delay, the other two probably saved it from being even later (one was the loss of over an hours progress in New Vegas. Most upset about that I was).

Anyway, enough about all that rubbish. Hold on to your hats, it's time for Larry.

Social Profiling № 2: Steve

Quick recap: Painting four profile pics for four of my Facebook friends.  You can see the first here; along with a better explanation. This is the second.

Since that first post I've managed to crank out the third in the series, but I'm still only at the point of writing up the second.  Will I get the third written up tonight? Unlikely, but possibly tomorrow (more likely next week).  But what of the second? The one of Steve? The one I'm supposed to be talking writing about now?   Well, if you'll stop interrupting we'll get to see it.

Okay? All done with the fidgeting? Good, let's get to the pic.

Social Profiling № 1: Owain

Back at the start of the month there was a thing going around on Facebook. People would post something along the lines of "Paying it forward 2011. I will give something handmade by me to the first 4 people who reply, on condition that they repeat this message and do the same for their first 4 respondents." This popped up all over the place like a rather smelly chain letter, and struck me as being a bit, well, naff.

So I did my own which read "Who wants me to paint them a profile picture? I'll do four, two for the UK, two for the States if anyone wants one. There's a catch though - I get to pick the picture, and I can't guarantee it'll be any good. ;)
Anyone game? I'll do them over the next week or two (and unlike that paying it forward thing you don't have to do anything, not even use the picture if you hate it)."

I got 16 responses out of 140 friends. I don't know if that's good or not. Anyway, it's taken more than a couple of weeks, and I've only got two finished. I was going to speed paint them, but they ended up taking a bit longer each, and as a result they each get a post of their own. I randomly picked 4 of the respondents to do profile pics for (and it really was as random as I could make it) and started from the top of the resulting list of 4; my old chum Owain.

Cold in the Lazy Bones

By my reckoning it has been about three weeks since I posted anything. This isn't very good at all. In my pathetic defense there was a week in there where the entire household got sick, but this is sort of offset by much of my time being taken up with playing video games. Fallout: New Vegas and Little Big Planet 2 are both sink-holes for time, and it's easy to lose track until you realise it's too late to do what you actually mean to do, such as draw, or update the blog.  All that still leaves a week unaccounted for... perhaps I dropped it down the back of the couch...

As a result I've not only not posted, but I haven't done much in the way or art either. Oh, I've done a little sketching, which I'll cover here, and I've done two ArtRage paintings that I'll cover shortly, and some speed paints, but not a lot in comparison to previous months, and very little in the way of actually improving. I really need to get on with it or I'll never be any good. Anyway, on to the feeble number of sketches done this month.