More to life than simply Speedpainting

It's not very often you get to start a post by paraphrasing Ghandi, so I think when you get the chance you should go for it, don't you. This month has been a little sparse on posts as you may have noticed. Generally this happens when I get busy elsewhere, and I'm plenty busy right now. Tomorrow I start a 6 week painting class on Wednesday evenings. It worked out as expensive, but I feel it will work out cheaper in the long run (and faster) than pulling out some paints every six months and grimacing at the results. it may turn out I just suck and the whole thing will be a disaster, but at least I'll know, and so will you as of course I'll post the resulting detritus here.

As well as that I've been working on a commission (the one I said I'd be a fool to turn down). It's actually finished, completed last night, but I can't post it for a while (which is something you should be used to with the commissions by now). The good news is that I'm sketching a lot more than I was last month, although quite a bit of that is for the Open Art Group (Which you get to see anyway). Two of this month's speedpaints are sort of for the same, so I suppose I should get on and show them.

Trains, Planes, Cars and a Boat

There, that wasn't so bad a wait was it? I'm back, obviously. Where've I been? The UK, again. Usually there's quite a gap between trips, but this one was a mere 7 and a bit months. We went again so soon because of my Cousin's wedding, and it turned out to be one of the most mental trips I've ever been on. It'll be a while before I go again unfortunately, but next time we plan for it to be a little more relaxing.

This post is going to be a little different from most as I want to get down things that happened on the trip so I can remind myself just how crazy it was compared to the usual ones (which are rarely boring). I'll fit in the sketching I did first though. I don't really care if you don't want to read all the text - this one is for my own benefit; feel free to check out the pictures and ignore the text if you want to.

The Best (Not Worst) Sketching of October

I think by this point we've all acknowledged that I can be pretty tardy when it comes to updating the blog, especially when there are other shiny things I could be looking at/reading/playing/watching etc.  This was definitely the case last month as you'll note the new record low of 1 solitary post.  Bah.  If October felt like an eternity then November offset it by going in a flash.
"Oh look, it's Guy Fawks Nigh*VOOF*t...  I mean Thanksgiving."
Partly this was down to the excitement of having shipped another game, and it being reviewed very well, and also being really really fun to play.  Yes, I've played rather a lot of Saints Row: The Third recently.  I only spent six months of so working on it, but it's hard to miss what I did.
Pretty much every ship in the game is something I built, as are a couple of vehicles. They all got touched by other people after I was done (and quite a few people when I was still making them, for technical aid and so on), but they're still enough of mine that I can point and say "I made that ship!".  Anyway, enough excuses and prattling, I'm a month behind, we stuff to catch up on...

A Musing 4: Stress and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I've been away for a while. Had you noticed? Poor May, no love for May. Poor blog, missed it's first birthday. Why? Well, therein lies a tale, and I'm limited in how much I can tell you. But it does lead to this current blog entry, and I'll post some speed paints and such in with it as examples, but, as the title may lead you to believe, it's all due to stress. Nothing to do with Motorcycles though - but a more meaningful title would get me in trouble at work...

Narcissism in Action

Look, something that isn't bone white and associated with death.  Yes, it's me, my first self portrait in...  Oh, OK, not that long really since I did a quick sketch of me for my facebook profile not long before I began this blog.  Still, it occurred to me that since I'd started it you hadn't seen what my terrible visage looked like (although since only people who know me have likely looked at the blog you may already know what I look like); this is about to change.  You may even see a photograph!  I know, try to restrain yourselves.  I'll begin with the finished self portrait, and then proceed to the blow by blow replay.