A Psychochronography in Chrome - Addendum

Well, yes, I suppose I should write another blog post, given that it's been over a month since my last. Why so lax of late? The usual; Just been busy, and blogging ranks fairly low on my list of priorities (right above Cleaning the Toilet, which is something I do more regularly - I didn't say it was a list of most fun things!). So this puts me about a year behind on the sketching posts (not actually that bad, since I've not been sketching much either, which is worse than not blogging about it), and two months behind on Speedpaint posts. I have at least three other things to write about too, so hopefully things will calm down a bit soon so I can catch up...

This post actually returns to something I've posted about before - one of Dr. Sandifer's book covers. I wrote about the cover, but I also mentioned that while the cover was done, the full illustration was not. I've rectified that over the last week, so now I can close out this chapter with a write-up. See what I did there? Chapter? See, it's a post about a book? Oh, never mind. If you need to recap about the other half of the following painting you can read about it, and the book, here.

Painting at the Speed of Fail

Clearly I lied in the last post and did not get to writing another, until now.  I should stop trying to predict the future in my posts, because it's shocking how often things I predict don't come to pass.  Or maybe I should predict things I don't want to happen, so there's a lower possibility of them occurring.  Either way, here I am again with another update on some speedpaints, only two months after I actually did them.  Back to December for this round.  For the sake of my schedule though I'll try and keep this one fairly short.  On the other hand though, videos!

A Change of Speed

Time to start catching up on the Speedpainting for the last couple of months. So far this month I haven't painted any, which is a little miserable. Not that I've done no art at all, just nothing that I can show, and even if I could it wouldn't be very interesting. This also means I've not really started on going back to the fundamental studies I set as a new year resolution. I've done a little, but not at the concentrated level I'd conceived. Early days - January is often a little chaotic, and this year more than most.

Anyway, this post takes us all the way back to November, which seems like a year ago at this point. I'd better get on with writing it, or it will be a year before I finally cover December.

Back to the 2015 Recap Post

I still have two speedpaint posts coming up soon, one for November, and one for December, but today I'm just going for something fairly quick and easy, one of those Review of the Year things that all the cool sites are doing these days, plus some thoughts on my goals for this year.

I don't recall ever doing one of these before (I have done year end speedpaint reviews, but those paying attention will know those usually come around in May, for reasons), so here's the format - I'll give a quick overview of what I've done, and then pick my 4 favourite pieces to show again and cover why I like them, and one piece I hate.  These are ones I personally like (or dislike) - not the most popular, and my preferences for my own work might seem a bit strange.  All good?  OK, let's begin.

A Psychochronography in Chrome

Well, this is a little awkward.  Usually I write these posts and time them to coincide with the launch of the book they're about.  In this case though the good Doctor Sandifer released it on Boxing Day (That's December 26th for those of you who don't know), which is also the day after Christmas, so I forgot.  Sorry.

Anyway, we're here now, so lets get on with it.  As ever you can catch up on the previous Psychochronography posts by clicking here and working your way back to the beginning.  You don't need to do that though; the short story is that I do occasional book covers for Philip Sandifer, who writes critical analysis of (usually pretty geeky) things.  This is one of those.  The explanation for using the word Psychochronography I'll let you dig out for yourself.

Fumbling the Speed Ball

It's been a while!  Over a month since I last posted I think, which means I never posted the Speedpaints for October during November.  This is not caused so much by laziness on my part (though as ever, it's a contributing factor), so much as I usually post on weekends, and the weekends were full.  Obviously Thanksgiving was in there, but also two weekends of travel (to St. Petersburg) - the most arduous trip I've ever been on in terms of actual travel, but the most surprisingly pleasant time once I got there.  Not the best trip I've ever had, but perhaps the one I'd most want to repeat, if I could do it without the jetlag.

So that's three weekends accounted for, and I can't honestly remember why I didn't post on the other ones.  Some form of busy or other, I'm sure.

So, since the following were mostly quite some time ago I'll write what I can, but it might not be much.

Sketching - October to December '14

It's a bit ridiculous that I simplified posting sketches so I could more easily keep up with it, and then haven't posted any for 5 months.  I shall post now, although this still puts me a year behind.  Same rules as last time - Scan page, adjust levels, post image.  Edits allowed for rotating something so you can see it better, or cutting something out you're not supposed to see (for work or whatever. Not because it's bad - you get to see the terrible stuff, or there wouldn't be much to see). So, let's see what I was up to a year ago...

Not So Innocent

Well, this has been an odd month.  Not the number, obviously October is an even month numerically (but with an odd number of days... why am I typing this?  You know this).  No, it's been odd in a "things that I have done" sort of way, which is that I've been really quite busy, but don't have a whole lot to show for it.  I dislike that - if I'm going to be busy I like to have something at the end to say "Yes, I was busy, here is what I did," Instead this month has been "I've been really busy, but I'm not entirely sure what I was busy with."

Still, I'm finally managing to write a blog post, and it's Halloween!  Fortunate then that I have a creepy picture to share today.  That I finished a month ago, but haven't had time to blog about really (and may not today - there are halloween things occurring outside the webosphere of course).  Let's start; see how far we get.  You can, as always, click the images to see them enlargerized with Embiggen-O-Ramavision.

Speed of the One Inch Punch

I had a lot of options for today's post, but finally decided to go with the good old Speedpaint roundup.  There are a fair number of them, but strangely almost all of them were done in the first half of the month, as the rest of the month was taken up with other projects (the last post being one of them).

Despite this, I've reached the goal of painting the equivalent of one speedpaint a week for this year.  48 of them.  Some of them were pointless of course (there's one of those this time too), but since I'm unlikely to not do another one before New Year I think the end result will still be a positive one.

OK, enough yapping, let's look at some painting.

A Psychochronography in Blue (Part 6)

I think, by now, you probably know the drill.  On the chance that you're a newcomer to these here shores you can read the previous entries in this series by clicking here. You don't need to in order to follow along, but the option is there if you need it.

So, new cover for a new Phil Sandifer joint, this one being the 6th of the main series of TARDIS Eruditorum, 'The Unofficial Critical History of Doctor Who' (because Phil loaths a short subtitle).  To see Phil's post on the subject, click here.

By all rights, this should have been my personal favorite of the series to do, as it lands smack dab in the middle of an era I hold dear.  Oddly though that very fact made it less satisfying, as nothing I could do would ever live up to the memories of the ridiculous gaudy graphic excesses of the mid-80's (the prime example of the theme being the 6th Doctor's much maligned coat).  I did my best though, in line with Phil's preferences, and quite like the result.