It all started with this edition of Shortpacked!
It seemed so innocent at the time. "Look, monkeys!" would be the phrase used to distract from all mistakes or difficult questions. It was the ultimate 'Get Out Of Jail Free' card. But then, for no obvious reason, that idea found itself entwined with the concept of Tribute Bands. Specifically, how could one create a tribute band for Gorillaz who, let's face it, don't really exist. Would the tribute band be real people, or would it be cartoon? If it was cartoon, would it ape (sorry!) Jamie Hewlett's style, or would it be radically different? Would it be characters who looked hopelessly different from Murdoc, 2D, Noodle and Russel, but dressed like them? Many questions... The only certainty was the name they'd adopt: Look, Monkiez!
I had grand hopes for this weekend. For starters, I had to finish some sketches for work - icons for a '12 days of Christmas' thing which have been alternately boring me stupid and frustrating the hell out of me for about a month now - but then, I'd be free to have a go at illustrating Look, Monkiez! for the first time. I have a vague idea of their look... each one will be a not-quite-opposite of their counterpart in Gorillaz, and what they lack in talent, they'll make up for in sheer enthusiasm for paying tribute to their inspiration. I figure the Russel analogue would be extremely skinny, but equally nutty behind the drums, and 'Noodle' would be a chubby girl with a dippy anime name that has -chan thrown on the end for no good reason. She may wear cat-girl ears. 2D's counterpart would most likely mimic the original by wearing extremely heavy eyeliner. The Murdoc equivalent would certainly have a ridiculously oversized pudding-basin haircut. Probably a wig.
As it happened, I was too tired yesterday to do anything, and woke up with a headache this morning. I tried to work on the icons in the morning and after lunch, but didn't do too well.
In the afternoon, I went to see The Prestige. Bonkers film. Utterly bonkers. Full of illusions, misdirection, trickery and hints of what's to come, I'm not sure whether to be very impressed or rather disappointed by the denouement. I enjoyed the film - very well-paced, and the twists were clever enough to avoid being entirely predictable - but it was difficult to find enough sympathy for any of the main characters to feel satisfied with the ending. Maybe I should look up the novel... Before setting out to see it, I wasn't aware that David Bowie was in the film - a fact which might well have put me off. That would have been a mistake - his turn as Nikola Tesla was subtle and well-played... I almost wish he'd had more screen time. In many ways, Bowie's bits of this film reminded me of the anime Steamboy - science so advanced, it's indistinguishable from magic... and Scientists seeking to unlock great secrets.
Once back home, I tried to motivate myself to get back to the Christmas icons for work, but my first attempt at 'neat' versions, which I'd intended to colour by hand, were scrapped. Coloured pencils just ain't my thing. In so many ways, pencils in general are not my thing... but coloured pencils never give me the effect I'm after, as I just end up scribbling with them as I do with any other kind. I have a coloured Partridge in a Pear Tree, and that's it. It looks OK, and yet somehow wrong, and that's not solely due to my piss-poor technique.
The Gold Ring also had a complete overhaul. Originally, I'd drawn just a simple ring, then I added some blobs to make it a more ornate ring. It looked crap, though, and I wanted more than just a ring in the picture, so I redrew the whole thing as a simple ring (with added gold sparkle effect) on a cushion. Looks much better. I suspect I'll add some colour to each one in Photoshop, but it won't be too dramatic. Maybe turn them slightly sepia-toned and try to add a dash of colour to certain parts (my French Hen may have Tricolore tailfeathers). We shall see... Largely, it depends on how much time I have at work. At least I did eventually finish all twelve, and they're still clean enough to scan well when I get to the office.
Someone remind me to politely decline next time anyone asks me to draw something for work. I still cannot work to any kind of deadline, and I couldn't give a stuff if I get any extra money out of it.
Tonight's Torchwood was probably the most impressive so far, in terms of developing an interesting storyline well enough to fit it into an hour of television... And yet still they rely on jarring shouty bits and sudden bouts of emoting a little bit too hard. The special effects were particularly good but the end was a little limp. I am starting to wonder if they've really thought through the character of Captain Jack Harkness... Originally, it seemed that he became immortal in the future, thanks to Rose Tyler/Bad Wolf, but Torchwood appears to be suggesting that it wasn't her temporary foray into Godhood that brought him back to life in the future. This would tend to start one wondering how long he's lived... If he was already immortal back before World War I and, when he met Rose and The Doctor back in World War II, he was from the future where humans had spread out across the galaxy, he's had an incredibly long life... But is the Torchwood Jack the one from the future where Rose destroyed the Daleks (in which case, how did he get back to the present day?), or has he not yet met her or The Doctor? Is Russell T Davis messing with our heads?
Sunday, 12 November 2006
Thursday, 9 November 2006
Work In Progress
The aim of this Blog was to ease me back into writing regularly. A few years ago, I joined up with an internet writing group, and churned out a couple of very well-received stories. For one reason or another, though, it all dried up. I had (have) ideas for plenty more stories, but I just couldn't bring myself to sit down and write... and the story I'd been working on at the time (approaching 30,000 words) ground to a halt.
Part of me still thinks it's a numbers thing. I kept doing wordcounts, and as they crept ever higher, I found it more and more difficult to carry on, because I was only intending to write short stories, and I seemed to be heading towards a novel.
Not that that would be a bad thing...
For the most part, I just started getting very critical of everything I wrote and, while I'd often come up with whole paragraphs that I really liked - invariably whenever I was nowhere near a computer, or anything else I could write with - I never managed to write them out, and ended up forgetting them. I even bought myself a little PDA - a Hewlett Packard Jornada 720 - for just those occasions... and yet I never remembered to keep it with me.
The other problem is that sometimes I find the act of writing such a chore. All that typing or scribbling... it's just dull. I need some way of directly transfering what's in my head into a Word document, or something. That'd be perfect.
To make matters worse, all my writing for the group was initially based around one character, with a few set to be recurring characters. All of a sudden, one day, one of my 'other' characters became a key player in another story with another main character... who quickly became more interesting than my original main character, and with a whole great, sweeping story arc of her own. After coming up with a few ideas to get that rolling, it quickly dried up.
Except that's not quite fair to say... It's all still there, whizzing around in my head, but I just can't focus on writing.
Which, going back to the original point of this post, is the point of this Blog: A focal point, and 'practice', to get back into the habit of writing. The problem I'm having now (aside from time) is that I find myself automatically censoring everything I think about writing, to the point that there's no purpose in writing it. Don't want to say too much about work, because that's got me in trouble in the past (although that was on my website, which many of my colleagues knew about and, as briefly mentioned in my first post, was obsessed over by one of them), and I can't force myself to come up with witty/crazy things to write about, like the 3D photography post... That sort of thing will occur to me at random.
I can only hope that I'll start coming up with things, because I really do want to get back into writing, and I'd rather not resort to raiding my old stuff to bulk up this blog. Of course, when something interesting happens in my life - such as the Expo recently, and the upcoming Memorabilia - I shall endeavour to write about them... but I do have this nagging feeling (damn you, self-doubt) that I'll go for quite long periods without updating this thing.
One fun bit of news today came from an ex-colleague, well known for being connected for all the gossip. It seems that two of my least favourite ex-colleagues have had some recent upsets. One is looking for a new job because her current (rather prestigious) employer won't give her a pay rise (and absolutely not because no-one there likes her, wants to go to lunch with her, or will even refer to her by name). Another recently split from her boyfriend (another ex-colleague!) after being - and here I quote - "a bit naughty". Considering the way her previous relationship broke up, this surprises me not one bit.
One thing I will mention about work today... As previously mentioned, one member of the department was recently let go. Since then, it has occasionally been observed that many of the silly little problems we had, which often resulted in delays, aren't happening as often. Still happening, and I'd never expect them to stop entirely, but the occurences of the sillier problems are statistically more likely to be accidental now... They used to happen far too often.
Part of me still thinks it's a numbers thing. I kept doing wordcounts, and as they crept ever higher, I found it more and more difficult to carry on, because I was only intending to write short stories, and I seemed to be heading towards a novel.
Not that that would be a bad thing...
For the most part, I just started getting very critical of everything I wrote and, while I'd often come up with whole paragraphs that I really liked - invariably whenever I was nowhere near a computer, or anything else I could write with - I never managed to write them out, and ended up forgetting them. I even bought myself a little PDA - a Hewlett Packard Jornada 720 - for just those occasions... and yet I never remembered to keep it with me.
The other problem is that sometimes I find the act of writing such a chore. All that typing or scribbling... it's just dull. I need some way of directly transfering what's in my head into a Word document, or something. That'd be perfect.
To make matters worse, all my writing for the group was initially based around one character, with a few set to be recurring characters. All of a sudden, one day, one of my 'other' characters became a key player in another story with another main character... who quickly became more interesting than my original main character, and with a whole great, sweeping story arc of her own. After coming up with a few ideas to get that rolling, it quickly dried up.
Except that's not quite fair to say... It's all still there, whizzing around in my head, but I just can't focus on writing.
Which, going back to the original point of this post, is the point of this Blog: A focal point, and 'practice', to get back into the habit of writing. The problem I'm having now (aside from time) is that I find myself automatically censoring everything I think about writing, to the point that there's no purpose in writing it. Don't want to say too much about work, because that's got me in trouble in the past (although that was on my website, which many of my colleagues knew about and, as briefly mentioned in my first post, was obsessed over by one of them), and I can't force myself to come up with witty/crazy things to write about, like the 3D photography post... That sort of thing will occur to me at random.
I can only hope that I'll start coming up with things, because I really do want to get back into writing, and I'd rather not resort to raiding my old stuff to bulk up this blog. Of course, when something interesting happens in my life - such as the Expo recently, and the upcoming Memorabilia - I shall endeavour to write about them... but I do have this nagging feeling (damn you, self-doubt) that I'll go for quite long periods without updating this thing.
One fun bit of news today came from an ex-colleague, well known for being connected for all the gossip. It seems that two of my least favourite ex-colleagues have had some recent upsets. One is looking for a new job because her current (rather prestigious) employer won't give her a pay rise (and absolutely not because no-one there likes her, wants to go to lunch with her, or will even refer to her by name). Another recently split from her boyfriend (another ex-colleague!) after being - and here I quote - "a bit naughty". Considering the way her previous relationship broke up, this surprises me not one bit.
One thing I will mention about work today... As previously mentioned, one member of the department was recently let go. Since then, it has occasionally been observed that many of the silly little problems we had, which often resulted in delays, aren't happening as often. Still happening, and I'd never expect them to stop entirely, but the occurences of the sillier problems are statistically more likely to be accidental now... They used to happen far too often.
Wednesday, 1 November 2006
Testing
| You Are: 20% Dog, 80% Cat |
 You are are almost exactly like a cat. You're intelligent, independent, and set on getting your way. And there's no way you're going to fetch a paper for anyone! |
It's true... Oh, yes. Except perhaps the 20% Dog part. Not sure where that came from.
No, I'm not larking about at the office, I'm at home. Taking the morning off, going into work later.
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