Sheer Lunacy. Look away now.

I have no idea why I made these recently, but here they are anyway. The first video is a finger up to horrifyingly cute anime (I replaced the original ear bleeding music with something far better), and the 2nd is a terrible remix of a clip from one of those old 'Bordem' movies I made ages ago. Ignore them if you cherish your brain cells.



ARE YOU A PILLOW ARE YOU A PILLOW ARE YOU A PILLOW BEARBEARBEARBEAR.

EDIT: Oh god not another one!

Howdooyoodoo Cameo!

The Howdooyoodoo makes a quick appearance in Kobun's short animation 'Let's Count' on DeviantArt. How cool is that? Also: the music is very catchy.

That reminds me, a Howdooyoodoo webpage for Tea N Crumpets still needs to be done!

R.I.P ol' Baggy cat.

My pet cat Tigger (AKA the "baggy cat") had to be put to rest today, at the ripe old age of 14. That's a long time for a cat to live, he was never one to full ill but old age finally caught up with him. For the last few weeks he had been getting increasingly thinner, and not eating as much. From just two days ago he wasn't himself, the energy he had not even a week ago had been sucked right out of him, doing nothing buy lying by the front door, breathing harder than usual and not wanting to eat.

We took him to the vet an hour ago, fearing the worst. He had a lump in his neck (caused by his old age) that was stopping him from breathing, and his heart and kidneys were suffering because of it. He was clearly in a lot of pain so there was nothing else we could do other than put him out of his suffering.

Things really aren't going to be the same in the house anymore, he was a part of the family. But he had a long, healthy life. We got him when he was 3 and I was 10 from a man who was leaving for New Zealand, and he actually showed up at our house last summer on a visit back to England, as he clearly hadn't forgot about him all this time. Most days he would more or less join us for dinner, having a small portion of whatever we were having, especially if it was covered in gravy. He would even enjoy a bowl of rice pudding, licking all the cream out and somehow leaving all the rice beans dry at the bottom. I never quite figured out how he did that.

He was a great companion and always manged to cheer me up whenever I was down. He will be greatly missed.

Rest in piece, mate.

Ongoing Tea N Crumpets updates this week.

Staring today I have been making some further improvements to Tea N Crumpets, with more to come within the following week or so. Starting off with a overhaul of how the animation galleries are set up. Instead of the basic but slightly irritating way I have been doing it before (multiple numbered HTML pages with back and forward buttons), I have put to use a rather handy flash image viewer thingy called SimpleViewer, which combined with the image managing of Picasa2, makes the process of making a set of pictures with captions all at the right kind of size much easier.

So far I have applied this to the galleries for RabRab, Over Under Sideways Down, The Fujis and Rocket Number Nine. In the process, I have been looking for extra images to add to these galleries, such as a piece of story doodles for the Fujis that shows an unused scene that is a full on Super Mario Bros spoof. How odd! In fact, there are now 19 images in the Fuji's gallery, including lots of model photos.

I'm also changing how all the flash files of animatic's, final films etc are played in each section. Instead of a new window popping up (which doesn't work on everyones browser settings, not even on mine sometimes), the files are embedded directly into the page itself. Rabrab, OUSD and Fujis have this technique done so far, although I'm having a bit of a problem with it. Any swfs I embed in doesn't seem to use the loading bar anymore (they just get skipped), so files start playing before they are fully loaded, with is a pain especially with bigger files like the final OUSD film (which is 3MB). Also, the rotoscope test plays too fast at the moment, although I can fix that (it' the frame rate, I reckon.)

Other things I plan to do:

* Use the same gallery template above for the illustration sections, which I will be completely revamping with new content and a lot of rearranging about. The five sections might even get completely new names, like the ones I gave my folders at DeviantArt. This way I can remove all those annoying to update tag things that pop out, which meant I could only have a certain amount of art up at a time, otherwise the tags would take up too much room.

* I might also make the News half of the Intro & News section send you to all the update topics here at the blog, tagged so they are all grouped together on one page. This isn't for certain yet, as I hasn't quite planned how I will make it work, because that website launched long before this blog did. maybe I'll just place a 'Click here for latest updates' at the top of the updates list there. Also, the Intro is worded as if Tea N Crumpets is a team of people, not just little ol' me. At the time of writing it I thought it would be cute if I made it sound like it was coming from the characters who inhabit the site, but I think I may change that too.

* The Leave (Links) section needs a major overhaul. Some of the links don't even work anymore, and the layout isn't the best. Less giant fonts piled up on each other, more funky tablet drawn text!

* The Information (profile) page also needs to be redone in some way or another. The text is too small, long out of date, and not particularly interesting. I'll keep the animation elements but otherwise this page needs a lot of work.

* Please tell me what you think: for the main navigation page, should I make it so you don't have to slide it along by moving the mouse to the sides of the screen. As in, have all of the content sitting on the page like normal? This page has been the one I have worried the most about, thinking that maybe some people don't get how it works as it's not exactly explained well enough. Maybe even have it long across the page so you scroll with the scroll bar instead? Or maybe just shrink or squish it down? What do you lot think?

* I don't think that games section will ever open, for a start! Unless I make 'Bish Bash Bosh!' a bit more re-vined and put that up there, although I would need more games than just one, and I'm hardly the greatest programmer in the world..

* Lots and lots of other things to re-write, re draw and tinker with. Whenever I look at the site I always spot something that could do with a little ironing.

I've decided for now that rather than completely re-design the site from scratch like I intended, I'm going to tinker with what I've got, polishing it up until it's as fun and easy to use as I can get it. This is a portfolio website after all, and I want to impress at the New Designers Exhibit, but I doubt I have enough time to develop a brand new website with brand new animation and brand new coding, what with Lucy Lolly bound to gobble up all of my time. Maybe Tea N Crumpets Version 2 can be a plan for next year, but for now it's about getting version 1 up to a...1.5, or something.

You know what I just realized? I completely forgot that Tea N Crumpets was 2 years old last August, which mean it be be 3 years old this year! Has it really been that long? Blimey, I really don't update there enough! Unless you count this blog as part of the website, of course...

At least, I'm doing a good job of keeping this blog regular so far this year...for now. =E

Frobman's 'Tibbo'

A DeviantArt buddy and fellow Brit Frobman just uploaded this short animation he did for Uni yesterday. It's a cute tribute to 1920/30's cartoons that has some neat sight gags and stars character who could be put on a suspects line-up next to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Don Dog and Mickey Mouse.

3rd Strike Blokes

I started sketching up the cast of my favorite Street Fighter game, Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike some time around Christmas, and have drawn and colored three of them up in Flash so far. I probably won't have much time to do anymore for the time being, and if you visit my DeviantArt account you will have already seen these, but if not welcome to stuff-you-haven't-seen-yet-land!.

So as to not be influenced by how other artists have drawn the characters, I'm basing these directly (more or less) on the game's sprites, which you can see every single frame of at this rather brilliant site, and then bastardizing them to my will =)

When I posted these at DevinatArt, I gave them some quick Photoshop shading and a mucky background, but here they are as the original PNGs directly exported from Flash.


Actually, this one above was not based on the sprite, but on an action figure of him I have. The rest are going to be directly based on sprite poses.


Yun and Yang are so alike, you could probably switch their heads around and no one would notice. Same could be said about Ryu and Ken I suppose..

I got a little carried away with this one..

I have a few more characters sketched up ready to be shoved into Flash, but they'll have to wait till later. making art based on game sprites is quite fun, though, I may make a habit of it..

The Year Ahead (Personal Motivation Garbage)

WARNING: WALL OF TEXT. You will most likely want to avoid reading this.

I was tinkering a bit more with the blog layout last night when I found myself skimming through every post I've ever made here, as well as even older DeviantArt journals. I'm sure most people who read here know that I rarely ever talk about my personal life and the reason I do that is simply because there isn't much to say. I also don't really like to bore people with it, so I just end up writing about animation or, as it has been for quite a while, simply not posting at all.

I have a sudden urge to write this though, as maybe if I do type it out rather than shoving in away in my head I may be more motivated than I have been in recent memory. Also, thinking to the near future I don't even know where I'm going to be in a year, let alone any time after that. This post is mainly for me to read back to myself in a years time to see if I can improve myself. If I fail these targets, I can officially consider myself a useless twat! XD

1: COMPLETE LUCY LOLLY

For the last year or so my animation has been lacking slightly. I completely balls up Rock Paper Scissors, sat on The Howdooyoodoo for months and even now it's not 100% how I would of liked it. Lucy Lolly is my final major project for Uni, so it HAS to be in a complete form by 30th May. With those previous animations they were nowhere near complete when due in for marking, mainly because I didn't time manage myself too well at all.

For Lucy Lolly, I even have a backup plan, just in case I do struggle to animate the whole film in time. I'll animate the beginning, end, and then the middle. If the film takes much longer than I excepted (I'll have roughly three months to work on it) I have a last resort shorter version of the film which cuts out the middle of the film and the Lollipop troop characters entirely. It wouldn't have the same impact, but at least it will be complete in some form. I really, really, really don't want to resort to this, though.

2: REMASTER OLD FILMS

This one is probably the most optional but it would benefit me for the third step. I want to go back and improve on my previous films. The Fuji's, for example, has very low quality voice acting sound, so with better equipment I could re-voice the film and remake the soundtrack so it's a bit more professional. I have actually had a go at starting this but I've been put off a little by how much deeper my voice has become since when I originally recorded it in 2005. Another main thing about re-mastering is I want to remove all copyrighted material (like the Aphex Twin music in Traffk) and replace it with original material. This means there will be no problems with potential screenings etc. Also, I want to go back and add what I never had time for on The Howdooyoodoo: add in crowds and traffic in the background. Which leads me to..

3: SELL MYSELF LIKE A WHORE

Once Lucy Lolly is finished I will have a bit of time to plan and prepare for the New Designers Exhibition, a two week event where a whole slew of the animation industry will be going to hunt for new talent. This is where I really need to sell myself as best as I can. That means getting my website up to scratch (maybe even remaking it), improving my portfolio, producing a professional showreel and DVD to go with it, and shoving my foot in as many industry doors as I can. I need to push myself out there as after this event my life is all up to wherever I can get a good job in the industry I love so much. This is my dream and this year I have to be ready to make it happen. Passing this task should also help with my forth..

4: STOP BEING A UNSOCIABLE HERMIT!

I've always thought to myself that if I build up the talent I need for a decent and most importantly enjoyable job, the social life I lack will follow, as this so far is the most difficult task for me, as I've generally gotten used to be a loner who never goes out much. The last year I have been even more unsociable than usual though, to the point where I even don't tend to be on MSN much anymore, so even Internet mates don't hear much of me. I've dug myself a hole and now and I need to climb out of it. Being depressed about not having any friends or knowing what true love is at 21 isn't how I want to feel by the end of the year. Hell, I don't even really have any local mates to play all these games I have piled up! A social life hasn't been easy for me since high school but I want all this to change soon, I just need to be a hermit for just a few more months for steps 1 and 2. =P

That's more or less it. If I can somehow pull these off, I'll have some time to write about here!

No, this blog is not dead..

...although this blog has been inactive for such a long time I wouldn't blame you for thinking it was! It's odd that I never get around to posting here despite all the posts I make at my other blog Sega Memories as well as contributing to The Dreamcast Junkyard. Maybe it's this blogs lack of a focus that makes it difficult to write for, or maybe my life is just that uneventful! XD

Anyway, in a desperate attempt to get this place going again, I have converted it to the newer google beta version of Blogger, as well as improving the design so it looks cleaner and less cluttered. Tea N Crumpets is also in a desperate need of an update (most importantly the inclusion of a Howdooyoodoo webpage). I'm going to add the odd thing or too to the design later today, too.

So what have I been up to recently? Well, the pre-production for Lucy Lolly should be coming to a close within the next month, with plans to start animating as late as the beginning of March. Here are some panels from the storyboard as a sneak peek..

I have also been wasting far too much of my spare time playing Peggle. It's too additive for it's own good, and I'm still only playing the free demo! Here's a link to the demo download, but just a warning: you may not get anything done for days!

Otherwise I really don't have a whole lot to talk about. The animation course is coming to an eventual close, and in July we will be showcasing our work at the New Designers Exhibition at the Business Design Center in Islington, which should be quite exciting! For the next few months though, it's all work, work, work for me!