The gems of the rusty local Arcades

Went down to the sea front for the first time in god knows how long yesterday, despite it only being a five minute walk away. Used to waste most of my pocket money down at the arcades on classics like Hang On (with the big red bike you sat on), After Burner and Outrunners.

Most of those great games are now replaced with lots and lots and lots of Dance machines, Guitar Hero (yes, it's even invaded the arcades now.) and light gun games which never seem to go out of fashion (and of course lots of coin/plush toy grabber things). There were some gems still hidden though. (not photos from the Southend arcades of course, just random images I could find of the machines).

Almost every arcade still has a Daytona USA machine, considering it came out way back in 1994. Most of them have screens that are burning into whatever colour has been shining towards it for the last decade or so, but I did find one with a perfectly clear screen. No 10 machine link systems down here, but they still have one of those in London, and it is still one of my favorites.

All 4 House of the Dead games can still be found. 4 is naturally the most common as it's pretty new but I was surprised to find quite a few 2's and even a HOTD 1. One arcade even had Virtua Cop 2. Boy, I remember when Virtua Cop was everywhere in these things.

One of the arcades in particular still had a small section at the back for retro machines. They had a bunch of mid-90's 3D Sega stuff but also Mrs. Pac-man (in a Pac-man machine. Odd.) Space Invaders (in amazing condition), Track & Field, Title Fight (a very neat Sega 2D boxing game with unique twin stick controls) and best of all...The Simpsons!

I cannot believe I hadn't noticed this one still here. It was pretty wreaked with the top of the screen all fuzzy but perfectly playable with loud sound, so I'm guessing this is the same machine that I played more than any other game as a kid down here as a wee lad (same with the Title Fight, I think). If they ever want to shift it I'd be very tempted to put in an offer, though I'd have idea where to put it! One of these days I'll get myself a big garage: not for a car, but for a small collection of arcade machines, with Simpsons and Daytona in there first. I'm so sad. :D

It's a real shame the Kursaal is pretty much dead in the water yet again. All that's in there now is a bowling alley and the rest seems to be empty. It's still a beautiful building inside but once again they promised a revival that lasted all of five minutes. Plus now it's just a bowling alley it might be at the risk of the Southend Bowling-alleys-always-go-up-in-flames plauge. Oh wait, that's only if they're right on the beach usually.

Wait, why am I even typing this here? This is almost a Sega Memories worthy post, though I use the word 'worthy' pretty lightly. Oh well, it's my blog and I can type whatever drivel I like, wherever you find it interesting or not. :P

New Designers going well! Photos!

Exhibiting at New Designers has been pretty sweet I must say. We set up on Monday, the opening private preview night was Wednesday and I also popped in for the day on Friday (and we'll all be up there Sunday to pack up). Here's some photos I've taken over the days.

There isn't really that many Uni's showing off animation here, I think about 5 in all. Most of the show is, as the name of it suggests, Design work like crazy inventions, car designs, and even the odd game design like a game of Pong you play with your mind (couldn't get it to work, I must be brainless!). There was a lot of excellent illustrators too: I was pleasantly surprised to see Steven Coffils showing his wares off here from Cambridge, as I'm a big fan of his art and have helped him out with something we should be getting online soon. It was great to meet him and have a good chat. :)

Unlike the illustration courses, the animation lot were sort of dotted about rather than next to each other, and we were in a sort of corridor area that is a walk through to a few other rooms. At first we thought this meant we'd get ignored but it's actually drawn quite a bit of attention to us as people walk through they often stop to have a look.

We have three Macs set up (one playing our individual showreels, the other two playing the full films) and a plasma TV running a over all showreel (with a Power Rangers instrumental!). Each one of us has two boards up about our final major project, and we our portfolios out for people to flick through.

I honestly thought I had made too many showreel DVDs, but it looks as though I may of made too little as they're pretty much all gone (even after adding a further 20 yesterday)! Same with the group DVD with all our films on it, they were all gone by the end of Thursday, and there was over 100 of those! Safe to say it's gone rather well!

Ready to sell myself like a whore!

Setting up for the New Designers show in London tomorrow, so this week I've been working on all the promotional stuff that hopefully a whole bunch of industry types will see and maybe even pick up a copy of!

An all-new A3 portfolio (my old A2 is far too big, heavy and out of date to take):

Hundreds of Business cards:

..and finally 80 copies of an updated showreel DVD (complete with a brand new showreel, which will be online in a month or so):

Did I say DVD? I meant DVC: Digital Video Crumpet!

Every showreel picked up also has a unique piece of artwork on the back! Will you get a zombie, or a baby with a chainsaw, or a kid with a ghost on a leash?

There will also be display boards of Lucy Lolly's development, with that film available on the collage DVD in full. More photos of the actual display when it's er...actually up.

Gonna be @ New Designers 2009!

Well this is a nice surprise! I've been invited to join in with the just-about-to-graduate 3rd year animation group (one year from me graduating last year) on displaying my work at the New Designers exhibit in London. Our year looked into doing a showing at this place last year (it's a huuuge place, with hundreds of Universities showing off their stuff over 2 weeks) but unfortunately it fell through so we didn't have a show. I gotta get planning for it right away though as we need to set up next week! Still, it's a opportunity I'm not going to let slip by a second time. Seeing as everyone else is showing their final films they finished this year, I'll be showing my final major film Lucy Lolly.

Links to work from the others here: Gemma, Tom, Becca , Hayley, Dan, Andrew, Amber, Laura, Martin, Cresta (can't find your link!). They all had a show at the collage down here in Southend a few weeks ago and it was ace, with a Power Rangers theme (complete with the music)! I also have to thank Martin and Dan who over the last few weeks have helped me out on the film I've been working on, which is now more or less complete. :)

More details about this exhibit as soon as I get it. EDIT: Turns out the location on the website was wrong. Fixed!

RabRab @ Glastonbury!

Wow, this was a nice surprise! ChewTV just e-mailed me to tell me that they screened RabRab on a big screen owned by the BBC during the Glastonbury Festival! I would have loved to have seen people's reaction to it, but at least I can hope they kept the credits in so my web address could be sunk into all those people's brains! Either way thanks again ChewTV for getting my films out there! :D