Po's Unexpected Relatives

Inspired by discovering the bargain bucket films Little Panda Fighter and Way of the Panda/The Prodigy. I'm sure you've seen this kind of thing before: Disney/Pixar/Dreamworks puts out a movie, and all the cheapo animation firms from Brazil or wherever attempt to cash in with a similarly themed film. These are rarely subtle, with titles like Ratatoing being probably the most obvious, and films like Little Princess School bordering very dangerously close to copyright infringement city, but bless them for trying anyway.

The panda films were particularly interesting as their's not one but two knock off films out there, and one of them is by "some guy that worked at dreamworks". Smooth!

Meerkats with Mini Guns

4th in the 'Animals Packing Heat' series. Would like to get at least 5 of these made though 12 over time would be excellent as I could design a calender out of them (as a few peeps have suggested). For the Web+Comix thing however I'm just going to do these as prints for the time being.

First ever (proper) Valentines day!

So yesterday was both me and Stacey's first Valentines day ever so I wanted to make it a fun day out for the both of us, and after some mishaps with the trains on her way over, that's exactly what it turned out to be!

I took her to the cafe in Marks & Spencer's that does this huge hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows and we exchanged gifts while we were there. Stacey knows me so well, look what she got me!

She also made me this amazing card, all hand painted like she does so well!

In return I got her a box full of her favorite chocolates (the anonymity of Formspring came in handy finding what those were, haha!), some of the Rabbid toys she collects, and my card which was also hand drawn!

So some time after that we went to see the princess and the Frog at the cinemas, which was a pleasantly surprise as it was actually really enjoyable! I say that because I don't normally like the princess Disney films much, that and this film went through a lot of political bull, but this one had plenty of really good characters that had more substance and personality than even a lot of the characters in the oh so popular 90's films like Aladdin. The Prince was, probably for the first time ever, more than just a cardboard cut out/ piece of eye candy for the girls to pine for: probably helped by the fact that him and the film's 'princess' are frogs for a bulk of the movie.

The single thing that sold me on seeing the film was the massive Alligator, and he didn't disappoint, and there was even the odd scene in the film (which I won't spoil) which showed Disney have finally realized again that you need a MIX of emotions in a film, not just happy happy happy throughout. The songs weren't it's strongest point but they were ok, and the great animation in some of them more than made up for them (especially the first song which goes all retro 50's style on us).

I'd say go see it though if just so Disney will get the hint and make more films like this rather than say...Chicken little (and I'm not even just talking about the whole hand drawn over CGI debate here). For the first time in ages (since maybe Lilo and Stitch?) I can say this is a DISNEY movie. In a good way, I mean.

After that we popped over for a meal at Pizza Hut, and by about 6-ish she had to make her way back home. It was just brilliant, just like every day I spend with Stacey is. I just love making her feel special, it makes me so happy to see her smile.

Eek, better get back to planning for Comix thing!

Ducks with Nunchucks

2nd pic in my 'Animals Packing Heat' series, which I hope to do quite a few of over time.

I believe this one was suggested to me by Sonicmark while I was colouring Kangaroos with Flame-Throwers on Livestream. I did originally plan to colour these two in the basic white and orange fashion but decided to go with the colours of a mallard instead, far more interesting.

Artwork wise there's a hint of Nigel Kitching influence in this one which I hadn't noticed until after I scanned it, mainly in the way I've done the eyes.

Hyenas with Grenades

2nd pic in my 'Animals Packing Heat' series, which I hope to do quite a few of over time. Not sure how the idea for this one came about, but really enjoyed drawing this. I re-drew bits of this in the sketch phase countless times before I was happy with it, with some help from Stacey along the way.

More (eventually) on the way!

Another daft self portrait kind of thing.

Another ID thingy for DeviantArt, and another excuse to spoof Lady Gaga (this image to be precise). I actually struggled to come up with 'hates' but I guess that's because I'm in such a good mood lately. Man, three blog posts in one day! I should have some more art finished off and ready to show later this week.

THIS MONTH I HAVE BEEN MOSTLY PLAYING.. (Jan '10)

A new feature about video games for this blog, seeing as not everything video game related I play would suit the Sega and Dreamcast blogs I also write on. These were the games I played most over January. I tend to have splurts of focusing on one console every month or so, and it's been mostly my PS3 getting time put into it this time, all thanks to buying a bunch of downloadable games.

Fat Princess
So over Christmas the Playstation 3's online store had a bit of a sale, reducing a few games I would have bought already had they not been over a tenner. Also, Zavvi have been selling the £20 online store cards for £16, so I saved even more then. I had played a demo of Fat Princess before and really enjoyed it so for £8 I decided to give this a shot. So far I've pumped quite a lot of hours into it and grabbed the odd trophy.

The online is really quite clever and for the most part works rather well. Up to 32 players can be playing at any one time (split across two teams) and you can jump into a random match at any time. Each team has a castle with a cute little princess inside and the aim is to capture the other teams princess and rescue your princess then hold onto them until a timer runs out. The title of the game comes from the fact that you can feed your captured princess cake which will make her fatter, thus harder to pick up!

You can play as many different classes, a swordsmen, archer, priest (to heal your teammates), worker (to construct enhancements to your castle and upgrade the weapons), fire magician and a few others. There are many different strategies you can take and some matches can go on for ages if the teams are well balanced. This game defiantly gobbles up a lot of free time, and the cartoon violence doesn't get old too soon. Will probably pop back to this one every so often for months to come.

Trine
The other game I downloaded for £8 (but normally cots about £15) was this rather lovely sidescrolling puzzle platformer which reminds me a lot of the Amiga game Fury of the Furries (no, not those kind of furries). You play as a thief with a grappling hook and bow + arrow, a wizard who can levitate items and make square and bring like objects, and a swordsman who er...uses his sword and you can switch between all three of them at any time (unless any of them have died of course).

It's a beautiful looking game with lush scenery. The voice acting and narration throughout was nicely done and while the physics and platforming isn't always perfect I've enjoyed this much more than I did LittleBigPlanet. The controls on the PS3 are intuitive after about ten minutes getting to know what everything does, I especially like how the controls for the thief's bow and arrow works. You can also buy this on a disc for the PC, there is no Xbox Live Arcade version yet though. Either way it's well worth a look IMO.

Bomberman Ultra
The third game I bought that was technically about a quid considering the PSN card was cheaper than it's actual value. I've always dug Bomberman games and I own one for almost every system I've got, so it only makes sense to have one sittin on the PS3 harddrive too. This one has two main draws that seperate it from the rest: a customizable Bomberman (well, to an extent) and online play. To be honest though, the online didn't seem all that good: very laggy with characters popping about all over the place and twice it actually crashed the PS3.

Also while the levels and play modes were decent I actually think the Wiiware Bomberman had better and more, what's more the online play in that was smoother when I went back to compare. Also the Thopies for this game are a bit ridiculous: dress your Bomberman as a cowboy a beat an online player who is also dressed as a cowboy?

Tatsunoko Vs capcom for the Wii popped in the post this week, so I should suspect that'll be one of the games on next months article!

So I've gotta get this off my chest already..

Ok, so I don't tend to post personal life type stuff on this blog often (it's more a keep-up-with-projects-I'm-doing kind of thing) but sod it, I just cannot contain myself. January was the happiest I have possibly ever been in my life: so incredible I can hardly describe it. I should think the icons just under my related links is a good enough clue as to what I'm talking about! :)

I don't know how many of you reading know of Stacey, you may of noticed a link to her blog along the side or remember this awesome Lucy Lolly fan art she did me on my Birthday last year (see above). Well anyway we've known each other online for about 5 years via DeviantArt, thanks to having many similar interests and both enjoying each others art (Stacey's a crazy awesome painter, go check her stuff out).

Well funnily enough about a year or so after we met online she popped up at a car boot sale I was selling junk at, of all places, and said hello. This wouldn't be the first time we'd bump into each other at this same car boot sale either: over the years it happened quite a few times if I recall. Small world and all that.

So fast forward to just last October: a bunch of mates recommended I go check out the MCM Convention in London and said to look out for them as they'd also be there. You might remember my blog post about the event, which was rather fun, but I didn't really have much luck finding many of my friends. At least bar three, one of which was Stacey who came running over and gave me a big hug. So that day was the first time we'd hung out for longer than a few minutes, and it was a great.

So I've known this girl for yonks, met her a couple times by pure luck, and chatted endlessly online, so I decided to e-mail her and see if she wants to hang out again some time, along with this daft pic above (which is a sort of response to this art of her as a Raving Rabbid). We did plan to go up somewhere in London just before Christmas though that fell through, but in January I took a train up to her place and a week later she popped down my way. Both times we had a great laugh playing games, drawing together and showing each other our art. It's just amazing how much we have in common and how well we get along.

That same night long after she had gone back home and I was just about to log off from chatting to her online all night she confessed her feelings for me, which knocked me clean off my feet to say the least! We met again twice this weekend, and now we're officially dating! :D

The bottom half of this pic is how I felt just last week.

We've been pretty quiet about this online because you know what people are like about "Internet relationships lololol", but we only live a short train journey away from each other and have met quite a few times now, so this is far more than just some DeviantArt crush nonsense across the Atlantic or something. I hate to go all mushy on you guys but I'm absolutely smitten and over the moon! 2010 couldn't have started any better! :)