Benidude // So this is Christmas

Greetings one and all and welcome to another riveting blog post by yours truly. I really did fully intend to post more than twice a month here but I have been terribly busy this December, having found a brilliant new job whilst keeping my old one, and trying to squeeze in the occasional gym visit around 18 hour workdays 6 days a week!
Having said that I have been thoroughly enjoying my new job, which ironically involves being organised and taking care of things! (Much easier when you're doing it on behalf of someone else!)

So what else have I been up to? Not a lot!

It was my bosses birthday yesterday which made a good excuse to work on another vinyl toy- this one was from a shop on Beak Street rather than the usual Kidrobot toys I get, it's called a Dudebox, and about the same price but it has a lot more surface to actually design on!


So here's some pictures from the production stage- I usually spend alit more time on these but i left it to the night before so total work was about 5-6 hours!









The idea was a character based on something from the TV show 'benidorm' so I sketched a few ideas and then collected all my favourite features into one;











Posted from my iPhone

A month on a page

Hello my loyal and faithful (cough.. fictional) readers! Yes I am losing weight, how nice of you to notice and very sweet of you to mention the fact..

I did fully intend to post for Halloween, excuse my lateness but i've always been bad at showing up at the right time and organising my own thoughts (I am, however, very good at critisizing and organising other peoples lives!) So you can enjoy this now and look forward to a Christmas update sometime in early March.

Carving a pumpkin is such a cliché, so this year I decided to draw one instead! Unfortunately though, i didn't decide to take a decent, non-mobile-phone-photograph before it rotted into nothingness!

 

Next year I have decided that I am definitely going to design a Pimp-kin complete with feather velvet hat and cane (has it been done? google images says no!).. Lil' pumpkin ho's would be fun, too.

I also turned up to work in full costume as my manager had told me to, only to realise that nobody else had bothered and I was the only wanker dressed up as a creep!

Luckily the bar was dead (ba-dum, tish!), making it both not worth the effort and much less embarassing..

So what else have I been up to? Well I have been getting alot of emails requesting that I  recap my nightbus reading list in a kind of book review-esque post (Jk, noone ever emails me..) So here's a crappy picture and my dumb thoughts on each book!

World war Z, Max Brooks

This was a pretty interesting book. Like most men I love the idea of a Zombie Apocalypse, although unlike most men I have no fantasies that I would be the one to survive.. even though i've been going to the gym alot recently I still think I would be run down by an asthmatic grandma with an axe in her hip!
Overall I thought this was a good read. Again most men would probably love this book possibly because of, (more likely in spite of) all the military talk- weapons, tanks etc. but I did love the way it jumped very quickly all around the world to give you accounts of various survivors who managed to survive in a castle, a house and even a fish tank! (Ok, the last one I made up)
Read it if you have alot of short tube/train/bus journeys to make, you're not going to get sucked in and fall asleep with the light on but it will pass the time and give you a bit of a buzz.

 I'm going to lump these all together purely because they are all books written by Terry Pratchett (If you missed the huge gold letters on each cover then the detective stories, Snuff and Dodger, probably aren't for you)  Having said that, they were all very different stories written in the same often hilarious Pratchett style (yes I said it, books can be hilarious too, i'm serious..) I found them hard to read at first, but i've quickly learned to love it. I actually read Snuff first, which was a mistake because I then realised it's the most recent book in a series of 39! I ordered 'The colour of magic' which is book #1 and i'm now planning to work my way through that series.. (39 f*%^*ing books!) Read them, you'll love them. And if you don't.. well I couldn't care less, this isn't what I do! I'm not a book reviewer!

I just remembered that i'm late for that thing, you know.. well I have an apointment.. it's far too late to be writing things for noone to read, so until next time (don't hold your breath) goodnight and thanks for giving me the impression that you read this!

Your friend, 

Buddy Holly

My thoughts on modern art

As you may have noticed, the title for this article (which may be very unaptly chosen) is 'My thoughts on modern art' and as I sit down to write with a cup of tea at my side on the back of an interesting day visiting the Tate Modern and The Photographers Gallery, i find my brain surprisingly numb!

What did I think? I didn't think, flickering between boredom and anger (which was all the exhibitions managed to evoke) I couldn't even muster the effort to write down the names of the artists and exhibitions that I wanted to write about. Lucky for you, my valued readers, i'm sure I can just about manage to condense into words the sheer genius and talent that I witnessed.

What did I see? Well there was some mannequins covered in fiberglass (?) that looked like brown sticky tape, which some pretentious wanker, as I observed, chanced to enlighten his children about with his bold insights into the artists motivations (''They look like humans, yes.. but.. unformed, it's almost as if they haven't had chance to experience life'' not as stupid as it sounds, of course, when you consider that he's technically right. They are manuiqins after all..) I also saw what was essentially a small brick wall on it's side, minus the mortar/concrete. It's amazing that the work of an unqualified bricklayer would be considered worthy of exhibition.  

Image from The Independant

Another fantastic piece took me by surprise as I asked my companion "Oh.. wait, is this an actual piece? I thought they had taken the ventilation shafts out of the ceiling'' No prizes for guessing what it was (although if you really want to know it was venilation shafts!..)

Now I know that taking the piss out of modern art is a cliché, but for anyone reading this thinking 'oh he just doesn't 'get' it', it has to stop! I admit i'm uncultured, I don't know much about art, art history, art techniques (*I do know piling bricks isn't an 'art technique') but from my point of view, anyone who says they do 'get it' just wants to be part of the club, it's mindless- and for me very reminiscent of religious fanatics who are so much 'holier than thou' (I once had an experience with a gentleman older than myself who had found god who told me very matter-of-factly that I was just an ignorant young lad and i'd see one day what i've been too ignorant to see up to now)

 Admittedly, I was excited at seeing Picasso, Braques and Dali pieces in person, having written so much about them for art class in school. But this was art that was groundbreaking (as opposed to shoddy 'ground building', a la 'The Bricks') and i'm ashamed to say that Modern art has come to mean wanker fuel for people in turtle necks with ironic beards (not that i wouldn't grow one if i wasn't so folically challenged!)

It wasn't all that bad.. not really, I just like having a cynical chip on my shoulder as I assume it makes for funnier reading than a 'diary entry' blog.
The surrealist exhibition was actually very cool, i'm not going to post any Dali or anything- instead here's a couple artists I liked that I hadn't heard of, more for myself for future referance but feel free to check them out -

Ibrahim El-Salahi

Alberto Giacometti

and from the Photographers gallery, i thought that the Tom Wood exhibition was interesting and worth a look!


Good night folks!

Summer time, when the living's easy

Hello and welcome my loyal readers! 'Where have you been?!' I can hear you screaming at me, as I glance over your shoulder to the depressing dimmed candles and cold food, indicating that I should have been home hours ago...
and my response, ladies and gentlemen, (before you start smashing vases and throwing my clothes out the top floor window) is that ''The train was late, we've been hectic at work and they needed me there''.
This poor metaphorical situation is of course supposed to excuse my lack of posts and general creativity for the entire summer- and it is a very good excuse.. if you ignore the lipstick on my work shirt collar.

So what HAVE I been doing?

I've been working full time (often more than full time) hours in a bar in central london, which has been very interesting in spite of the 1-3 hour travel time each way. I've had good times and bad times there, but the most important thing is that i've lost alot of weight working there and having my arse physically kicked.
Unfortunately I also realised how much I really hate sitting at a computer day in, day out.. (Hence my summer technology rebellion) and how much better it feels to just be active, busy and PHYSICALLY tired out rather than mentally drained every night!

and what else?

Well I turned 21 in May- I've never really done alot on my birthday but this year it felt like loads of people made an effort which was a great surprise :-) (See the picture below, I got a bag of cool shit from some friends I really haven't known all that long! It was very nice)

Time to start being an adult, I guess..

(JK JK here's a pic of me bangin' a statue)

I have been keeping a sketchbook, though! Most of it is very rough and you're not likely to see it unless I clean up/develop any ideas (or you steal my backpack on the central line)

p.s I saw this in Tesco. It made me giggle so I thought it would be worth sharing.

Now I'm fuly aware that noone actually reads this thing and noone has been dissapointed or outraged by my brief dissapearance but I wanted to get back into the swing of writing down my thoughts and deepest inner emotions so I can one day be a real artist and pretentiously bullshit my way through exhibitions (it's all good practice)

Smell ya later, here's a picture of the shard!

Postcards

Some postcards I just realised weren't on this site anymore, most of which I sent to my sister, if you want one send me an email! :-)

Dave

'Dave'

Just a quick paint up of an old sketch of a friend!

May draw a day challenge #1

So a new friend of mine has started a 'May draw a day challenge'! I've got no idea how long i'll keep this up but check out her blog post for the details and drawing subjects.. day #1 was bunting, here's mine.. It's a fun way to break up animation :-)

Film W.I.P #3

The Joys of animating a 'sneak walk' in perspective..! Yes that is a gigantic pigeon you are seeing!
Our deadline is coming up on Wednesday and I fear that everything took alot longer than it should have..  though with no sleep I'm still hopeful..

Nothing interesting to report, I haven't left my computer or done anything of note for the last few weeks!

Best friends forever

I figured it would be worth posting up this video I made in 2009! It was for a college project called 'The 39 Steps', we were given 39 different camera/edit techniques and we had to find a way to use all of them. I think I used 38 in the end cause the dolly was very rough on the concrete and I didn't know how to stabilize film footage! Unfortunately I can't find the original high def edit so I only have this compressed verison..
Enjoy!

Film W.I.P #2

Rap and animation

Four awesome animated rap music videos! Just a heads up, some of these are pretty 'NSFW' (Crude language, adult themes, rape, drugs etc!)

Dance with the devil, by Immortal Technique with animated visuals by German animation student Viola Baier.  Love this song and I think that the visuals really compliment the story! I recommend checking out her blog, there's a trailer for another film that is just as cool!

  Pretty dark but again I think that the animation compliments it very well. There is a reaction video of his uncle hearing the song for the first time and more videos of this guy shooting up heroin. It's very sad and I just saw that he died in 2010.

Teachers pet, Gary Baseman

Tonight will be a night of nostalgia! My sister reminded me of the cartoon series Teachers Pet that I used to watch when I was younger, based on the art of the incredibly awesome Gary Baseman
(who also happens to design very cool Vinyl toys!)

The general premise is that there is a Dog that wants nothing more than to become a boy, who likes to dress up and go to school along with his Owner/Best friend Leonard. But for me the main appeal was the background art and the animation which in my opinion is brilliant!

Anyway, apparantly in 2004 they released a feature length Teachers Pet film that completely slipped by me, I've lined it up to watch tonight- I just hope it's as fun as I remember!

Check out some of Baseman's work, it's definitely worth it!

 

The Plymptons

New york indie animator Bill Plympton made this intro for the simpsons which aired on the 15th of april!
I like the style, and it's particularly cool to see that on something like the Simpsons!

Film W.I.P

Taking me a stupid amount of time to get this door right, but I like the Dust and Leaves! just putting this up to show someone right now so it will eventually be replaced with the 'completed' shot, missing a character right now!

Edit : Got the character in there now, just cleaning it up!

Custom Munny #3

I produced this guy through a random attack of insomnia- just in time to notice that there's a custom Munny competition happening over at the Kidrobot London store!
Hopefully i'll be producing a couple of entries for that- after I finish up this guy and get some actual important work done!
This is only my 3rd custom, and I am finding it a hell of alot easier to understand what to do and how not to ruin it/how to correct bits that go wrong. I am now just on the hunt for a decent clear coat to use that wont make sharpies bleed, any suggestions?
W.I.P, stay tuned!

Snow boy

Fineliner Overdose

One way to waste a morning.. and a pen!

The wall continues..

Just another sketch on my friends wall!

R.I.P Edd Gould

This is very sad- I didn't know him but i had hoped to meet him at the newgrounds 2010 meetup and always enjoyed his cartoons. Rest in peace Edd!

KONY 2012

Spread the word..

Metamorphosis

Awesome piece of animation and a good cause, what's not to love?

http://www.usegoodbooks.com/
'Share this video to spread the word.. Why? Because every cent we make supports charitable projects.
Providing water, sanitation, access to education and seeding sustainable agriculture across the world, in partnership with Oxfam.'

Mumps!

Luckily pulling faces in the mirror kept it's novelty for the best part of 2 weeks!

Mumps.. who even thought it was a possibility? My sister assures me that I was immunised as a kid but apparantly alot of people get 'top ups' before they head off to university..
I'm now pretty much over it, and very lucky by all accounts because my testicles didn't swell up to the size of tennis balls! It's amazing how paranoid you can feel after doing a bit of reading online.. Permanent hearing loss, Impotence, Meningitis.. and all I got was a bit of pain and a hamsters face! :-)
In between feverish dreams (Which were awesome, by the way) I managed to finish part one of the third 'Song of Ice and Fire' book

I can't recommend these books enough! the second season of the tv series will also be starting April first! (either that or it was a very cruel april fools joke)

I've now got a hell of alot of work to catch up on, so no plans to leave the house and enjoy the sunshine!

Sketch Dump

My friend gave me a section of wall in his room to fill, Ignore the third one!

Dave

Caricature #1

CLICK HERE for a closer view!

Marchix

I found a link to Floriane MARCHIX's blog which really is an awesome example of how to use colour and how to do it right! (http://floony.blogspot.com)

It's great to see alot of black and white paints with a great range of value along with some very bright saturated pictures!

  I was watching James and the Giant Peach and I noticed alot of blue/orange contrasts and mixes.. I also noticed alot of playing with saturation for dreams, memories and reality. Take a look at the differences in some of these shots!