Holiday Special

I have recorded a christmas song! need to rerecord vocals, mix it and then i'll post it up. it's been a productive weekend.

Long time

No post. New recordings up on myspace.

Making Armour part 1

My background is in design and animation, so it was natural to take total control over the look of Danimal Kingdom. To this end, my friends and I are building props for a planned video and photoshoot. I'm not gonna give all of it away, but here's a look at our first project: making some special plate armour for a Danimal costume. My friend and neighbour Dan is also my art school buddy and once built a whole suit of armour out of cardboard so he seemed the right guy to get in for this. I had bought some industrial super thick corrugated card in West London from a packaging company and taken it back east on the overground. That was a fucking mission; there was this pikey family on the train that i thought were going to eat me, or perhaps eat one of their screaming kids. They were seriously on the brink of cannibalism.

First I made a 3D model based on my initial drawings, so from this Dan could see the idea from every angle and know exactly what to do.

We made maquettes (smaller scale models) of the design out of paper and then card, until we had worked out and cut out a net for the shoulder pads.

This is me with the finished shoulder pads, sizing up the neck guard that Dan fashioned. We added a lip to it so that we could work out how much of each side needs to taper to fit to the torso section.

And this is Dan equipped with the finished design. It's become extremely rigid, transcending its papery roots by being reinforced with strong glue. Looking awesome I hope you'll agree.

NEXT WEEK: texturing and painting.

Been playing this

Bosses are RAD

The dudes over at the Video Game Atlas have compiled the backgrounds, level maps and game worlds of hundreds of different games. While looking at a video game's entire world laid out before you may well make you realise just how lazy some of these level designers were, there are some that are simply staggering in their beautiful awesomeness. Pixel art has been so done, sure, but this is the real deal so you shall not criticise.

New Song

Hey I have a new studio setup so I thought I'd stay up until 3 and make a new song with it. Hence the new song on my profile. Enjoy Tranchier.

Cardiacs

Tim Smith of Cardiacs had a heart attack (ironically? Or is that bad form?) last year, so touring in any form, according to the Alphebet Business Concern is unlikely. So instead watch their stuff on youtube and be inspired for sure.

VG like totally don't like douches

Dirty Laundry Presents: Vivian Girls from Dirty Laundry on Vimeo.

Ladies with Appliances

Girls and machines, ladies love appliances.

In Dispatches: BALLOONS

The 02 in Liverpool is much like venues across northern England; what were once powerhouses, literally, of industry are now clubs and flats. And thus the dressing rooms at the 02 are made of bare brick, with iron pipes that run up the walls doubling as pillars. For a southerner, the austere architecture and people that may as well, frankly, be foreign, are alien enough, but when I started hearing sounds coming out of said pipes, that took the tasty rider biscuit.

Following the sound's trail I came upon Balloons (listed as 'Ballons', the fools) who were playing the second room underneath the main stage. There's something about them that yells "Dream band, we're your dream band". Maybe the singer was singing those exact words. He could have been certainly. They have Junos which is always a plus and their tracks have a warm quality which is something I aim for in my own recording. They're urgent and angular and flirt with the zeitgeist without actually being in it.

myspace

Be sure to check out sister band Indica Ritual too.

Just bought

one of these

It was so heavy, I carried it out of the depression-era council estate (replete with children playing stickball and motorcars and lads in flat caps) I got it from and managed to lug it to the Premises which was nearby. Will pick it up on Wed when I'm back in London and shall play merrily.

Incal & Arzach

On the subject of Moebius:


This is what he did after Dune. Again, a fail but the surviving footage looks rad. Any video with pyramids firing lasers is a good call.

Jodorowsky's Dune, an exhibition.

If there's one thing you should know about me it's that I like Dune, or more accurately, I like what people have done with Dune. The book is of course awesome; with its complex themes of geology, theology, and its feudalism-in-space plot. But the best thing about it is how David Lynch and Alejandro Jodorowsky and their respective creative teams interpreted the source material and gave it their own visual stamps.

Lynch had production designer Anthony Masters (who did Kubrick's 2001)and Emilio Ruiz Del Rio.

Jodorowsky had H.R. Giger, Chris Foss, Moebius and Salvador Dali on board for his failed attempt to get the book on screen. BUT WHAT A FAIL



So I went to the private view of the exhibition of the concept work for Jodorowsky's failed Dune. It's got some good stuff there, but alas not as much as I would have liked. It could have provided more info and been more on the 'art as a technical process' side rather than the 'art as just art' in terms of presentation. But anyway it's cool to see it all.

Go here for info on the exhibition.

So I made a blog

Hello.