… but with kids books the thrill is in the journey, not always the finale.

Still waiting for final confirmation but if I do do the Guildford Book Fest’s Big Book Draw this year the theme is of the fish that wishes he had books to read. This sort of kind of gives away the ending (you won’t tell, will you?) and I had to draw it in forty minutes flat to email to someone. So all told, even though it’s not the image I want it to be, per se (I want a much more painterly effect in the final piece) I’m happy with the layout and colours and thought I’d share.

((nb is v2 of the image after tidying the fish up a little over lunchtime.))

Y’know, I don’t want you thinking it’s ALL zombie werewolves on my mind at the mo’.

Doodled this earlier with touchpad and no tablet and liked it as is. Prob now would be replicating look for other characters so this may be a one off.

In other news doing emails for a collaborative project which seems not particularly collaborative at the moment Not that that’s too great a surprise and, in some ways, I knew what I signed up for, but even so the level of support is a little deflating. Ah well. Onwards.

New Macbook Pro coming in, very excited. Checked the order email earlier…

We estimate, it says, that it’ll be shipped in five days.

Then they estimate it’ll take two weeks to come from wherever it’s coming from to me.

TWO WEEKS?

Yowsa. It’s coming from this country, right? I could walk the distance quicker.

Two weeks.

As you might be able to tell I’m rubbish at deferring my gratification.

Hopeless, in fact.

Still, two weeks……. SIgh……..

Also, in other unhappy news, I’d heard that the mighty Onehundredhours were to split from a friend who looked at their Wiki page. Since had it confirmed from the horses mouth and sad in many ways. You can’t hold onto your heroes forever though, but they are very much the soundtrack to my faith and writing life (so much so that you may, if you’re looking :ahem: close enough, see a small parallel to a certain band in Dr Sylver 3.) Anyhow big ups the ‘Hours. You were and will always remain utterly awesome. Now to see if I can cadge someone to get me to their last gig…

Still doing the Red project in the free time between life… Which is why it’ll probably be ready circa 2015.

Actually, that said, next week I a: take delivery of a shiny new Aluminium Macbook Pro (which is lovely and I can’t wait) and b: have more free time so will start setting about drawing Red in earnest. What I’m most interested in, because I have no idea so far, is how long a page takes top to tail. At the moment I fritter about with it in between things or when kids are in bed and paperwork is done and all that. So each page has taken about four days or so. But that’s four days of an hour here, an hour there. With 95 pages to go four days per page won’t cut it but one day each will… We’ll see.

Still waiting on Pixelmator 1.5 though. This project is stress testing Pixelmator 1.4 - a few crashes with the large file size plus layer list… But still the tool of choice for the project, as is Brushes which I’m trying to integrate in some way, just haven’t worked out exactly how yet…

Another screenshot from the new project I’m working on. Dr Sylver 3 is dated for the week commencing October 10th this year so it’s exciting to have a release date to hang on it and now, teacher training portfolio aside (which I REALLY must get onto although the irony of that statement is subject to a confidential document I can’t share with anyone) I’m now full time on this project and one other. Roll on July 3rd when I can start giving attention to them with less guilty feelings alongside.

This week has also been defined by uber athletes foot (which erupted in blood and other disgustingness on my big toe) and then a night of ‘both ends fighting the middle’ as one of my colleagues charmingly put it. Whether it was a bug caught from the doctor’s waiting room or an allergic reaction to the foot cream I don’t know but Tues - Thurs were not comfortable days. At all. Today is the first day I’ve been up to much so, like a twit, I walked son boy to the shop to buy a Slush Puppy (which came out with a completely different name on my phone when I tried to text wifey) and came back feeling like a poached slug. Still, it’s been a very positive day too so that’s a good ‘un.

Also: did this y-day using Brushes on the iPod touch. It’s surprising in a way - I’m so used to tools and layers and modes and styles and warps and filters - but Brushes is a joy to play with and watch the results. When I see the movie file play away I see areas that I would have changed had I not seen them from the outside in so it’s a fascinating process. I noticed @skottieyoung did a similar thing using (I think) Artrage Pro and Ustream in an interactive fashion. Not that I’m anywhere near having an audience such as his but that seems the nest step in the Brushes play - to have people chatting as I go but hey, step by step and all that.

Today = odd.

DId this, was fun.

Edited the first half of the Les Mis video which was a lot of fun and reminded me of how brilliant it was in the first place. Vids to come.

And my toe sort of exploded. Suddenly there’s strange little cuts and… Hmm… Oddness. It looks a little like it’s burnt, a little like it’s been scraped along a road. Very strange. Was tempted to upload a pic but didn’t. It’s very yukky. Will try and get a doctors appointment tomorrow or Weds and see what he thinks. What should I do if he faints?

Wifey had to go off to do something tonight so once the kids were to bed (if not at all asleep) I’ve been playing a little more. Loads of fun, although it does make me wonder how many more tools they could fit into the Brushes app, or if Pixelmator - my other art tool of choice at mo - could make a Brushes a mator mash up to capture the best of both worlds.

That said, Brushes is a LOT of fun and to see the image grow and build is quite fascinating (for me a least )

So, Dad’s day. Mixed feelings at mo’ as I’m trying to talk son boy out of screaming anger over Mario not doing the things he wants him to do and daughter has retired with a headache. Still, the morning was lovely (church service on the green) and the day before equally nice (fun day on green and then talking at a youth service which was excellent fun).

So, been one of those weekends really Lots of fun with all of the issues autism raises up added into the calmness to stop it becoming boring or something.

Dad’s day card from my side was this

and this

I’d fancied playing with brushes for a while, mainly since all the hoo hah with the New Yorker cover brought it’s cleverness to everyone’s attention. This sprung to mind for a card and muchos fun it was to do, too.

I’ve now had my twitter sell out moment. Was youth working last night and it was an awesomely good session bar some caveats. Best bit was, after fifteen years of doing shrink plastic artwork, I found out that water soluble pencils work on shrink plastic. Revelation!

((The sell out moment was that, when I dashed upstairs to get some more stuff for the session I did a twitter post to say about it. Shocking.))

Anyhow: couple of pics here. More to come when I get time to play again. They are a pig to shoot - wanted to focus on them more than background but seemed to have gone the other way but hey… They made me smile although I’m also giving them both away to friends today.

**one additional caveat I should have mentioned: I only had two inktense water soluble pencils on me (my new pencil of choice following a long focus on the other Derwent pencils I always forget the name of… Colourtint? Anyhow because I wasn’t expecting to need them I only had two that I’d been doodling with earlier in my coat as well as the more standard Shrink Plastic standbys of the four colour lead ones and the normal WHSmits specials. Lesson learnt: next time charge enough materials budget to by Inktense pencils but that’s the reason why the colour on these two pix are a little samey

It’s a long story… 99 pages in fact. This is page 33. Loved doing 99% of the page but the face of Red fought me all the way through and it took as much time to do her eyes and mouth as it did to do the rest of the page.

Dr Sylver and the Tapestry and Time went to Highland this morning. We’ll see if the changes pass muster, hope so Release date as and when it comes in…