The Second Mouse Digital Painting, Vin

So for my second digital mouse painting I decided to start with a drawing of a character from a book, as suggested by my brother. The book in particular is part of a trilogy by Brandon Sanderson called the Mistborn series. And the character of the books that I drew is the main protagonist heroine called Vin.

Just briefly for some context, I'll describe without going into too much fantasy detail. Our character Vin, lives in a land shrouded in mist. Some people are born with special abilities which basically lets them control metal for different functions. Vin can control all of them, people like her are called Mistborn and they propel themselves through the lands and cities by propulsion of metal. Their signature mark is their Mistborn cloaks. There, that's the easiest I can sum up the basic premise of the picture (and story)!

Anyhoo, I liked the idea of this drawing because I knew it would be more challenging than my previous digital painting. To start, it's based on a human figure, an area of art where I find myself weaker at. Second of all, the clothing and poses of the character in particular are quite elegant and ethereal as described in the books. The cloak in particular is described as ragged and long with ends like tendrils of silk metal. And third of all I was impatient to start so the drawing itself ended up quite basic in comparison to the finished product:

Original Drawing

However I went ahead and started even though I felt the drawing didn't exactly capture what I wanted. I started with the skin tones; in the original picture the moon was behind Vin but I quickly realised that that would mean I would be silhouetting her, thus leaving out detail and making the picture quite muddy:

Starting with the skin, and the moonlight has moved to the top left.

So I moved the moon to the top left corner, out of sight and decided that it would be represented with a glow. This made plotting out the colouring process much easier and allowed me to practice lighting the face and arms with greater definition. After some time I was pleased enough with the facial features, they were slightly Neanderthal but hey, it's all a learning curve for figure drawing right? Her clothing came out better than I expected with multiple layers (literally layers in Photoshop) applied until it began to look natural and have depth. However the main challenge was on the horizon, the tendrils of the cloak:

The tendrils proved a tough one!

I'd I spent 60% of the time on this digital painting making sure I managed to make these look as good as possible. In the end I didn't get the exact look I wanted but there was definition and fluidity there; I was happy with. So I took the stance of "it ain't broke, don't fix it" for fear that I may end up trying to improve things but end up making irreparable damage (and undoing all of that time I spent working on them!):

Tendrils, Check!

So with that the rest of the digital painting began to fall into place easier. The brunt of the work was figuring out the tones and colours, and then also capturing the look of the tendrils on the cloak. It proved a pain in the ass achieving primarily the second of the two, but it paid off as I was basically in the home stretch. I began filling out the legs and second arm, these proved less difficult and after the amount of time shading, erasing and altering the cloak, the legs and arm were naturally much easier to do. After another short amount of time I had them set in place and only came back to them to make minor shading adjustments:

All in place, this gurl need her hair done!

So with that, the only final piece in this character painting was doing her hair. This proved once again a little more difficult as I had opted to go with black hair. This meant harder shading in relation to the light and it was also an effect in digital painting I hadn't encountered yet. After a brief tutorial and setting up the right "brush" for the job I managed to capture a look I liked trying to make it appear as natural as possible. I don't think the final look of the hair is perfect by any means, there's certainly a lot of problems with it but I was pleased with my first effort.

As with my previous painting (I had finished the central character/subject of the picture), all that was left was the background. And as with the previous digital painting I opted to change to a more simple background than was initially planned. In the original drawing I quickly scribbled in some buildings rising out of the mist as the character is primarily based in a city in the books. However I decided that I didn't have the knowhow or time to starting painting buildings digitally (yet!) so I took a more simple ethereal approach: mist! With that said and done, I wanted to make it swirl downwards and have it enveloping the world below Vin, like it had a life of its own. It clings on to Vin as she launches above it and you can see some lights glowing on the land far below.

In the end I think the effect I wanted to give this picture was the character blissfully breaking away into the freedom of the moonlight from her misty world below, almost as if it is soothing her and letting all her worries drift away. The final picture I think is an improvement on my skills from the previous Water Dragon picture. And while I can certainly see a multitude of problems such as disproportionate parts of Vin, not entirely natural posing and some odd shading/lighting (amongst a multitude of other things), I'm very happy with the final result. One problem I plan to rectify in my next panting is to make it less soft. It wasn't intended in this picture but thankfully it sort of lends itself to the atmosphere, I think!

Vin, Mistborn - Final Picture

So that's number two in the bag and another for the portfolio. If you've read this far I'd also like to say that if you ever need help with something along this line of work I'd be happy to lend a hand. For my next painting it will be a Game of Thrones picture, fan fiction of Danaerys and Drogon, and don't worry it won't be spoilerish. It will be an entirely made up scenario! And if you've made it THIS far into the blog, thank you for taking your time to read about my adventures in digital painting!

Until next time, CAOI BEETCHES!

My First Foray into the World of Digital Painting

So in the last few months I decided to embrace some of my very few talents. As of lately I've taken up painting again. I'll post the two I have done in a later post but more recently again I've also decided to enter the realm of Digital Painting. I had always been daunted by this medium as there is such lavishly detailed pictures floating around the net, each with unique, colourful and wonderful styles that I felt I could never achieve such a sense of detail and awe so many of them inspire. That and I only have a meagre mouse instead of a tablet.

But I decided against my pessimism and pushed forward to give it a try! After a few brief tutorials on colour theory and which software proved popular for this sort of endeavour I picked out an old picture I drew in my transition year of secondary school:

-Transition Year Drawing

So with Photoshop in tow, I began to colour in the drawing, using all the techniques I had obtained from previous tutorials. In the beginning I wasn't very pleased with the early results. Without the drawing overlaid, the colours underneath had very little shape or form, appeared blunt and didn't have any sense of the detail the drawing did.

- Phase 1: The nearly giving up phase.

Around this time is usually where my old self would have given up. I don't know where I developed it but over the years I had a bad habit of expecting immediate results and submitting to defeat too easily. And I nearly did here too. But I pressed on. And on, and on. And then something wonderful happened. I was learning to use tools of the program outside of the tutorials, I was losing track of time and most of all I was enjoying it. And when you spend enough time doing the things you enjoy it becomes a labour of love with results that could possibly exceed what you initially planned. Such was my luck in this case. I learnt the virtue of patience all over again and it was paying off:

- Phase 2: Wait, what? This is sort of cool!

At this stage I was enormously pleased with myself. I was liking the look more than the original drawing and I had learnt vast amounts about digital painting. All because I actually had patience and took the time to do it. The funny thing is that, apart from having to draw the subject at hand, the colouring part is not that difficult once you get the theory down and have a bit of knowhow about light and shadow. And even in those regards I'm a beginner at best. But with Photoshop you have all the tools you could need to perfect and fine tune things right down to a small shadow, coarse skin or whatever effect you're trying to achieve. It just takes patience and time!

In the end the final product didn't stick exactly to the original picture plan. I altered the background slightly as I DID spend probably around 6-8 hours colour the picture over the course of time. I felt that I could do a quick fix for the background. But funnily enough the background which honestly took about 15-20 mins max ended up blending well with the picture. I feel like I should take credit for achieving the look of it, but honestly it was literally down to another thing I learnt with my first digital painting. Experimentation. By pure blind luck of testing the use of a few tools of Photoshop I stumbled across a background that is simply but compliments the "Water Dragon" I had created. The end result was this:

- Final Digital Painting "Water Dragon"

Simple background, all from messing about. Mind you that won't always provide results, but now I know how to get THAT result if I ever intend to use it again! In the end I think I can say I pulled off a good first digital painting. Of course, I wanted to show it off and have since been recommended to get  a tablet for drawing, which I do believe could greatly improve the time I spend on each one. Overall though the sense of achievement was something I haven't felt in a while and I hope this is the first of many I plan to post in the future.

So to close, for anyone who is intimidated about learning to digital paint, don't be. Like all things it takes time but you'll be surprised about how quick you can adapt. Get Photoshop or Corel, scan in your images and starting painting, you'll enjoy it, you'll get really pissed off and you'll be proud!

************

And here's a little sneak peak of the next one for anyone interested. It's based off a character called Vin from a book called the Mistborn trilogy. You may have to look her up to get the context of the picture but I'm hoping it will look cool none the less in the end, even for those who have no idea what the hell is going on in the picture:

The Bed, the Brain and the ASMR

I usually hate going to bed. Not because I hate sleeping, I happen to love sleeping and love it more when I can. But the problem is, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who faces this, is that instead of my brain winding down when I hop into my cosy bed, it kicks into FTL overdrive sending my thoughts cascading and colliding across the synaptic universe.

 

Sometimes I really hate you...

While I do enjoy having these sudden spurts of thoughts, ideas and I-shoulda-dun-that's, by a purely time based event...it's not very ideal. I'm a bit of a light sleeper so I have fairly broken sleeps during the night as it is, but for some reason my brain decides to wake up when I want to do the exact opposite. The result is taking an hour if not hours to fall asleep.


To try and remedy this scum-bag brain inconvenience I threw myself into the Google search engine once again, it never failed me before I'd be damned if it failed me now! Of course I tried all the usual results, lavender, reading, breathing exercises, soothing music and what not. Lavender would probably work nothing short of me snorting it, which wouldn't be good for my hay-fever allergies for sure and unfortunately all the other proposed solutions don't work as intended.

See, my brain functions in a way that if I'm thinking about breathing it brings a scene to mind (don't ask what kind of scene...), not from anything in particular but I'll instantly begin making a short film in my head and then the thoughts start firing up again preparing myself for productivity I just don't have the energy for. Reading... well if breathing makes me think up a film you can't IMAGINE what reading does, the same goes for music too. They're all variations of the same problem, my over active imagination. To boot, I'm trying to come up with ideas for a horror short lately and inadvertently thinking scary things does not help one sleep!

I can be ASMR if you want me to be baby

But then I came across something interesting. It's a little thing called ASMR which stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. I'm pretty sure it's not something that people are widely aware of, but I think it's something we've all experienced. Say for example, someone with a soft voice; hypnotic and sleep inducing, it produces an oddly pleasurable and relaxing sensation that could make you drift off into pink and fluffy slumber-land, or a world full of obedient Velociraptors in my case. I won't give the Wikipedia explanation because it almost makes it sound like a pseudo-sexual cult since a lot of it involves role-playing, soft speaking and an overuse of the word "pleasurable".

Jokes aside, It's not only voices either that trigger it either, there's a lot of research gone into what causes this sensation but no one is quite sure from what I gathered since the experience is an inner emotion. It's different for everyone but it can be trigged by things as simple as someone folding a newspaper as they read, a person typing details on a keyboard or someone writing into a notebook with a scratchy pen. Naturally I was quite delighted that I found out the name of my mystery sensation so with a sure fire definition of it at hand I approached YouTube in a semi-sane state of exhaustion.

To my surprise, there is a very large community of "ASMR's" across YouTube. It has to be one of the more interesting sub categories to find as well. I won't lie, when you watch any of these videos for the first time, you'll most likely feel a little silly. More so because you're watching people role-playing, tapping, writing, typing for up to an hours' worth of video and they have no discernible meaning outside of the function of ASMR. Then the weird second reality hits you. Who the hell sits down and makes these? I won't lie, at the beginning I was wielding my sword of judgement; these people are weird and have no friends. But then I realised that I'm the one looking these people up and their videos are helping me sleep so who am I to judge? I'm also giant f'#@king weirdo all the time!

I'll give you all the ASMR you can DREAM of!!! (pun intended)

There's no denying though that there is definitely a large majority of this community that is eccentric and I don't think they would fit into the conformities of the social "norm" (whatever the frak that is, but you get mah point!). But hey, as I said, who am I to judge? These people are still spending their time making these videos and judging by the length some of them put enormous amounts of time into them. People will always make fun, as I have seen in the comments section before but honestly, they're the YouTuber's who deserve a lot of respect. It's not easy to post videos of yourself like that, let alone that a lot of them tell deeply personal stories about themselves. They're also a very supportive community as well, I don't think I have ever once seen a spat between any of them, which is a lot better than the stuff I can say about other sub categories of YouTube I've come across. Also the abusive people who came about them I call "closet-ASMR's", kinda self explanatory, you don't come across these videos on a whim!

Anyways, once I found a niche one to my tastes it has now changed the way I sleep. When you find your ASMR trigger there will be a WEALTH of videos for you to choose from. And trust me, even though it was weird at first, these things work like a charm. As it turns out, people just whispering or speaking softly does the job for me. Preferably I like when they ramble about their lives, it becomes enjoyable like listening to a strange tranquillising radio. Often you just drift off without even realising it. So try it out, give it a go! If you're having trouble sleeping I think you'll very quickly find something that is your ASMR trigger and hopefully that will be the last time you'll ever have to search for sleep rememdies!

SWEET DREAMS, PEACE OUT Biatchs!

Am I Insane?

The answer to the title is no, I am not. But I am doing a thing called Insanity at the moment which is a 60 day fitness programme by a man called Shaun T. who definitely thinks it's "insane" (his own words).

Basically my partner told me about a little thing called Insanity which apparently maaaaany people knew about except me, but sure unless it was advertised somehow in the middle of a game of Metroid, how was I sposed to know about it right? As mentioned before, it's a 60 day fitness programme which is spread across 9 weeks in which you do a roughly hour long workout for 6 days of the week, Sunday being your rest day. It's core muscle training and cardio mixed gruellingly into one horrific package of exercise.

I will admit, it is tough, very tough. It's even more tough when it's apparently recommended for people who are in the fitness range considered "athlete" and when you are trying to work around your busy schedule, which Shaun T. seems to have no problem not taking it into consideration. Athlete is not a category I fall into and I had literally just quit smoking so my lung capacity certainly hadn't (and most likely still hasn't) returned to normal.

But my high strung life of customer service and mediocre diet wasn't doing my body the justice I thought it deserved so I took the plunge into fitness madness and began my march to "having the beach body I've ALWAYS dreamed of!".

And then I could hang out with hot blonde people being hot all day long and never worry about life again!

The first week was painful. I could barely finish the warm-up which lasted a meagre 12 mins of the usual 45 mins workout. And the worst part was, every time I finished that warm-up I knew that that was the EASY part. Being the trooper I was, I forced my fledging spirit forward with ultimate reluctance until my muscles practically sizzled like bacon. That was after 3 mins extra, still 30 mins to go. UGH!

This was basically the whole first week in a nutshell, I stopped consistently throughout the workouts to catch my breath, took non-recommended prolonged breaks during the different workouts and very quickly became bitter towards Shaun T. and his workout entourage. They were all too positive and happy for how I felt. I also recycled my workout outfit since it would be a waste of electricity to wash it everyday so I was becoming stinkier, like some weird smell RPG game, where I levelled up my stinky stat. everyday. To top it off you feel more and more stiff each day, walking in a crippling horrifying gait. It was just...awful.

But then rest day arrived. That glorious Sunday, I will never forget it. It was one of those days when you would wake up and say "fuck my life!" without actually meaning it. It was great, I could be stiff all I wanted and not have the face the 45 mins smugness of Shaun T and his entourage of finely toned superhuman smiles. It was a good day. Until Monday arrived, or so I thought it would be bad. But something strange happened, I was no longer stiff to my bones, I could move freely without having to make sure I didn't look like I was mocking someone with a physical ailment. I was... normal again.

This was too good to be true though, I thought, as I begun my dramatic descent into Insanity workout bitterness. But lo and behold, I made it through without exhaustion, but without stopping, and without any creeping stiffness either. Something was happening to me. I was seeing... RESULTS! That's right, after even just a week I was surprisingly already feeling the results of this Insanity programme and for this alone I could recommend it to anyone.

These results continued into the forthcoming weeks with surprising speed as I got much better at the workouts, I was even beginning to see small changes in my stinky body, I was pleased. But something else was happening that was not so good, I was running out of patience. Not for the exercise, but with Shaun T. and his entourage. I know it's a series of exercise videos made to appeal to everyone with motivational slurs, "dig deeper" being the main one, but my god, the smugness became all too apparent.

The Queen of smug: Tanya, Tonya, Tania (there was no one correct spelling for her name apparently)

As I got to know each person individually from the different workout videos I could almost close my eyes and identify who it was by level of smug shooting out of my screen. Tanya is amazing but what I wouldn't give to switch kick her smug face in some of the videos (although if I did that I would be breaking my laptop screen). Shaun T. also has this awful habit of making you dread the next workout as he says "this is about to get insane, I'm not looking forward to this" non stop. How are you supposed to look forward to doing it when your instructor is telling you how much he hates it?!

I'm actually still not finished the workout programme yet, I'm currently on week 7 out of 9 and the second half of the workout programme ups the ante. They're now 55-63 mins workouts and have severely increased the intensity of the actual workout forms. This is not a problem to me. I actually enjoy the increased intensity because I feel like I'm getting more results. Unfortunately the smugness has also increased three fold. It's making the workouts just about bearable at this stage and I honestly have found myself saying "oh my god shut-the-f@#k-up!" out loud at the screen (much to my other housemates' confusions). Tanya smiles and acts like it's simple, mockingly staring out of the camera at you. I've seen you when you think you're not on the camera, I know you're slinking off for a 5 min date with your water. And Shaun T., while always super positive, matter of factly brags about how good he looks. He does look good though. BUT STILL! It becomes annoying beyond patience. Hence the screaming at my screen.

"SHUT UP SHAUN T. JUST SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!!!"

Anyways, as it stands now, that is where I am with this Insanity workout. I'm going insane with it for all the wrong reasons, but even with the atomic powered SMUG  I think I can still recommend it even without having finished it. I don't think I've ever been as in shape, built muscle so easily and quickly and genuinely felt as energetic as after doing these workouts for the past 6 and a half weeks. If you wanna get in shape fast and genuinely get fit, this is definitely the way to go if not just a good starting point. Also if you have some sort of anti-smug dwarvish armour than I believe you could really enjoy this as well, it's pretty rewarding and satisfying. In the end, I believe it will be worth it as the expense of some of my sanity. As Shaun T. would say "dig deeper". Whatever the f#@k that means. (I know what he means but it's stupid)

Pacific Rim - I Heart Destruction

So my house mate and I decided that the best cure for our hangovers was a trip to the cinema. In the state of hangovers, the easiest thing to follow is a good ol' big dumb action film, something to excite the brain without having to think about why.

That's what helped us to decide that Pacific Rim fit the bill.

Don't let my comments make you think this is a start to a rant about how bad the film is. In fact, I actually enjoyed it. A lot. There's a lot of reasons people could easily point out why this movie is bad or dumb, but in my opinion I think the film deserves a free pass, since it embraces these "dumb" elements for the fun ride it takes us on. That's not to say that these "bad" elements are necessarily always a fun thing though, every action movie usually has a good ol' cob of corn thrown in for hell knows why. Pacific Rim unfortunately plants a field of corn and then tries to serve it to you. All of it.

That aside, these things are just there to drive the simple story along. Giant monsters named "Kaiju" have come from a spatial tear at the bottom of the Pacific ocean. They are huge (seriously, they're enormous) and they're here to destroy everything. This of course forces the world to stop fighting with each other and work together, which results in building giant robots to fight them and blah blah blah... The story is nothing special, same ol' apocalypse story that is just slightly more fleshed out then the usual tripe. The more unique story elements in the film is the idea of "drifting" which is joining two minds so to operate the films giant robots, which means the operators know everything about their co-operators lives for the time they are driving the machines, but unfortunately it is used to little effect. But that's fine, because given the tone of the film, Mr. Del Toro wasn't giving us a thoughtful exercise on the intricacies of the human mind.

 Kaiju, the stars of the film.

The film basically picks up year after the first encounters and the situation is becoming more and more dire as the Kaiju appearance becomes more frequent. That in combination with them getting larger and more deadly.
Our main hero is basically an every action hero cliché with a traumatic past which becomes a central struggle for him to overcome (by fighting giant monsters in a giant robot). Then there's a slew of others who are there too. Honestly I cared little for all of the characters as they were all literally there to fit the respective roles required in the action hero roster. The only stand-out mention was a fun cameo from Ron Perlman as a black market dealer and a much less, but slightly touching story, involving the lead lady characters' motivation and past. Apart from that, there's little emotion derived from relating to the characters in the film.

Now, that's pretty much the bad stuff out of the way, I'll get on to the good stuff which happens to be really good. The real stars of the film here are the Kaiju. They're animated and designed wonderfully with tonnes of character for giant monsters. They are also pretty terrifying in their own right. The films many action sequences show shots of them lunging through buildings towards the camera and you can't help but feel the sheer terror of a skyscraper sized creature barrelling through a city towards you. This combined with giant robots, called Jaegers, fighting them makes for some sizeable spectacle and action sequences.

Indeed it is here the film elevates itself most, the creative team behind this clearly had more than fun choreographing and plotting the directions and developments of each battle. The spectacle of it all is off the charts, the Jaegers are all unique with their own silly but hilariously destructive and fun weapons, the Kaiju are all different and each match different purposes for the destruction they wreak and then to top it off the bigger action scenes makes for some crazy city wide fun destruction (using a cargo ship as a baseball bat was a hilarious stroke of genius). You can easily spot out all of the plot holes and logic holes of these sequences as you watch, e.g. Why would you not try to lure a gigantic monster out of a city before pummelling it to bits so as to save the destruction of a city? Why pummel them with giant metallic fists when they clearly have weapons which do much more catastrophic damage to these creatures? But these are questions that you can easily ignore because it's just too damn fun to care about them, in particular an action sequence about two thirds into the film makes the price of your ticket worth it alone. These are also elevated by a simple but great score that gives some life to the "horn of doom" which has become abused consistently since Inception.

The Jaegers, the giant fighting robots of the film

 The film is a little over-long at about 2 hours and 10 mins, but thankfully the action sequences are frequent enough that they break up the mindless story and cardboard characters. What you're here mainly to see is the monsters and robots and that's it. Some people have also complained that it is basically a mish-mash of other big action films; transformers, cloverfield, godzilla. And I agree, but I don't see it as a problem. I see it more as a respectable love letter to these franchises and it does do some things much better than the more recent iterations of these franchises too.

Overall the film in a whole is just a big loud dumb but really fun action movie, with sprinkles of genius and truckloads of destruction and action welded together into a pretty cohesive machine. It's definitely elevated by the great creature design, creative action sequences (and you'll probably say "wow" to one or two of them) and Del Toro's obvious visual flare. Go see it in the cinema, it's what big screens are made for.

One To Watch - Avatar The Last Airbender: Legend of Ang

So I recently had the privilege of finishing a show that I consider to be one of my favourites. You may have heard of it since it apparently was (and rightly so) wildly popular back upon it's initial release. It's a little Nickelodeon show called Avatar The Last Airbender: Legend of Ang. I know I heard of it back in the day, but it wasn't something that caught my attention initially, as I had the naive perspective of kids channel = kids programming. This is even true to a certain degree within the show (all deaths are merely mentioned off screen, certain situations are implied instead of shown), this show still managed to maintain an amazing balance of being a energetic fun show for children while also being a rewarding and thoughtful show for adults to digest.

"Sokka, Katara, Ang and the rest of the gang"

The show does come with the usual tropes and themes of an epic fantasy; a world at war, fire is bad, water is good, magical elements, coming of age, finding ones' destiny, life/death, etc. But while that's all the typical ingredients to a show, it's really how you execute these themes and story lines that makes them stand tall and fresh in their own right.

The show manages to combine a blend of western and Japanese animation while strongly drawing from oriental influences and stories to give a surprisingly rich and detailed world for a children's programme. While having an interesting and well populated world is all good and that, where the show really shines is in its characters. Everyone from Ang, Katara, Sokka to Iroh, Zuko and Azula, all have interesting back stories, believable arcs (in the context of the show) and intriguing perspectives on their destinies. Indeed one of the most fascinating characters to watch throughout the course of the three seasons is the evolution of Prince Zuko. Without spoiling anything, he becomes one of the most fascinating characters to watch because while the tried and true themes of destiny and choice are woven through his character arc, the writers really always nail his emotional consequences and ordeals. He's a tragic character that is a product of his upbringing which the writers use to propel the show to dizzying emotional heights.

"Prince Zuko, The Firebender"

In fact, this is one of the prime reasons I was so impressed with the show. The writers never, and I mean NEVER forget what has come before each episode in the show. They consistently build upon it's foundations from the beginning and never let each character forget the choices they have made and it's extremely satisfying to watch these choices shape each character in the show. Too often with any TV programme that follows a serial storyline, the writers are willing to just drop previous choices or plots to bring a new dramatic arc for the sake of providing a new energy, but not here. Here, every story is seen through to the end, never even forgetting characters or plots from standalone episodes. All I can say is it is an impressive feat.

And while it is a kids show at heart, avoiding on screen death (which is actually something that becomes a central plot point towards the end), the show certainly has its darker moments which the writers aren't afraid to insert, particularly when a nasty spirit called Koh makes an appearance. I won't spoil him for you but I was fairly shocked that he was allowed to be written in, considering his appearance, nature and story. The other end of the darker spectrum comes in the form of the character Azula. She adds an intensity to the show that is savage and violent, really upping the ante when she makes her appearance. She also has a particularly morbid and scary climax to her arc I won't say any more about.

"Water, Fire, Earth and Wind, the four elements that shape the world of Avatar The Last Airbender"

To top it all off the show has a wonderful sense of humour. It combines a slapstick childish humour with more outlandish and bizarre jokes to give it a truly unique energy that I'm not quite sure I've seen in other programmes. This in combination with the animation, which still holds up well by today's standards, helps Avatar The Last Airbender stand that much taller among the usual crowd of children's programming. In fact the animation is extremely detailed and accurate to martial arts fighting styles during many of the shows' intense action sequences; you will be impressed by some of the pivotal action scenes sprinkled through the seasons.

I don't think I could go into much more detail about the show without spoiling it for you, all I can say is watch a few episodes, let yourself become absorbed into the show and enjoy the ride, it's a great and emotionally fulfilling one and if you enjoy animation, this is one not to be missed!

Sound off in the comments below if you have seen it and would like to discuss!

Vlog Entry 7 - Why I Hate HP

Well at long months last I've gotten back to doing another Vlog on my NEWWWww Dell Laptop! Horrraaay!

Check it out ya'll, I have a special little advert at the end for HP, surely they'll love me for it...

 

The Dell of my Dreams

Well well, it’s been a long time since I wrote on this thing considering I have been doing video blogs and what not and as they say a picture tells a thousand words. Unless it’s my pictures, moving ones no less; they tend to be a little less subtle than what the medium generally aims for.

Nevertheless I have recently purchased a new laptop (and a great thanks to my sister who lent me the money for the time being) as my other more dramatic, tasteless, evil, demonic, bastardising HP laptop decided to go out quietly without letting me know until the last second. Wherever its soul (or lack of) resides now, I’m sure it’s gleefully playing in fire and ash.

"Look at it! Basking in overheated glory, feckin' HP!" 

In fact, I imagine some pour individual in the afterlife probably purchased my afterlife laptop thinking “Oh great! I can’t wait to use this perfectly ordinary laptop and go on Angelbook!” (Angelbook is my really lame joke name for facebook in the afterlife, I'm too lazy to think of anything wittier). But you see, this is the moment that individual will realise that they never went to heaven, only to hell for the moment they push that shitty little power button on that laptop they will have forever cursed themselves with 4 years of troublesome, overheating, battery faulting, charger not charging, dust inhaling monster that sits on their laps.

Anyways, my gripes have passed with HP as I’m never purchasing one of their products again. Instead I’ve replaced that shadowy dark hole of a place in my life with a lovely new, sleek, shiny, angelic Dell full of all the features of my previous laptop, times a billion more power (that might be slightly exaggerated) and all the free time I can muster. This means I can actually begin to do much more be it animation, video effects, editing and what not than I could’ve previously as I don’t need to worry that my laptop with explode taking out half of the neighbourhood.

"My old HP Laptop didn't turn itself off when it overheated, instead it went the next mile...splitting atoms"

I’ve even “acquired” many new training videos for all of my “acquired” adobe programmes which I will be learning to use in depth and become a multimedia whore, except instead of doing the cooch for a bitta silver on the corner, I’ll be doing an animation of me doing the cooch…. Actually that’s not the best example of what I’m trying to say here. The point I’m making is I plan to become good enough so I can build a massive portfolio of all things Seán, which if you’ve been following any of my stuff is a whole lot of crazy shit.

Anyways, I think my first thing in the tube to be fired out this week is a video blog so I must hop and skip to it! I think I’ll talk about my mild obsession with the horror genre for this one so expect the bizarre (although, I’m sure it’s to be expected already).

If anyone has any suggestions on things I could talk about in the future, fire ‘em out bellow or not, until next time, TOODLES!!

Battle For The Video Blog

Well here is Vlog Entry # 6!

This one is probably the craziest "out there" Vlog I've made yet.

It's also the one I've put the most time and effort into (considering my shitty resources!).

I had one word in mind when I was making it, EPIC. Enjoy!

Vlog Entry # 5 - Event Boundary

You know those moments when you forget what you're doing? Well I happened across a little article that sorta explained these moments, it's known as an EVENT BOUNDARY. So I decided to give my own little take on it, enjoy peeps!

 

Vlog Enrty # 4 - Procrastination

Hello again everyone, next update is vlog number 4, all about procrastinating! Probably me most structured one yet, so I hope ye enjoy it as much as I did making and editing it!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hello all, I have come here to wish you all a very happy Valentine's Day!

Since it is such a wondrous occasion, I have decided to dedicate a Vlog just to it!

Here is the fruit of my labours, ENJOY!

Ugh, Hangovers!

Right, so in continuing tradition I have made another silly video for those who are interested!

Kinda ironic using a blog to post a vlog...and then write about it?

I don't know what I'm talking about, but enjoy if you watch it! :)

 

Vlog Entry #1 - My name is Seán!

Hey guuuuuys & gaaaaallllss, trying out video blogging so check out my first video, I'm looking for feedback on whether ye think it's worth the time or not! Enjoy it if ye can and thanks :)

Paddy's Hilarious Joke

Now before I start explaining this "joke" my housemate Paddy played on me two nights ago I unfortunately have to explain the context of the situation that it was in.

To put it bluntly, Paddy and  I went out on Friday night, got trollied drunk and came home to our apartment turned upside down because it was robbed while we were gone.

I won't delve into the details of that part of the story but under the circumstances of the night we were all positively stressed and gob smacked that this had happened since alot of our valuables amongst a present or two were all gone.

Anyways, I'm not telling this story for a pity vote because, without trying to make myself sound noble or whatever (and I most certainly am not), pity isn't something I'm looking for.

Now, to return to the story. We were hammered, upset, the guards called round and all that and we sorted what we could for that moment in time. It must've been about 5 or 6 AM before we finally settled down a bit and just tried to enjoy ourselves again with the drink we had left in the house.

My friend Paddy has a few crazy drunk stories behind him (but all good crazy, as in funny), but whatever crazy notion brought him to this idea of a joke is beyond me but I have to hand it to him, he pulled it off very convincingly.

As we sat there just talking in general about what had happened I decided I needed a much needed toilet break. So off I went to climb the stairs with barely an ounce of energy left in me from the night. I did my business and returned to the TV room downstairs.

I walked in and I turned to Paddy to ask him something and realised something was slightly amiss about his stature. He sat with a blank stare, not breathing, eyes wide open. He seemed devoid of all life.

 

"Paddy, something is amiss about you!"

I naturally straight away started laughing and saying "Paddy, stop now!" and shook him once or twice. No response. I still didn't believe him so I kept laughing passively and shook Paddy again saying "Paddy Come on". He still didn't move, he was just... nothing.

At this point I began to think Paddy wasn't capable holding a joke this long (yes Paddy, I think that little of your humor!) so I began to worry a bit. I stood there repeatedly going "Paddy, Paddy, Paddy" with increasing stress rising behind my tone. He just wouldn't respond, so I slapped him across the face. Now, I thought if Paddy was joking, there was no way he would hold himself after that. It wasn't a wallop by any means, but it certainly wasn't a light slap either. Still no response.

 

"Paddy, Wake up!"

I now began falling into the stages of freaking out. First our house got robbed and now my housemate seemingly died from a heart attack. I actually began to panic. Paddy luckily finally took pity on my tortured mind and began laughing. BEGAN LAUGHING. I was on my knee's in shock and he decided it was a good time to end his farce.

All I did was burst out laughing too partly from relief that he was actually ALIVE, and partly because he put the situation into the context of "it could be worse".

Regardless of how cruel or crazy the joke/prank was, or how the notion of how it even popped into Paddy's head, we have laughed several times at it afterwards and I'm still laughing at it right now, even though my first initial thought was to kill him.

Anyways, in the end, at least we're all alive, everything else is just material and the event didn't ruin Christmas by any means.

Happy Christmas everyone!

The Power of Aquarius!

Check out mah new video I made the other day.

During one of my very boring excursions to facebook I was sitting thinking of what video I could make next, considering I hadn't made one in some time. I was thirsty as I thought this and then Eureka, I decided to make one about getting a glass over water, probably in the most awkward and ridiculous of ways!

Upon viewing the final edit, it appears to be the most random video I've made to date which leads me to believe it will just confuse more than create laughs, but enjoy it for what it's worth!

Caught in the Dark

    Right so we're off to another one of my video spree's, this one being the newest one I made a week or two ago, finally got my internet back so it's uploaded. It's a little horror short we made called "Caught in the Dark" about a man caught in his apartment as an unseen force waits outside to get in. I hope ye enjoy! It required a whole night of editing :P

A Kiss To Be Remembered

    During the hustle bustle of Galway night life, a few friends and I decided to go for a drink at our local, Neacthain's pub. We all sat and drank our pints to merry content as we told the stories of our rather monotonous lives thinking they were hilarious to our fake laughter. Half way through this conversation my friend Damian offered me a cigarette in joining him for a smoke, I obliged.

    So off we went outside and smoked watching people rush us by eagerly to get to the pub boxes for drinks and what not and as we watched we noticed one of the city's socially dysfunctional people walking by across the road. Now don't get me wrong, I feel sorry for this guy because he's the more severe of the mentally ill people wandering the streets of Galway, but from one of my previous excursions outside Neachtain's I saw him hit a woman across the back of the head because she did not have a lighter to give.

"He actually kinda looks like House, but even more angry. And even more psychotic."

    So naturally I was afraid of his presence because he constantly shouts loudly and violently at passerbys in threatening tones. The trick with him is to avoid eye contact. Much to my dismay I had accidently made eye contact with him at this very moment in time. I quickly turned my head nearly giving myself whiplash and looked at Damian saying "Oh God he just saw me looking at him" to which Damian kindly replied "Yes Seán, he's coming over now". Afraid to turn around I just ignored the unfolding event hoping the man would veer as violently as he talks to people to the left or right. Neither happened.

    I turned around to be greeted to his face practically in mine. He held his hand out waggling his fingers like a piano player with arthritis. I was afraid so I shook his hand hoping he would leave. He shouted in my face with a positive comment, not a bad one, to which I didn't fully understand and then asked for a cigarette. I calmly replied while shaking nervously "I'm sorry bud, this is my last one" to which he brushed me off (with an exhale of relief on my behalf) and turned to Damian. "I'm sorry bud, I got this off a friend inside" said the Damian. And then the man got angry. So Damian, out of the well being of not getting smacked in the face offered the man the rest of his cigarette.

    A hilarious hen party broke out inside of my nerves as I thought this was the end of the situation. But no, much to my dismay the man leaned over and gave me a hug with his arm, resembling more of a headlock than anything, and kissed me on the neck whispering "Thank you". I presume he was trying to thank Damian whom quickly went inside straight after this. I WAS following suite until the man stopped me wriggling his fingers at me yet again. Scared and confused I went to shake his hand again, was this the beginning of a new relationship? No. He was not pleased I tried to shake his hand, instead he violently shuddered towards the cigarette still in my hand. Naturally I obliged and he took it now holding two cigarettes, one in each hand. I then made somewhat of a a dash to the door which was only a meter away at this point when he grabbed me yet again and nudged me in the ribs and screamed in my face,

"Don't die".

"My Reaction"

I didn't. But the look on his face almost led me to believe that I was about to. I made it back inside to warmth and safety a millisecond later. The lads laughed, I nearly cried and we all pretty much went home.

And that, my friends, is the most action I've had in a while. And it's a kiss I will remember for days, weeks, hell even YEARS to come.

Until next time, BYEILOVEYOU!

Gazing Upon People and Past

So after a mad summer of parties, weddings and going-away-wakes for my friends  Becky and Dee (who deserve a post on their own for some of the stories I have about those asylum fugitives), I've managed to get evicted from one apartment 3 times (the third being the charm) and winding up living in my friends' old apartment bang in the middle of Galway City, but here, I practically lived there anyways so it was only destiny that I land up here. The Summer past was eventful to say the least.

Now I sit on my perch stealing internet from a free hotspot café with my laptop (which is practically rubble, becoming merely a mess of wires,  a TFT monitor and keyboard) where it sits nestled in the corner of the room at the window because it's the only place I can pick up internet. This however is working out wonderfully as I have become the ultimate voyeur, peering out as people walk by unsuspectingly to my gaze. It may be creepy but it's a hella lot of entertainment, lets just hope no one looks up or my face may meet the window sill in an attempt to hide which would prove more noticeable as my face explodes against the window by the sheer force of my ducking powers for the now suspecting viewer. I guess you could say I couldn't be happier at the moment.

"I''m watching you"

But here here, I have decided that I've now finally built up a requiem of stories to tell that I will post over the next few weeks for anyone who cares to enjoy, I can assure you one or two may catch your interest, but for now I'll only go with what I can think of because it will take time to piece together some of the nights of madness that are both memorable and unmemorable at the same time.

My plans this year are to quit smoking again, make silly shorts to more serious shorts (that may inadvertently turn out to be silly), find an unsuspecting boyfriend who can buy me custard cream biscuits and make me tea at a whim's notice and possibly become a celebrity. These are all unlikely things, especially some one who will buy me biscuits and make me tea. And the celebrity part. And the short films part. And the smoking part. Hmm this is almost like my new years resolutions again.

Realistically I've just realised I don't know where I'm going with this post so I will start with the more disturbing story that actually got me evicted from my last apartment. I call it "Don't Shit on your own Doorstep", you'll understand soon enough.

Amongst the fair warnings of parties and so called anti social behaviour warnings from our landlords (to which I disagree, parties are incredibly social if they stopped and thought about it) there was one particular incident that seemingly went in favour of our eviction. The worst part was, it wasn't even our fault but it was obvious we would be blamed.

Upon returning to my apartment block with a few friends after clubbing, we entered the downstairs lobby area of my block to get the elevator to the third floor where my apartment was. However, before we could even make it to the lift we were hit with what can only be described as a gigantic fart (which wasn't far off the truth). What was this fart you say? Why, it was none other than literal shit all over the lobby floor. Let me elaborate.

Apparently while we were out boogying down like the groovey cats we are, some poor girl back in Kirwan's Court who may have had a little too much to drink managed to wander from a party in the block down to the front door of the lobby. But this simple task proved exceedingly difficult to our female friend and the overwhelming sense of her victory travel to the door made her puke all over herself and pass out. But that wasn't all. I'm assuming that when she came to again that she got so excited about the prospects beyond the door that she couldn't contain herself any longer.

And SHIT eeeeeeeeverywhere.

"I just shit on your doorstep!"

And when I say everywhere I mean it, my theory is she tried to walk again which was unfortunately brought her into this mess in the first place, while proceeding to unload into our lobby area. In the end the paramedics had to pick up our poohey friend and leave. But they did us a small favour, they left news papers on the biggest poohs so we didn't have to see all of them, like she was a DOG!

Anyways, much to our disgust we went upstairs and slept or whatever. The next day a caretaker told us that everyone though she came from our house and a few hours later we had an eviction notice in the form of our landlord standing at the door. What a shitty situation har har har! We naturally explained that we don't get that... SHIT faced, when out and about and that we are also aware of where the toilets are if we do need to use them but alas, it was all in vane, that was the final nail in my eviction from number 23 Kirwan's Court. And while we didn't shit on our own doorstep, someone else happily did it for us.

So that was the story of how I wound up perched here, gazing sexily out the window with come-hither-to eyes contemplating the next step in my exceedingly unpredictable life (when I say that I mean bad luck), which is in part why I came back to this.

For now, I bid you adieu, until next time I say, don't shit yourselves, it's not cleanly and it may get people evicted from their apartments!

Toodles!

Making Moosic

    Well this is another lazy attempt of a post since I never appear to come onto this anymore unless I've made a new video, never the less, it is a post. After a brief unfortunate even of Camera being stolen/Camera being recovered, I decided out of sheer happiness that I would make a new video. This ended up being me hitting things in my room and trying to assort it into a random rhythm. The result is nothing special but I'm happy that I got a little more creative than usual with this one, so I hope ye can enjoy it for what it's worth!