Tip of the Tongue!

This is a song that my cousin Bethan and I wrote together whilst I was down visiting them in Devon. It's called Tip of the tongue.

I had a great few days working with Bethan on this. We seemed to work really well together and managed to combine ideas that really gelled. I really hope that we get another chance to write together soon. What with us living on different sides of the country though, it's going to take a bit of planning. I guess we could do it through skype or something. That would be cool!

The way we're sitting playing our guitars looks really funny doesn't it! It literally is a case of we're mirror image with each other what with me playing left handed and her right. Now if we were identical twins playing then that would look really freaky!

Enough of my ramblings. Enjoy the song and please leave some feedback.

Doctor who scarf...done!!

Yay!!! Finally after months of hard work, I can say that I have now made the doctor who scarf!

I actually finished it last week but things have been so busy that I just hadn't gotten round to telling you until now. I nearly told you about it in my last post but thought I'd leave it so that it could get the full spotlight and attention.

The scarf is now so big that it was a two man job to get the pictures of it done and of course, you need to see a picture of me actually wearing it don't you!!

All of my spare time was spent on this project. Now that it's completed, it really did feel like I found myself at a bit of a loss on what to do instead!

I've since managed to fill this little void in my life now though by doing (yep, you guessed it) more knitting.

The knitting bug has well and truly got it's hold on me.

I'm learning a lot of techniques I've never tried before so I've found it great fun and a bit of a personal challenge to teach myself. So far I've managed the art of Intarsia, fair isle and the double pointed needles. Cicular needle-ing has also been done but I've not been able to do anything on them because I think I've got the wrong length for what I had in mind.

So with all this knitting I've been doing, it's meant that I have/am going to have, lots of thing to show you!

Knit one, crochet one!

Boy it's been a busy few weeks!

I've just come back from a Christian camp called Soul Survivor and on top of that, managed to do lots of crafty projects.

The two little soft toys above I made actually just before Soul Survivor but this has been the first proper chance I've had to tell you about them. The hedgehog (which I name Harriet) was crocheted and the purple penguin knitted. I must be a lot faster at crocheting as the hedgehog only took a few hours but the penguin on the other hand took about a day in total.

It seems quite funny that I should be faster at crocheting as I haven't been doing it that long compared to my knitting. Maybe I just find it easier because you only use one tool to crochet so you're more hands in there.

Anyway, on that little rambling side thought, where was I?

Harriet the hedgehog has gone to her new owner already. I went to visit my aunt who lives in Wales the other day so I made Harriet as a gift to her.

The penguin still has it's residence here with me at the moment but will hopefully go to my other aunt who is, as you may have guessed, is crazy about purple! I'm not sure when I'll see her next so the penguin will have to take a trip in a jiffy bag I think.

I'm hoping that all you lot are having a good summer. I know the weather is a bit of a wash out most of the time here but hopefully you've had some good times anyway and even mangaged to get away to somewhere nice!

Back!

I had a great time in Ireland with my family last week. We stayed in a place called Swords which was just on the outskirts of Dublin.

It's been years since we had a proper family holiday abroad and what with Ellen and I being 18, it's probably going to be one of the last all together so it was pretty special.

I had a lot of fun taking photos! We were out and about in some really beautiful places so I took quite a lot. I'm hoping to be able to get them all printed out and maybe make a collage out of them or something. I have the idea of cutting them out in a way so that they make up the shape of Ireland. The pictures I've chosen are just a few of the photos which sum up the fun we had! I got the little rubber duck underneath to remember that. I call him Paddy!!

Having never been to Ireland before, I was actually quite surprised at how different everything felt. Even though we weren't that far away from where we live, everything felt really european especially the town in which we stayed. That was nice though because it made us feel that we were truely away. As lovely as Cumbria is, it's always nice to look at different scenery.

Most of the time the weather was great which was a bonus. I even got rid of my vampire look by getting a tan!!

Jenna also had a good holiday. She went back to the breeders to stay and when I came to pick her up, she looked like she had put on a fair bit of holiday fat! But she had needed to be wormed so when they kindly did that for me, she put on weight really quickly. But she had a blast there. She looked so happy when I saw her again and that made me feel better about leaving her.

So everyone has had a great week!

It's only just beginning

Whoa! Had a very very busy week this week. As I said, it's only just the beginning because tomorrow me and the family are off to Ireland.

But before I go on about what's going to happen, lets talk about what has been. On the Tuesday to Wednesday, we had a house full of guests. My Granny was up to go to the Open with my Dad and my cousin was up too with four other people as they are doing the cycle challenge of John O Groats to Lands End.

They are cycling in the aid of charity to raise funds for their local children's hospice. I think it is truely brilliant what they are doing as it's not an easy challenge especially on a triden!! (A three man bike!) So when they set off again on the Wednesday, I cycled a little bit with them which was pretty cool.

I ended up doing a lot more then I originally thought which my Dad was not happy about. He wanted me to do no more than 8 miles but I sorta ended up doing double that! Opps! But I was fine and didn't collapse on the doorstep of our house or anything. I even had the energy to take a dog walk but have to run all the way home again as we got soaked in a thunder storm.

Then yesterday, I went to Manchester for most of the day shopping with my twin. I had never been in Primark until yesterday and so was introduced to it. It was insane how long we were in there for. It was just such a big shop that even though we were in there for over two hours, we still didn't see everything.

As my wardrobe hasn't been updated since I was thirteen, I took this opportunity to get some new clothes. As you can guess from the fact that I still wear clothes from being age 13, I needed a lot of help on what to pick. So Ellen was my personal shop assistant and just bunged stuff into my basket all over the place.

I had the best time with Ellen. We haven't had the chance do something like this together for years so I'm glad that we finally did it.

So yes! A very busy, exciting week but a lot more of it to come. I'm away in Ireland for a whole week so probably won't be able to put any posts up in that time but when I get back I'm sure I'll lots of stories and pictures to show you all. TTFN!

Peapod guy is wired!

As I said I would, here is the 2d wire sculpture I've been working on. It's basically one of my drawings in wire form. I managed to borrow a soldering iron from one of Ellen's friends so thank you to him! I think the last time I did soldering was when I was in year 7 electronics. So considering it's been so long, I don't think I was too bad. I was expecting the soldering to take ages but it turns out it didn't. The actual sculpting the wire into the desired shape took a fair while though. Overall, for a first time at ever doing this sort of thing, I was pretty happy with the results. This wire sculpture is going to take pride of place on my wall. As my wall colour is a very light colour, I think it will stand out really well.

Plasticine covering

I covered the armature today with a plasticine body. You can see this outcome in the picture obviously.

Now that I have covered the armature, I realise that it isn't going to work well for animation. At least, not the sort of wire I used. I found that after applying the plasticine, trying to move it around well enough for a range of movements in animating just wouldn't be possible. The wire is just too stiff for the soft medium of plasticine and therefore the wire comes through with very little manipulation.

It's a shame that I have reached this conclusion because I put a lot of work into it. Not to mention going out and buying a big reel of wire!! But it's just a case of trial and error. It's only by trying this out that I now have more of an idea of what will work in the future.

So for prototype model no.1 it was never to be that he would have a life in front of the cameras as so many before him have dreamt. He has resided to the window sill for now sitting on a rubiks cube. Not a bad life. I can definitely think of worse endings for the little dude!

But what to do with all this wire?! Well I hate waste so I've decided to make 2d wire sculptures to go on my wall. (Will keep you updated on this little venture.)

Armatures for animation

I'm starting to think about getting back into animation properly. Now that Jenna is a bit more independent, I'm able to have two eyes on the task ahead of me and not always having to check if there is a wee on the floor or not!

Speaking of Jenna, she's just jumped up on me and thus the laptop on my lap to say hello. I don't know how she does it, but she always manages to create some sort of interesting problem on my computer just by stepping on the keypad. On this occasion, she's managed to delete the picture I had just uploaded!!

Anyway. Using the previous experiences I've had with stop motion animation, I've found that I need some sort of structure inside the plasticine model to make it easier to move on set. The Magicked Picnic was a good example. Because I was moving the little guy so much, his arms were falling off incredibly easily as the plasticine kept cracking on the joint of movement. At the end of shooting, his arm looked totally deformed and a lot shorter!

So I decided the way to go was to just build my future models around this skeleton structure in order to combat those annoying little problems. It should hopefully make them a lot more flexible including actually being able to walk in a human like fashion.

As you can see, I made the armature by twisting two wires together and moulding them into the desired shape. It was a bit fiddly though; I think because it was my first time.

I was inspired to do this because I've been reading up on the way Aardman do things. Of course, their armatures are way more advanced using Meccano like skeletons. But, I'm sure every animator there started out making armatures just like mine to animate with. Everyone starts at the bottom and works up. I unfortunately am barely off the bottom! Time though. Time and determination I guess will change this!

guitar man

I've been meaning to post this for a while now. I got bought this kit a couple of months ago and made it up straight away. It's a cool little dude who now sits on my windowsill poised and ready to play!

I also did a drawing of him. Thought I'd post that too to make this post a little bit more interesting than just watching me turn a handle around in a shaky little film.

The only gripe I have about the kit was that the guitarist is right handed! I couldn't build it the other way either because all the peg holes would have been in the wrong place. Never mind!

Oh, and if you're wondering what the noise is in the backround of the vidoeo, it's Jenna chewing her basket!

Working on the drawing skills

As the title says, I've been busy doing a fair amount of drawing lately.

My theory is that by drawing often (trying to do once every couple of days) I will be bound to improve in someway. It seems a logical way of thinking to me because you're not going to get good at something by not really practising it are you?!

If nothing else, drawing regularly will build up my confidence in the hobby.

But most of all, I'm drawing because I like doing it. It's a nice challenge, really gets you thinking and it quite literally uses all parts of your brain.

Not all drawings will go as well as you wanted but when some do, the feeling of euphoria really does take a hold of you. You feel proud of yourself that you've actually achieved something you aimed for.

Take this drawing for example. I know it needs a lot of work before it's truely great (i.e work on shading and all that technical stuff) but considering that I have never really attempted drawing people before I was pleasantly surprised at the first try.

I thought to myself, it's an alright place to start off at. I'm sure that people have started from a better place than this but then you must think also that others may have started from a point where they could only draw stick men.

So yes. With a combination of practise and proper tutorials, I'm hoping that I can get to a point where I feel I can call myself an artist!

Of course a little feedback would be good along the way too!!