Sunday 19 December 2010

Crochet revisited

it took me an hour, and i'm dropping stitches all over the place, but I am improving, yes it is still my bain, but I am determined  I will conquer it, I will bathe in a bath composed entirely of crocheted wool  .... and to think I almost gave up and resorted to cross stitch... soon my scarf will materialise! soon!

The Evolution of Baking

But as i don't have a my own television and so have to plug my atiquated games console into my brothers, who hibernates like some form or tundra dwelling organism, thus limiting the time i can spend wasting enriching my life through the joys of gaming, I have had to diversify in my recreational activities, yes the pub has been one such thing, but as my accomplice has since had a run in with a frozen puddle and has subsequently damaged his elbow   , which has been set in such a way in which reduces his ability to sleep (although now he has a green arm) i have had to search for another outlet.
And so i bake, I bake obscene amounts of biscuits, after a much needed trip to the local specialist kitchen shop, I had all I needed...

A dinosaur cookie cutter!
and so the much awaited veloceraptor biscuits were born...

the first batch i made... well i went a bit mental with the icing, but hey thats what us artist's call experimentation and i was having a metaphorical whale of a time!
but my next batch, i went for the minimalist approach, eyes are all they needed, well that and claws, with this arsenal of bakery induced evolution, these corony inducing treats would be ready to take on the all manner of prey, eventually taking their rightful place at the top of the food chain ...
and so they were born..

 Yeah they may look cute, but they can rip apart a bourbon  in 20 seconds, I've revolutionised the cookie hierarchy, teatime will NEVER be the same again !


Zelda, A Blast From the past

Of late, life has totally got in the way of living, and so I've been filling in the gaps with metaphorical soul filler as much as possible, a main component of this being the contents of an ominous parcel that arrived from the depths of ebay, although I'm over my addiction of ebay (this is how the majority of low quality and somewhat faulty electronic devices have infiltrated my family home) occasionally its ease to source obscure things rears its convenient yet ugly head (a bit like my uncle). Long story short I now (after 5+ years) am the proud owner of a copy of Windwaker, with the pleasure of playing it having cost me nearly 25 hours of my life. But i forgive it, IT's GORGEOUS to look at, the fairies are not nearly as terrifying as they have been in the last games.
Observe.
This is bloody terrifying... especially with the haunting shriek that accompanies her... i can understand that the graphics used arn't the most flattering, but jesus, that woman, dispite her usefullness and good nature haunts my dreams.
The new Fairies although ,maintaining their odd appearance, and look at least a little more...human, well a bit...
Via Zelda Dungeon
What i love about it is its Artwork, though, both cell shading within the game and the concept art equally so... even the seas waves are a joy to ride, well for the first few hours... if i could even nearly make stuff up like that in my head I'd be eternally happy, riding unicorns and giving raffle prizes to complete strangers.
Via Destructiod
Look at him, he's so feminine happy! The colour palette, even in the darkest dungeons remains flamboyant  throughout, with even the rolling purple smoke that billows from the inner recesses of a slain foe in-captivating me, yes finding treasure in the endless seas gets a tad tedious, and some of the devilishly devised puzzles have left me shouting abuse at me obsolete console, but overall I'm loving the experience that is playing this game :D.

Tuesday 7 December 2010

Kate Beaton does Darwin

Those who havn't seen the joy that is Hark! A vagrant are totally missing out, Kate Beaton is probably the best historical influenced cartoonist to date,  fantabulously (yes that is a real word) using mainly line in most of her comics to create manevolent, whimsical artwork cleverly intwined with modern humor with a dash of realism (in a round about way) 
This comic in particular has made my day a little brighter, including a pokemon reference, Science and a dinosaur-esk drawing (panel 3) 
Via: Hark, A Vagrant, Kate Beaton

If i was half as good at drawing as her i'd be a very happy man

Sunday 5 December 2010

Let it Snow

After travelling down to Maidstone, the weather decided to bring the whole of Britain to a complete stand still through the provision of frozen flakes of joy, and Britain being being Britain was powerless, power cut out, transport came to a standstill and Facebook was barraged with Snow related statuses.
When it snows there are 2 main groups of people; those who despise it with a passion making it the immediate cause of all that is wrong with the world and those that relish it.
 Yes I have grown up (a bit) and I can see the inconvenience that it can cause, but what's the point of moaning? Especially if you've been wishing for it all year long... sometimes we can learn from children, who seem to develop an instant immunity to the cold when it snows...
I took notes (children are bloody epic at times), and then took the opportunity to make a snow sculpture, the initial plan was a camel, but as my girlfriend pointed out halfway through construction, it wanted to be a dinosaur...




yeah we totally cheated, and utilised a bench and the pictures don't really do it justice, but hey, we had fun :)

Thursday 25 November 2010

Dan and the less than perfect haircut

Right, today I have finally got round to cutting my hair, eventually my keratin based tendril's had got so impressive, even the Triffid's were becoming to become jealous of what remains of my thinning mop of hair. Soon it will give up and give in to the 'Alsop' gene, which is really just a collective term to the genetic based cocktail of horrors that are: male pattern baldness, Altzeimers, a degenerative back and mental instability. But for now I'm fighting it, revelling in my youth, but for the sake of my safety a needed a cut.

So today a lovely lady popped round for a home visit, which is convenience at its best, and a pre-negotiated sum of £10 was reached, this immediately sounded like a bargain, and I chose to ignore the  girlfriend  nagging pain asking 'how can she give a price if you haven't told her what you want?'
Detail's! I scoffed, it will all be resolved when she gets here... how wrong I was
'So what do you want?' she asks in a sincere yet fairly quizzical tone,
 'told you so' I flaunted at my inner self 'there's nothing to worry about'
'to see' was my immediate reply (because I'm a comic genius), followed by 'but I really want to keep some length' stressing this somewhat (yet foolishly in a casual tone).
 The problem was that this hairdresser had no concept of the term 'some length', in her eyes 'short' was a length, infact any length was some form of length,be it long medium of short as hell, and this gave her a free reign, and so my hair is the antithesis of what I wanted, what I wanted was a nice fringe, long(ish) yet tidy, as is the fashion, what I got was a business man's hair cut, short and 'vague'.
The thing is, I don't seem to have much luck with hair dressers, maybe it that I'm never really sure what I want myself, although in my defence the last 'stylist' I was recommended to, was stone deaf (to my horror) and I had to describe what I wanted through the medium of interpretive dance.
My main issue is when they ask 'well is that ok?' I mean it may be 'ok' but that doesn't mean it's what you wanted, or asked for, it just means 'is it acceptable', infact the only time a hair cut wouldn't be ok is if they shaved ' i fuck babies because i'm a nazi'  into the back of your head or weaved bullet ants into your scalp, and even if you tried to complain they will say things like 'ah well its too short to do anything with now' or 'you'll grow into it'. Yes i know hair regrows, i'm not really that fussed, my hair routinely resembles a roosting site for large migratory bird's, it's just the helplessness that you encounter when you sit in a chair, at uni we used to cut each others 'biff's' and  if they went wrong, well hey there was always beer to drown your sorrows and you relished the notion that you were about to cut theirs..

Tuesday 23 November 2010

Stuff I Like

Cyanide and Happiness, a daily webcomic
Cyanide & Happiness

Learning through Osmosis, One of the Many Uses for Anime

Ok so recently ive been on somewhat of an anime binge, somehow (don't ask me how) I have avoided becoming some form of cave dwelling creature, surfacing only to feed, but at the same time I cannot ignore the mass of anime i have had the pleasure of watching, in less than a week I've watched the entire series of 'Full Metal Alchemist' (which is bloody magnificent!) including the film (naturally), what has happened as a result however is the insatiable urge to end every ones name with 'san' which is is basically a mark of respect (from what I gather through my fairly non existent, cobbled together misguided understanding of foreign languages) because of the constant use of it (it end's everyone's name basically), in a similar way I have started referring to my brother as 'nee san' not consciously I must add, it just pops out in conversation as a result of the constant bombardment of the word in both outlaw star and especially Fullmetal Alchemist where both of he main characters are well...brothers. I cant't complain, I'm practically learning Japanese via osmosis, (well diffusion technically, as my education has hammered home the fact that osmosis only involves water). Admittedly (like pretty much every anime series I've watched) it gets bloody mental toward's the end, even Hitler join's the party! nothing makes a party like an internationally hated historical figure!
Also it's this week's anime caption....

Context...some things need it

My Dog Sticks his Tongue Out

These are prime!
and my personal favourite...
This is probably one of my most favourite things in the world, party because he looks hillarious, and party because I'm pretty sure he doesn't realise he's doing it :D

Thursday 11 November 2010

Dan's first day of crochet. The Final Cut

Ok this is my days worth of work, I have no real idea how i done this, i just made it all up as went along after getting to grips with the basics :D
i think my next lesson is how to make real things... scarf?

in other news one of my baby mantid's got stuck in a moult, this i probably due to a mixture of cold weather lowering the humidity...sad times, I've stuck ll the others in an insulated box while i figure out a more permanently solution... although I'm limited mainly by the one power point i have in my room, in the most unuseful place ever *sigh*

Progress

Horrah i have single handedly made a poorly fitting eyepatch for stroke sufferers! behold my raw talent!

nk so it leaves a lot to be desired, the stitches aren't uniform, there are holes all over the place, BUT I have made rows which is a start...I hope 
now I have to learn to be consistent and then there are a the double stitches and colour changes to contend with. But in a miss guided kind of way i feel oddly proud, its the labour of several hours of hard sweatshop labour, but there it is :D

I respect old women, and despise meat thieves

That's it, I've taken the plunge, i now am the proud owner  of a 4.5 cm crochet hook and a shit load of wool and all i can say is that i have a new found respect for old women crochet is frigg' hard!!
My haul cost me 2.59 with a free (!!!!) booklet thats meant to make me a pro, and although it tells me how to make certain 'stitches?' it fails to teach me what the stitches actually do... all i want to do is make a scarf or something!


 I've been playing for about 3 hours now and my progress is...well minimal 
i have a very shakey foundation chain, but I can cast on and make my chain on my own now... but if i try to single crochet... well this happens
That's right, an abortion! I'm taing a tea break and having a brief reflection on my dismal performance, and will hopefully, by the very least be able to string a couple of chains together by the end of the day, this is my mission.

Also sainsbury's have apparently had a spate of meat related thefts of late:

 weird...

Wednesday 10 November 2010

Nice stuff

I totally love this blog, check it out :D

SALT DOUGH!

I have no idea where the urge came from, but it surfaced with such excitement that nothing would quell my desire  to make some form of creation from the medium that is salt dough. Salt dough is a medium usually linked to poorly formed 'tot sculptures' which beg the question 'mate, seriously, what the hell is that?' a question which is instead twisted and reformed by professionals  into 'sooooo....tell me about your sculpture'. The child involved will then offer an exclamation so lucid that even an LSD seems dull in comparison, after which the child's mother involved would demand that it sits pride of place on the mantelpiece to advertise to any visitors that the child of the household has the artistic ability of a lemon. Bless
Basically i just wanted a play, and i broke Anna's room plaque that her niece made because it was shit I was drunk, so i totally owed her one. so as usual I over stocked on salt (i bought 5 times more than i actually needed)
and used this recipe

SALT DOUGH
1 cup of  table salt
1 cup of water
2 cups of flour

Throw the salt and flour in a bowl, then gradually add the water  untill it makes dough, of it's to sticky add flour and if its too dry add more water...
And I don't mean American cups either, I just mean A cup (obviously the bigger the cup the more you will make)

And this is what I made...

with the dinosaur being my favourite...OBVIOUSLY!
You can leave it to air dry (takes a day or two  or cook it on low heat, what i didnt realise is that it still takes a billion hours on low temp (50-100 Degrees C)  so i did it for an hour and then left it to air dry for the remainder of the time :D

Dinosaurs!

So this week i went to Annas, and revelled in the joy that is a partnership, i'm not one for public affection, but we had a snazztastic time :D
on our travels around the ever so popular tourist destination that is Maidstone, a place renound for for its classy inhabitants, beautiful architecture and pristine river water... well maybe not, but I digress. SO in TKmax we hunted for some suitable winter attire, however after feeling swamped with unsuitable clothing for nearly an hour, i tugged on the rope tied to my waist 3 times and was returned to the the surface.
And then i saw it, its surface distorting the surrounding space, glinting, as if flaunting its brilliance, dancing its seductive dance...
Yes its crude as hell, but it's DINOSAURS FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!!!1!!!!!oneone!!!1eleven, admittedly it drawn in a style similar to medieval bibles and for 30 quid I'm sure i could get a decent scientific etching for that, but still it filled the world, for a second with glee of that found only within 5 year old's.

Obviously I am easily entertained and a randomly, well placed dinosaur related object is all needed to make my day, so here i am cheerfully beaming in the fact i have seen this monstrosity of an art piece (i love the grumpy triceratops in the centre of the painting XD ) and i go nect door to hobby craft where i manage to pick up this little fella for a few (3) quid...

A VELOCERAPTOR!?!?!! probably the most badass of all dinosaurs portrayed by film? yes please!
so i pick up this cheeky little gift to myself to entertain me for an hour or so whilst the bird is doing boring degree related follies...
After 15 minuites of quizzical brow scratching, eye strain and a spattering of dinosaur noises i begin to realise that this 'little model' isn't going to be so little after all...its FUCKING EPIC! its man sized!
That my friend's is the BARGAIN of the century!


YEAH ROY!:D :D

Saturday 6 November 2010

Bad News...

demotivational posters - BAD NEWS
Via:Very Demotivational

That is all.

Wait...What?


Wait....what? how do you cruelly obtain wool? Armed Robbery?, pulling it out? , skinning the sheep/llama alive? Claiming to have slept with the ovine's mother whilst harvesting warm fluffy treats?

Also why just cruelly obtained wool from Australia , not every where? Surely if your going to make a group like this you may as well hit as many birds with the same stone (bad metaphor, I know)

I would look into it further but i have an instant hatred of groups like this, regardless of the causes that they endorse...

Also Why is wool never as fluffy as you imagine it?

Friday 5 November 2010

There is nothing more fantastically awesome to an invertebrate keeper when their insects shed ESPECIALLY when they shed to adult and ESPECIALLY when they are female (more often than not) because females are on the whole bigger, more epic (especially in the case of mantid's and phasmid's (stick insects) ) and are more productive (they make babies) and it is usually much  better to have a high female to male ratio for this reason :D

So when my sub adult female shed to adult and finally earned her wings i was more than ecstatic :D
she looks so much like a leaf!:D  males on the other hand look a bit weedy in comparison having functional wings that spoil the leaf illusion somewhat...
also i love the females facial features...
they just look a bit clueless, like a confused Tusken Raider
Vis some obscenely long blog thing

These things literally scare the crap out of me, but my little leafy is like a raider crafted from marshmallow, with a hint of green ^_^

Also my mantid's have all been shedding too, which means they are happy :D but they show no noticeable difference apart from longer legs...bless

Thursday 4 November 2010

A Household Mystery

Strange things have been appearing of late within my humble abode, Firstly my kitchen was visited by a wandering mollusc, that i have christened 'Norman'

What i love about the appearance of Norman the most is my Brothers reaction to 'Chris there's a snail bombing round the kitchen' in which he replied 'Yeah he was here the other day i just left him to it' I love how my a combination of my brothers laziness and his interest in 'what will happen next' had culminated in letting a snail loose in a culinary setting...how daring.

The Mystery Currently however is that of 'The Dolphin'


He's been her for nearly a week now, and we have only just realised no one has a flamin' clue as to where he has come from...he's just appeared and has become a resident in the Alsop household, but he does look ever so happy with a bottle of Radox protruding from his rectum.

Also the Bread Fairy has visited us :D HOORAY!

Anime, Rediscovered With a Hint of Rant

Bonjourno! ect
Of late I have been reveling of my long lost delights of anime, something i havn't really seen in a non hung over state for a very long time, so long ago infact that the last time i ever really watched a decent bit of anime was on cartoon networks channel 'CNX' which i don't even think exists any more, a channel, with a little nurturing from my malaysian rooted friend Gideon that formed the basis of my 'japanorama' section within my soul.

I re-watched some old school anime in the form of Trigun and a Dash of Outlaw Star, which although are very old now (10 years at least) are still a decent watch. I then started on the epic saga that is 'Bleach' Bleach is in short pokemon for teenage boys where 'pocket monsters' are replaced by entities that inhabit 'soul slayers'(i.e Fuck off weapons) which are owned by members of soul society (in effect Ninja Grim Reapers) and for about 60 episodes I feasted on a banquet of awesome characters, epic fight scenes and Animation which would have Tony Hart smiling from the heavens.

Also Bleach is the origin for the 'leek spin' meme that went round a few years ago, it blew and subsequently made my mind go Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! in a satisfied moment of realisation



I have also deduced that animé is roughly 20 BILLION times better in Japanese with English subtitles, there's something whimsically beautiful about watching anime in japanese, it feeds the soul and strains your eyes, but in a good way, ,in the same way that aching arms are an acceptable consequence of holding puppies within ones arms. I just feel cheated when I watch them dubbed in English, however that could be because of the terrrible voice actors which inhabit the arena of translated media.
Also sometimes Translations are...Well Brilliant...

heh heh...willy :D

The Only thing that angers me regarding animé is the stigma attached to it, there are two main types of of people that wrongly dismiss animé :

People That Believe That if its a Cartoon it Can't Possibly Be of Any Value to Them
 This includes my mum who refers to any form of animated media as 'The Muppets' which actually doesn't make much sense anyway, as the muppets aren't actually animated. The thing which angers me the most about this mentality is the absolute close mindedness of these people, surely the content of media should be rated by it's content, not in the method chosen to portray it, as long as the method used to display the 'story' is effective in doing so (i.e does it justice). Animation allows all kinds of things to occur within a series/film that would otherwise be costly/difficult to do in live performance. And for that reason its foolish to assume that 'cartoons are for children' and 'Theatre is for Toff's'. Judge the content BEFORE you judge the method chosen to portray it


The 'Isn't That Porn' People
This generally includes Men that drive white vans, or teenagers that soon will, Basically...No that's Hientai, and yes although the same animation style is used, animé isn't any more erotic than the average BBC Drama, well maybe ITV... That's like saying 'Theatre is porn because it uses real people'...again method of portraying a story doesn't necessarally indicate content...


Obviously its not for everyone, but i think the main issues are based on the anime series that people have watched have not engaged them, or that pre-existing expectations hinder the enjoyment and acceptance of animé as a form of 'proper media' put i forgive them....

Wednesday 20 October 2010

Insomnia

Basically...I cant sleep

Paint'n plastic to look well...not plastic

In preparation for my (and my gf's) Halloween costumes, i cracked out the acrylics and had a bit of a play, I haven't got the goggles yet so i had a bit of an experiment with an old Tommy gun that was laying around (from a gangsta costume years ago)- I love how I have all these props and paints hanging about :D so for about 15 mins or so i had a play with silver, black and 'burnt seanna' brown and just mucked about for a bit. And these are the results...

To be fair for my first ever try at anything like this (things like painting war-hammer figurines I despise with a passion ) I'm pretty chuffed, admittedly i went a bit mental towards the back of the gun, but it seems that dry-brushing is totally the way forward... smudging and rubbing thinned layers seems to work for crevices (wipe the remaining paint of surrounding areas), but I'm not a fan for using it in other areas. I was contemplating using gold paint and giving a bit of a steampunk style to my goggles although i really like the gun metal colours :D 
So: 
1.rough up plastic with some sandpaper
2.Paint with a black undercoat
3.Dapple with a dark grey/silver with a dry brush
4.Repeat with lighter metallic colour
5.use dry brush and highlight colour to crate scratches
Unlike today i would totally let layers dry completely and probably use much less paint (thin them up with water or something)  and give my goggles some dents and scratches with some form of heavy duty tool...but for 15 mins I'm pretty chuffed

Monday 18 October 2010

Meanwhile On the Internet...

Source: loldwell via thedailywh.at

Also... THIS is pretty cool
Everytime someone joins the group ect this guy gets submerged in skittles... a good waste of the internets power i feel :D

The commentator is just talking rubbish throughout the whole thing and its a bit funny :F
'he looks frustrated like he's struggling at sudoku'
i don't really like skittles