A Week's Worth of Miscellany
Apr. 17th, 2010 08:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinI usually try to keep posts to one or two topics, but I'm afraid I come with a basket of loose ends today ...
First:
A couple months ago a kind lady asked me to do an HP/Dr Horrible crossover for the annual FictionAlley April Fools ... thing ... Well, it was impossible to resist. Luckily I managed to squeeze this out just before work exploded. Dunno if it ever ended up on the site, but it's here now!
How to Train Your Dragon
I was going to wait until the pain wore off before I wrote a review, but time is running out so I'm going to go with my first reaction, because in retrospect it might be the best thing I can say about the film.
How to Train Your Dragon kicked me in the nuts, and I didn't even know I had nuts, which made the shock all the greater. It is a darn fine film. If you haven't seen it already I recommend you do (give or take the 3D; as usual I got not to notice it after ten minutes or so but the flying scenes were pretty awesome). I had been feeling reasonably confident – not awesome, but pretty good – about my design, animation, and even basic filmmaking skills, but this movie ... just sorta leant out from the screen and said 'You know NOTHING!' then performed the aforementioned anatomically implausible manoeuvre. I felt like a soggy teabag for the rest of the day but in a good way ... you need shocks like these to remind yourself you need to keep growing, and once the pain dies away they're motivation to forge ahead.
Anyway, excellent film; has a few flaws but enough of the important stuff worked so well that I don't really care what they are even when they're staring me in the face. And, most importantly of all (personally), this coming so soon after Kung Fu Panda makes me ever so slightly less cynical about Dreamworks having the rights to The Bromeliad. I feel the need to push it because it is a crime it's been making less money than Monsters vs Aliens, which leads money people once again to the horrifying conclusion that American audiences (which are the only ones that matter – I wish I were joking) don't want good films. For the sake of quality entertainment, give them your dollars!
Everyone Loves GROCERIES!
A new grocery store moved in a few blocks away which has a dark secret: it's owned by Tesco. There's nothing on the signage or packaging that mentions this but they've blown their cover in a few small but significant ways, like labelling their arugula 'rocket' and keeping their produce in small depressing bins rather than the 'produce resort' favoured by most American supermarkets. Unfortunately they don't have Ribena, liquorice allsorts, custard powder (which I have found somewhere else, HAH!), palatable instant coffee, or Aspall cider, but I found Heinz baked beans and – and! – treacle pudding inna can. It is both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time: aside from the jolly 'microwaveable!' decal it looks like it came here straight from 1914. But tomorrow I am going to heat it up and make some custard to pour on top, then promptly keel over in a diabetic coma.
Anyway, the real reason I brought this up was to embed this:
I, for one, welcome our new grocery overlords.
Revelations on Fanart
Having picked up a bit of freelance in the vein of what I used to do for a living, I was brought face to face with a fact I'd never consciously articulated before. I thought I had slacked off on the fanart front because I was simply too busy to do any, or to read the books that usually prompted it, or because I no longer had a bus commute, but now I know these are not primary reasons. The fundamental truth is, not to put to fine a point on it, that work is no longer boring. Back in the day I'd doodle out stuff and mull illustrations to do when I got home as a way to stay awake and keep the grey matter alive, but now I am called upon every day to use my whole brain to do something I genuinely love doing. Now, though, in snatches between items of piecework, I'm reading Night Watch* again, and ... I want ... to draw. Don't have time, of course, but it's refreshing to feel the old fingertips tingling again. It's also interesting to see little seeds of future books sewn in this one: there are lots of ideas that get more fully explored in Monstrous Regiment, and Carcer is like a hardcore evil proto-Moist. It's also interesting to read this immediately after Small Gods, which also has the History Monks pulling strings behind the scenes and a shadowy secret police/Inquisition in a city on the brink of substantial change.
*There are no lilacs in LA, as far as I know.
Pluggity Plug Plug
I was pointed to the band mentioned a few posts ago on the latest installment of Lovelace & Babbage vs The Organist, the latest series in a truly fantastic webcomic written and drawn by a friend of mine who spends most of her time animating CG creatures in live action films. Lovelace & Babbage started awesome and has continued to get better and better; just when I thought it was as awesome as it could be she posts Part 4, which introduces a floppy-haired bespectacled showboat of a villain and had me floating on waves of glee for the rest of the day. Curse that day job, this is far more beneficial to the human race.
First:
A couple months ago a kind lady asked me to do an HP/Dr Horrible crossover for the annual FictionAlley April Fools ... thing ... Well, it was impossible to resist. Luckily I managed to squeeze this out just before work exploded. Dunno if it ever ended up on the site, but it's here now!
How to Train Your Dragon
I was going to wait until the pain wore off before I wrote a review, but time is running out so I'm going to go with my first reaction, because in retrospect it might be the best thing I can say about the film.
How to Train Your Dragon kicked me in the nuts, and I didn't even know I had nuts, which made the shock all the greater. It is a darn fine film. If you haven't seen it already I recommend you do (give or take the 3D; as usual I got not to notice it after ten minutes or so but the flying scenes were pretty awesome). I had been feeling reasonably confident – not awesome, but pretty good – about my design, animation, and even basic filmmaking skills, but this movie ... just sorta leant out from the screen and said 'You know NOTHING!' then performed the aforementioned anatomically implausible manoeuvre. I felt like a soggy teabag for the rest of the day but in a good way ... you need shocks like these to remind yourself you need to keep growing, and once the pain dies away they're motivation to forge ahead.
Anyway, excellent film; has a few flaws but enough of the important stuff worked so well that I don't really care what they are even when they're staring me in the face. And, most importantly of all (personally), this coming so soon after Kung Fu Panda makes me ever so slightly less cynical about Dreamworks having the rights to The Bromeliad. I feel the need to push it because it is a crime it's been making less money than Monsters vs Aliens, which leads money people once again to the horrifying conclusion that American audiences (which are the only ones that matter – I wish I were joking) don't want good films. For the sake of quality entertainment, give them your dollars!
Everyone Loves GROCERIES!
A new grocery store moved in a few blocks away which has a dark secret: it's owned by Tesco. There's nothing on the signage or packaging that mentions this but they've blown their cover in a few small but significant ways, like labelling their arugula 'rocket' and keeping their produce in small depressing bins rather than the 'produce resort' favoured by most American supermarkets. Unfortunately they don't have Ribena, liquorice allsorts, custard powder (which I have found somewhere else, HAH!), palatable instant coffee, or Aspall cider, but I found Heinz baked beans and – and! – treacle pudding inna can. It is both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time: aside from the jolly 'microwaveable!' decal it looks like it came here straight from 1914. But tomorrow I am going to heat it up and make some custard to pour on top, then promptly keel over in a diabetic coma.
Anyway, the real reason I brought this up was to embed this:
I, for one, welcome our new grocery overlords.
Revelations on Fanart
Having picked up a bit of freelance in the vein of what I used to do for a living, I was brought face to face with a fact I'd never consciously articulated before. I thought I had slacked off on the fanart front because I was simply too busy to do any, or to read the books that usually prompted it, or because I no longer had a bus commute, but now I know these are not primary reasons. The fundamental truth is, not to put to fine a point on it, that work is no longer boring. Back in the day I'd doodle out stuff and mull illustrations to do when I got home as a way to stay awake and keep the grey matter alive, but now I am called upon every day to use my whole brain to do something I genuinely love doing. Now, though, in snatches between items of piecework, I'm reading Night Watch* again, and ... I want ... to draw. Don't have time, of course, but it's refreshing to feel the old fingertips tingling again. It's also interesting to see little seeds of future books sewn in this one: there are lots of ideas that get more fully explored in Monstrous Regiment, and Carcer is like a hardcore evil proto-Moist. It's also interesting to read this immediately after Small Gods, which also has the History Monks pulling strings behind the scenes and a shadowy secret police/Inquisition in a city on the brink of substantial change.
*There are no lilacs in LA, as far as I know.
Pluggity Plug Plug
I was pointed to the band mentioned a few posts ago on the latest installment of Lovelace & Babbage vs The Organist, the latest series in a truly fantastic webcomic written and drawn by a friend of mine who spends most of her time animating CG creatures in live action films. Lovelace & Babbage started awesome and has continued to get better and better; just when I thought it was as awesome as it could be she posts Part 4, which introduces a floppy-haired bespectacled showboat of a villain and had me floating on waves of glee for the rest of the day. Curse that day job, this is far more beneficial to the human race.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-27 09:31 pm (UTC)Would you allow me to use it as my Facebook profile pic for a bit? I would of course credit you and understand if you say no.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-27 09:34 pm (UTC)Yeah! I'd be honoured. I'd say check with the site who commissioned it but I don't think they ever ended up using it so, go right ahead. I'm glad you like it!
no subject
Date: 2013-06-27 09:57 pm (UTC)I'm also adoring your Mignola style Captain Scott stuff!
no subject
Date: 2013-06-27 10:06 pm (UTC)Well, there's plenty of that, though the Mignola style drops out pretty quickly. :)