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| Recent Posts Work was uneventful as ever and went pretty quick as I was looking forward to that evening plans. If you read to title of todays blog you might guess. It was Ricky birthday and a night going round some of his old haunts ending up at Corp was on the cards. Before that all kicked off though I called up Redhead Digital (check previous posts for details) to see if my prints were ready. They were indeed and I headed down and stayed for a chat with the owner. He was pretty complimentary about my work (always nice to hear) and mentioned passing my number onto someone he knows regarding paining some wall in a newly converted barn! This set me up nicely to come home and start getting ready for the evening. Ralph met us outside ours at eight and we headed out to a pub we'd never heard of (like I said it was apparently where Ricky spent most of his first year) The Sheaf Inn was relatively ‘old mannish' and expensive but we somehow stayed there for quite a while. By the time everyone turned up we made up quite a posse! Ricky seems to know a lot of people! After that it was onto The Cricketers, in which we were the only customers and they ran out of Strongbow and were serving it in cans. Classy, it was like drinking at home…but not. I played Kate (Ricky's girlfriend) at pool and luck was shining as I did my whole ‘hustle' bullshit which includes playing shit and hoping to magically get better. This, as it happens, was exactly how it went! Loosing badly and then a few beautiful shots resulting in victory. Kate was pissed. On to another old man pup called The Sportsman, all the time chatting to everyone and generally showing Ricky a good time on his 21 st . Ending in Corp for an awesome dance marathon. Expect photos tomorrow. I drank far too much and so today has been a real recovery so I've done nothing except this blog! Although I've just read our Taiwan correspondent over at MMI has had a worse day so remember to stop by and check up on him. Hope you feel better Aaron! Gaming news is simple, go and play Zombies At My Neighbours, its an awesome game. Originally out on SNES and MegaDrive but go and find it through emulation. That's all for today folks. Tomorrow brings a day of painting and gitaroo man. Take it easy out there kids. Dave
6th August, 2006
Hello all to Sunday
All I've done today is a leisurely walk around town with Liz taking in the sunshine. The trip included a Subway (Steak and cheese if you're interested) and a more important browse of Gamestation's Pre-Owned section of PS2 games. I was just trying to think of a way to build up the tension before I revealed what I bought but fuck it. I got ‘Gitaroo Man'! It's a game I've wanted for ages as I missed it the first time round. I though I'd managed to snag a rare copy but the guy at the till told me that they re-issued it tie in with the recent release of a port to the PSP. I don't really care if it's a re-issue as it gives me chance to play and that what's really important. Haven't turned it on yet so I'll let you know my opinion soon. Although I'm prepared to be put off by its difficulty, something I've heard is quite hard.
Back home I've just been spending time online and in Photoshop researching some painting ideas for Arcadefinger the business. Getting more and more focused with my style and making a list of games that I'm going to try to make a piece of art from. Now I throw open the forum and ask you the reader for help. Email (thundercat_dave@yahoo.co.uk) or leave a message over at blogger (the old blog) giving some suggestion of gaming history that you think people would like to own as a piece of art. Any ideas will be much appreciated as my own view of gaming is quite small and specific (as you all know, Final Fantasy doesn't make my list of top games!) Specifics would help me too as I'm going to be focusing on characters and even things such as items and power ups. What really reminds you of a game, what power up is ingrained onto your brain forever due to its importance in some snes/megadrive game? Give it some though and I'll love ya for it. That's everything for today folks Take it easy out there kids Dave
5th August, 2006 Earning the Pennies I've been at work the last two days and it means I've actively made time to chill out while not at work (compared to the days I have off where I actively try and complete loads of tasks). Friday's task was simply to go to the poster shop in The Forum and see if the manager was in, unfortunately like the 3 days I'd been in before he wasn't. I was pretty chilled out especially as I got chatting to the guy that works there and it even went as far as name introduction (his name is ‘Wiggs') so I wasn't too bothered that it didn't answer any questions about selling my art work. Home to chill out before work, I got through a few levels of Time Splitters: Future Perfect. As I've said before, solid play so an enjoyable hour on the PS2. I forgot but the previous Time Splitters game I had was very interesting as it had level changes depending on the difficulty. Every game I've every played simply added more bad guys, made the bullets ‘hurt' more, or placed less health power ups when you moved to 'Hard' mode. I hope this third instalment is the same. I'm playing through on 'Easy' right now so I'll let you know. Work flew by on Friday night with no interesting comments to make. I worked out that not ‘clock watching' make time fly. I feel like I'm ‘in' at Debenhams. Every task is known to me (apart from on the till but that's only because I haven't been trained!) and I'm pretty good friends with every one there. It makes working there that bit easier. Today was the first lie in I've had in ages and as Liz wasn't at work it was awesome to just chill out. I was at work but not until 3. A txt from Liz's brother informing that he was on his way to Sheffield to visit a friend meant that the lie in was cut a little short as he wanted to see the new flat. He stayed for an hour with most of the time being taken up by us showing him various ‘cool' things in our flat. Kitchen draws that gently close no matter how hard you slam being the finale. Another uneventful shift ends the day and a day off tomorrow awaits. Take it easy out there kids Dave
3rd August, 2006 Click Here To Print.
In the further effort to get my portfolio together and see if any shops in Sheffield will sell my work I remembered something important. Not sure if anyone's had any experience with those instant Kodak digital printing machines but they're now even cooler than I already thought they were. I've used them a couple of times to quickly print out digital photos I've taken, each time with quick and cheap results. I think I had loads of copies of us meeting Alice Cooper mere minutes after taking the photo. The news for today is that these machines also print any picture you put on your camera memory onto nice photographic paper. I remember Guy doing this ages ago but I'd completely forgotten. So basically all the art work I did in Photoshop that I'm getting RedHead Digital to print out at £4 a time I went to Klick Photos and I got them all for £2.95. Now to be fair their not A4 (that's what RedHead are doing for me) and the quality is a bit off but it a great little tool at my disposal and it means I've got a physical representation to show people that's very portable. It being on photographic paper adds a little something too, classy! I also spent some time looking into web hosting sites and more importantly once that can handle transaction if I want customers to buy stuff. Another question which I wrestled with today was the copywrite issue. Now if I paint a picture based on and featuring Pacman then I'm pretty sure Namco should get a cut of anything I make (if I sell it that is!). Well truthfully I think I have to ask them first and they would say no. I ended today still on track as a quick glance online (specifically eBay) has shown me that loads of people are doing it and I'm sure they don't have a ‘reproduction right' (if that's what its called?!?) What I have decided is that everything I do will at least be original in terms of design if not in Intellectual property. Basically this means a painting of pacman but one that I've thought up, arranged and no ones ever seen one quite like it. Pacman's not the best example but if you think about Street Fighter then it means I've got a lot of work ahead of me designing something that looks dynamic and such. Other news to end today on is that I'm colouring my hair again. Only one week after I did it last so my scalp isn't going to like me. Basically the ‘Pillar Box Red' I did it before was a bit pink and its non permanent nature meant that it was only going to get pinker! I didn't bleach it again, simply put a new red on top. This time ‘Vermillion' is the colour of choice (I'll stick a pic on tomorrow) and I'm sitting here letting it develop so no final results yet but it looks better at this stage. Well I hope all is well with you all and I hope you're still enjoying Arcadefinger. Take it easy out there kids Dave
2nd August, 2006, Arcadefinger Ltd.?? I'm on such an active-mind positive right now. That might not make any sense so I better explain what I'm on about. I feel I'm standing on the edge of a brink looking into exciting times ahead. This is all steaming from a desire to turn my hobby (artistic creation) into some kind of life for myself. I figure I'm in a pretty good spot right now so I'm trying to make the most of it. You see I need to spend a lot of time getting stuff organised (ie getting together a portfolio of my various artistic wares to pimp around) and it's this kind of stuff that takes valuable time. Time I might not other wise have if I had a full time job, the other side of the situation is if I had no job then I couldn't afford anything and have no chance of getting stuff sorted. Which leaves me in the so called ‘good spot' I'm in. Debenhams at 20 hours a week is enough to live on (first couple of pay cheques have proved that), and this gives me time off in the week to get things organised. Case in point is today and yesterday. Yesterday I was at work until 2:30 leaving the afternoon to scout out possible design companies to look into. Turns out there are loads of little businesses right under my nose, the discovery of Sheffield continues. I didn't go into any of them as I don't have a portfolio and I might not even if I did as if they're not looking for employees, me turning up might be quite rude. An important trip to Subway filled the void and fuelled ain investigatory trip to a poster shop in The Forum to ask if they would sell any of my paintings (paintings I haven't painted yet but I'm in research mode at this point) I was told to return on Thursday to have a chat to the manager. To fill you in I've got a plan in the back of my mind to paint big canvases of a computer gaming theme. Initial thoughts include 3 series each titled ‘8bit', ‘16bit' and ‘32bit' Not sure of the details yet (ie style= popart etc) but the first one is going to be Pacman. I feel that there is an open market for computer game art and posters. Its reached a point where every movie is covered, recently the cartoon market has gotten a lot bigger so I'm missed that boat. Hopefully I can capitalise on all the students in Sheffield and their desire to have some gaming history hung on their wall. Due to the theme of the work this is one of the things my new ‘company' (I use that term incredibly lightly as it is only exists in my mind) Arcadefinger will be producing. Now the sensible part of my brain knows what I'm like so I'm not putting all my eggs in this flimsy basket and I'm still looking for ‘real' work. Today I called up a few printing companies in Sheffield to see about printing some of my art for my portfolio. It's a bind not owning a printer but I figure if I did get one at this point it would be a budget model and therefore the picture quality would suffer. I went to Redhead Digital (appropriate name no? I shall call this beast ‘fate' and revel in the joy it brings) and they are printing 5 of my pics that I created in Photoshop. They're nothing new, just works that been on deviantART for ages. Next I need an actual folder to hold the prints (and others I will add at some point) At least then I've got something physical to hand to someone if they're interested. While I was there I got chatting to Philip (that's the guy who owns the place) and I found out about digital printing onto canvas and its sparked my brain into yet more creative avenues. Its this type of stuff which is making my excited I just hope I have the will power to actual do something with it and see it through to some kind of conclusion. It means I'm also considering getting some ‘real' web space and a domain name (got to look into the pricing and stuff) I mean “.50webs.com” is ok for this little blog and the photos website but if I want a real business going then its “.com” or to a lesser extent “.co.uk” or should that be the other way round? Hhmmm? Oh I just wanted to say, I know this blog suffers severely from a lack of comment option but you can still leave comments on blogger or it only takes a few more clicks to email me: thundercat_dave@yahoo.co.uk Take it easy out there kids Dave
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