so roughly this time 365.25 days ago, we were gearing up to send our entries off to the macmillan prize. this year some of the more masochistically inclined of us decided to go toe to toe with it and well... let's just say i'm nowhere near dotting the i's and crossing the t's on that one this time round. ack ack ack.

but it's totally gravy because you've got three weeks to do 9 dummy pages, colour three of them in, pull some end papers and a cover out your ass... and finish your final major project... and make the metric tone of corrections to all your previous project.

fucking cakewalk mate.

ah well, here a throwback to better days when time management was a thing in your skill set:



so yeah, finally got around to making a cover for last year's offering. i don't know, figured i'd finish that bad boy off so we could hopefully sell some copies in order to make some greens for our degree show...


(ta for the photo, eva)



"i can't believe you bound this yourself"- martin ursell



so yeah, if you're interested in maybe snapping one up, shout us a hollar and i'm sure we can come to some sort of agreement...

****
so recently got turned onto marc maron's podcast. holy crap. the rss feed for that thing is a treasure trove of wonder. here's an episode that destroyed all my preconceptions about russell brand:

WTF with Marc Maron Podcast

and then some shit from my sketch book:

oh final major project. i just don't know what i'm going to do with you. on the upside, today i finished thumb-nailing you (... gosh, is it me or does that really sounds like some dirty off- shoot from finger banging?). on the downside, i have no idea what you're going to look like...

first crack was uber heavy on the inking. grand-high tutor didn't really dig that- thought i should lighten that shit up and maybe go for something a bit more graphic-sy in the vein of the hitchcock posters. bbbbut then i spoke to our tutor from last year and he seemed to be all about keeping it draw-sy. those two's approach to art couldn't be more different than chalk and cheese and i think i might have got myself stuck somewhere awkward between the two...

HO SHIT. ARTISTIC IDENTY CRISIS. WHAT TO DO??????????

crap post is crap.

to make up for it, here's a rather awesome site katie flagged. DO YOU LIKE MAKING YOUR ART LOOK MORE ARTY WITH TEXTURES AND FILTERS? WELL THIS MIGHT BE THE WEBPAGE FOR YOU!!!

what's on the drawing board today....




hopefully going to get the rest of the pencils licked and slap on some water colours before the end of the afternoon... #OPTIMISM?HOWCUTE

far more exciting (please note that the word 'exciting' is about to be bastardised because i'm about to launch into a totally boring anecdote and bitch-whine like a total bitch) though is the means to which these photos were brought to you. in case you hadn't noticed, i really fucking love taking snaps of things (namely creepy ones of you when you're not looking) and then waste away hours of my life tweaking them in photoshop. when i got an iphone at the beginning of summer and discovered instagram it was like freaking christmas all over again. NOW IT WAS EVEN EASIER TO TAKE PHOTOS OF UNSUSPECTING VICTIMS! AND YOU COULD ADD A HIPSTER DOUCHBAG FILTER AT THE TOUCH OF THE BUTTON! OH CALOO CALLAY!

but then the latest update happened. the tilt shift tool was way less malleable and the gotham filter was gone. GONE. again, total first world problems, but LOL WUT????????? THAT FILTER WAS MY HOMEBOY! unlike instergram's other black and white filter, it was great at giving your pallid snaps a shot in the arm and transform them into something crazy bold and striking...



RIP gotham. you will be missed.

so in the fallout of this most tragic of losses, i was pottering around the internet to see what everybody else thought of this gross miscarriage of justice and came across a link to an app called snapseed.

oh wow.

this thing... it's incredible. contrast, focal points, filters, textures... the extent to which you can tinker and fine-tune your photos with this thing is NUTS. and it's only like £2.50. for a mini version of photoshop in your palm, i would STRONGLY RECOMMEND getting your grubby little mitts on this.

THE END.

god. so sorry for that. here's a podcast. it's about comics. and if my sense of humour could be anyone, i'd hope it would be these two.
Awesomed By Comics: Awesomed By Comics Podcast Episode #151: This episode of the Awesomed By Comics Podcast is brought to you by THE BEST POWERPUFF GIRLS FANFICTION SOMEONE WHOSE SILLY NAME I GOOGLED H...

rough sketches for the holiday homework. holy shit son, it is WAY past high time to get cracking on that. gah. so many things i want to try and get done for this, but i don't know... i think i'm kinda obsessing with the book at the moment. OH TIME MANAGEMENT. WHAT STRANGE MAGIC ARE YOU? in an ideal world, i'd also be finding the time to fix up the self initiated project and finish off the macmillan AND OH MY GOD STOP WITH THE BITCH FITS. BROADCASTING YOUR NEUROSIS ON THE INTERNET IS SOOOOOOO LIVE JOURNAL.

...

in other news, did you know 9 out of 10 middlesex illustration students prefer drawing on sammy than real paper? it's true!

initial drawing and colour test for yet another of those pesky screen prints. HA, you say that like you've done a shed-load of these. so far, you've only done FOUR over the course of the whole year and really, you've only really got time to do one more of these before the end of year crit.

TAKE COVER, 'CAUSE HERE COMES THE FAIL WHALE.

on the up side, this is quite possibly the only existing example of you using a colour scheme that doesn't consist of brown, brown and brown. well done you.

WOOOOOOW, that was a whole lot of self piteous bitching and moaning. here is some totally rad music to make up for it:

holy freaking hell. i LOVE this little ditty. pretty hyped for the film it's from too since folk are describing hanna as a totally nuts art-house action flick. HE-LLO!

panel from the liberty. oh god. i am so far behind on this. so so far behind. totally though i was going to get a chance to get another page done and dusted this weekend, but then surprise deadline came along and gave those plans the finger. sonovabitch.