Site Update

Those of you who came here through the front page may have already noticed, but I decided to finally split the site into 2 distinct sections. This won’t affect the nature or format of the blog but just allows easier navigation of any work I want to place in my portfolio.

You may have noticed a link at the top, this should now be on all pages (someone please tell me if it isn’t), and just allows easy access to either the blog, portfolio or main page of the site.

We have the technology, we can rebuild you.

Now I think this is excellent news, for those of you that missed it.

A bionic eye implant that could help restore the sight of millions of blind people could be available to patients within two years.


Full story here

This is obviously great news for the people this can potentially help, but I’m also interested in how long it’s gonna be before those of us without eye problems can get upgrades, sign me up for some of that accelerated vision.

MySpace

I decided it was about time I saw what this whole MySpace thing was all about, but didn’t want to just repeat myself over there and make this blog redundant. I noticed there are lots of characters from films/tv etc. represented and making friends so figured why can’t I do the same.

If you’ve got a page/MySpace then feel free to make friends with my character Jerry over on his MySpace Page. He’s happy to chat to people when he can.

Toy Making Tutorial (kind of) – Second Attempt

My first attempt at Toy Making whilst not a complete failure was slightly abortive, but was an interesting experiment and taught me enough to spur me onto a second attempt.

Whilst there is a still some work to be done as the casts I have made need cleaning up and painting, I count this attempt as a near complete success. It is possible to make models, molds and casts at home for very little cost and in a relatively short space of time.

Watch this space to see if I decide it’s worth trying to go into full production at home. Anyone interested in owning their very own limited edition Jerry Collectable Model let me know.

Toy Making Tutorial (kind of)

I’d always had it in the back of my head that at some point in the far flung future I’d like to create my own range of limited edition collectors toys similar to the kind of things that can be found over at Kid Robot but based on characters I’d create for my own animations, so that they’d have their own ‘life’ that people could follow in a kind of episodic nature, as and when I found time to animate them.

I was vaguely aware though that to create a bunch of toys you need money. Money for prototyping, money for mold making, and money to get a whole bunch of toys cast, painted and stored, with no prior guarantee that they would be popular enough to sell, so money that you might never see again.

Then a week or two back Angry Zen Master had a cool post about Hiroshi Yoshii’s Blog and how he’s hand making his own range of toys. It’s all in Japanese so I have no idea how/what he’s doing other than what you can see in the pictures (some of which are fairly informative admittedly), but it has inspired me to see what I can do at home with my very meagre budget.

Back in the distant past I used to like to make things and dabble in the odd bit of sculpture, but the only things I’ve made in the last 5 or more years is the odd bit of rickety splinter ridden shelving to hold my ever increasing collection of books comics and DVD’s, so where to start? Whether it’s the wrong way or the right way, I guess is part of the reason for going through this process, but to see what I’m up to and how far I’ve got, go to my new Toy Making page.

£100 to talk badges

I’ve added some badges to the 100 to talk range, they come in Standard size (2.25 inches), and Mini size (1 inch)

There are some more items in the same ranges including bags, cards, stickers and even underwear, check them out in the “stuff” section after going to your preferred currency here

$100 To Talk£100 To Talk€100 To Talk

Not good news

I don’t handle bad news like this very well so I hope everyone will forgive me for keeping this post short and wedging it between the usual nonsense and frivolity that gets put up here.

I’ve been pondering whether I should post this or not since I heard, not sure if it’s anything anyone else who doesn’t already know needs to hear, but here goes anyway.

I heard last week from a mutual friend that one of my best friends from school died in a car crash. News Article

I hadn’t spoken to him for a few years (only occasionally since we both went off to University, and that’s almost entirely my fault, as most of my friends and family will testify, I’m bad at keeping in touch at the best of times). I had assumed that at some point in the future we would just drift back into contact as easily as we drifted out, but I wish now I’d tried harder to stay in touch with him (as well as all of my old school friends, especially those who were such a big part of my life back then).
My best wishes go out to his family and everyone else affected by this, he will be missed.