Faceless Ghosts

I got the idea for 'eggs' from a short story I read years ago, from a book called Oriental Tales of Terror, one of those super-cheap anthologies that I think I picked up from a car-boot sale or a junk shop. I haven't read it in years, although I think the book is kicking around somewhere in my still unpacked moving boxes. All I really remember is the faceless thing, and how much it freaked me out.

I did some googling the other day, and rediscovered some of the folkloric stories of the Faceless Ghost. The original story of the faceless ghost (Noppera-Bo) is spookily similar to the one I've just written, and I don't mind that, as I think that as it's a retelling of an old story, it fixes it in a tradition of storytelling and film-making (reading it back, it's very J-Horror), and because of that it informs the way I'll approach making, telling and designing the film. I just got The Ghost of Mae Nak on DVD, a retelling of a classic Thai ghost tale. I like these kind of Horrors, I think there's something that sticks in your mind about them, as they feel ancient, heartbreaking and invite lots of psychological ideas about memory. They are often kind of romantic in a way, too, and I think that adds to the appeal. I prefer that kind of horror in many ways to slashers or maniac chainsaw killers, they stay with me longer, and they also scare me more.

I'm thinking that I may go for live action for eggs, rather than animation. The more I visualise it, I'm thinking of places I know - the beach, caravan and cafe in the film are all, in my head, based on very specific locations, and I think that maybe it makes more sense to use those locations, although as there is quite a bit of destruction in the story, I'm not sure how I'd pull it off on my 0p budget. Maybe I should just do it and worry about the arson conviction later.

Egg Fear

I've spent most of today writing an outline for a new horror cartoon called 'eggs'. A while ago, me, Steve, Chris and John started to talk about making a portmanteau horror, basically an excuse for us to make some shorts together, and find a way to package them as a whole.

I've had an idea for some time about a little horror film called 'eggs', so when I came downstairs this morning to discover that all but one of the eggs I had had burst in the carton, I knew that if I didn't write the outline today, I would surely die, or at least become possessed by some unspeakable horror. I just wished that it had been a nicer omen, because I really wanted eggs for breakfast, but that's how horror works, it's no respecter of dietary regimes. Unless it's brains.

I'm a bit worried about the idea of a horror cartoon. In live action, despite the effects involved, we can sympathise with the characters that are being 'horrored', because they're like us, and they live in a real world, so the anomaly that visits them is out of the ordinary, and therefore scary (even in a made up place, like a spaceship, we understand the physicality of the world. In a made up environment in a cartoon, everything is an 'effect', so perhaps we don't feel as creeped out as we would if we watched a real person being scared... I don't know, and as I'm writing this, I'm going 'ah but what about thingy'. A few weeks ago, I saw the Pearce Sisters by Luis Cook, which has just won an award at the British Animation Awards and a BAFTA. I think it works as horror, it's grim and beautifully made, have a look...

AtomFilms.com: Funny Videos | Funny Cartoons | Comedy Central

I just ordered my new computer this week, so I can work on these new films at home. I'm well excited, and can't wait to get started on them. As i was writing the eggs outline, I kept thinking 'How the hell am I going to make that work?'. I've got a feeling that that thought will be bouncing around my head for a good few months...

The best thing I have seen since the last best thing I saw...

Whilst feeling vaguely apocalyptic following last nights earthquake, I embraced my insomnia and decided to check out a link on the SL education mailing list. It linked to this incredible video, a virtual reality head tracker made with a Wii Remote. I love the world of Wii, and there's lots of discussions about how it might be used/hacked to create or augment with virtual spaces/games environments.



Buh-rilliant!

Second lives, dingy flats and the little baby Jesus

Just before Xmas, I made a nativity film for Broadway Media Centre in Nottingham. I've been making little Xmas projects for them for a few years now, it's like a self imposed commissioning project, and sometimes I fear that I'll turn into some kind of weird Xmas guy who celebrates Xmas every day for no reward apart from some kind of 'and finally' segment on the local news.

I really wanted to make a straightforward nativity, like an infant school one, but with cute Playmobil style characters. I really wanted to make it as un-dark as possible - I think it's easy to get on the case of Xmas, and be cynical about how it's all just commercial, and start going on about how we all forget the true meaning of Xmas (I'm not even sure there is a true meaning), but I do feel it's a magical time, regardless of whether I celebrate it in a secular way or not. I think the nativity and the Christian message is just a part of it. While I was making it, I got in contact with Gaia and Luna, two kids from Italy who make music with their dad. We'd used a track of theirs for our student showreel at work, and I wanted to put it on the net, so I wrote to them to ask if we could, and having watched the showreel, they asked if we'd be interested in working on something for their upcoming Xmas single. I suggesed the nativity and sent them some screenshots, and they agreed, which was brilliant, as it gave me something to cut to, and the film a life beyond the single venue it was made for. I think it also helped me to fix the tone of the film, in that it was a hope filled child's pop song which perfectly suited the feel of the film. You can have a look if you like;



A few years ago I got a Playmobil nativity set, and used it in a stop motion workshop at Uni, and since then, the idea of creating the piece has picked away at the back of my mind. I've also been learning Maya, and thought this film would be a good way to try to bring some of those things together. The title 'Vertep' is a Russian/Ukranian word which means a puppet theatre which depicts the nativity.

At the time, I had started making another film with Andy at work, but had to shelve it while I made this one. We've started again on it, and I'm kind of glad it got put back because I learned a hell of a lot on the Vertep project, and I think this new film will be all the better for it. We've spent a lot of time discussing the look of the sets and interiors in the film, and becoming fixated on nasty bus-stops, mini busses and the hallways of dingy multi-occupancy flats, bringing back grim memories of student flats and the piss-stinking bus shelters and soul sucking urban design of 80s/90's Coventry and Preston. Happy days!

Here's some pics of work in progress;







Last term, I taught on a Virtual Performance module with MA English and Drama, and as well as focussing on softwares like Maya, Motion Capture and Motion Builder, I spent quite a lot of time with them in Second Life. I hadn't been into SL for some time, but was keen to work with them in there, as I think it speaks inherently to performance in terms of liveness and presence, and I was keen to look at ideas around actors/performers as avatar, the first/third person performer, and to play around with the idea of site specific online performance, and the idea (to mis-quote Sue Thomas) that 'fiction is rendered impotent in a space which is essentially made up anyway'. It was a successful term I think, leading to a potential new collaboration between School of Art and Design, English and Drama and Engineering which will enable us to buy an island and develop longer projects in there.

In looking around, I've been excited to see the growth in education-based projects in-world, and I'm excited by the increasing links between SL and Web 2.0 technologies. I'm keen that once we buy the island, the students who use the space will document their adventures in world, and perhaps begin to develop new creative projects which link together the web, Second Life and 'real life'...

Back for good

This is one of those 'yeh, haven't posted for ages' posts, where I apologise for not posting and promise to do more! I was pleased to discover that it's a common ailment amongst blogging types. Perhaps it needs a word, like 'Bloggered' or something...

Why haven't I been posting? Well, I guess as time went on, the blog was getting more and more personal, less about work - which is/was fine, until I discovered the joy of Facebook...

So, I've decided to return to more work focussed posts here, and if you want to find out more about the mundane day to day aspects of what I'm up to, you're more than welcome to Facebook me, especially if you've become addicted to Scrabulous, potentially the most brilliantly timewasting internet application ever invented, and want to throw down the gauntlet!

Over the past few weeks and months, I've begun a number of new projects, which include a commission for a nativity animation, organising Mayhem Horror Film Festival, and teaching MA students in Second Life... Watch this space for updates.

Loving the Love (and Rockets)

I just spoke on Tuesday at 'Reassessing the Aesthetics of Trash' at MMU. It was a great conference, especially Bryan Talbot talking about Alice in Sunderland. There was a really interesting set of papers, which I'm too tired to write about now, but will post some highlights soon.

I spoke about digital (online) narratives and comics/animation, and as part of the presentation, reworked some bits of Love and Rockets stories into sites to illustrate the points. Here's the fake pages I made, posted here because I think they look cool, especially Maggie's Facebook page.











Because the conference was in Manchester, I stayed at my Mum and Dad's in Chorley. We went to the oub last night after all the conferencing was done and dusted, and my dad told me the weirdest story. Last weekend he was in the pub with his mates (bear in mind at this point that he and his mates are all over sixty - kind of like Last of the Summer Wine in Lancashire), and there was a bloke in there with a lovely little dog. So, being the animal loving type, my dad goes over and strokes the dog, and says to the bloke, 'That's a nice dog, what's it's name?', to which the bloke replies, 'Are you a Manc?' (as in Mancunian), so my Dad says 'Yes'. The bloke spits back, with no joke intended, 'Well, FUCK OFF!'. My Dad just walked away, bemused. Is that the most asking for a fight thing you can think of? It turned out he was a copper too!

A bit like this;

Self Portrait in Yellow

Courtesy of the Simpsons Movie Website.

The Boys of Horror

If I was on some TV talent show, I'd say the last few weeks have been an emotional roller coaster. My Nana died a couple of weeks ago, and although it was a long time coming, and ultimately a relief as she was so ill for so long, it's still hit us all hard, especially after the funeral was done. On a positive note, Our Paul asked me to be the godfather for his new baby, which is brilliant, and has given everyone the chance to do awful Marlon Brando impressions, which is no bad thing.

So, it was great to go away last weekend and get my head together, locked in a flat with no heating or hot water in Whitby watching horror films with the Boys of Horror...

Boys of Horror embark on Whitby's inaugral manned Space mission. L-R: Matt, Steve, Chris, John

Whitby is great, and our flat was about 500 yards from the centre of town. We did all the touristy bits; got soaked on a boat trip, climbed the 199 steps up to the church on the hill, and me and Chris went to the Dracula experience - only £1.95 for one of the most shoddily put together exhibitions ever! That's not to say it wasn't absolutely fantastic. Imagine if you had a job lot of old mannequins, and some sensor lights from Wilkos. Then you decided to turn your tiny 2 up 2 down terrace into a leading attraction, you could build this show for about 150 quid and just watch the money roll in. It's essentially the key scenes from Coppolla's Dracula set up in different rooms, which light up when you go in. Nothing about the original story, Stoker or other interpretations, just a few dummies dressed up, with the added bonus of the ghost face killer from Scream jumping out at you (which I think was cut from the original Dracula) now and again, the worst Summer Job in the world.





As I said though, it was great, I'm going to open up my garden as the Honey I shrunk the Kids experience by leaving some Lego and Playmobils on the lawn.

The highlight of the weekend though was watching a rough cut of Steve's film, Mum and Dad. It was, even in its rough state, a great piece of low-budget British horror. I can't wait to see the finished version, as it's already so powerful and shocking. The acting is really good, and it doesn't do the usual characters for 20 minutes, running around for 70 minutes plus tacked on potential sequel scene, it's got strong characterisation and story developmnet throughout.

I also bought myself a Whitby Lucky Duck. I've decided to document Duck-related luck, to see if it works, and so I can get my letter in the window of the lucky duck shop.



Me and Matt have gone into competition to see who's luck works best - he has joined Match.com, I have bought a small piece of duck shaped glass. Surely my wishing on an inanimate object has more chance of bringing luck than practical life altering steps? We shall see...

Must get back to Whitby soon, there's still a fortune teller and a victorian photo studio I have to waste cash on...

Spook in 3d

Here's some pictures of my basic model in Maya for Spook, the main character from the new film. Looks half baked I know, but I'll put up some rendered and coloured versions soon...





Note to self - make everyone bald next time.

The Blog of the Damned

I started a new blog today, The Blog of the Damned, inspired by a blog post by Bruce Mason on the PART blog.

It's called Blog of the Damned as a punning tribute to Charles Fort's Book of the Damned, his collection of tales of weird beasts, strange sightings and odd goings on. The Blog of the Damned aims to find and reblog the odd, spooky and anomalous aspects of the internet...

Have a look, and please contact me if you discover any ghosts out there in Cyberspace....

Cartoons and Compost

I've just spent the day in the garden, tending my veg patch! It's quite a laugh this amateur gardener business, although my hatred of slugs and snails has reached epic proportions - there has never been a wronger thing, what is the point of them? They're just big lumps of congealed phlegm with stomachs. Stomachs that, if they come anywhere near my tomatoes, will be squished into the path!

Here's some pictures of my feeble green fingered attempts;





I made an animatic from the storyboard for the new film the other day - it looks good. I also modelled the main character in MAYA, which also looks good. We're going to work with limited props and sets, so that it feels like a soundstage - Robert Fuest at Bradford talked about the concessions to budget they had to make for The Final Programme. They would hang window frames and set a table in a blackened space to create rooms. I like that idea. There's a temptation to add detail in CGI, but I'd rather have Pocoyo than Gollum anyday... Here's a few sketches from the storyboard;






Oops, that one looked a bit rude didn't it? Errr...




I've also been getting back into Flash in quite a big way, mainly because of my teaching at Loughborough. I've been building, with one of my classes, a virtual version of the building where they work. I'll post a link once it's up. In the meantime, I'm working on this virtual map for the Harris in Preston. It's just a prototype for now, but I'm excited by the possibilities it opens up. Hmmm..., I can feel a little project coming on.

Parched Peas...

Here's the Parched Pea van in Preston. Parched Peas are a weird dark brown pea/lentil thing that you buy in a tub with loads of vinegar. It sounds disgusting, but they are great, and as far as I know seem to be particular to Preston. I heart 'em.

Space travel's in my blood, there ain't nothing I can do about it...

I've been reading a book by Andrew Smith called Moon Dust, about the lives of the Apollo astronauts. It's a mix of biography, autobiography, travelogue, and history, and it really takes in the hopes, madness and aftermath of the space race. Smith was about 8 when the first Moon landing happened, I guess near enough to my age for his story to have a lot of resonances for me.

During, and after my time at University, I was fairly obsessed with the Space Race, on a number of levels. There's something incredibly lonely about the idea of a human in space, which has obviously been a feature of Science Fiction and Pop Culture before and since the first manned rockets were launched. In Moon Dust, you're even more struck by that, not only by the stories by the astronauts, but by the fact that the whole thing was done on such a wing and a prayer, and with such flimsy technology, you wonder how anyone not only got there, but how they got back. There are some hair raising moments in the book, and some extremely close calls, where you can imagine that intense feeling of desolation where having landed on the Moon, and looking back at the whole earth, you know that the chances of getting home safely are slim. There's a story about Buzz Aldrin jamming a pen into a broken switch on the Lunar Module just so they could lift off again, and plenty more besides.

I got a book years ago called the Home Planet, a collection of stories and photographs from astronauts, describing their experiences in space. What's striking is how difficult it is to describe that image, and that feeling, of being out there, looking down on the earth, 'Lost in Space'. Some of the writing was so clumsy, like bad poems sent into in the paper, but beautiful too for that.

During that post-Uni time, in the mid/late nineties, the seemingly misplaced and romantic adventures of Apollo etc. chimed with the fear of a new century, the pre-millenial tension that ratched up to fever pitch, and was dispelled by a global night on the lash and lots of fireworks. In that end of a century moment, we didn't know what the 00's would bring us - what if all the computers in the world died, taking us with them, because of faulty clocks? Were we on the brink of global environmental disaster? Would the new century hurl us into the actual future, given that the real future just kept creeping up on us and becoming the past before we even noticed, and would that be the future we wanted? All those dreams, hopes and fears we were feeling then were like those of a post WW2 world, and the Space Race was at once Cold War territorial pissing, and a totem for a better future - if the world does end, don't worry, cos Humans are great, and we'll find a way, even if we have to go somewhere else! It's not just symbolic, though - of course Buzz Aldrin, Stephen Hawking and loads of others are constantly making the case for Mars even now.

If all this waffle about the space race and the nineties seems over nostalgic and sentimental, perhaps it is. It seems odd that the Space Race has fallen so far into the sepia tinted past (when it was such a futuristic gesture), and that the passing of a new years eve should send us all into such a spin. I guess there was a certain naivety to both, both fearful and optimistic. And while the 00's seem to be driving us further into chaos and fear, I hope we've got enough bile, cockiness and magic left in us to still think that something incredible can happen, that we can all allow ourselves a moment of wonder...

In the words of Frank Sidebottom, 'Space is Ace'!

Aaawww...

I've a whole list of things to write about on here, including the lecture by Peter Lord from Aardman which we hosted last week at work, my PhD plans and some new ideas about the Maya animation project I'm working on with Andy Chong, as well as my burgeoning Amazon addiction (the Confirm Order button couldn't be more tempting if they wrote 'DO NOT PRESS THIS BUTTON!!!' on it), and a beautiful book I'm reading called MoonDust, about the post Apollo lives of the Moon walkers...

I'm off up north this weekend, so I'm going to sit down and do some heavy blogging.

In the meantime, some sentimental cutesiness from Japan and Chorley:

Japan
Stu and Nicola recently got back from their travels, and came up to Nottingham last weekend. They brought us all bags of bits and bobs of ephemera they'd picked up along the way, including;

This lovely picture, which is now the wallpaper on my phone, which makes me a bit soft I guess;



These little painted wooden people, kind of a mix of Russian dolls and weebles;




Chorley
This is my brand new nephew, Joel, born on 29th April, which is also our Paul's birthday (his Dad), which is a bit weird in a nice way. Ain't he cute? That's why I'm heading North, because I haven't seen him yet. He's probably got an ASBO by now.



Actually, probably not...

Rednecks and Wrongness

On Friday, Me and Chris visited the set of Steve's new film, Mum and Dad. It's his first feature and contains some of the wrongest things you could ever hope to see.

It was amazing going round the set. The art direction is brilliant, every room looks horrible, in the best way. We saw some shots that the stills photographer had taken, and they looked really good, even if they were pictures of hardcore gore.

It's weird the hidden places in a city though, the house they are shooting in is massive, and set back from the road - the thing is, it's about 300 yards from my house and I'd never even realised it was there. Maybe I should keep accidentally turning up at 1 o'clock, so I can get fed! - It was strange, I was stood talking to Steve in one of the sets, and John Turrell (one of the runners) came up and asked if I ate meat. I told him er....no, and thought what a strange question, maybe he thought the gore might be too much for my delicate herb munching constitution. About 20 minutes later, he returned with a big sandwich and salad. Bargain! At the lunch break everyone was sat in the garden having a lovely lunch and cups of tea, while inside the house was a den of bloody wrongness. It reminded me of that brilliant picture of Colin Clive and Boris Karloff having tea on the set of Bride of Frankenstein, with Karloff in full on monster gear.

(I just realised I've broken blog rule one here - 'Nobody wants to know what you had for your tea', but to be honest, I can't say anymore about the shoot in detail, because it would ruin the surprise/shock/revulsion)

I took loads of photos on set, but I'm not going to publish any, lest I give the game away, except this one, which I took in the darkness while Steve explained to Chris the workings of Dad's tool room with the aid of a torch...



I'm really pleased the film seems to be going well, and everyone is into it. You can find a detailed day by day account of the shoot at Steve's blog. I know Steve wouldn't ever say it, but I was speaking with Chris afterwards an we're both really excited and confident that Steve is onto something really good here - a genuinely good piece of British horror that will probably reignite some tabloid panic about video nasties! Which is great, because that's exactly what makes people go and watch...

Last night, in a moment of uncharacteristic spontanaeity, I went to Rock City to see Hayseed Dixie. They were fantastic, and amazing musicians. It was humbling to see people who play so well, and make such a brilliant racket. I always liked listening to Hayseed Dixie on the radio or whatever, but I worried that they were just essentially a novelty band, like a bluegrass Barron Knights, and that it'd get quickly boring. It didn't though, it was excellent, as well as funny and raucous - they kind of reminded me of a bluegrass Pogues, in that it was noisy, wild and punk as you like. Best bits - You shook me all night long, Walk this way, and I don't feel like dancin'.

Scruffy Doodles and Insomnia

Update to the doodles I uploaded last night...


I got sturck by insomnia last night, so ended up messing around with the built in edit tools on my phone, and made these. Nice, ain't they?

Scruffy Doodles

I've been working fast and scruffy on some character designs for the MAYA film. These are really scruffy, I admit, but I kind of like that... I'm meeting Andy tomorrow to start to see where we go next, and I'll be starting on a storyboard/animatic soon. Sorry for the quality, I took them on my phone off the living room floor!

Seeing What Sticks

I’ve been absent from the blog for a while. I’ve been trying to work out how to move forward with things now the MA’s finished, and how to tie all the things together I’ve been working on and thinking about.

I’ve spoke before in here about convergent culture ideas – fan cultures, A.R.Gs and ideas around the web as a space for development of creative work which is narrative, ‘interactive’ (for want of a better word) and which, while not dependent on audience involvement to exist or develop, is at least aware of how the audience might read, or work with stories presented across a variety of media.

Alongside this, there’s also been the development of animation and comic ideas, some of which I’ve mentioned before. I guess I’ve always seen my ambitions with these as fairly traditional, as in creating single screen pieces, but in reality, I can’t really see how I would take them forward without taking on the ‘transliteracy’ ideas which informed so much of my MA work.

I guess this blog has been about chucking ideas about and seeing what sticks. Some of the ideas I’ve come up with I can’t imagine carrying on with, but at least they’re there to look back over if I need them.

At work, I’ve been learning MAYA, motion capture and Motion Builder. I suggested that me and Andy should work on a short piece to bring all those elements together, and get some kind of output rather than just becoming software jockeys. I started to storyboard a story that I’ve had in my head for a while, a little thing about a drunk ghost set to a Be Good Tanyas tune. At the same time, I’ve been blocking out some comic things, again a little ghost story. As I’ve been going through them I kind of realised that they were joined in some way, there was a narrative connection between the two, not just the ghost theme. I realised too that they linked directly back to ‘How it was that we got to be Angels’, and that in a way, Angels was an ‘origin’ story, like the origin stories in comics (how Bruce Wayne got to be Batman for example)

I was excited by this, because it began to build a bigger world, and that it opened up a freedom, in that it doesn’t matter that the stories may be made in different ways (2-d, 3-d or comic/flash game/text message), or that they may not fit together in terms of continuity, as long as they are described as part of the same ‘story’, then that’s ok.

I started thinking about long-running comics, especially superhero comics like Superman, Batman et al, and how they have dealt with changing perspectives/styles/characterisation brought about by different writers and artists. In those worlds, the inevitable inconsistencies don’t matter, and are all ‘explainable’, albeit sometimes clumsily and seemingly insanely. So there’s a tension and opportunity which develops between continuity and truth to the overall story. I think there’s a playfulness to that which invites audience participation (through fan fictions and fan art, etc.) and gives artistic freedom.

I’m not suggesting that it’s a good idea to throw the continuity rulebook out of the window, and I think it’s important that single elements of any multi-layered/media hold together, but it’s I think it’s entirely possible to relate stories to each other without a slavish devotion to some kind of ‘bible’.

Here’s a tenuous example; A while ago, while I was storyboarding “In spite of all the damage’ (the maya piece) – I drew a girl looking out from a bus window. She was wearing a beany hat and had curly hair. The other week, a way after drawing the storyboard, I saw Steve’s latest film ‘Deliver Me’, which featured a scene with the main character on a bus – wearing a beany and with curly hair. I’ve decided to re-model my bus character to look closer to Steve’s character, and although it doesn’t join the stories together in a way that audiences need to be aware of - anyone seeing the two together will probably recognise the link, it places the two timelines in the same world and gives a sense that the film is not simply a standalone object – that it is linked to a wider narrative. – Sort of tagging applied to film.

Slightly off from that, I read a great post on PART about the idea of Abominable Snowman 2.0, which suggests that the way we create links and things from tagging and internet use are similar in some ways to the mythmaking, confusion, rumour and miscommunication that led to the creation of the Bigfoot myth. I think there’s a sense that that’s what I’m trying to get at, that from small stories, pictures and ideas, there is the possibility to create a tangible ‘thing’.

Bear Killer Strikes

A shocking discovery on the streets of Loughborough.

Cardigans On!

I just got back from an internet-free week in Wales, staying in a cottage just outside Cardigan.

It was a 60th birthday present for my Mum, and the first time in about 17 years that we've all been away as a family, as our Paul and his girlfriend Amy were there till Monday.

I was worried it would be a bit weird spending so much time with my Mum and Dad, for the following potential reasons;

a) Becoming a teenager again, and moping around being generally uncommunicative, except to the people I'd be texting constantly.

b) It being a bit like some kind of weird Alan Bennett thing, 30-something man shuffling around out of season run down seaside resort with pensioner parents, enjoying silent brews in greasy spoons.

24 hour party people

Luckily, it was none of the above, and we had a good time. Admittedly, we did spend a lot of time in rundown seaside villages, and enjoyed more than our fair share of greasy brews in greasy spoons, but it was nice, and we share a common nostalgic romance with these blustery, faded places. I think it's because of when we had the guest house in Blackpool, and would look forward all through summer to the time when the holidaymakers were gone, and you could walk up and down the prom getting torn apart by the wind and breaking up the journey by regular arcade stops to play the penny waterfalls.

Before I went away, I started learning Maya, under the tutelage of Ben at work. I can't wait to get back to it. - I'll post some screengrabs. I'm using the same character I've mentioned before, and I'm enjoying the process of developing her through comics, Maya, Second Life, Illustrations etc. We're going to use this Maya model to test out some rapid prototyping too, as a kind of dry run of a potential research project later this year.