I feel like drawing little gadgets may be my equivalent of doing still lifes of oranges and apples (Must… draw… apple… product…). The first of my gadgets I have decided to draw is my PSP, as it’s my newest acquired gadget and it’s pretty as it’s a white PSP. I don’t want to seem racist towards my gadgets but as my imac is white I feel all my other gadgetry must match it. Unfortunately only my PSP and DS adhere to this little OCDish quirk of mine.

See big’un here.

Hello? My “style”!? Is this the emergence of what you may look like?
I wasn’t quite sure wether i should keep going with it or not so I stopped and posted it here. I feel like I need to start adding backgrounds and more details to these drawings. I may just do a few pattern based drawings to get some practice / ideas going.

My hand hurts >_>

Filed under: Illustration by fio
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My new approach to drawing: mess around on several different layers trying several different coulouring techniques and whatnot, and as soon as I’m happy with some part of it saving it as a .jpg and posting it on here.

See big’un here.

My latest scribble is of two gloriously chubby birds, one of which is rather peculiar. The other bird seems to be thinking “Don’t mind him, he’s just like that.”

Drawn from a photo taken by the lovely Mister Liam Parkinson, who is lovely and you should pay a visit to.

Filed under: Illustration by fio
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I used to draw all the time, I didn’t think that much about it. I just did it. I was never amazing at it, but I feel like I’ve really let it slip the last few years. Drawing just doesn’t feel natural anymore. I blame people like him for having such bitching skillz and making me not want to draw for my lack of skillz.

But sulking around about not having skillz will not get me skillz, so I decided a couple of months ago to get drawing again. It’s been a long and half arsed process, with lots of starting and stopping, and getting super frustrated at my graphic tablet for being such a weird surface to draw on. But I can draw on paper, so I’ve stuck some paper to my graphic tablet, and all is well. My lines still aren’t great but I’m not spending half an hour trying to get one line right anymore.

Here’s my first completed drawing, it’s one of my favourite characters from the super awesome game Okami, which you should have played by now. It should be a criminal offense to own a Wii and not have Okami. You’re missing out.

View bigger here.

Annoyingly uploading it to the web is draining it of some of it’s colour but here it is. She is a bamboo wearing bunny girl from the MOON. With the little black and white bunny Inaba at her feet, because I think they’d get along.

Now I just need to keep drawing. Ompf.

Filed under: Illustration, Japanese, game by fio
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I should just accept that I’m nocturnal.

I keep trying to get myself into a decent sleeping pattern but it never lasts. And I rarely succeed in getting myself into a decent pattern anyway. I like mornings, just when I’ve stayed awake all night, not when I’ve woken up.

During the day I also end up doing the “stuff that needs to be done”, not what I want to do. I think I need to accept that I sometimes need to stay awake late just to get some stuff I want to do done, even if it means I miss out on snuggling into Luke’s almighty beard.

*sigh*

Are bunnies nocturnal? I feel that they should be.

Filed under: Illustration, natter, night by fio
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I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on the following subject, because I’m really not, I’m just going to provide my perspective on this little matter which has begun to concern me.

I’m a consumer. And I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark and say you are too. I consume a hell of a lot more information that I ever produce, which annoys me, but it seems ultimately impossible for me to even get anywhere near to equalling it out. I will always consume more than I produce, from so many different sources, from the sites I visit and the tweets I follow, to the videos I watch and the archaic tv droning on in the background (AGH I hate the tv).

I’ve recently made the conscious decision to change some of my inputs, the sources of the things I’m consuming to a different language. I’ve started listening to Japanese podcasts and reading Japanese sites, and even started playing Japanese games.

One of the truly glorious things about our beloved internet is the equality of information. All the little bits and bytes travel through the tubes with the same speed, with the same importance. The only limitations being whether you have a decent internet connection and wether the site can handle it’s traffic. I can view Japanese sites easily, but I’ve started coming up against blocks, and I can’t understand why they are there.

I can access the Japanese itunes store and download podcasts no problem. I can’t download Japanese music or any other paid content. If I wanted to do that I would have to have a credit card registered in Japan or a Japanese itunes gift card. I don’t understand this block. Is it really that difficult to make £ into ¥? If other internet companies such as Paypal can change currencies without exploding I’d expect Apple to be able to. I doubt it’s a problem with downloading from the countries servers from the other side of the world, downloading podcasts isn’t a problem. So why am I blocked from paid for content? The only way I can understand it from the perspective of the music and media industries, trying to keep media localized. Maybe they like to make the sales charts regional.

Basically, you consume the content they deem applicable for where you live. You speak English, you will watch English programs and listen to English music, and you will buy products made for English speakers. You will stay in your little cultural bubble, with your cultures norms, and not consume media for people who don’t speak English. You wont like them, they don’t speak English.

Maybe there is a genuine reason why the all mighty Apple (gosh, you’re so pretty) couldn’t make the itunes stores available to everyone worldwide. Maybe it hurt their heads. But it smells funky. (Apple I love you, please don’t hurt me).

From the lovely xkcd.

But one thing I really don’t get, which really seems like something that seems more like an arse to implement than to get rid of. Or not even have in the first place: game and DVD region locking.

Ok, so some countries are PAL and some countries are NTSC. But seriously, what is the point in region locking DVDs and games apart from making things a ball ache to import / export?

Oh yeah, charging different prices in different countries.

“There are many purposes that region coding can achieve, but the primary one is price discrimination, i.e., allowing the manufacturer to demand a higher or lower price depending on what the market will allow. There is great disparity among the regions of the world in how much a person is willing to pay for a DVD. Price discrimination is especially applicable to DVDs, as the marginal cost of selling one DVD is relatively small, allowing the seller a great deal of flexibility in pricing.”
- from the lovely Wikipedia

I also do think that it’s to keep people dumb, and ignorant. In our little cultural bubbles. Liking and doing what everyone else likes.

There are region free DVD players, and some of the current generation consoles aren’t completely region locked. The DS, PSP, PS3 and Xbox 360 all have some region free aspects. But downloadable content is still region locked. If anything downloadable content should be used to open up the language options. Can’t fit several languages on the physical game? Offer language pack downloads. Releasing the film / game in the country doesn’t seem profitable? Offer it as a download. If you’re going to whinge and complain about people pirating your precious copyrighted material don’t add blocks to languages and content. Open it up. Make all the content available in all languages the content is produced for. Don’t assume people don’t want things because they live in a certain country. When countries are becoming more multicultural and the internet is opening access to information from countries from around the world don’t be surprised when people start to make decisions about how they want to consume content that fall out of what you provide.

In summary, media = YAY. Language / region locks = BOO.

Filed under: Japanese, rant by fio
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I’ve spent the past month crocheting a blanket for my sisters birthday present. It was her birthday at the start of the month…. oops. I felt so bad about not giving her present to her on time that I had to keep making it bigger and bigger. Which meant it took longer to finish before I could give it to her. But I’m happy that it’s blanket sized and I’m seeing her tomorrow so I can finally stop working on it. My arms aren’t happy with me anymore.

I would post a picture of how big it is but my flat’s a mess from packing for the weekend, and if anyone said it was small I would cry and cry and cry. And I don’t want that.

I just hope it stays together now!! >_<

Filed under: crochet, handmade by fio
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Rarely do I come across something so very awesome. I mean, much of what’s in my “Things that are AWESOME” series is awesome, but this must be the most awesome-est of all.

A daft punk helmet made from scratch. Made by Harrison Krix. It took seventeen months to build, with lots of prototyping and experimentation. It’s really interesting to look through his documentation of the different processes to make the helmet, from making the original model, to casting silicon molds, to chroming the edges and creating the visor and LED effects. And if you can’t be bothered reading all of that, here’s the whole process cut down to three minutes.

Makes me want to make something with loads of LEDs in it.

His shirt is also awesome.

Found via Gizmodo.

Filed under: awesome, handmade, interesting, wearable by fio
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I’ve now learnt over five hundred kanji (I’ve now learnt 510) so I decided to treat myself to this pretty cake. I’m bribing my brain into learning with sugary treats. At the end of it I’ll either have a Japanese vocabulary or diabetes. Or maybe even both. Instead of thinking “Srsly end naow” my brain is saying “OMG CAKE.” I also try to add new kanji first thing in the morning, so my brain is too tired to come up with other distractions. My awake brain doesn’t mind the rest of my kanji learning, as it’s mostly in little five minute bursts throughout the day, not long enough for it to get bored.

And if it does there’s sweets.

I’m only a quarter of the way through which is disheartening and mega awesome at the same time. I’m frustrated that my vocabulary isn’t expanding and it doesn’t feel like I’m learning Japanese, as I’m only learning the meaning and not the pronunciations at this stage, but on the other hand omg!! tree looks like a tree.

My kanji is fugly. But it’s freaking kanji.

It’s interesting to be learning something so different to what I usually learn. Kanji are words but they look like pictures, which appeals to the side of me that likes to draw. And using new tools to learn and learning something completely new has forced to me to look at how I learn other things, namely that I beat myself up far too much for sucking at something that I’ve just started, or haven’t done in ages.

I originally wasn’t going to post about my learning experience and that, but it seems to be inspiring people to get past the “Damn, speaking Japanese would be cool” stage, past the dreaming and actually starting to do something about it. Which is cool.

Filed under: Japanese, natter by fio
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Ok, so the blogosphere was collectively squealing itself over this video weeks ago, so I’m surprised (and a little disappointed) if you haven’t already seen this. Watch it now to redeem yourself.

I not only love the sheer genius and planning of the video, but the use of all the stuff they smashed / splattered in the previous takes / tests. And it’s kind of hard for a video to not be awesome when people at NASA helped make it.

Ok Go have a history of awesome videos, all of which make me fuzzy inside.

There needs to be more handmade videos in the world.

Filed under: awesome, handmade, omg by fio
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Unfortunately the robot hasn’t realised that the imac isn’t plugged in. Also it probably needs a firmware upgrade to fully comprehend the emotion “love”. I don’t think it was originally included in OS9.

Filed under: Illustration, robot by fio
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