Icon Forever

The never-ending search for art

2011-05-12T09:54:00.000-07:00

With the walls finally painted and us back from our Christmas break it's time to start searching for something we can put on the dining room wall. The problem is I'm still not sure what type of thing we want to go for. I'm veering towards illustrative and whimsical but I'm not finding a great many options...

Other than... Hello Craig (http://cargocollective.com/hellocraig)

I've not contacted him yet but I just love the moody colours in this... and it has robots and superheroes - it seems totally perfect for us :)

I must send him an email and find out if large sized prints are available.

Steam sale...

2010-12-22T17:17:00.000-08:00

Argh... why do Steam have to tempt me with their Christmas sales!!?? There are far too many small and pointless games to buy (and I have been buying...).

I think that tomorrow I need to do some short reviews of the best (and the worst) that have ended up in my shopping cart over the last few weeks.

Tomorrow is also tiramisu cake making time... fingers crossed this turns out well. I will post details (and photos) of course.

Chime, Zoë Mode Game

2010-09-26T12:04:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I was looking on Steam at upcoming releases and spotted what looked to be a fun platform game called Blade Kitten. As always after adding it to my basket I checked what other people had been buying at the same time and spotted Chime. It appeared to have all the ingredients I like for an impulse purchase - it was under £5. It also looked like your a-typical casual game - fitting right in there with the likes of Bejeweled, Lumines and Magnestis. The type of game you're meant to play for 5 or 10 minutes... and right now I'm addicted.

Chime is all about placing shapes on a grid to make music. You control a single shape at a time, and can move, rotate, and then place it on the grid. A beatline moves across the grid in time with the music, and sets off events when it hits placed shapes. Quads are created by placing shapes in solid blocks of 3×3 or more. When a quad is completed and the beat line hits, different musical samples are triggered dependent on its shape.

The gameplay may be simple, but it's incredibly captivating and it didn't take long for me to be totally hooked. The added addition of global leaderboards so you can see how well you're doing and compete against everyone else who's been playing just increases the playability.

The soundtrack is also excellent, with tracks from Philip Glass, Moby, Paul Hartnoll, Markus Schulz, Fred Deakin, and my personal favourite (and exclusive to the Steam version of the game) a track by Jonathon Coulton from the game Portal. As you're playing you'll find yourself bopping along to the ambient electronica (and when you stop you'll be humming it). If I have one complaint it's that there are only 6 tracks. I have my fingers crosses that at a later date there will be some DLC with new music and levels. But for now I'll just have to get back to the 6 that I do have!

Oh, and I did play Blade Kitten a bit but not as much as I've played Chime.

As an aside, Chime is published by OneBigGame, the video game charity, a proportion of the proceeds from buying the game through Steam go to charity.

31 Girls in 31 Days

2010-07-01T12:00:00.000-07:00

This July I'm taking part in something called 31 Girls in 31 Days. The premise is simple. 31 artists draw 31 girls in July. The theme is 'out of this world'

I have my pencils at the ready and a few ideas already... and my date is 23rd July.

Find out more and watch the creations emerge on the 31 Girls in 31 Days page

Gief Love - Drawing Day 2010

2010-06-05T12:00:00.000-07:00

5th June 2010 is International Drawing Day... where for one day only people around the world stop what they're doing and draw!

On RedBubble it's a community event that anyone can join in with. For my part I created Gief Love. A cute zombie style character for tshirts and cards.

Click an image below to preview on RedBubble!

Left 4 Dead 2 ...

2009-11-22T16:18:00.000-08:00

I'm sure I'll get around to a proper review at some point but for now... bring on the clowns. A dedication to Dark Carnival :)

Available on Redbubble as a t-shirt

Calling out for some votes :O

2009-11-06T00:42:00.000-08:00

I've entered a tee design into a contest on Infectious with the hope of winning $2000 :) I only just got my submission in on time and now there are two weeks to vote. I tried to make a version of my Zombie Monkeys (since I love that shirt so much) and ended up with very very colourful little animals (a monkey, a cat and a bunny).

Now all I need are some votes :D

There are plenty of other great entries on the site so please browse through all the ones that are currently in voting and vote on your favourites (including mine!)

Oh and here are the Zombie Monkeys:

Borderlands

2009-11-03T23:35:00.000-08:00

First Post!

So amongst other things I've been playing Borderlands for at least some of the weekend. It was a slightly impulse buy (I looked at the pictures and decided that it looked nice enough to convince G to buy it) but I have been enjoying it - to an extent.

I've created two characters (what's with not letting you skip past the entry video?? I liked it the first time but I was bored 5 seconds into the repeat) a siren (level 9) and a hunter (level 14) and I wish they had allowed us a little more customisation of the standard models... but still, I've had less issues playing a male character than I thought - maybe because I called him Louis? At this stage I think the characters play fairly simularly but I haven't really begun pumping stat points into any powers that are going to make much difference... my main annoyance with the hunter has been only getting three rounds into my favourite sniper rifle - all that reloading and retargeting means the skags are on me too quick :)

My main issue with the game so far is the lack of multiplayer fun I'd hoped for. We opted for a 4 pack purchase through steam, roped a couple of people in and saved a bit of cash hoping for some fun co-op play. We then rounded said 4 people up on Sunday afternoon to get started. Only... multiplayer has been hacked on in such an unfortunate way we didn't actually play. The natural assumption when you're buying a game through steam (for me) was that the multiplayer part would be handled via Steam, maybe even using the awesome match making that's built into Left 4 Dead. But no. Sigh. So G and I played on the LAN. It was good fun, don't get me wrong, I just think it would have been more fun with 4. As long as we all had headsets. Fingers crossed they get the damn thing patched before Left 4 Dead 2 arrives otherwise I think it will end up being a poor second cousin to that. Oh and claptrap needs a good kicking.

In other news we emptied half the kitchen and put all the old stuff out and ready for Freecycle... not as much stuff as I thought, but the cupboards are now mostly empty. It kinda feels like we're moving, but overall it's starting to feel exciting that we will have a new kitchen (almost) by the end of this month.

Went in HMV on Saturday, was meant to be looking for Medium Season 2 - which they had for £18 (seemed a bargain) - but ended up adding Smallville Season 8 and True Blood Season 1 into the mix. Now just to actually watch them :O

The Bubble has been fairly quiet - very strange to see someone appearing on my watchlist with their avatar as something I created. Good strange tho. In a halloween mood I created this.

I've started work on my L4D2 t-shirt. My girl looks fairly awesome :) And I'm still trying to pull something out of the hat for the Infectious Tee Party and the Wagamama Positive Design contest... but my ideas just haven't taken enough form yet. Have a feeling I may miss the deadline for both...