Christmas Prep part 1

I say part 1 as I'm sure they'll be more to come...

Also this is a first 2 posts in 2 days from me?! Anyway Christmas is aproaching and it seems about to get festive. So I am currently back at my families' house until this evening so we can sort out decorations and the family xmas card (more on that later) and so we put Christmas decorations up yesturday, not the tree unfortunately as we couldnt find the base for it (yes it's a fake lol). But today my mother came across it so now the tree is up with lights and now we are just currently waiting for my sister to come home from work to help us put up the Christmas tree decorations. And speaking of work I need to soon talk to Budgens to get a Christmas job. I dont know if I ever mentioned this on here but while I live with my friends in Pottergate in Norwich I don't have a job. Thats right I am surviving on student loans and grants alone. BUT I VERY MUCH NEED A JOB! So this xmas holiday might be full of me working which would be great as I would much like some money. But I would also still like the freedom to go back and fourth from here in Briston and back Norwich whenever I feel lol Also my friends from the village will be back from there universities, so I'd like to see them and of course I would like to see Fern. Well hopefully I will earn some doh and still please everyone by making appearances.

Anyway back to the season of holly and whatnot. As for Christmas gifts I have only just started. So far I bought my sister and Fern but that is it! And both were over the net (Which looks like all my shopping is going that way as of the weather here!) I now just have to buy for my mother, father, possibly some extras for the previously mentioned and my friend Jonny (but Im just waiting for his gift to become available!

Now the Allen family's Christmas card is something I've been designing now for two years and this year is no exception. But the previous two years have been my drawings of the great Father Christmas but this year I wanted to design a card using a different character. Anyway here are the last two cards the first one on the right for 2008 and the left one for 2009. Now I wont be putting up the 2010 version yet as I'm going to be giving them to be people, so I dont want them to see them on here!

Anyway thats it so far, see you in part 2 or the next blog or whatever...

London!

Another very late post!

Well it is now December and alot of things have happened in the past month (which of course would be true to say as I havnt posted for a while) but I'll focus on somethings only. Well okFor the first time ever I went and explored London, to an extent. My girlfriend; Fern and I went their as a trip together. She ordered the tickets for the train and hotel ages ago aswell as tickets to a show that I had wanted to see since I was 10!

So the Friday night we got to our Travelodge and that same night we went to the Lyciam theatre to see 'The Lion King Musical'. Which was amazing. The best theatrical exprience I've had.... Not that I've had that many... ahem. For those of you who have not heard of it, it is basically the animated film except acted and sung by a real cast of actors on stage... No really?! (Sarcasm). Although it was the Disney film I felt it actually had its own design and feel not just some direct film to musical child of cash ins. The costumes and puppets all incorporating human movements were incredibly inspired by African tribesman art and decor as you can see... (The image isnt from the show I saw, it was just of the net...)

Fern and I then went to a resturant and got charged alot of money for some nice food... ah London. But of course it was a fantastic night and London was very lit up in the night not to mention it was very xmas up'd.

The next day we had to be out of the Travelodge at 12, so we left around then but we didnt have to get the coach til 9.30! So we had PLENTY of time to explore London and feel very Christmasey! Fern had a trip planned leading to the coach station which was very far from our hotel. But she had maps. So we would be ok and we definetly did not get lost alot! (sarcasm, again) My girlfriend gets me.... I say this as one of these places marked on the trip was Forbidden Planet. Now if you like things I do then u'll know that is basically geek heaven in a 2 floor comic shop. It was great but I felt overwhelmed by the amount of stuff available. Statues, Figures, Books, Shirts, Wallets even sweets, all with pop culture refrences plastered on them. Anyway we went downstairs to the Graphic Novels as we were in search of a christmas gift for Fern's dad (I won't say what we bought as he might be reading this... you never know). And that was so difficult to find anything. I mean imagine a Library but all the books are Graphic Novels and pop culture books it was crazy. Anyway after about an hour I only bought 2 books which were only £1.99 each, nothing too special, if only I could buy one of those statues! BUT THE PRICES! I also had a chuckle as Fern bought for herself a little guy in a cup, she though it was cute but now worries she's a geek...

The trip was very long on foot but there was still other places to go, Fern really wanted to go to a massive Toyshop called 'Hamley's' (now I never heard of it but it is very famous lol) It was bloody packed like literally, as in security guards were moving ques of people around the store it was crazy but INCREDIBLY festive. Like I think I got diabetes it was so sweet! Sorry... Anyway we then went to 'Harrods' that massive department store where everything is very expensive.... Scandosely expensive! Fern wanted to wander inside it was very nice but I wanted to leave after I saw a very nice purple cardigan for get this.... £425! But it was closing anyway so...

Anyway after that long story short we got the coach to Norwich, got off at the bus station where we then walked tomy house in Pottergate in the Ice while half asleep and then crawled into my bed as soon as we got back at around 1 am. It was a great two days I mean it was just a shame it was so close to my assesment which was the Monday after. And worked all day and night on the Sunday, only to find out that I had a piece of my assesment disappeared at about 5 Am so I unfortunately I had an animation test missing. SO because of that I am not a hundred percent happy with my work that I submitted. But I should be ok I still had a decent amount of work, well anyway if you want to keep track of my work or just want to know more check out my other blog at http://benmetahuman.tumblr.com/

Also since this blog is getting a little bit big I will be posting a new post tomorrow about MORE things so stay tuned! Oh and also I realised there really is basically none of my personel work on this blog which is one of the reasons I got this so I thought I'd post at least one recent drawing each post from now on...

The British International Comic Show 2010

I didnt mention this in my last Blog but I was going to go to The British International Comic show (or BICS) today and well I just got back. Drove all the way from here in Norwich as trains on sundays are awful! I had so much trouble I gave up and just decided to drive it with 3 other friends who payed for the petrol which was nice!

So Sunday the 17th seemed the best choice and the guests that were there were; Dave Gibbons, Simon Toefield, Charlie Adlard and Jonathan Ross! There were loads but they were THE guys I wanted to see...

Dave Gibbons was the first and I was extrememly nervous. Mainly because he is a very important man in comics, you know being the co-creator of Watchmen and all. But he seemed a very nice man and even though he wasnt doing sketches he drew one in my copy of Watchmen along with his signature. He also signed my copy of his book; The Originals. I shook his hand and then made way to Simon Toefield, creator of Simon's cat y'know...



...that cat!

Anyway I actually thought he was not gonna be there on the Sunday as I heard he was only gonna be there for that Saturday, so shocked was I to see the web animator sitting right there amongst copies of his new book. I purchased one and obviously got him to sign it. He also had t-shirts and other merchandise which I was going to grab later (I didnt!)

Later we then had a Q and A with Jonathan Ross (Who I bumped into twice around the convention, nearly wetting myself each time!) about his Comicbook; Turf along with the artist; Tommy Lee Edwards over Skype on a big screen. It was really interesting to get an insight in the process of the two's 'babie' and Jonathan even shared with us his attempt at comic art a long time ago and of course threw in some tales about some celebs (related to comics of course... and not...). But the highlight for me has gotta be when Mr Ross had a signing session! I waited in a cue for only about 30 ish minutes and once I got to about 3 or 4 people in front of me he started talking to us about videos he had seen on youtube and we joined in with a chuckle. Anyway as soon as it got to me he shook my hand and I mumered "your actually real" in which he replied "in the flesh and twice as ugly" I disagreed! He signed my copies of issue 1 and 2 of Turf while he talked to me about Terry Wogan, because I asked him to do that impression he did ages ago on his radio show which he couldnt remember but gladly shared with me a story about Mr. Wogan having the flu one time and singing because of it (don't ask me why). After this I finally got my picture taken with him... I-touched-Jonathan-Ross'-shoulder!!!! IT WAS AWESOME!!! A man I had always been so fond of who I finally met and had some sort of slight (ok very slight) bond with... it was amazing...


Also if that wasnt enough we still had Charlie Adlard to meet, artist of my favourite Graphic Novel seires; The Walking Dead. Now I didnt actually know this until my friend Huw pointed out, but that Charlie was in the corner of the room ALL day! I hadnt seen him and I really wanted to get a sketch from him as myself as a Zombie but by the time I found him he was about to head of to a Q and A about the The Walking Dead TV Seires. But he quickly signed my copy of Volume 1 and we all dashed to the show room for the Q and A! It was packed full of people and we got to see exclusive footage of the show and of course ask Charlie and the woman working for FX (I'm afraid I didnt catch her name) questions about it. Some lucky people also got T-shirsts... we didnt though. They threw them into the crowd and not one came my way! I never stood a chance. But after the Q and A we did get free mugs so I wont complain. By the way if you dont know what I'm talking about here's the trailer...



As I was saying the mugs wasnt the only free things we got! There was also placemats, comics and art and a book worth £18! Of course I did spend money, besides Simon's cat's book there also happened to be 2 expensive Spiderman comics that I purchased (yes, one of them being the one in the picture on the left!!!)... they were worth it! Anyway it was a fantastic day and I really enjoyed myself and would like to come back again next year!

OH and I almost forgot we also got interviewed for some film they were making at the show.... it was very weird we got asked about comics in general but we also had to throw in some fictional creator for a comic and another rival company I dont know what was going on but I'll post it up if anything comes up about that!

I Know, I know... and NES!!!!

YES ITS BEEN A WHILE!!!

Well alot has happened as you can guess since what?... JULY! But I wont go into great detail and just talk about the past month...

I'm back at Uni now for my third and final year in Animation and starting to work on my third year project, which is a three minute animation based on my own idea (see 'The Metahumans Blog on the side of this blog!). Its finally starting to kick in... I feel the work aproaching!

Anyway in terms of social life I have now been living at Pottergate in Norwich for about 3 months and I am loving this house. For a student house it's amazing, I'll post some photos up some time. Also I am living with a very easy to live with bunch of chaps. However living with another Ben can be quite confusing heh heh. I am also the one who brought shit loads of stuff! I mean I have brought with me 10 consoles! (Megadrive+MegaCd, Dreamcast, Wii, PS3, Gameboy, GB Advance, GB Mini, DSi and PSP!) 11 if you include the purchase I made last month!

I finally bought a NES! Nintendo's console that dominated the 80's! I got it off eBay for an amazing price as I got with the NES console; 2 Controllers, Zapper Gun, Arcade Stick, 2 Boxed games (Gyromite, Duck Hunt) and 14 games not boxed! But the best thing of them all (to any Nintendo fan anyways) is R.O.B the Robot Operating Buddy! This toy robot that worked with the NES console is quite rare to get hold of sometimes sold over £100 alone! I payed for all this for £159!!!! And now after geting hold of this and playing on it with my Nintendo fan boy friends, I have really got into the console and getting hold of my fave NES games...

The other Ben and I tested the 16 games that came with it when I got it to our house from my parents and there certainly was some gems; Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros 3, Metroid, Rad Racer, Duck Hunt, Gyromite and Teenage Mutant hero turtles. But there certainly was some stinkers. The most memorable would be the games Sword and Serpants which was JUST AWFUL and so hard to actually see what the hell was bloody going! Basically Ben and I played as a party of heros you named and played in a dungeon fighting of pixelated piles of vomit called monsters in a shoddy first person view. We honestly couldnt get the controls! Another is Karate champ... not much to say except stay away! Unless you up for a good laugh at how shit some games can be... thats all I can say really. The others were so awful I've basically forgotten them lol



But that didnt put me off the NES as I sold the 9 games for enough money to buy a boxed Metal Gear on the NES I have also now got hold of Punch-Out!, Super Mario Bros 2, Golf, Operation Wolf, Tetris and a golden Zelda 2! And there is still more to get! But I'm pacing myself lol. To be honest I wouldnt be suprised if my girlfriend dumped me... although she now LOVES Duck Hunt... so SAAAFE! Oh and just let me say if it wasnt for R.O.B being rare-ish there would be no point to buying it. It's basically useless. But I love it lol.
Anyway before I go let me just mention Comic and film related stuff. I may have mentioned the Manga; Pluto by Naoki Urasawa.
Very very good I am now finally on the final volume and it has been quite a ride! The books are based on Osama Tezuka's Astroboy story about his fight with the evil robot; Pluto except its more of a realistic and mature aproach. I have to say the best Manga I have ever read in terms of story and art! I highly recomend it! I have also seen what I believe to be one of the greatest films ever; SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD!!! Its the TITS!! It's like my perfect film, so much videogame refrencing! Its exciting, funny, interesting and just over all awesome! Go see it!!! I am now on volume 4 of the books and although they're good they are not as good as the film but to be honest the whole Scott Pilgrim thing is awesome and I am now a HUGE fan.... so should YOU!

Anyway til next time, AND CHECK OUT MY PROJECT BLOG!

Dont know if I mentoned it before but I finally got a PS3 had it for about a month now and no it wasnt the one I payed £210 for on play.com, I ended up going to Argos and getting a 120GB one for £250! Luckily two days later I got a refund from Play so everything was dandy. As for games well I got games in advance thinking my Play.com PS3 would arrive in a couple of days... So I had bought Metal Gear Solid 4, Ninja Gaiden (only £5!), Super Street Fighter 4 and Final Fantasy 13 and then I got Heavy Rain for my bday so as you can see quite alot of games.... however nothing to play them on! Well anyway thats all over now as I have it hoorah! By the way, Heavy Rain is a masterpiece in terms of stroy telling and as a game itself so I usher you to try it! However one runthrough isnt very long, but technically there is alot of things to do as you still have 18 different endings. I completed and have 3.... only 15 more to go! :D


Anyway unfortunately my family received some badnews last week while my mother was away, her father; my Grandad had passed away which is very soon after my nan had done the same (Around March time). My Grandad had altimers and his home contacted us saying he had become quite ill and was finding hard to feed him, etc. And as my mother went onto a school trip for a week with the school she works at, grandad passed away that night. The sad thing is we couldnt tell mum until she came back on the Friday, as if we told her over the phone she would be with Primary school children feeling awful and very far away from home, she also happened to be the bloody mini bus driver. So we just couldnt tell her and as you can imagine when we did she was devastated...

Anyway heres better news I have a commission! Thanks to my friend Jodie I am now animating parts video on democracy for the youth group 'Open'. I dont know a thing on democracy but luckily all I'm doing is animating what they want me to animate so thats fine lol I'll post more on that at a later date when I got something done lol

To be honest not much has happened in my life at the mo. Literally I wake up ridiculously late, get up, try and do some work mostly personel stuff, reading comics or playing videogames and if I am not doing that stuff; I'm at work! WHERE IS ALL MY FRIENDS AND PARTYS AND GET TOGETHERS!!! Oh well its technically only the start of the summer holidays... hopefully it will pick up soon lol

Oh and before I go I have just started my blog on Wordpress for my Third year project at Uni. If you wanna just check that out that would be sweet heres the link...

http://benecilinthirdyear.wordpress.com/

Anyway til next time :D

Ventures, Drawings and Projects!

Still not much to report, just been so tired all the time... most likely because I have'nt been doing anything lol. And when I am not at home being tired I am working at "mey local Budgens" so a bit bored at the mo. Half of it is to do with the fact that the summer holidays have'nt officially kicked off yet So half my friends who live here in the village have'nt arrived yet while my friends at Uni have basically all gone home. So I am in friend pergatory right now... HA! That's great I'll write that down.

Now at some point this week I will start sorting bits and pieces out for my third year Animation (I mean we have all summer but I thought I better make a start) which I believe will entail me to start writing up a story, etc. Anyway I will post information on that project in it's own personel Blog on Word Press (so my Tutour can view it and not get bombarded by stuff she really doesnt need to read like the first paragraph for example.... or even Shit, Bolloks Bastard I mean did you really want to read that?

Although I have'nt done any work for this project those of you who know me will know that I have been attempting to create a comic book seires about a man from 1950s America brought back to life to fight monsters and baddies in 21st century England. The character was a skeleton in a black slim suit simply called Smith, but unfortunately the character design was too similar to an already exsisting character; Skullduggery Pleasant. Now I was quite disappointed by this as I felt I put so many ideas into this story and I thought it was over because no matter how much diferent the characters were they still had a very similar appearance. So finally Smith has gone through a slight redesign. One that will hopefully distinguish him as a very different character.

Now the original design is on the left and the new design is on the right. I may have been influenced by Nightmare Before Christmas' Jack Skellington and DC Comics Dead Man but I don't really know as well I did the first drawing on a back of a receipt at work so... Anyway he has become more of a living corpse than a skeleton and I have now started creating all the recurring characters using my Cintiq Screen Tablet so it should be good practice!

But apart from that not much has happened a couple of friends and I have just been drinking and playing old videogames like Streets of Rage, original Super Mario Bros, Mega Bomber man and Road Avenger on the Mega CD. Also I gave a cartoon that I heard of and have seen parts of a go. The show is called Venture Bros and I love it! Granted it isnt for everyone, it's basically a spoof of old adventure cartoons like Jonny Quest and there are also alot of super hero and comic book refrences so if your into all of this then you'll be fine. However I got my friend Chris into it. Sure sometimes he doesnt get it but hey neither do I sometimes. Well I knew of this show since I went to Newyork as we went to the studio (thanks to my friend Alex who was a massive fan) but I didnt have a clue about the show. Now nearly a year and a half later I now own season 1 on DVD and season 2 as files from iTunes. Well anyway I recomend it...

Basically the whole month of May!

Well a post about a month late nevermind, hey.

So my second year at University is over... it's kinda sad really knowing that next year is the big final year, I mean I felt I only just got here! So as its over the summer holidays have started and I have FOUR MONTHS. I am already bored lol (nah I am sure I'll find something to do)

Although I have one big task to do over the summer and thats to sort out my project for the third year. More on that later. As mentioned in the last post I was sorting myself out for the assesment, obviously that's now over and I got my results. Although I did well I still feel I could have done better as in the last test Assesment thing I got a First (This time I got a Two-One) but its not the mark that got me down, it was the negative feed back that came with it. I don't think there were any positive points. But then again I obviously didnt do shit otherwise I would'nt have been close to a First. Anyway after talking to Susie (my Tutor) once again I feel I just need to put it behind me but of course keep it all in mind and get that damn First next year!



The next day after getting my marks was my birthday, 25th May. It was good fun. That night we all had lots of drink, especially me as I think I payed for only 2 of my many drinks lol. although I didnt get that drunk as a couple of friends and overdid it at the chinese buffet before.... regret that ever so slightly. But it was just so good! So now i am 20, or Twenteen as I call it.... I am still a teen right? As for the birthday with the family we went for a great meal at a local pub.... Nice! And I received a very special gift.... well special to me anyway. It was the oversized hardcover edition of Batman Hush. With art work by Jim Lee, one of my favourite artists. I have only read a chapter as I got distracted by other things but I will read it as the book itself looks fantastic and it was one of those books I always wanted to get as an Absolute Edition. At the moment I am currently reading The Walking Dead volume 5 (finally) and the Manga 'Pluto' which is by my now favourite Manga writer/Artist (Besides Hayao Miyazaki and Katsuhiro Otomo) Naoki Urasawa! wikipedia it, its awesome! May have a post on it later as I am about to start volume 3!

Jesus I have lot to talk about. It would been easier to have it all in small weekly blogs like I am supposed to do! Anyway that weekend (May 29th) three of my fiends and I went to the MCM Expo in London. Now I never been to a Expo or convention or whatever, so this was very different for me. I really did like it, I was amazed by people who really went all out on their costumes (although Huw seemed uncomfortable lol) and what they had come as. There was a transformer and a Gundam Wing robot there! And they didnt look cack! The costumes looked good lol. I also spent all my birthday money there on books such as 'The art of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney' 'The art of Steve Ditko' and DVD's such as Futurama season 2 for £6 and Ghost in the Shell 2.0 for only £1! Bargain! But the best thing I believe is the Hardcover copy of "Elephant Men volume 1". Now I always heard of Elephant Men but never thought about trying it as I read alot as it is. But when I saw the creator at his desk with the books I thought mother of god get it!!! So I did and Richard Starkings (The Writer) signed it and drew the hippo character behind the front cover and Boo Cook (The cover Artist) also signed it! So definetly the best time to try Elephant Men and I hope they're there next year as I am sure I'll wanna get volume 2 and 3 and I might aswell get them to sign them to! Anyway sucsess so as I said I will be going next year if all goes to plan.

But not much animation related to post this time but I will start work on the third year project so they'll definetly be some posts of that either here on a seperate Blog. Oh and in my last entry I mentioned getting a PS3.... well I bought one.... but it still isnt here and I bought it online on the uuuuurrrr.... on the 26th May... so uuurrr.... yeah....


Anyway heres a bit of Bottom! Skip to 0:33 Ritchie's face is priceless! :D