Giglamps rambles

  Technical difficulties aside (but for the record, Blogger's post editor is also being a colossal cunt right now), we have more photoposting for today, and I went for an aimless wander under some cloudy skies, just to get out and about for a bit, because I get cabin fever at the drop of a hat most days. It's on this wander that I noticed this office building, Sovereign Court, appears to have fallen into disuse, and disrepair. It's something that I've always taken for granted, that things went on in this building, but clearly fuck all is happening with it at the minute and it's getting pretty tatty to boot.   Looking up this bit at the side here, it doesn't look too bad...  ... but at ground level, it's another story.   This bashed-in shutter 'ere - what is this, reserved parking for a Resident Evil boss?! Note the tantalising door hanging open in the distance...   A sign around the side looking worse for wear, among some pebbledashed* corduroy concrete...

Starting as I mean to go on with more seals! This time they're brandishing a globe, as if they're plotting world domination. I, for one, welcome our new fluffy overlords. Sod's law, I got 4 days off work in a row and landed an atrocious cold just in time for it. Whether it's an old-fashioned bit of nonsense or there's legitimate science to it, not entirely sure, but I subscribe to the theory of "Starve a fever, feed a cold" so to that end, I've been taking it easy and enjoying shortbread with strong coffee and a not-very-wee dram of Scotch for good measure. Whether or not it's legitimately helping remains to be seen, but it is thoroughly enjoyable, and this cold does seem to be shifting pretty sharpish. The blog has been getting dusty lately because I've been busy doing more concept art and writing the script for Wade in the Flood. The whole first half is worked out, the skeleton for the second half is there with a bit of meat on it, but eit...

It's that time again, finally facing down the terrible demon of legend that is Rose Fossil's dreaded "Sort and back up later" folder. There are a great many things that comprise the body of this haunting gestalt entity; some of the less threatening things are files with recognisable names, that can easily be classified and sent in peace to their intended destination... others are more vague and ominous, though. Strings of letters and numbers; dates; zip folders of fonts I couldn't be arsed to install; fucking WEBP images!!! ; file formats that Windows 11 will randomly decide it doesn't want to work with anymore (RIP.rtf) - the horrors! However, it's in among one of these vaguely named files, that I found treasure... And that treasure is a mid-'90s TV film adaptation of Roald Dahl's tongue-in-cheek version of Little Red Riding Hood, from Revolting Rhymes (a classic, I loved that book when I was a kid.) This film passed me by, though; I didn't se...

Some concept art for today and possibly a treat for the old guard, a mostly step-by-step process post, complete with excessive annotations! Going to keep this brief as I have to make some lunch (important), then get ready and head off to work, so here's the finished effort to start with... And now, the work in progress efforts... The initial rough sketch Started on the lineart, then switched the canvas colour to black, so I could see the lines for the clouds and waves more clearly. Lineart done, image cropped... Returning to the usual canvas colour (working on these nice sandy-coloured backgrounds gives the colours a bit more warmth, which I find very pleasing.)  Starting to paint a stormy sky!  A little bit of extra colour overlay for the waves, which wound up looking like some trendy bathroom decor from the mid-2010s. After that, I put an extra layer underneath here, slightly turned down the opacity on the watercolour brushes, cranked the water setting and built up a moody w...

It's been a patchy one again but there are more important things afoot, such as this seal who's been on our calendar through March and looks like he's staging some kind of intervention, like the Michael Jordan "Stop it, get some help" meme. It's become a bit of a running joke now; if someone doesn't have their shit together, just sit them down with this deeply concerned-looking harp seal pup. Someone dipping into your posh yogurt without asking? Intervention Seal.  Someone being a dickhead and not respecting your boundaries? Intervention Seal.  Trying to get someone off the smack? Intervention Seal.      That is just a pure Think About Your Life face right there.   Also while on this subject, I picked up this lovely book, second hand for next to nowt and it's a journey - very informative, deeply tragic in places, but to take the edge off, it does contain numerous photos of adorable seals and beautiful arctic scenery. The pinniped brainworms are stro...

Returning to the comfy old slippers of Shadow of the Colossus now, and it's been so long that I completely forgot all of the controls and yeah, trying to work that out was certainly something. The main stumbling blocks were trying to remember how to use the bow and arrow, and that manoeuvre where you grab one ledge, turn to face another, leap to it and grab onto it - chaos! Your mileage may vary but I tend to find that something is significantly more likely to end in abject calamity when you can half-remember how to do something and are trying to dredge up that information, than when you're trying to do something for the first time and are learning as you go. Still, I've gotten back into a groove with it now, and here are some pictures, from the days when I was still doing Summer of the Colossus. I have taken some new ones as well but they're still on the PS4, so they'll have to wait for now. Valus is well muggin' it for the camera there. Boo! This is proper ...