Giglamps rambles

Friday is here and I've been thinking about Panzer Dragoon again, mainly the fact that back in January, I finally worked out how to set up a Saturn emulator with RetroArch, started on Panzer Dragoon Saga with a view to finally playing the full game after all these years... then life and responsibilities happened, I completely forgot about it, and it's still there waiting around the end of the first disc. There are quite a few screenshots though, and that's what we're having a look at today. Our adventure begins, as all good adventures ideally should, with a dangerous apple. (It does serve some purpose, but despite having played this first disc countless times over the years, I have never committed to memory what that purpose actually is.) A majestic red worm leaping in the desert. The muted rumbling of the air flowing in these tunnels when you're travelling through them has always been strangely relaxing. I also like the tricks of perspective used here to create a ...

Okay, now I know it's pretty lazy to say that a rough, dilapidated place feels like Silent Hill, same with foggy streets (although, to be fair, I will always make that joke when there's fog on Sunderland Street. I mean come on, it's right there ) but this place legitimately gave me Blue Creek Apartments flashbacks. Not going to show the outside of the house for privacy reasons, obviously, but for the record, on the outside at street level, it looks perfectly normal. There's a slightly worn out old gate, but that's not really a reliable indicator of the true horrors within... brace yourself, we're goin' in (but only via the medium of photos, fortunately.) We start lightly - the living room is bleak but with some TLC, it would likely make a nice space. Bay windows are always a winner, a very charming feature indeed. (Also, only just noticed - is that a model giraffe in the fireplace?!) The kitchen is where things are stepped up a notch. It's pretty run-dow...

You know the drill, I've been around the wilds of the Bay of Evil, and here are some more cats. I was thinking of leaving it out with the late 19th/early 20th century long-necked cats because it's starting to feel a bit low-hanging fruit but this one turned up and it just had to be included. It's one of those things that is so uncanny that it almost comes back around to being charming, but it's not quite there... Enjoy! And of course, a palate cleanser. A couple of charming cats in straw hats that are now living with me! They were on an auction for a couple of quid, I put a bid on, won them and here they are.

I went on a bit of a spree last night, trying out some different brushes in Rebelle 7, trying to work out what approach I might want to take for reviving Facts About the World, and here are some of the resulting doodles. First, a swoonicorn investigating Blarglflorp, the tiniest comet in the cosmos. Ara, done entirely using ink brushes with varying degrees of water. It's been a bit of running joke that their markings are different every time I draw them, and this time is no exception. (They were initially based on a striped dolphin but at this point, it's anyone's guess. Cynosure was a futuristic thing with cyborgs anyway, so what kind of dolphin Ara resembled wasn't exactly a pressing logical concern.) And one from the end of the night, which didn't end up being coloured because I'd been up since 3am again and needed to go to bed.

While taking a sort-of break, I had a little nose around and tried to zhuzh up the blog a bit. There's now a search function (how very chic!) accessible in the sarnie menu (top left corner) and I've added a new tag: Pleasantness . This tag is for those who'd like some specifically curated blog posts with things that people might find relaxing and/or uplifting. I'm also working on an intro post which will have the main tags together, ready to go without needing to pull up the menu and dig through the clunky list there. The lengthy rambles about various video games (specifically The Evil Within, Alone in the Dark, The Sinking City and Still Wakes the Deep) have been shelved for the time being, because in order to properly get my thoughts in order about them, I should probably play through them again and see if any fresh observations occur, but finding the free time for that at the minute is a bit of a fool's errand. In terms of real-life housekeeping, I'm working ...

It's been a long time coming; I put this video together months ago, but here we finally have the second Laid Back Logos video, with a breezy and cheerful atmosphere. These illustrations for the title and end cards were meant to be quick efforts, but they ended up taking several hours apiece. There was also another idea for the end card which was a bit more comedic, but it got scrapped because I couldn't get it to look right, so I improvised something else in its place. For the title card, Farren is out in the countryside, flying a kite. This idea has been knocking about for a while, starting life as another rough doodle on a scrap of receipt paper during a slow stint at work. And for the end card, Jean-Paul is enjoying some quiet time in an otherworldly garden. People who remember the original Facts About the World might notice the callback to issue 2, with Jean-Paul making his first ever appearance, perching on a column on the Soapbox Derby page. Finally, of course, here's...

More cats, the sixth edition. Just when I thought that maybe there was a drought afoot and I'd have to shelve this series of posts for a while, something emerged... During one of my largely fruitless searches for more cats, I found a reversed colourway of these and frankly, it's not much more flattering than this one. In theory, it's not that bizarre of an ornament, it's just their despairing expressions that are a bit off-putting. Also the version with the green cats wouldn't look amiss in The Sinking City. Admittedly, my main motivation for including this one is that it reminds me of Sponge from Broomstick Cottage. There he is! Now, palate cleansers! I'm going for a few this time because quite a lot of the cats in this post have been Chalkware offerings, and I don't want to seem unfair in only showing the er... questionable side of things. In the interest of balance, here are some genuinely lovely Chalkware cats. And something amusing that turned up durin...