This is your laptop on low storage space (lobbing a colossal tantrum) - also, cross-stitch pattern.

It's time for another round of "Shunt everything off of Neon because it has fuck all storage space and it's having a universe-ending conniption"; I knew going into it back in 2023 that 128GB is bugger all storage, but this load of ol' pants was all I could afford at the time. While that whole drama was going on, I did a bit more housekeeping on Rose Fossil, trying to bring some discipline to years worth of files that were lazily dumped on there to sort later and among all this chaos, I found more old art... it's time for the Saturn pattern!

This is one of those things I've been meaning to get a better photo of for ages but for now, here's the general gist of it. This is the final version of the pattern, from 2024, based on the striped version of the logo, with French knots and Smyrna stitches for the stars, and using some lovely variegated thread for the nebulae. Can't remember the specific DMC number but it might be called Bougainvillea. It's a very pretty thread, although this photo doesn't quite do justice to the flow of the colours.

The original version of the pattern (from 2023) and Bluebell, the absolute charmer that is the mk1 Sega Saturn. The mk2 was my childhood machine, but I prefer this initial design nowadays; it feels more classy with those swoopy lines, oval buttons and the shiny blue-tinted fascia on the front. Very satisfying.

 (Source)

Also off on a brief tangent to give the spotlight to the Hi-Saturn for a moment, which has a gorgeous gold logo on the lid of the disc tray and beautiful dusky pink buttons. Absolutely sumptuous design choices.


 The second version of the pattern is the only one that was put out for people to download, so that's the only version that has cover art. This is the first run at it, where's it's probably painfully obvious that I was still working out what to do with Rebelle at this point. As it is, none of these patterns are currently available anywhere; maybe I should round them up and put them on Archive.org at some juncture (really not fussed about selling my patterns, I'd just like people to be able to use them if they like my designs enough to stitch them.)
 

And the second version, with a less chalky background and more of my own style around the text (gave up on lettering in Rebelle and went with Paint.net for that - sometimes the simpler way is the better way.)
 

 The design that the cover art was based on, in case anyone needed context for that.
 

And to close, a comparison of both versions of the pattern. The first one is still about in a folder for safekeeping (although I might unpick the stitching and reuse the aida sometime) and the second one is up on the wall, among a bunch of other embroidery hoops, housing a couple other cross-stitches and some badge displays. It's just one of those things that I'm so used to seeing on a daily basis that it didn't really occur to me to post about it on here, until the little feral flurry of hard-drive-tidying earlier today. Well, better late than never.

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Further rambling

Twa Thousand Corbies

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Going to start this post with an illustration, because of this blog layout, posts lacking images tend to look a bit pants. The art here is by G. Howell-Baker. A while back, I was joking about gathering together as many versions of Twa Corbies as possible, and finally, here we are. This is going to be a continually evolving list, so if you know of a version that needs to be included, or if you've recorded one of your own, then by all means, let me know. You can put a comment here or e-mail me at looksinnocuousnenoughchaps [at] gmail [dot] com. Part two, with versions 50-100 can be found here . Let's begin! 1.  Folly Bridge - My personal favourite, performed completely a capella with some beautiful, eerie harmonies. 2.  Hamish Imlach - A live version, and a very close second favourite. Hamish's distinctive voice works wonders here and we're treated to some elegant sitar as well. 3.  Ayreheart - This one features the lute and a passionate vocal performance, it's qui...
'Ave a gander 'ere

Fridayposting

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It is Friday, continuing the theme of the spooky video games, I'm currently revisiting Still Wakes the Deep and trying to finish up the blog post about that (it's a good job this isn't an audio effort because noone needs to hear yours truly going "Fuckin' 'ell, McLeary!!!" in an incredibly questionable Glaswegian accent whenever the mood so takes me.) Sod's law, I completely forgot to actually get the pictures off of Mariner... it was late at night. For now, it's time to return to the comfy slippers of The Callisto Protocol, not in chronological order and not really with a theme in mind either, just a bit of fun for today. Starting with these artfully arranged Crunchy Creatures, with a bit of an HR Giger kind of vibe. I also appreciate the elegantly flowing mist around here. Hmmm . (This one's off the PS4 version, I redid it on the PS5 but a big cloud of mist was obscuring one of the monsters and we can't have that.) This hexagonal effort...
'Ave a gander 'ere

Some doodles from last night

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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.
'Ave a gander 'ere