Fingerpaint collection 2

Bond appears and which I guess is the start of 'likenesses'. Bond appeared simply because he was on the cover of the Radio Times when I was doodling. I think the red for the face is quite striking, but I later decided that keeping coming up with a different colour for skin tones was going to be tricky when Finngr only has 8 colours, so I eventually settled on grey.
Matt Smith as the Doctor barely looks like him, but I think the big nose and sweeping hair is enough to make the point. Also, the muppet nose seems to make it's first appearance. I've always felt noses drawn with an outline can be a bit weird looking, and I've started to think of noses as interesting shapes.
My version of Batman is probably closer to Adam West than Frank Miller, so this has the fun of West and a pose that's taking the mickey from one of the Dark Knight covers... when I posted this one on twitter I called 'Batman playing with a balloon'.
I'm a huge fan of Mr X in a variety of his incarnations..... he's very easy to draw and make look striking.
Wally Wood/Al Williamson/Frazetta style 50's tearaway. It's not great, but it was my first go at adding detail to one these and I was quite surprised to see that I could.
Could I fingerpaint from life? My daughter eating cereal say still long enough to prove I could. I still really like this, but I can't put my finger (*groan*) on exactly why.
With Jon Snow the whole portrait thing took hold, it doesn't look like him, but fingerpainting doesn't really allow for that much control, particularly when you can't zoom and the like, or at least that's what I thought at the time. Like the Matt Smith pic, it seemed best to latch on to some clear aspects of the character, in Snow's case it was the mopey face and amazingly tousled hair. After doing one Game of Thrones character, I thought I might as well do more.
Joffrey is barely recognisable, but he looks smug and sinister and that was enough for me.
Robert Baratheon doesn't seem a bad likeness, I tried a different colour on his face to try and capture his florid look, it makes him look more like a muppet, but that's ok I think.
Ned Start probably look a bit better drawn but there's neither likeness or 'key recognisable points', and I was a bit disappointed to be sticking so close to reference - the previous pics had been done either off the top of my head or just looking at a few different refs and making up my own version.
At the time I wasn't happy with Tyrion Lannister as a drawing or a likeness, but looking at it now, it looks ok. I think the benefit of grouping the characters together is that it becomes obvious who is who by contrast and association without worrying too much about getting an exact likeness and just focusing on the character..... maybe that's the problem with Ned, the others have some kind of expression that tries to sell who they are, Ned just looks all noble and stoic. Tyrion could've done with a better try at capturing his character, he is one of the best things about Game of Thrones after all.
More Game of Thrones fingerpaintings in the next post......

More Fingerpainting

Here's all the fingerpaintings I did on Finngr yesterday, 3 times as many as I posted before.

I had a lot of fun doing these, the limited palette and lack of erase and undo really helps focus your mind and frees you from caring. Not all of them are successful, but I learned a lot doing them. I have a few favourites from them, but they might not be the same as yours, so I'm keeping my mouth shut!

Octonauts, with added Olivia

Here's what I've drawn for my daughter for Christmas. She, no, WE, are all huge Octonauts fans in our house, the books and the cartoons, so hopefully this will go down well.

The Octonauts

The Octonauts is brilliant. Couldn't resist turning my daughter into Captain Barnacles.

I could post about why I've not posted any artwork, I could moan about my job, or I could post a picture of my little girl in a Cat in the Hat outfit I made*. Easy choice.

*ok, just the bow tie, hat and make up, my wife bought the cat outfit when she couldn't find black leggings and top.

Hurray for snow

Yes, it's cold, cause traffic problems and turns to slush, but c'mon, it's SNOWING!

I'm not 2, my blog's not 2, so who was 2?

It was my daughter's second birthday a few weeks ago, and it was a fine old day, helping unwrap presents and generating the required vomit inducing level of excitement for such an occurance. Then it was off to Old Holly Farm, where calves, goats, chicks (they're the vaguely yellowish blur sunning themselves under a lightbulb), piglets, rabbits and a pot bellied pig had no privacy but did provide an awful lot of entertainment before we went to the 'play barn', which would have made Pat Sharpe jealous with it's amazing Fun House proportions.

My muse

Off to 'The' London for a couple of days of tedium, I'll be packing a sketch book and something to read. In the meantime, after a couple of people mentioned it, here's some pretty pictures.

Happy 1st Birthday Olivia!

Pic 1 answers the question of time 'Daddy, or chips?' prettty conclusively. Olivia get chips on her party frock, quickly followed by her first taste of cake. Pic 2 is from this morning, officially one year old and a career in construction a dead cert. Pic 3 is tired and happy parents.
Today iswas Olivia's first birthday and it was spent mostly sleeping, all three of us, toddler, mam and dad. It was nice, and needed after having her naming ceremony on Saturday.
The naming ceremony was great, seems there's not been many of them here but the woman at the register office was relaxed and confident and the whole thing is elastic enough to fit to people's needs.
We tried to keep it quiet, much like our wedding (ridiculously small, and wonderful), but it got a touch bigger and involved, but only a touch. Initially Olivia was not terrribly impressed, a group of strangers staring and clapping is a touch unnerving it seems. By the time we got to the reception she'd relaxed considerably and apart from a little upset here and there, she was fine.

Lickle babeee.

It seems I have been neglecting my fatherly duty of showing off my beautiful daughter, so here's a few pictures to rectify that. Rather shamelessly we decided (in our defense it was after a lot of deliberation) to enter Olivia into a baby competition in our local paper. What can I say, £150 to spend on baby gear was too much of a temptation to a couple of poor ass deadbeats like us. Sadly Olivia probably won't win as we don't know enough Lancastrians who'll vote, on the other hand the photo we got is absolutely lovely.

Did I make you think?

Here’s a packed post as I fit in all sorts of nonsense that’s been on my mind in an effort to satisfy Katy’s thinks post.
Big news is that Rebecca finally got the results of her scan after a irritatingly pointless delay, and the news is good. The doctor says that the cancer is showing very encouraging signs of shrinkage. Had no idea how heavy the weight on our shoulders was until it lifted, which leads neatly onto the next point.
We went to a Cancersupport centre last week and Rebecca insisted that I stop telling people I’m fine. The truth is Rebecca has been taking things well and I’ve been having a tougher time. The woman who spoke to us told us this is no where near unique, in fact it’s pretty typical as in a lot of cases those closest to the person with cancer have a harder time coping. The problem is that when Bec is so positive I don’t want to bring her down, and it feels wrong to harp on about what’s bothering me when something so major is happening to her. It turns out those feeling aren’t unique either.
Over the last 2 months I’ve slowly felt like my own sense of self has been slipping away between looking after my wife and child has left me with less time for myself, made worse when one of our parents comes to help out and I find even more expectations put on me (not to undermine how much help they give, which has been fantastic).
As I’ve drawn less, read less, written less and so on I’ve become a little more withdrawn and miserable. Oddly this doesn’t effect me all the time and has had no impact on the fantastic opportunity this horrible thing has given us to be a family with no work commitments for a while.
Writing this I feel like I’m whining about nothing, but rebecca doesn’t think so, and if she’s concerned then I want to sort it out. I do have the sneaking suspicion that she’s using this to get me to deal with the fact that I can pretty miserable without the aid of an ill wife. Anyway, the upshot is that Cancersupport offer a free bunch of services to the sufferer and those close to them, Rebecca's scored some massages and I get to see a counsellor.
On the up side the woman we spoke to was incredible impressed with Rebecca’s attitude, and thought I was doing much better than I thought I was, and it was reassuring to hear that I’m not feeling any different to a lot of people in this position.
No doubt due to my gloomy mood I’ve rediscovered my love of Henry Roliins thanks to Youtube. I don’t have a tape deck any more and my Rollins is on tape so it’s been a while, and I sort of thought he was a bit to, um, teenage, for me. Guess I’m still an angst riddled teenager at heart:)
Here’s one of my favourite Rollins songs (my fave is ‘Low Self Opinion’, but the ‘Liar’ video is better!)

Okay, part of the thinking bloggers bit is this -
I gots to nominate 5 bloggers who I want to join in, sorry if I don't name you, I enjoy all the blogs I link to I'm just a jerk

Danny
Okay, he doesn't post that often, and sometimes tries to past of quickie posts as real ones, but when he does post I always remember what a thoroughly lovey bloke he is and want to give the charming chap a big hug.

Andrew
A very talented artist with a blog with brilliant work here, but what I really love is his other one, the one where he fills my geek head with insightful geek tomfoolery.

INJ
I dream that I could cut my arm off and replace it with his thereby being the fabulous artist he is. Sadly this is but a dream (although I have been know to visit Nottingham so be warned INJ), so I just look at his artwork in awe.

Mewsings
I'd love to put Garen on this list, but he's pretty much dropped out of blogging and sticks to updates about hsi excellent comic Rainbow Orchid, luckily his brother Murray's blog is always interesting and either offers whole new stuff for me to find or tells me something I didn't know about something I already liked.

Curtis Jobling
The guy created the look of Bob the Builder, he's working on his very own Frankenstein's Cat cartoon adapted from his fine book and Biteneck Beatniks absolutely rocks.

For the above writers, this is your mission should you choose to accept it:
1. Write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
3. Proudly display your TBA award with a link to the post that you wrote.

And back again

It's been a rough week so still no artwork - there is some coming.
Rebecca had her third chemotherapy today and it seems to be taking a little more out of her each time, she also found out that she has to get a series of injections to stimulate her bone marrow into producing my white blood cells. More injections is a pain, but they seem pretty easy, the important thing is they allow her to get her chemo on time and they aren't there because of anything bad.
My grandad went into hospital last week because of his stomach cancer and it looked bad for a day or so, luckily he's come out of hospital better than when he went in.
To top all this off Olivia's teething! This probably seems the most minor, but as Rebecca need to relax, particularly a few days after her treatment, the timing could be better. Also, it's not nice to see the poor little thing in pain. Luckily for everyone so far Olivia is sleeping through the night just like always, it's just during the day that she's grumpy or in discomfort - taking her for a walk seems to help, so I think there'll be a lot of that.
Is this the best time to decide to start exercising again to undue 2 months comfort eating? Not really, but I'm doing it anyway.
On the nice side of things as well as struggling with teeth Olivia is coming on really well. For some reason she's been fascinated with cups, and as I drink a lot of coffee she's had plenty of opportunity to see how it's done, often reaching for the cup if she's sat on my lap at the time. In a moment of parental amusement I et her go for my (empty) cup and was choked up with happiness when she reached round to grab the handle and brought the cup to her mouth! Just think what I'll be like when she takes her first step or says her first word! Anyway, a baby cup's been purchased and she's getting more practice in. She's also enjoying eating baby rice from a spoon, and trying to hold the spoon herself. Honestly, I'm such a sap for this stuff!
As usual I attempt to counter and miserableness of these posts with photos, guess which one is Olivias' failed attempt at using a spoon:)

Since you asked Katy.....

Hope this is enough for you to coo over.