Return of the Screaming Skull. On a T-shirt.

Yes, due to practically no demand whatsoever, I have sorted out some skull T-shirts in various shapes and sizes.  I have the slim-fit T for myself and it looks brill- no idea what the others fit like, but at least the design looks good.

I don't need to sell many- just enough to fund my own T-shirt habit.  Now buy my tat, mortals!

Get your Nosmit skull T-shirt here!

Bristol Expo

The Bristol Expo was, as always, fantastic.  I took it pretty easy on the Friday night, but got in a horrible state on Saturday night/Sunday morning- although others got in far worse states, it has to be said:

Yes, that is indeed Jock and Dom Reardon.  It's probably best not to go into any greater detail- but I assume it's a Totnes thing.  Whatever it was they were doing, it had me in stitches.

I spent most of the weekend with the Com.X guys, who are all really nice, but I also bumped into loads of people I haven't seen in ages- which is what Bristol's all about for me.  Bit quieter this year- and I missed the likes of Spurrier, Molcher and PJ- but I met a few new people as well, so that was nice.  Particularly pleased to meet up with John Higgins again, who I think is a really top bloke.

Got told off by what seemed like everyone for not really believing in my own abilities, so have made a mental note to look down my nose at people and assume that I'm the absolute best at everything I do from now on... :D

The only fly in the ointment this year was somebody getting knocked down right in front of us, outside of the Ramada- which was all very unpleasant.  I'd particularly like to thank the stupid cow that tried to get a better view for her toddler (seriously!).  Clear views of people broken and bleeding in the street- just the sort of thing that every young boy needs!

Anyway...  apart from that, it was a top weekend all round really.

The Screaming Skull

Well, it's probably not screaming, to be honest- but it does look a little bit fed up, doesn't it?  I know how it feels.  I had a couple of T-shirts made up with it on, only to find that they'll ship too late for me to show them off at the Bristol Expo grrrrr....

Then I decided to use it as my profile pic- only to find that for some reason, it doesn't embiggen* when you click on it.

It's obviously cursed.

*frighteningly technical term.

Demon Cowboys...

Today's efforts. Yes, somebody has already pointed me in the direction of the stupid Jonah Hex trailer and his stupid horse, with its stupid gatling guns on its sides. Needless to say, I am suitably irritated. Oh well...

Manga Studio

I recently acquired Manga Studio from the good people at Smith Micro and I agreed to post a tutorial of one of its features in return.

Things being what they are, I have so far totally failed to live up to my side of the bargain and have failed- utterly- to even give the program a decent test run that's worthy of some of the fantastic features that I know it has. I will get there, Manga Studio, I will!

In the meantime, here are a couple of pieces I did using the symmetry ruler, which I think is a cracking tool. Now, you might ask, "what's the point? Surely you can just create a mirror image in Photoshop that's just as good?"

Well... yes and no. Technically, you could do that- but I think that this is much better. For a start, the brushes are lovely to work with- much smoother than in Photoshop (which I live by and use every day). Also- and this might not seem like a big deal- you can draw on either side of the ruler and you'll get the mirror image on the opposite side.

Again, you might be thinking, "so what?"- but you'll be surprised by what you'll think to draw on the right hand side that you didn't think to draw on the left.

Try it. If nothing else, it's quite therapeutic.

Again- I'm really sorry that there's no actual "how to" with these images- but I was just playing around with it at the time and I didn't think to get any screen grabs as I went along. When I've got a bit more time, I'll create some proper step-by-step tutorials.