One of the perks of doing this often is that it takes away the stigma of it being a big deal. So with this being the first for a while, let’s get on with it

It’s very difficult to ignore the news at the moment, it’s on my mind a lot, as I am sure with many others. There are terrible things happening to many innocent people. Just so you know this rambling meaninglessness has the days events weaved into its substance, if it’s not overt.

Molly Crabapple wrote some journalism (with illustrations of course) on the people Caught between Isis and Assad.

I used to have these (I am that old):

Still playing with Photoblender, all though it does seem more late at night when watching YouTubes:

Loom bands are seemingly every where, even on my pencil. I also have a bracelet, which I wear with pride.

Making stop motion with an iPhone would appear to be living the dream, although I wouldn’t know because I live in Android. Would like to check out all those arty iPad apps though.

“Making films is all about—as soon as you’re finished—continually regretting what you’ve done. When we look at films we’ve made, all we can see are the flaws; we can’t even watch them in a normal way. I never feel like watching my own films again. So unless I start working on a new one, I’ll never be free from the curse of the last one. I’m serious. Unless I start working on the next film, the last one will be a drag on me for another two or three years.”  — Hayo Miyazaki

This quote is completely robbed from a beautiful, beautiful picture essay by Victoria Ying On Sketchbooks, read it NOW.

Legendary animator who gave me life changing advice when I was a student continues to dish out the sermons when I find her on the Twitter many many years later.

Gove got the chop, which is mildly cheering, because he wantonly ground the education system into the ground. But you can still slap him for free, if you wish.

A stop motion trailer by Jim Batt for the supernatural thriller The String Diaries.

Been having a terrible time with the render farm and Maya, had the last PC die loudly in my face and decided to upgrade to Mavericks and Maya 2015, (with one of those new Mac Pro vase things supplied by my company). Anyways things are moving forward but still having a touch of trouble with hanging renders on the network. Getting a man to look at it, etc.

Friend and former colleague Jonathan Doe has, bold as brass, starting uploading his “sketches” to the twitter. Follow him.

Listen:

Japanese childrens books that feature cut out shapes for the reader to cast as shadows to help tell the story:

Source here.

Fell in love with this when I heard it on the radio the other day:

Lord Josh Homme (above), made a lovley program for the First Time on 6Music, and perfectly so ended the show with this tune:

(I kind of occasionally co-curate a Rockabilly tumblr over there, btw).

Molly Broxton, everyone:

Finally(ish). Andy Serkis being generally awesome on a podcast with the Nerdist people. I think a lot of what he has said about Mocap and animation and acting has been taken out of context in the past (particularly by me), the man is an artist and a visionary and any talk, inspired by work he has done, of either animation, or actors not being needed in the future, is largely conducted by idiots. Anyways enjoy.

Okey doke. That’s it. Children begin the (not as long as I remember) school holidays today, hopefully it will bring bigs things for us all. In a good way obvs.

Perhaps you could see your way to doing this.