Going away camping in Denmark

Sorry for the lack of work today, but I'm going away to Denmark tomorrow and I've been packing/getting ready for that all day. I'm going camping with the scouts and I'll be visiting the 22nd World Scout Jamboree while I'm there, and my brother, James, who is attending that, should be really great, despite the fact I will be restricted in what I can do due to the surgery I had a couple of weeks ago, but oh well. So no new posts for about ten days, depends on how I feel when I come back. I will try and do some sketching or something while away and I'll be taking photos so there'll always be them to show. Bye then.

Metropolis Evening

So as promised yesterday, here is a nice brand new bit of artwork, and by new it has literally just dried.

Done in acrylics on an A5 paper, it took me about 45 mins to do; I know because I was watching Blade Runner on iPlayer at the time. By the way if you have not seen Blade Runner then please watch it, it is a brilliant film, at least one of my favorite films, if not my favorite, and although it may appear weird at first stick with it beacuse the ending is AMAZING! So anyway here you go new work, enjoy (click on it for a larger view). Please leave any comments, thanks.

Toffee hammer and Room Tidying

So today I haven't exactly achieved much. My greatest achievement today was probably tidying and sorting my room but more on that later. First here is something that although not actually finished is as close to being finished as I can get without a lot of work and little result so here it is.

It is a small hammer, probably a toffee hammer,(I can't think of any other use for it) made out of aluminium. The two parts are the handle and the block on top which I found with a matching screw and thread which when combined looked to me like a hammer. So after some trimming with a junior hacksaw and a file and a lot of sanding and polishing with varying grades of glass paper, wet and dry, emery cloth and wire wool I managed to get it partially reflective and shaped as you can see. I must say the aluminium is really nice to hold and the weight, although lacking in hitting power, is just right to hold. I must admit, I'm rather proud of it. Of course it could be more reflective but as I said that will take a lot more work and finer wire wool so it can wait. Here are some more photos.

 Anyway so as I said tidying my room was my only real achievement today and particularily so as I finally found a place for my GCSE D.T project, my (rather awkward) CD rack. After only two years I finally cleared out my cupboard and realised I had enough room for it to fit and a proper home for my CDs, which were living in a drawer.

I was also able to find a home for my art sketch books, but that's less of an achievement (in my mind anyway). There will be some new work tomorrow, might be art or design but it should be new at least. Please leave any comments, thanks.

Clay Pigeon Shooting

Today was the second (and final) part of my uncle's Stag do. Today was clay pigeon shooting which was my first time with a shotgun (although I have done air rifle shooting before). At first I was pretty rubbish, I got one hit out of about six attempts,  but after some more goes I managed to get first two in a row and then three in a row, winning £20 from my uncle who had bet no one could get three in a row( I was the second to do so).  It was good fun and a nice end to the stag do.

 One of the clay 'pigeons' and a spent cartridge.

This is a rendering of one of the shotguns that were used for the shooting. I did it from memory so it might be slightly off (if there are any gun experts, sorry). I've done it as an Isometric drawing (at 30 degrees) and for the shading I used some dark chalk dust.

Raft Designing

So first things first. Apologies for the lack of post yesterday. It was a rough day for me and I just did not feel up to doing anything all day, an early start did not help. Anyways felling better today, which was good as it was day one of two of my uncles stag do, which I was invited to. Unfortunately due to my recent surgery I was unable to actually participate in the activities of Laser Tag (paintball without the paint or pain) and raft building (an elaborate way to fall into the water). However I went to enjoy the people and the fun (and the BBQ) and I took a load of photos as well, so not too bad.

So the raft building got me thinking, what is the best design for a raft? So using the same materials, 4 plastic barrels, some metal poles and some rope, here are a few different designs I came up with.

The materials.

This is the streamlined design with the four barrels close together. Sturdy but not much space.

The favorite design of the day with both teams choosing this, two barrels together on each side with a gap between.

A more spread out version of the previous design. More stable but less sturdy due to being spread out.

Finally a slightly odd triangle shaped design. To be honest I have no idea how this would cope but I doubt it would do too well.

I did also toy with the idea of all four barrels in a straight line, but it would be so unstable as to be completely impractical. So again sorry for the lapse yesterday and as always please leave any comments I really do appreciate them.

Robot Painting

Ok so just the one piece today. I did this quite quickly, just getting the main values down before using some photo textures to fill in the details. I pleased with it, not sure about what exactly is the scale of the robot, I guess I'll leave that up to the viewer to decide.

I'll try to get more done for tomorrow. As always please leave any comments. Also If anyone has any ideas/designs/commissions they want to suggest go ahead, I'll always welcome them and give them a go. Thanks

Back from Hospital, back to life...gently

Ok so here I am back after a slightly extended break, eleven days in total, not the predicted three. Still I'm recovering now, although because of the operation things are happening slower now and therefore take longer, so although I will still try to get a post done once a day, they may have somewhat less content than before, apologies.

Ok so this is a brief page of small sketches I did while in hospital. Unfortunately I did not do many sketches in hospital, it was difficult to stay focused so this is pretty much the sum total done, so oh well. The images include a butterfly, a city scene an eye and some faces.

This is a page of design done around the motor industry, with a terribly designed car in the bottom right. This was done entirely from memory/imagination and made me very quickly realise the importance of reference images and the like.

Finally I'm not sure how relevant or interesting anyone may find this but below are some of the reading material I had while in hospital, just if anyone is interested in what I am interested in, which I kind of assume you are as you are reading this blog. These are pretty much what sustained me through the long hours, the magazines were brought from a WHSmiths in the hospital itself, the books were from home. I will list the exact titles of each one beneath the photos.

Top Gear Magazine

Focus Magazine

Fantasy Art 01

How It Works: Book if Amazing Technology

The Astonishing Spiderman

Essential X-Men

Life in the Universe- Lewis Dartnell

The Gates of Rome- Conn Iguldenn

The Children of Hurin and The Silmarillion- JRR Tolkien

On an aside note the Life in the Universe I received from the author after he delivered a lecture in Disneyland Paris on a school trip.

AS Guitar Chair and Osgiliath

Okay so no new design work today, instead here are some development drawings of my AS DT project, a Guitar practice chair.

 

These actually show the second design process as I created one final design and was going with that until one of my teachers, to put it bluntly, said it looked like a toilet. So I then decided to try a more structural approach out of metal resulting in the design below which, despite being a pain to braze and breaking in half, then proceeded to get 93% for the coursework so not too bad.

So I've just begun reading one of Tolkien's lesser known known stories set in early Middle Earth called the Children of Hurin so that is probably the inspiration for this a quick digital drawing of Osgiliath during the War of the Ring (Lord of the Rings Period). Below is the plain line drawing.



Final note, I will not be able to post tomorrow or probably on Friday as I am going into hospital for a keyhole surgery. So I'll be back soon and please leave any comments, thanks.

Wallpapers, Ink Bird and Newspaper Cutting

So today is a bit of a lazy day, I haven't come up with any new design or anything, but I have made some quite fun wallpapers. These are just fun little things I like to do and they look cool and make my laptop look more professional, at least in my opinion. The last one is a little different as it is artwork rather than design with an ambigramversion of my name (the same when read upside down).

       

A very loose ink sketch of a bird in flight. This was done from my imagination so some of the proportions are off and it is just a generic bird no one species in particular; I quite like it.

And finally, one of my pieces of art has been published in the local paper, although I am not actually named. My A2 exam sculpture of a dead astronaut (the centre image) is accompanied by sculptures by two of my class mates with a brief article about the exhibition that was put on a couple of weeks ago now. So a little late and no named reference, but nice all the same. Please leave any comments below thanks.

Rechargable Toothbrush, Garden Sketch and 10,000th Photo

Okay so I couldn't really think of anything new to come up with today so I've resorted to one of my pet hates, simply the way rechargeable toothbrushes just waste heat when they are plugged in but not connected to the toothbrush. Now I think it is great how the charger charges the toothbrush through heat to avoid any connections with electricity and water, but I just don't see how it has to produce heat all the time.

This annoys me because I truly wonder how difficult it can be to design a system, as basic as you like, so the charger knows when the toothbrush is in place and so needs to charge it and when it's not there and so doesn't need to generate the heat; so I did. Answer: Not difficult.

It simply uses a basic pressure switch so when the toothbrush is in place and the switch is compressed, the circuit is complete, and when the toothbrush is gone the switch is loose and the circuit is broken. There simple. Now why can't Braun come up with that?

Anyway today was so sunny I knew that I was going to have to do something outside so I did this sketch of the tree and fence at the end of our garden. Quite pleased with it, although it does look a bit 2D in places, but still it was fun doing it.

This is a photo of my camera, which is also the 10,000th photo I have taken with it since I first got it in early 2008. I have taken it pretty much everywhere I have been, through cold, hot and wet and still it works brilliantly and keeps taking photos. Below are some of my favorite photos showing where I have taken my camera over the last 4 years and other photos I like.

2008

 

2009

2010

2011

As always please leave any comments, thanks.