You are also ugly!

I've been trying to make a new spray for use in Team Fortress 2. The basic concept is "my other medigun is a SUPPOSITORY!"

i decided that a nice offensive-looking riff on the medigun silhouette would be effective.


Results have been mixed.

They're just not easily parsable. I'm quite content with the basic vector medigun silhouette I made, but it's proved tricky to turn it into something that is both obviously a medigun, and obviously meant to be shoved where the sun doesn't shine.

At one point, in desperation, I actually gave the top-right version testicles. I knew then that I had crossed a line.

Maybe I'll use the vanilla medigun graphic for something. Maybe another hazard-sign like my heavy and demo sprays.

I'm especially happy with the heavy one. It really blends in well in the levels. The demo spray is only subtly different from the real hazard sign it's riffing off of, but it works well enough for my liking.

Vial Fluids

I had no plans - just felt like making some vector peeps for the first time in a while - and these came out. I didn't even have a proper sketch of them. There was a scribble in the margins of a "proper" sketch and I decided to try drawing over it. Turned out ok.

I like the bubbles. Just white, 50% transparent circles. Silly really, but I like how it makes the bright parts of the tanks obviously 'orrible liquids without being so detailed as to show up the flat fills elsewhere. I'd still like to do something for the metal bits though. No experiments have worked out yet.

There's not many swappable bits here. Just the heads and the tanks. Shame. I'd have liked another detail, something secondary like the psychers' backpacks. Maybe hoses/plugs for the tanks? Unsure. Not heartbroken though: I'm glad to have made something kind of OK.

The colours need tweaking. I figure I'd best recolour all the hospital characters at once so they compliment each other so that's fine.

Authing

The other day I considered a career writing and illustrating childrens' books.

This is my pioneering work: "Spider and Snake". I like it. I think it has an important message, one that's more relevant than ever in these troubled times.

I drew no small amount of inspiration from my previous work for adults "The Sun", but my primary influence was the natural world. It's amazing how powerful the things we take for granted can be. Just look at the world around you and you will find truths everywhere.

And I would like to think that I have captured some of that truth, some of that power, in this work. Now you might think I'm over thinking things but children aren't stupid. You write to them but that doesn't mean you write down to them. Because no good author disrespects their audience. An author has to overthink the process because that's ho you end up with something worth reading. Something that doesn't fall apart when you ask "why?".

And that is the ideal I aspired to with "Spider And Snake."

Thank you.

Spinning wheels

I made these on my big page of icons. They're too abstract and detailed to really be a part, but they were fun to make and that's what counts. Maybe I'll come up with a use for them later.

Rotational symmetry makes it almost too easy to come up with something tolerably attractive, but I still tried to be as interesting as I could. While making them, I had in my mind that these were physical objects - talismans or something - so I tried to make elements pass over and under each other to give the impression of depth.

It seems that I really don't have much to say about these. I just thought they were pretty.