Originally posted by Emma Maree Urquhart on EmmaMaree.com

Morning droogs, hope you all had a good weekend and a Happy Hallowe’en.

I’m off to Stornoway all this week, so posts will be scarce — but I’ve got my camera so I should return with pictures.

(And the lack of WiFi hotspots or housework duties will hopefully lead to more writing time.)

Here’s hoping for sunshine and calm seas for the ferry crossing!

Originally posted by Emma Maree Urquhart on EmmaMaree.com

Did anyone read the Redwall books or watch the cartoons as a kid?

I loved the series – the first book I picked up was The Legend of the Luke, which was sometimes sad and brutal, but thrilling all the way through. I quickly rushed into trying to get every book in the series, saving up my pocket money to buy them from the Scholastic Book Club leaflets handed out in the school library and feeling proud of my special, limited edition character guide handed out as a bonus. It was a flimsy, cardboard leaflet, but when it was delivered to the classroom I was so proud.

It made me sad to hear that the author, Brian Jacques, died earlier this month.

I hope these books keep finding new fans among young readers. There’s some criticism towards the series for the black and white portrayal of it’s villains, which is fair enough, but they’re still great books for kids who love fantasy.

The opening for the animated TV show based on the books is below…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Originally posted by Emma Maree Urquhart on EmmaMaree.com

Lots of things keeping me busy at work these last few weeks, and writing was going well until I overcomplicated it for myself. So I took some time off and distracted myself with movies. Here’s a few things that I’ve been killing time with:

Casshern

Click here to view the embedded video.

This is based on an an anime, and it has a nice visual style to it – as clearly seen in the trailers. But from the very firs scene, with it’s clunky, exposition-heavy dialogue (“As you know…”). It just gets weirder from there – scenes about genetic mutations, clones, abandoned robot factories in the snowy wilderness, a garden, a dead guy, and politics are all mashed up against each other in a vague attempt to make sense. It’s hilarious in the right mood, though – watch it with friends, especially if they’re drunk friends.

(Note: that the absolute lack of sense might have been due to the cut of it I watched. I have no idea which one it was, but it might have been the US cut which is known for it’s inaccurate dialogue and cut scenes.)

Overall
It's pretty, but it made it no sense.

Perfect Blue

Click here to view the embedded video.

After the stupidly confusing Casshern, I moved onto the amazingly confusing Perfect Blue, dubbed in English. It’s about a Japanese pop star who tries to move into acting, taking roles out of desperation and having a mental breakdown in the process. Which doesn’t help if you’ve got fans obsessively stalking you and raging about your new career, and a murderer who conveniently keeps killing people who’ve wronged you.

Gorgeous (but gory) animation and a hundred and one plot twists keep this quirky animated horror-suspense movie going, alongside a creepy soundtrack and good quality voice acting.

Overall
Aaargh, my mind.

Eclipse

Click here to view the embedded video.

I know. I’m a bad person. I should be ashamed.

“Eclipse” is the third movie in the Twilight vampire series aimed at teenage girls. It’s not to everyone’s cup of tea, but the special effects are good, the soundtrack is decent pop-rock, and you can turn it into a good drinking game by having a shot every-time someone does something emotionally manipulative.

I can’t stand Bella’s character or acting, but she almost redeemed herself with a conversation with her awkward single parent dad Charlie half-way through. Being honest, Charlie may be the only character in this series I actually like. Go Charlie! There’s also Jasper, who’s a stereotypically Texan vampire and lightens up the movie a lot.

Overall
The special effects are good, but the ending is weak, Bella's actor is bland and the climatic fight scene just didn't have enough impact.

Napoleon Dynamite

I guess this was a good movie? The actors playing Napoleon and Pedro were great, but it only got a few giggles. This is my fault, though – I’m not much of a fan of anything other than improv.

No review for this one, because my funnybone’s broken.

Persepolis

Click here to view the embedded video.

Such a bittersweet movie – it’s all about a girl just trying to be a smart girl in modern Iran, getting into rock music and dressing up in a culture where even wearing your veil too high will allow men to accuse you of being a slut. It’s easy to forget that Iranian kids and teens are just like any other culture’s kids – but for them, having an opinion can be a death-risk.

The soundtrack is fantastic – Iron Maiden, some instrumental work, and my favorite ’Survivor’ cover in all of history. It’s animated mostly greyscale with some colour, and the dialogue is in subtitled French.

Overall
Sweet, sad and honest.

Originally posted by Emma Maree Urquhart on EmmaMaree.com

Just doing some quick sketching with Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, trying to get back into doing digital art. I probably would have gotten cleaner and sharper lines with Photoshop, but Sketchbook’s a lot more fun to use.

Above is Tyler, who is generally not a very nice guy but manages to make everyone think otherwise. The protagonist of Saint, he hates most people.

…And Alex from The Network, who’s generally a good-natured, withdrawn guy except for a slight susceptibility to being possessed by horrible, demonic spirits that make him kill people.

I’m off to see Iron Man 2. Have a good weekend and May Day, everyone!

Originally posted by Emma Maree Urquhart on EmmaMaree.com

We tried to go to Hi-Ex today, despite fate conspiring against us a bit. Already running late, we rushed to the train station to find it was 25 minutes delayed. We got lunch. Then Dave realised he’d forgotten his wallet. By the time we’d returned home and got it, the train was gone and it was time for a bus ride in in – adding about 30-45 minutes instead of a 16 minute train journey, and landing us finally at Eden Court at 14.30.

After all of that, we didn’t really see much of the comic convention – we got our goodie bags, and went to the artist area to be greeted by a vast display of comic books. At the Forbidden Planet stall (for a UK-wide comic and merch store chain) we picked a giant (pillow-sized) Domo-kun teddy and a V for Vendetta mask. I cast my eyes over the various artists doing commisioned work, and saw a few people doing portraits for a small cost.

I like drawn portraits a lot – they pick out the key features in a very inspiring way, and unlike photos, art usually picks up any imperfections and blends them in with the style. It’s difficult to explain, really.

I’d heard of Asia Alfasi’s work from last year’s con, and really liked her work since I saw her eye-catching self-portrait for the Hi-Ex site. When we saw she was doing portraits for £5, with a little encouragement from Dave, I managed to pluck up the nerve to go ask for a self-portrait.

After standing there talking with her about 4Chan (the famously perverted image-based message board), webcomics, and my horrible reluctance to display my art to anyone because it is never up to my own self-imposed standards… magic happened!

(Scan quality is bad, sorry – I’m not at home at the moment so my usual scanner isn’t available. I’ll try to upload a better scan soon.)

It was great fun. Dave’s going to get one from Asia tomorrow, and before we left tonight he managed to grab her for a photo.

Now we’re just taking it easy at my parents house, dog-sitting and splurging our wages on over-priced but tasty Domino’s Pizza. Armageddon was on, which was a pain to watch because I’ve seen enough sci-fi to know how incredibly inaccurate it is about everything and I spent most of it trying not to point out when they were being dumb.

According to the weather forecast I should expect sleet tomorrow – which will mean a lot of running around to keep the camera from getting soaked.

It’s all paving the way for proper snow next week. Ugh – I’ve had enough snow to last me for a while by now.

A white Easter would certainly be odd.

Originally posted by Emma Maree Urquhart on EmmaMaree.com