I use Skype everyday to communicate with colleagues in the states and my customers. Since Microsoft bought the company, it is now used for messaging as well.
You can download Skype from here
Even Dogs Appreciate a Quick Skype Read More »
On Friday the 12th of December 2014 my sister Louise married Andrew Montgomery. They have known each other for many years but have only recently come back together and then decided to make it more permanent.
Congratulations and best wishes to them both, all the very best and a very happy future.
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One of my passions is fantasy art. Ever since I can remember, I’ve collected art books of this kind or another. There are many great artists such as Jim Burns (one of his pictures is on the home page of my site), Rodney Mathews (I have one of his pictures on some of my social network pages). There are other great artists too, such as Boris Vallejo, Sorayama, Frank Frazetta, Roger Dean and Syd Mead to name a few.
Luis Royo is Spanish and has had many of his paintings as the front cover of Heavy Metal magazine and been the inspiration for many fantasy writers. If you’re not familiar with Heavy Metal magazine, it’s an anthology monthly that collects together fantasy stories, mostly in comic book form, aimed mostly at the adult readers. No it’s not all naked woman and sex, but there are some very deep and mind bending stories that are not for the super hero comic kiddies.
Royo’s breadth of work is such that his fans will buy his art on anything from T-shirts to Tarot cards. Magazines have written articles on him and his work can be seen at festivals and art galleries devoted to just his work. His artwork is mostly dark fantasy based, usually with beautiful woman, either portrayed as delicate and in need of protection, to the opposite end of the scale as warriors brandishing a sword and surrounded by their dead foes. It’s certainly what he is best known for. Although he has moved into other areas such as futuristic landscapes and cover art for books. For example the cover of Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin’s The Ice Dragon.
He has a very professional web site, which is well worth a look.
Here a few of his works for you to enjoy.
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The Fantastic Art of Luis Royo Read More »
There’s something fascinating about model building. We all remember doing them as kids. Not having much patience and wanting them to be glued and painted as soon as possible. Of course real model makers have a lot more patience than that. When you’ve tried your hand at model making you can recognise when somebody has put an enormous amount of time and patience into a model. Even more so when that model is made from scratch with basic materials.
For real dedication and an eye for detail the following are excellent examples of a model maker who has lots of patience and skill.
Satoshi Araki, an artist from Tokyo, creates highly realistic miniature models of towns, vehicles, and a lot of other objects from everyday life. He is particularly skilled at making small-scale dioramas of chaotic cityscapes that are affected by urban decay, pollution, or warfare.
Satoshi mostly uses Styrofoam board to make these incredibly intricate and complex models – he cuts them down to the desired shape and size, paints them, and then glues them together. He explains on his blog that he uses Google Image Search to pull up images that he later uses as a visual reference. These images help him create scenes that are very life-like, down to the smallest detail.
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Japanese Artist Creates Amazingly Realistic Miniature DioramasRead More »
Japanese Artist Creates Amazingly Realistic Miniature Dioramas Read More »
I certainly don’t play as many games as I used to. I’ve played everything from Pong and Breakout (Atari 2600), Manic Miner (Spectrum & Commodore 64) up to Bioshock and Uncharted (Drakes Fortune, Among Thieves, Drakes Deception). The last console game I really enjoyed was The Last of Us. My taste in games is more in the adventure and story based line. Sure the likes of Destiny have a story but I’ll leave Joshua to play that. He’s currently on Level 21 by the way.
Microsoft have been bring out some good classic games (although with a little advertising in them). Such as Solitaire, Mahjong, Pinball Fx2 and even Jigsaw. Some of these games are multi-device and sync the players progress in the cloud. The player can stop playing on their mobile and carry on on from their laptop and vice-versa. Which is pretty cool.
When it comes to the free games you can download, you can end up being a little disappointed when they come to a halt and then say you have to pay to get the rest of the game. Well no such thing as a free lunch. But there are some exceptions. Although I have to say I took advantage of a limited offer in the Windows Store for a free copy of Max the Curse of Brotherhood and grabbed it so I could play it later.
It’s a 2.5D side scrolling platformer with a few inventive twists thrown in. Keyboard and mouse are used, with the mouse used for more than point and click. This is were you probably have an advantage over the Xbox player. When you run out of platform to jump on and off from, use Max’s magic marker to draw branches and pull up pillars of rock with the mouse to carry on. As it progresses you have to get inventive and put these and other skills to work together, if you want to go further. A good thinking platform game. It looks and sound extremely nice too.
Good for flexing my problem solving muscle(s) in a fun way. If they haven’t been flexed enough while working during the day sheesh! If the weekends are running a little slow then I jump on my laptop and play Max.
Max the Curse of Brotherhood is available on Xbox One, Xbox 360 and for the Windows PC on Steam.
If you get stuck, or you just fancy seeing what it looks like, you could try the walk through video below which has helped me a couple of times. Normally I watch how the expert gets past the spot I’m on, slap the forehead and say duh! and carry on playing with a smile.
Max the Curse of Brotherhood Read More »
