Gentle Giant

Peter Mayhew has passed away a few weeks shy of his 75th birthday.

Despite being covered from head to foot in order to portray a walking carpet, his shuffling gait delivered more character than many of the million dollar digital creations of modern sci-fi movies.

He helped bring the Fuzzball, The Beast, The Mighty Chewbacca, to life.

I thought it was about time Chewbacca got his medal.

Hopefully Chewie will go on being a staple of Star Wars movies for decades to come (unless Abrams does the unthinkable (though without Han there, there wouldn't be the required emotional payoff)).

Peter Mayhew 1944-2019

Rave In Peace

The Prodigy defined an era in my life. Voodoo People, Poison and No Good Start the Dance were staples on every mix-tape I made, I queued at midnight to buy the Fat of the Land CD, we blasted Firestarter out of our first car's stereos, and they were touring festivals throughout my late teens and early twenties.

Seeing the prodigy live is like nothing I've ever seen, or likely will again. The sheer amount of energy that is that erupts from the audience is a spectacle in itself, with the rabid crowd whipped up into a seething frenzy by Liam's music, Maxim's ring-leading and 'Mad' Keith Flint's demonic clown.

It's hard to understand how this seemed like only way to find some peace, but I have no doubt there will be little rest wherever he is now.

He'll be thrashing the afterlife into one hell of an after-show.

What horse?

As my Red Dead 2 inspired rediscovery of all things 'wild west' continues, I have been reading up on the wagon-trains that would cross America on the Oregon trail. It seems such a wild notion now to be able to pack all your belongings into a box and head out into a largely unknown land, hoping to make a home somewhere, despite this still being a reality for many brave people.

The shapes that some of the carts were made of inspired me to sketch out a considerably more exaggerated version, that pretty much looks like a Pringle. On wheels.

I generally start off with a loose composition and work inwards from that point. Here, unusually for me, I focused on the single shape of the wagon and worked up the detail until it was almost complete before trying to place it in a scene.

With the angle of the cart predetermined, I struggled to compose an image around it that wouldn't overshadow the shapes and details I'd created.

I'm just going to pretend the horse ran off.

I cant draw horses.

Yet.

Cowboy Bar Brawl

Lets guess what game I've been playing? That's right! Pokemo- no. Clearly. Red Dead Redemption 2. And its magnificent. I'm as happy as a pig in poop just ambling down Big Valley or along the precarious trails in the Grizzlies.

I've always loved a good western. The idea of a wild and unexplored world is hugely appealing, if somewhat romanticised.

As well as Red Dead, I've also been working my way through Cormac Mcarthy's border trilogy, and listening to Serious Sam Barrett's music.

So I'm somewhat infatuated with the whole mythology of westerns right now.

Yee-haw.

Watch this!

Catching up and keeping pace with the late Terry Pratchett's Discworld books since the early nineties resulted in this world has being a constant source of inspiration for well over 20 years.

Aware that Narrativia were casting a watchful eye over the future of the Discworld franchise, I've been cautiously confident that any further instalments will be curated as well as any adaption can be. Which is why I was excited when the long gestating The Watch series was finally greenlit.

With casting yet to be announced I thought I'd have a quick stab at some character concepts using actors I would like to see in the roles.

Vimes could be played by a number of people who are working right now. Sean Pertwee or Bean would be great but something about Hugh Laurie's recent, more sinister turns made me think he would suit the role.

Agnua. I think Dormer is probably too busy these days but she has a sort of feline look that I think could translate perfectly to a werewolf.

Mckenzie Crook's turn in the Pirates movies felt very much like Nobbs, working along side a character not dissimilar to Colon,who I think could be played perfectly by John Thompson.

Carrot could have easily be Damion Lewis but felt he was too suave whereas Russel Tovey could bring a more naive charm to the role.

Either Rowan Atkinson playing the Patrician as a stoic sadist, or Mark Strong who seems to exude that dynamic in almost all of his roles.

I went too deep into this rabbit hole and after discussions with numerous friends and colleagues, produced a long cast list for almost all existing Discworld characters, so I may revisit this.

Regardless, I hope so hard the BBC nail this project and deliver the definitive Cinematic Discworld Universe.

Christmas, the coldest place to hide

Once again the might Last Exit To Nowhere had me back to produce their Christmas (or other seasonal excuse for a holiday) cards.

This year it was time for collective favourite, The Thing, to inspire a set of Little MacReady cards.

As always, the cards are beautifully printed and well worth sending to your favourite lover of scuttly-head, meat creatures.

And if your significant other has already been consumed by an alien meat beast, then there's always the other sets to chose from.

Hop to it!

Not aliens... yet.

Today NASA announced that they've found organic matter under an ancient lake bed on Mars, a strong indicator that the red planet was once home to life. Not bad for a 6yr old little* robot.

That is awesome!

Bloopy deep boop!

I think this picture went a little closer to Pixar's Wall E. than I initially intended, but I guess its unavoidable when dealing with a wheeled worker bot on a barren orange planet.

Curiosity's sister older sister, Opportunity, has been scouring the red planet for 14 years!

With further unmanned expeditions to Mars already in production, it looks like these two bots will have a little sister arriving soon, and it will continue to be a world populated only by robots until Elon Musk and his cronies invade in 2022.

We're slowly but surely colonising our neighbouring planet. 

'Baby steps Ellie, baby steps.'

*Surprisingly huge. Curiosity is 2.9M long, 2.7M wide and 2.2 meters high. I've lived in smaller rooms!

The return of F3-T7

Many, many moons ago I produced an image of an R2 unit painted in the colours of Boba Fett, and named him F3-7T.

Recently I was contacted by Simon Battel of the UK R2D2 builders club.

Hi Nick. I found a picture you did of a FETT R2D2 a couple of years ago and I liked it so much that I have made a full size remote version, I just thought I'd send you a picture for your approval.

He included the following pictures.

Simon goes on to say;

'There are a couple of minor differences to you drawing the main one being the name. I call this droid F3T7 and not F37T.'

Clearly Simon pays more attention to naming conventions than I do.

Regardless, it's a fantastic piece of work and I'm hoping somebody can sneak him into the forthcoming Fett movie.

May the 4th

When I saw pictures of the new Millennium Falcon from Solo, I was taken aback by how shiny and new she looked. Reluctantly I decided I liked her. Yet admitting to this feels like I'm cheating on the 'real' Falcon.

So here she is in one of her finest moments, about to erupt from the exploding Death Star.

May the 4th be with you.

Hypo full of Love

I was fortunate to see the mighty Alabama 3 again last weekend. Definitely one of the best nights out I've had in some time. They sit in the sweet spot that bridges my love of Dance, hiphop and folk. See.

Rev. D. Wayne and Larry Love front the band. Pretty sure the latter is the bastard offspring of Howard Marks, Keith Richards and the Devil.

Make it a priority to see them live.

Maced

Everyone is knocking about ideas for new Star wars films, including everything from Kenobi to Max Rebo (I genuinely heard a great idea for the latter...) but one character I've not heard much about is that bad motherhubbard Mace Windu.

Dead you say? Poppycock! Jedi literally jump thousands of feet for fun, so being tossed out of a window in battle is hardly a death sentence. I'm pretty sure he disappeared into the Coruscant underworld laying low until he can resurface at the coolest possible moment.

Last Jedi? Don't make me laugh.

X periment

**Edit: (Spoiler Alert) Well that was spectacular! Well played Space X!

Today will hopefully go down in history with the successful launch of Space X's Falcon Heavy Rocket. If it goes without a hitch, it will pretty much see us on the path to becoming a multi-planetary civilisation. That said, Elon Musk has stated there's a 'real good chance it won't make it to orbit'. (But it did! Yay!)

Regardless, this Falcon Heavy will pave the way for the BFR (Big F**king Rocket (actual Space X Terminology)) which will carry a manned missions to mars. Elon Musk has stated that he intends to send four of these beasts to Mars. With 100 people. On each. In 2024.

That boggles my tiny mind.

Its incredible to think we could be living on another world in my lifetime.

Best of luck today to all at Space X, its going to be one hell of achievement!

Or fireworks show.