Costumes & Cosplay (and Loose Ends 9): Dr. Girlfriend
Hello everybode!
Okay, it’s time for the final Cosplay catch-up, barring some fun bits and pieces… and we are nearly up to date! As you can see from the title, this is also part of Loose Ends – you see this is by way of completing (or ending) the two-year cycle of laziness and non-engagement on my part, which I started explaining here.
Back in 2014, I decided I wanted to make a costume every month (an ambitious and some might say fool-hardy mission, given that I was self-employed at the time and therefore a) working every hour sent and b) broke.
But even if I got behind schedule (as I rapidly did) I should have stuck at it. But I lost momentum as I so often do in these cases – I also lost confidence, which is a far bigger thing. Hopefully, this time, I will do better. Only time will tell.
But here I present to you the full cycle of videos about my Dr. Girlfriend Cosplay!
N.B.: if you don’t know anything about Dr. Girlfriend, she is a character from the awesome cartoon The Venture Brothers, whose Wiki page you can find here.
Video 1: Intro
This was the video I made way back in 2014 to introduce the project – note my misplaced confidence that I’d be ‘back soon’, and my boyish enthusiasm.
Think I will DEFINITELY cut the ‘two angles’ approach to filming this – it didn’t work!
Loose Ends 8: Songs About Success and Response to Advice
Hey kids!
Goodness, its been a while, but lots has been happening in the past week!
For a start, I visited my little bro & sister-in-law in Bonny Scotchland and experienced my first Edinburgh fringe- but more on that next time.
First, I would like to request some support, I will be doing a charity run on 13th September to Support treetops hospice, and any donations you can muster would be much appreciated, so if you can check out my JustGiving page that would be ace.
Welp, for those who have been following this silliness, I did a blog post a week or two ago on Songs About Failure. There were, as I knew there would be, a couple of songs I forgot – there is one I cannot allow to pass though, as it is an absolute favourite of mine: Big Sunglasses by Dragonette. Enjoy!
Dragonette – Big Sunglasses
‘Now I’m racing back to where I came from, I got nothing to show’
In these days of aspiration, it is easy to feel like all you need to do is move down to the big city and soon you will be one of the beautiful people, being a star and living the high life. And, with aims so high, it is very easy enough to fail – the upbeat and energetic tune of this song belies the true nature of the song, a tale of disappointment at having to return home after trying to make it big.
But, now onto a more positive not – SONGS ABOUT SUCCESS!
I’ve tried in general to pick some more left-field songs – there are some obvious ones (‘We Are The Champions’, pour example) but I wanted to make sure you walked away with something new under your metaphorical belt.
M83 – Steve McQueen
‘I woke up stronger than ever, tears of joy running down my face’
I cannot recommend the amazing M83 (named after Messier 83, the Pinwheel Galaxy) enough, particularly the album ‘Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming’ that this is lifted from. This song is, at the basic level, about have a day where you feel you can do anything – however, it also addresses (at least in my interpretation) the roller-coaster nature of such feelings, with the line ‘The whole world is a goldmine/that will melt tomorrow’.
Loose Ends 7: TFHC Chapter One! Plus Teen Scribblings!
Hello everybode!
Now, I know I said that this entry was going to be ‘Songs About Success’, but there have been two exciting developments! Firstly, I have re-drafted the first chapter of Tales from Honeyskull Cottage! You can read it HNYAH:
Tales from Honeyskull Cottage Chapter 1: Alexis
“In which an ancient and dangerous spell is performed”
I shall be releasing maybe two or three more chapters for free so people can get into the story, and see if they like where it is going before it is finally SELF PUBLISHED.
On that score, does anyone know any good places to self publish apart from Evil Amazon?
Second point, I found one of my old notebooks back from when I was an ambitious teenager. I remember distinctly writing this page:
In which I list, with somewhat arbitrary numbers, what I would like to achieve in my lifetime. If you can’t read my weird printed writing, or the picture is too small, or didn’t load, the full list is here. Witness the amazing ambition and towering hubris of the 13-15 year old me…
Loose Ends 6: 10 Songs About Faliure
Hey lovelies, I’ve been a bit busy of late and so here is a slightly left field post – a list of songs about failure! Music is an absolutely fantastic way of spurring on creativity and also a great way of working through emotions (as I’ve discussed earlier on this thread, that is often the same thing) – it is also a way of reassuring yourself that you are not the only one feeling the way you do.
Even if the songs are so sad they reduce you to tears or so angry they make you punch the plaster of your wall in in a fit of teenage rage, you will be better for listening to them.
So I present to you my positive list of songs about not getting what you want…
Loose Ends 5: ‘Potential Crisis’ aka ‘Nothing Is Good When It’s Finished’
Working hard is great, being lazy sometimes is great, but failed potential is the worst.
– Campbell Scott
(with thanks to www.brainyquote.com)
These little fluffs have nothing whatsoever to do with my post, but the are adorable and I thought we needed a few more pictures round here!
Ahoy-hoy everybode!
I am writing this in both on a tight timescale and a rather conflicted mood, there is LOT going on under the surface at the moment -all is quiet in the Spekti Home (apart from rabbits nibbling, so above) but I feel there are things I should definitely be doing and am maybe not doing, which is annoying. Also I felt like there is a more serious blog I want to write but screw that, it can wait until tomorrow or something.
Time to waffle on a little more about creative stuff and that, and I promise these blogs will grow more substantial as time goes on.
Loose Ends 4: Working It Out
Hey kids!
Woah, onto number 4 in this ongoing series. So, I’m running short of time so it will be quite a short one.
So, creative people are broken.
In fact, all people are broken so this is somewhat of a tautology, but I think creatives are generally more broken that others. Don’t get me wrong, it is brokenness in a good way, but the essence of being creative is perceiving the world as somehow incomplete and in need of ‘fixing’ by bringing something new into life. Something is inside us that needs to be given some kind of tangible existence in order for us to feel that the world, and ourselves, are right. Of course this never works as when one project is done, another is always waiting on the horizon.
In fact, I believe this is why we have the oddly dissociative relationship with our art that I went into last week- these things were part of our subconscious which needed to be worked out – sometimes they are trivial, sometimes important. Once that has happened they are no longer part of us, but part of everything else- part of a world that STILL needs fixing.
We are what needs fixing.
Loose Ends 3: “Oh So Over”
Hello everybode!
So last post I announced my wish to go back and re-draft my first novel ‘Tales From Honeyskull Cottage’, a piece of Young Adult Fantasy (ooh-er missus), with a view to self-publishing.
Well, that process has started albeit slowly, and it seems to have assuaaged my initial fears that a) it was terrible and b) the equally terrifying prospect that there would be literally nothing I could do to improve it and in fact the best writing I had ever done in my life was over 10 years ago and I hadn’t got any better since then.
No, it appears that it is perfectly saveable, and there is lots to do to make it better.
Loose Ends 2: Project One and the Horror of Re-drafting
“A failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.”
– B.F Skinner
(with thanks to BrainyQuote.com)
Hey kids!
Thanks to the eminent writer, psychologist, inventor and pigeon-hater B.F. Skinner for reinforcing the point- the worst thing to do is give up, not mess up. In case you didn’t catch post number 1, the ‘loose ends’ thread is about two things, neither of which is wallowing in self-pity because I’m not a bestselling author or famous film director yet.
It is in order to…
-
Chronicle me trying to complete some of my old ideas, and actually promote them this time
-
Collaborate with and support my friends in doing the same
With that in mind, I’d like to start by giving a shout out to the lovely folks who got back to me about the first blog post, either in comments or in discussion:
Comic artist Sally Jane Thompson:
http://www.sallyjanethompson.co.uk/
@SallyThompson
Illustrator and all-round awesome artist Emily King:
http://emilialys.deviantart.com/
@emilyk6d6
Loose Ends 1: A Litany of Failure
Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
– Thomas Edison
(with thanks to BrainyQuote)
Hello everybode! I am now 30 – no age at all, really, as I plan to live to 110, but it is an age which give you cause for reflection.
And I realise, without wishing to be too dramatic or depressing, that I have failed quite spectacularly as a creative.
As the quote above puts quite neatly (even it it was from terrible idea-stealer Thomas Edison), the essence of failure is not to do badly at something, but to fail to persist, to give up and go elsewhere.
When I was 15 I had so many ideas, and so many ambitions. I have continued to have ideas- in fact I think if I wrote a bullet point list of every workable idea I’d ever had it would fill a dictionary-sized book. And some of those ideas I worked really hard at, they filled my life night and day for weeks until I just…gave up.
I’m sure most creative people feel very similarly about their own practice. After all, you can only maintain fever-pitch on an idea so long before the original sheen wears off and you want to go elsewhere. But it seemed always to be a particular foible on my part that as soon as it required me to put the idea out there, to face the world, to deal actively with criticism, to get other people involved, I folded and started something else that I could work on quietly without relying on anyone else.
This crippling combination of misplaced pride and irrational fear of self-promotion has led to many potentially interesting things just falling down and dying, like a prehistoric creature washed up on a beach without having evolved a decent pair of lungs.
Derby Makers E-Textiles Workshop Funtime!
Hello everybody! Myself and my lady have been to the Derby Makers workshops a couple of times now, and they were lots of fun- no exception this evening, when we got a short but sweet introduction to the world of e-textiles!
This rather innovative but by no means unforseeable fusion of fabric and electronics is, in my opinion, only going to get more popular as us crazy computer-obsessed creative kids get older and have more money to chuck around.
Our project was a simple circuit made on an embroidery hoop with two LEDS (one white and one blue, although you couldn’t tell which was which when they weren’t switched on) and a battery connected by ingenious CONDUCTIVE THREAD, which is partly silver.
Well, with a little stitching and a hint as to which way round the LEDs should be (its complicated!) miss Britta and I created our versions. Hers is cooler than mine, because she brought along her own fabric and has actual TALENT. Cheater.
Mine: At least my stitching is better than it has been.
Britta’s: You can’t see it too well here, but the legs of the LEDs are curled up to make antennae for the butterflies!
Well, its a start! Here is what we can aspire to, made by our teacher Fio…here is a link to her blog, if you want to check out more awesome!
That’s all for now kids! Bye!
– Spekti Jim
Sticking At It: A Spirit of Enquiry Episode 3 and the Creative Process
There comes a time in the life of every project when the traitorous bit of your brain kicks in and says ‘Is this really worth it? Is it any good? Wouldn’t it be better to hide away this embarrassing near-failure away from the world, never letting it see the light of day?’
And this problem is compounded when you are working on something comedic, as the question ‘Is this actually funny?’ is added into the mix.
The Filthy, Evil, Licorice Mix
A Spirit of Enquiry is now on its third episode and I pushed through these questions pretty much at every stage. This is the first of the three where I have actually cut out bits after the filming, rather than during writing. This included some parts that I worked hard on researching…but which weren’t funny. They also made it too long. Even as it is the episode is still the longest so far, clocking in at laborious 11 minutes and 50 seconds. The parts cut out included some fascinating stuff on the invention of cereal (the Kellogg’s brothers started in 1877, an improvement on the early attempts by pioneers like James Jackson and Fedinand Schmaucher who created a kind of hearty museli) and legal cases involving Kellogs (recently they claimed Rice Krispies heightened child immunity and in 2009 adverstised that their “Frosted Mini-Wheats” improved children’s attentiveness) but editing is all about cutting the darlings.
It is also the first one where I essentially had to puzzle over what exactly the topic would be, the other two being based quite easily around song lyrics. Does that make it weaker? Is the content completely impenetrable? Will the Venn diagram of academics and comedy-lovers and people who search for random things on YouTube ever have an intersection big enough to save this labour of love from total obscurity?
Only time will tell.
And people who like Venn Diagrams would have to be in there somewhere as well.
There have been times when sticking at an idea through bloodymindedness and faith have produced results the world would better be free of. The enthusiastic Ed Wood and his painfully sincere and earnest works of anti-art, the horror that is ‘The Room’ self-funded by director Tommy Wiseau so that no one could hurt his ‘vision’, and the filmographies of Uwe Boll and Michael Bay. I have been reading Richard E. Grant’s excellent biography ‘With Nails’ recently where he goes into the agony of effort needed to complete Bruce Willis’ ill-fated Turkey ‘Hudson Hawk’ which was roundly (and correctly) panned when it got to the Box Office.
From his and many other memories I have got an idea that one can ‘sense’ if a project is going down the tubes from the level of organisation on set and the trust of the management, but there is nothing that I have read as yet on how to recognise warning signs that a one-man effort is going wrong.
Ultimately the thing to do is to give it your best shot and just see what people thing.
So here is Episode 3 of Spirit of Enquiry- I have literally no idea how many people have watched the others, or how many will watch this, but if you can tell me what worked and what didn’t I will be deeply grateful. I hope it’s good…after all, Episode 4 is already in the can.
Oh, and if you get bored, do stay for the last few seconds. I think they are definitely the best.
Make way for film,
xx
Spekti Jim
SpektiJim 