Hi whoever is reading this. Probably plenty of people I've never talked to before as many hundreds of people - maybe even the majority of the watchers, have added me to their 'watch' list since I last posted any works or journal entries.

I haven't posted any works of art because I haven't finished anything for ages. And the main reason for that is that my hands still ache easily. Possibly carpal tunnel syndrome. Have an x-ray of the hands scheduled and they'll see if they can find anything.

The plan is to try to get the hands stuff sorted out once and for all, and ease back into being more 'illustrative'. I need a better portfolio to show what I can do. Something highly polished and varied. Most of it will probably be things I have designed myself, as concept art is gloriously creative, rewarding and fun, and I wish to be better at it and get paid to do it. I'm aware of that a large amount of my watchers like Warhammer 40,000 a lot, and probably expect me to do more of that. W40k is very cool of course, but the reason I have so many is because I got paid to do them. I'm a bit worn out still after doing the same subject matter on tight deadlines so while I might still put up something W40k, it will definitely not be much. It is Science fiction however, and that is my passion.


On to something else - GAMES

Been playing a bit of games. Picked up Armed Assault for Xmas (those buggy games only shape up years after release, and only then do people have fast enough computers) and it is brilliant in multiplayer for many reasons. Mirror's Edge is also really great, though a bit demanding on the hands. I believe that one was made just 30 minutes from my house, in the nation's capital. Civ4 - Beyond the Sword is ever brilliant, one of the most flawless games ever made (especially with some tweaking). The Strong Bad's game for attractive people series of games by Telltale Games are also gems, if you like the flash cartoons - they are a direct homage to the old point and click adventure games of the 90's, usually by LucasArts. They even play the same. Imagine that in this day and age. The new Tomb Raider game rather sucked, being way too simple on the brain to be of any interest, especially compared to the very fun Anniversary remake from the year before. Dumbed way, waaaay down into the rubbish bin. Mass Effect arrived last summer and blew me away with how real the people felt, and the quality of writing/presentation. Hugely impressed. Fallout 3 was better than expected too. I'd say it's nearly as good as the old ones were when they came out. A worthy successor. Watch out to the numerous sequels that are being made of those last two RPG's. I also bought SimBin's Race 07 with the STCC and GTR Evo expansions. It's devilishly awesome (with a G25 wheel especially) but it's rather murderous on the hands, so haven't touched it much.


Books

Reading can be fun. It's a different experience, and great for exercising your imagination. It's also peaceful and easy on everything but your eyes. I previously bought and read some Robert A. Heinlein ("If this goes on.." and "Coventry" and "Methusela's Children") and Philip K. Dick ("Ubik") books that I liked a lot, and just now I recieved my new load of books (first in years - only been reading PC Gamer and Science Illustrated). Here's the list:

1. "Foundation" (1951) by Isaac Asimov
2. "Time Enough for Love" (1973) by Robert A. Heinlein
3. "Dune" (1965) by Frank Herbert
4. "Dune Messiah" (1969) by Frank Herbert
5. "Children of Dune" (????) by Frank Herbert

That's some hardcore classic Science Fiction!


Obama

That new president with all the promises of change. I'm not holding my breath. But one can hope. He's wanting increase military spending further from what I understand, so he's probably not my kind of president. USA spends more on military than the rest of the world's military expenditures put together already - that's one hardcore militaristic country.


deviantART

The new profile pages are dreadful. So god damned bright with almost no contrasts to show the boxes. And people re-arranging things. And hiding away information yet making it less user friendly and more cluttered at the same time. Shame on you, deviantART, this just won't do, and is hugely surprising considering the quality of the past. I think the new customization stuff really appeals to the large crowd that produces no art to speak of - now they can be 'artsy' with messing around their page instead. Typical phenomenon on websites with focus on appearing rather than being - style over substance etc. And now dA can have more useless feature to offer with a subscription.

I took it upon myself to get back my favourite deviantART, how it looked like in 2003-2004. Back then, they used a much less bright background and nice colours. Easy to read and relaxing to watch. Made the art look better too, as they didn't have to compete with blinding bright background light. A plugin for firefox called "Stylish" allows you to override the code in the pages. I've successfully changed most colours on the profile pages and I like it so much better that way. But it's technically very difficult and time consuming, and I still have much artifacts/weird stuff to clean out. Exciting though, I'll release it if I get it polished enough.

That's it for now. I wish you all the best, dear anonymous lurking watchers.