Jojopops Blog

That’s right, i’m now officially an uncle, my first nephew is called Alexander and he is the child of my sister and brother-in-law; Katy and Mike. Alex was born at around 5pm on 12th April 2008 which makes him 5 days old today (see that GCSE maths wasn’t totally in vain!)

Alex is the little one on the left in white, the other person is Mike. They’re easily confused I know.

It’s a great feeling to be an uncle for the first time!

Yesterday saw the last box of junk being hauled from our old place to the new one. Any emotional attachment I had to the old house is now officially gone and I just want to hand over the keys and get my deposit back now - only 3 days to go so I can’t complain.

We’re still waiting for the solicitors to do their thing and get the mortgage up and running, under normal circumstances this would all be an absolute nightmare but because we’re buying the house from my parents things are somewhat smoother. Thinking about it - we’d probably be homeless otherwise…good job eh!

As you can see from the photo, there is still quite a bit to unpack and get sorted but all in all we’re doing pretty good i’d say and the weather is nice so I’m feeling quite positive about it all. Moving house has been stressful in many ways but the satisfaction of completion seems to make it all worth while.

It’s great, i’m really excited about house-warming season and barbecue weather - better work on my burger flipping skills and maybe get some sort of barbecue together to challenge the might of Dave’s stone furnace of meat cooking wonder in Wavertree.

I’ve also been pondering what we should do for Steve’s birthday today, it’s not far off at all and I think we should make it one that he won’t forget - maybe it’s worth getting some inspiration from the likes of Van Wilder.

It’s that time of the month again where Liverpool’s upcoming musicians / artists / DJs and film-makers get together in 3345 Parr st to get down to great music whilst soaking up the film and visual offerings that we have that month.

Yes that’s right, i’m talking about Canvas, the once-a-month event that is put on by Rich Brown, Rich Hughes and myself. It’s looking like next weeks event should be a good one too with The Last Gambados, Helen Gelling and Duncan Stuart pleasing our ears with their music.

If you’re in the area and interested in popping down then please feel free to, entry is free as always and it’ll run from 8 - late. If you’re interested in showing off your talents at a future event then get in touch via our myspace page here.

We spent an unspecified amount of time in Fact on Saturday staring at strangers and trying our best to get their likeness down on paper in an effort to learn (and improve at) life drawing, and our general drawing skills for that matter!

Dave (the guy I was attempting to teach the art of drawing to) did a pretty good job too and compared his own work to that of Napoleon Dynamite which I thought was pretty flipping cool.

I think i’ll be doing a fair bit  more of this drawing lark so if you’re out for an innocent tea/coffee…beware, you may be our next target!

I’ve been reading cartoonbrew.com for a while, catching up on the goings-on of the animated world. Not too long ago they featured artist Chris Sanders for his work on Lilo & Stitch (which I love) anyhow, I found his blog online and couldn’t resist giving it a mention. I’d definitely advise taking a look at Kiskaloo his weekly comic - some really clever stuff there.

Blog is here

I’ll try and get some of my (somewhat inferior) comic book outings on the blog at some point. The climax of my comic bookery was a comic referencing the life of my sister; Esther amongst other fictional fabrications!

It’s been a strange week this one, I’ve been stuck between a few different projects that are all special in their own way. One has been a graphic design type job for an internet cafe in Liverpool and the other is an independent animated project with a christian message being portrayed by two loaves of bread which has been good fun.

Our R&D dept “D.A.V.E” is making breakthroughs with automated 3D animation flocking algorithms and the like, apparently it’s not quite ready for me to play with but as soon as it is i’ll get some demo files up.

On other fronts i’m learning the art of the blog (nothing like a bit of self-referencialism is there!) and trying to enlarge my php skills as well as producing some photoreal animated sequences for Lucy’s wedding stationary business. Fun fun fun.