The Happy Jester

The Happy Jester

Originally uploaded by amassingham

I finished a new picture and forgot to blog about it, here it is.

Thunderface Games

I decided to make my games creation a little more legitimate, and so I’ve started to work towards getting a company identity up and running. I present to you,

http://www.thunderfacegames.com/

I’ll also be releasing some information on my upcoming games project ‘KSTS’ in the coming weeks, so keep an eye on this blog, and my/thunderfaces twitter streams.

- a

Can’t work.

I can’t seem to get any work done tonight.
So I decided to draw instead.

7 Years

And some sketches from the other night…

Hoboriffic

Attempt at a lady

Post Brisbane Twestival

So its all over!

Brisbane twestival was held last night at the Joshua Levi Galleries, and what a lovely night it was. Kudos to all at the @bnetwestival team.

Tea with Sloth was auctioned off for charity, and ended up selling for $200! Which is way more than I expected and is absolutey awesome.

I bought myself a rad TwS badge, which you can see pictured. All in all, a lovely night. Thanks all.

-a

The Sloth was Framed!

Tea with Sloth

Originally uploaded by amassingham

And here it is! The final, printed, signed and framed version. All packed up and ready for the Art Auction at Brisbane Twestival this weekend!

How much will it sell for? I’ve no idea – though I’m interested to see how it all turns out.

In Brisbane this friday night ? Come on along.

Twestival Art Auction : Tea with Sloth

I was asked by my friend Julia to draw a picture for the Brisbane Twestival Art Auction (Friday 11th September, Joshua Levi Galleries – Tickets Here). So I got to work and have drawn a special new twestival exclusive which I shall share with you all now, I call it “Tea with Sloth”.

Tea With Sloth

The prints arrived back today and I couldn’t be more happy with them.  Behold in all their blurry cameraphone-d goodness

Now in Print Form!

I’m taking them to the framing place just down the road after work today – and fingers crossed everything will be ready in time for Brisbane Twestival this friday.  Those in brisbane, all are welcome to come to twestival.  Tickets are on sale now, and it’s for charity folks.

So come to Brisbane Twestival, and you could own this one-of-a-kind artthing!

- Anthony.

Twitbirds : A Simple Twitter Search Visualiser

Those of you who follow me on twitter might have noticed I’ve been showing some pictures of weird fish-bird things lately.  So I thought I might let you all have a look at the early version of my Twitter Search Visualiser.

Twitbirds
(http://tenfiftyfour.com/twitbirds/twitbirds_v1.swf)

‘Twitbirds’ is a very simple twitter search visualiser, originally designed for twitter-centric events (possibly projected onto a wall to encourage users to tweet about hashtagged events).  It searches twitter for a keyword, finds the user that submitted it and creates a bird representing that user.  Birds flock around the screen and symbolise a sort of ‘hive’ of activity revolving around the topic.

In the bottom left corner of the screen you’ll find three boxes.  The first is the progress bar, which tells you how long until the next search refresh.  The second is the search box (fairly self explanatory), and finally the status bar – which merely updates you on how many tweeters have been downloaded.

Progress, Search and Status Bars.

Currently, the program is set to refresh every 30 seconds, and will only return results that have been tweeted since the program was opened.

Twitbirds searches for the keyword entered, find the user who submitted the tweet, then creates a bird-avatar for them.  Birds will flock around the mouse cursor, and happily fly about the screen.

The more they tweet, the larger their bird gets.  If a user doesn’t tweet within 3 minutes of their last tweet, their bird is removed in a puff of feathers.

Currently the app isn’t that optomised, and there is a variety of security sandbox issues ( files being hosted on different URLS cause issues with flash sometimes ) still to be resolved.  However the version that is up now is fairly stable and should be fine for most of you to test! ( if you get an error, just ‘continue’ or ‘dismiss’ it, and see what happens…

Currently, the program is set to refresh every 30 seconds, and will only return results that have been tweeted since the program was opened.  Twitbirds searches for the keyword entered, find the user who submitted the tweet, then creates a bird-avatar for them.  Birds will flock around the mouse cursor, and happily fly about the screen.

A Default Avatar Bird

The more they tweet, the larger their bird gets.  If a user doesn’t tweet within 3 minutes of their last tweet, their bird is removed in a puff of feathers.

Oh, the horror.

Currently the app isn’t that optomised, and there is a variety of security sandbox issues ( files being hosted on different URLS cause issues with flash sometimes ) still to be resolved.  However the version that is up now is fairly stable and should be fine for most of you to test! ( if you get an error, just ‘continue’ or ‘dismiss’ it, and see what happens…

Feel free to post comments or suggestions.  Enjoy.

- a.

Skate-tastic

It’s been a while, And here’s another entertainer ( You’ll notice the different Background.  I’m in the middle of moving computers, havn’t got the old template ported yet.  Plus, it’s all going to change soon anyway! ).

NSIE 28 : “Roller Dave and his Yo-Yo Spiders”

“Xanadu was in trouble, there was no doubting it. The final blow was struck when the health department closed the Roller Disco one Saturday evening due to an outbreak of a mysterious and contagious fever. Crippled by outstanding debts, a pending law suit where the resident funky synthesiser trio “Disco Inferno” claimed contractual irregularities, the public’s emerging interest in punk and the outrageous price hikes in roller-skate import taxes, Dave knew he needed a new business venture.

His best mate, Neville, was a keen but socially backward Arachnologist. The prize of Nev’s collection was a breeding colony of little known endangered but highly venomous Maltese “yoyo” spiders – unique in that they cast a stretchy, not sticky web. “Malteeses” use this anchor thread to catapult themselves upon to their prey.

Being a showman, Dave considered himself to be a bit of a mover. He envisaged an act that would subsequently be reviewed as strange, exotic, mesmerising yet tragic. Dave hired session musicians to lay down a groovy track, something funky that would get the audience bopping. He programmed the lighting rig to complement the song, arranged ticketing and promoted the gig through his network of nightclub friends.

On the evening of the debut performance Neville attached a dozen Malteeses to Dave’s favourite polyester suit, then cooled and calmed them, prior to the show. The premise was simple. Demonstration roller dancing, unlike anything seen before, augmented by stretchy spiders that would stretch and sproing as he twisted, turned, lept, weaved and boogied down.

Sadly, mid-performance, Dave could no longer repress his deep-seated Arachnophobia, regardless of how badly he needed the money from the gig or how reassuring Neville had been about Maltese venom being rarely fatal. He systematically squashed, splattered and rollered to death all the attached spiders in one of the most impressive and frenetic, athletically challenging and choreographically inspiring attacks of the heebie-jeebies ever recorded on betamax.

As a tragic postscript, a ripped version, underscored with a “Disco Inferno” compilation, of his one and only performance, climaxing in screaming, weeping rage as he athletically de-spidered himself recently went viral on YouTube, netting someone else millions of dollars and re-kindling world-wide interest in Roller Disco.”

- Biography by wonko

Flash Experiments

I often make little flash toys and experiments and they always end up just lying around on my hard drive.  I figured I could make a repository to store all of these little timewasters, and so I have!

The axperiment website is a dumping ground for all my flash experiments.  You can view all the items at : http://www.tenfiftyfour.com/axperiment/ or you can view individual items via their own urls ( ie : http://tenfiftyfour.com/axperiment/experiments/02_mouseshooter/ ).

I’ve also added a cool little timewaster game, which I think I might extend in the near future.  Something to keep me occupied while I’m not working on my rad new upcoming entertainer project ( more on this within a week or so – after I’ve got some work done ).

Second star to the right, then straight down.

The past few days have been so wonderful, I thought I’d celebrate by putting together a new entertainer for you all! And what better than a young adventurous lad with too much black powder lying around.  I give you …

Not So Impressive Entertainer # 27 : Peter Blam – The Boy Who Will Never Grow Up

Peter Blam

“Due to an unfortunate incident involving rapid acceleration and lack of adequate foundation undergarments, Peter was the only child of Eric (Mr Mortar) and Cindy (The Human Torch) – “The Flying Blamovichs” – a famous circus family.

Being brought up amidst an itinerant lifestyle and enduring home-schooling with very limited exposure to classic literature, he developed as a very lonely, some would say fixated and delusional pre-adolescent. Peter loved J. M. Barry’s classic work, one of the few books in his parent’s library. He was obsessed with “Neverland”, often dreaming he was there – gleefully running amongst the tents and cages with his wooden sword, living the life of a lost boy. Having few acquaintances of his own age, he would often be heard chatting to his imaginary Wendy, or arguing with Tootles about marbles, but everyone was too busy to notice how close he was to losing his own.

Magda, the bearded lady, often suggested that Peter’s conversations with “Tinkerbell”, his bottled glow worm, bordered on schizophrenic and that 2 out of 5 voices in her head were worried about him. She barely noticed the morning Peter slipped away from the communal breakfast table heading for the big top and his first grand adventure. Kitted out in his favourite Pan pyjamas, he climbed into his father’s cannon all the while thanking Tinks for the fairy dust, and launched himself towards the second star on the right, without realising it was merely a tear in the canvas that had yet to be repaired.

The subsequent kerfuffle and tragedy that ensued cancelled the matinee performance. The coroner ruled that the target sponge was not sufficiently wet; Peter’s trajectory was slightly miscalculated because the sight was calibrated for his father’s body weight meaning he would have missed his damp target anyway. Further it was determined that the explosive charge he had inexpertly packed into the cannon was not tamped down sufficiently to prevent flash burns and he was not wearing safety goggles or fire-retardant clothing all of which culminated in a record number of workplace health and safety violations.

Few will forget the unbridled joy of a crackling adolescent voice, exclaiming in jubilation at the top of his voice, from the top of his parabolic flight path “You will believe a boy can fly!” or the totality of the silence that followed the landing. During the remembrance ceremony, a final touching tribute was unveiled – the epitaph on his cremation urn read “Peter Blam – The Boy Who Will Never Grow Up”.”

– Biography by wonko.

I’ve had some suggestions on what to do with the entertainers eventually.  My favourite idea is a pack of 52 cards.  Each entertainer on a single card – could be a wonderful little idea, I just have to get to 52 of them first…

- a.