Just a quickie to say "hi" to the one-person-a-year who's likely to look upon ~M-Thomson and wonder why everything's gone. It's not here yet, but the better parts of that graphic design which I have done under that alias and will do in future will be absorbed into this, my 'avatar' account. By that I just mean that 'Sinnyo' is what I go by, just about everywhere including Second Life, where my avatar takes proper form.

There's still no news on my website designing. It's something which has to plod along, receiving only a few hours of my attention per week at best. In the meantime I have been working at setting my dissertation blog up, and invite you to take a look, if the development of game-based tutorials for virtual worlds are your cup of tea.

I don't think there's been a time in my life when I felt rustier than I do now. Web design is a hobby which I abandoned about half a year ago, after creating this spartan edition. Now that I've been browsing like old times, and have found nought but inspiration in Joshua Porter's Designing for the Social Web, I decided that I would like to do something ambitious with my 'site again.

Of course, fitting this work in around my in-tray is tricky, bulging as it is with obligations to my studies and preparations for contracted work. Still, I hope some day to manage a design worthy of this gallery.

In the meantime, I hope you're sat down somewhere as I actually submitted a piece of work here. Much of what I've done recently is either incomplete or written, and much of that is documentation, but I managed to cram two weekends of 3D work in towards ACG's Floaters (a working title). Enjoy.

Google Profile (social web links)

Hello.
*Echo*

In coming back here and hitting that fateful login button, I think I just paid witness to a special brand of internet madness. I appear not to have used this account in at least a year, and had deviantART announcements going unread as far back as May 2007.

I have not been drawing.

I could launch into a self-indulgent and meandering blog post here, about why it is deviantART never tempted me back in, or why I haven't been drawing, but I think my conclusion would be simple: laziness.

So, never mind what happened. I try not to think about the past year for a number of reasons. What's happening now? I'm slowly clawing back my internet life; that's what's happening.

I left university last year in hopes of a placement and, despite my efforts, received none. I broadened the reach of my second life on the back of some quite degrading 'first life' activities, and found myself engaging in a stressful, sometimes depressing but ultimately enlightening exercises in fostering a virtual community, building its architecture. That continues, however a slow wake-up to activity in that life which matters has prompted me to give consideration once more to the real me's online profile. I'm not yet sure what this will entail, but as I face a busy year of finding my feet again I hope to make a real go of my amateurish environmental art.

First things first, though... this place needs some housekeeping. Erk.

The Digital Toybox
De.licio.us | Facebook | Flickr | Google Reader | Last.fm | LibraryThing | LinkedIn | ReelSocial | Tumblr

I'm sure that anybody who's visited this page in the past few months won't need me to tell them this has gotten very stale. I've become sick of it, and because of that, I am wiping the slate clean, here and at my other galleries. That'd be ~sonicfanatic and ~M-Thomson in case you didn't know.

It feels instantly refreshing to be able to do this, and going back to even the way I simply file my artworks away, I have done this out of inspiration from Masamune Shirow's ways. In his case, he compiled Intron Depot as a way to underscore his work from the 1980s.. to catalogue them, then put them aside never to be touched again. Of course, none ofmy work is good enough to even try doing this, but I feel that when I do come to pick a pencil or tablet up next time, it will be a new style, new way of thinking, and new scheme of work.

I'm reading more, watching more, playing more. It's hard not to when you still don't have a job and got granted a £130 Amazon gift certificate for work in Second Life. Sadly, inspiration for ideas still comes in spurts, but in my exploration of art styles I do still come back to work like that on Project Goldmine or Blue Watch; group projects that I know I could have put so much more work into, and yet coincidentally it's some of my best work, I feel.

So, expect a lot of rambling about. I hope very soon to be tied back into a daily schedule, and from there I hope to make a determined effort to draw more and better than I have before. If not, deviantART has really become rather useless to me.

That's the sound of brakes about four months ago.

Yyyeah, no work at all for quite some time. There's no real reason for updating this journal either; I just want rid of my now-irrelevant thoughts here. There's been nothing happening in that part of my brain which once was happy to spool out idea after idea, and I'm not sure I can pin it down but I've a feeling it's a general life thing.

Since leaving university I have been doing my reasonable best to find work in the industry, to tide me over for a sandwich year as part of my university placement scheme. Although some companies still have vacancies open, no-one has gotten back to me and I've now been forced to seek more temporary work in retail; work to perhaps even replace my planned year in QA. So, this all leaves me in a bit of a quandary, with nothing to occupy my day, no money to pay for those fun things that inspire me, and not a lot to aspire to.

On a few occassions I've sat with a blank Photoshop canvas or my sketch pad and tried to start doodling, mindlessly scrawling, drawing from life.. anything. But, nothing comes out. I'm thankful that Second Life continues to give me at least something to do, but even that is sporadic and I'm now running low on prim allocations on my land. My art deco hangout has stumbled somewhat.

It is my esteemed hope that I can use this year to start portfolio work again, but I'm perhaps not off to the best start. I'm also trying to get back into writing; maybe I'll finally get around to writing Spirit Guide: Adventure On Roost Island or some game scenarios to play around with. But, for now, I'm afraid that if anyone's looking (how likely is that?), you won't find any new goodies here for a little while yet.