The Blog of Tom

Congratulations to Tony from Berkshire, who won the prestigious Shed of The Year 2007 competition with this sumptuous Roman shed.

Link 1: http://www.readersheds.co.uk/readersheds/667.html
Link 2: http://www.shedblog.co.uk/readersheds/blog/index.php/2007/07/04/
shed-of-the-year-winner-announced/shedweek

This is supposed to be my great comment on the ghoulish nature of Easter - baby Jesus nailed on the cross - but it’s been fiddled about with that it’s pretty much unrecognizable.

Anyway, the horrible post-production was done with Deep Paint 2.0, a natural media paint program that’s been released into the public domain. It’s a free download and has a nice range of oils, pastels and stuff. I’m sure there are others who can make better use of it than me (wouldn’t be difficult), so try a download today. (Windows only - soz.)

As seen on a wall in Angel, Islington.

I have too much Star Wars paraphernalia. That much is obvious. For a 28 year old man to have an AT-AT walker in his bedroom is clearly a sign that something is wrong. But it’s not all my fault. A lot of the various Lucas-endorsed merchandise was given to me by well-meaning relatives who had absolutely no idea what to get me for Christmas. As I’m “too old” for toys, that means I generally get books related to the subject, meaning that my Star Wars library is far more extensive than I would like.

The thing about all these Star Wars books is that they throw up some really weird things. The last Star Wars book I got (and the one that forced me to declare a polite moratorium on any more Lucas Literature) was The Art of Star Wars Galaxy Volume 2. Now, given that I don’t own Volume 1, and that the strapline of the book reads “Based on the best-selling Topps trading card series!”, you might think that my well-meaning family had really reached the bottom of the barrel. I certainly thought so, which is why it took such a long time for me to even look inside the book.

I wasn’t missing much. Fantasy/sci-fi art is generally pretty dreadful and when was the last time you saw one of those trading cards and thought: “Mmm, I’d love to have a bigger print of that air-brushed portrait of a tusken raider” ? (I’m guessing never, but maybe that’s your thing.) Anyway, it was only when I got to page 90 when I noticed something really, really weird.

Now, what’s weird about this particular picture isn’t so much the art itself, but the message intended by the artist.

“Since I was in the military, I wanted to present these guys as soldiers,” explains illustrator Mike Mayhew. “I wanted just a taste of their humanity on display, a suggestion of real emotion as one of them begins to lose his helmet in a battle…”

Am I the only one who finds this strange? Why the hell are we suddenly getting all empathetic with the ruthless drones of the empire?

But perhaps he’s making some sort of pacifistic plea. Given the Stormtrooper’s infamous crapness in battle (bashing heads on doors, inability to shoot slow-moving droids mincing through corridors, being overpowered by little furry muppets brandishing twigs, the list goes on), perhaps Mr Mayhew is making a wider comment about the effectiveness of US foreign policy. Either way, the comparison doesn’t flatter any one.

My very good friend Brian McGee produced this portrait of me, using his “low-res cubist” technique. Weird, but I kind of like it. His working technique is pretty interesting. He takes several images using a mobile phone camera, transfers them to a computer and then stitches them together using 3D software. He doesn’t have a website at the moment, much to my annoyance, but I’ll post any details of further works here on the blog.

They’re in the process of re-building my old primary school, so I thought I would take some pictures. My camera is a bit crappy, but the resultant montage still brings a lump to my throat.

Oh, the memories…