Our first year with Evie

September 23, 2023

By the time this post goes up, Evie will be two! I had intended to get all this up last year but life happened I never got round to creating this post and video. Since I created one for Lucy, I figured Evie deserved one too ๐Ÿ™‚

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2021 in Review

January 6, 2022
Brought in 2021 with some fireworks in game and on the TV

I don’t usually do ‘In Review’ posts, but the last 2 COVID-filled years have started to slowly grind me down. I miss the ‘old normal’ greatly. With the Omnicron variant currently spreading wildly in my state, I do wonder if this year will run any different. I really hope that it will.

I wanted to make a post on here to capture and reflect that I actually did do things in the last year despite it all. I’ve been feeling bad that I’ve been neglecting this little part of the internet for a while too.

The moments here range from the small and miniscule to the more eventful, in no particular order.

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Making Christmas flower / poinsettia flower cards

February 24, 2021

Since finishing last year’s Christmas cards, I’ve been wanting to build upon my skills with using proper watercolours. I knew I wanted to use them again though this time with a better understanding of how to work with the medium. As preparation, I watched tutorial videos and experimented, undertaking Inktober to force myself to create. After completing this challenge I felt much more ready to try my hand at another handmade watercolour card.

For the design, I wanted to attempt a Christmas symbol that I hadn’t tried before aka not another Christmas tree. 2020 was the year I really got into and inspired by online illustrators, including Amanda Herzman who does lots of floral based work. This gave me the idea to create a poinsettia flower design, which is also known as the ‘Christmas flower’.

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Christmas Cards 2019 – Handmade papercut cards

January 28, 2020

Hey ho, here we go – Christmas cards of 2019!

Last year for my birthday (or maybe Christmas, not too sure) my family gifted me some watercolour paints. Up until that point I had only used the pencil variety so I was pretty stoked to finally, after all these years, to use the real deal. I knew I would want to use them for this year’s cards, it was just a matter of working out the image and application.

When I was a sketching up ideas, I thought it might be comical to have Lucy included in some way and ended up drawing a bunch of different dog related Christmas scenarios. I settled on one involving her popping out of a present that would easy enough to implement. For the style, I was inspired by Lissova craft with her layered pot plant creations to try something similar (definitely not as cool as hers though).

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PAX Aus โ€“ Melbourne 2019

October 19, 2019

I only realised the other day that we’ve attended SIX PAX Aus events over the years. Can’t believe it’s been that many. This year’s event was no disappointment with lots of big titles on show like Pokemon Sword and Shield and Final Fantasy VII Remake (alas, lines were too long to try these out for ourselves). We got a chance to try out the Nintendo Switch Lite (it’s actually physically lighter than a Switch along with being light on features) as well as see a live presentation of Cyberpunk 2077 – got a free shirt out of it too!

Of course, where we spent a lot of our time was in the PAX Rising section with a variety of new titles to see and try out. Particular favourites were Unpacking and Necrobarista.

Below are a few select photos from the event.

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Japan 2019 – Summer in Tokyo and Nagano

October 7, 2019

While we’ve visited Japan numerous times now we’d yet to really experience the true heat and humidity of a Japanese summer. Technically it was the beginning of Autumn but the hot temperatures seemed to suggest otherwise. Shade offered little relief and we often spent as much time as we could indoors when possible. Most of our stay was in Tokyo but we also visited Nagano for a few days to escape the bustle of the city. Below are pictures from the main highlights of the trip.

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Travel Videos – May 2019

June 3, 2019

While I haven’t updated anything here for the last few months, I’ve been quietly working away on my backlog of videos from my past trips. I’ve actually written about these on the blog already but due to spreading them out over multiple posts, there didn’t seem to be any appropriate spot to include the accompanying videos.

So I’m just gonna put them both here! I’ll link to the related blog posts below each one that includes all the photos and story behind these videos.

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Christmas Cards 2018 – Making linocut printed cards

January 28, 2019

I believe this is my 8th year (!!!) of making Christmas cards and if these years have taught me anything, it’s that preparation and experimentation are key for ensuring everything will come to fruition. I’m glad I started prepping for these cards early on as there were quite a few missteps along the way.

After last years work, I wanted to go back to something more simple. For some reason I thought linocut printed cards would be an easy idea, I could just roll out as many as I wanted once the lino block was carved. Getting to that final day of printing would turn out to be another matter.

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PAX Aus – Melbourne 2018

October 30, 2018

PAX was once again here in Australia and of course we were there to try out all the new and upcoming games being showcased. I got a chance to play the Kingdom Hearts 3 demo as well as see footage for the Spyro Trilogy games being released in a few weeks (line was too long to play myself). It was exciting to see gameplay of Gris, a beautifully illustrated experience which I discovered from people at work. We also spent a lot of time trying out the indie titles in PAX Rising, impressed by the high quality of games on show.

Having a quick look back at previous PAX Aus posts, I’ve realised how much the event has evolved since the first time we went back in 2014. While there are still big 3 –  Nintendo, Playstation and Xbox – as well as computer hardware stalls and indie showcase, the culture of streaming has definitely seeped into the mix. The Twitch booth has always been present however the inclusion of the large PUBG play area, a Fortnite dance floor and multiple locations throughout the expo hall for live streamers was quite noticeable. I was also aware that a lot of my favourite Australian streamers were also attending and promoting sponsors over the weekend. It just goes to show how much streaming has become a part of game consumption.

Below is a selection of photos I took during our time wondering around the convention centre.

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