My creative output has taken a back seat for a little bit in order to focus on my newest project. It’s a slightly more.. organic venture than usual. What I’ve done is combined the DNA of my wife and I, then we incubated it in her abdomen for 9 months, and last week we unveiled it to public view.

We’re pretty happy with how it’s turned out. (There have been a few kinks involving screaming, runny poop and a lack of sleep, but we’ll figure those out eventually.) We’re hoping the project (codename: Marlo) will continue to develop over the coming decades, and it will also be touring with us constantly. At some point – perhaps as early as next year- it may even become self-aware! Here’s hoping.

Anyway.. wish us luck. I haven’t been this excited about a new project for a long, long time!

This is a clip showing the process of creating an illustration, sped up 800% or so.

I’m drawing the cover for the new single by Auckland noise band ‘god bows to math’; that song is also the soundtrack for the clip. you can purchase it here.

Materials used include graphite pencil, felt-tip pens, permanent markers, whiteboard marker, enamel paint pens, acrylic paint, watercolour paint, oil pastels, chalk, coffee, tomato paste, coal dust and strawberry jam. I used a lighter to dry out the paper at the start after I spilled some water on it. Oh and at some point I also ate carrot cake but I don’t think any of it got on the picture.

I had a few hours to spare this afternoon so thought I’d see how quickly I could paint a piece.. this one took just around 45 minutes (including setting up and a toilet break).

Music is ‘Honey B!’ by PEACE, from the free EP ‘Hungry’ - phase02.org/2011/06/peace-hungry-ep/

this is an image i made for a bFm party called ‘Up the Junction’. the party was in Ohakune (next to Mt Ruapehu), hence the mountains.. i made wallpaper size versions. it was fun. i might put together a proper selection of these one day.

to set one of these as your dektop wallpaper thingies; open the image in your desired size, right-click on the image and select “set as desktop background” or similar.

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• ‘Sleep’ by Salvador Dali
• Gumby (tv show)
• Danger Mouse (tv show)
• M.C. Escher (artist)
• David Attenborough’s ‘Life’ documentaries
• The skateboard graphics of Jim Phillips
• 2000AD (comic)
• Reg Mombassa’s t-shirt designs for Mambo
• Footrot Flats (comic)
• The Dark Crystal (movie)
• Terry Teo (comic)
• Liquid Television (tv series)
• DJ Shadow’s ‘…Endtroducing’ (album)
• Munny (toy)
• Abe’s Oddysee / Abe’s Exoddus (video game)
• Doze Green’s artwork on ‘Deep Concentration 3′ (album cover)

I’m starting with movies, but damn.. this is a tough one. I studied film at university, and have seen a lot of films over the years. (As anyone who has visited a video shop wioth me can attest to.) My taste is pretty mainstream in general; even though I have watched and tried to like a number of avant garde films over the years but most of them leave me cold inside, and wishing for the escapism that never came, with a few exceptions. (I do, however, enjoy Asian and European cinema -and to some people, this would be well arthouse.)

Anyway, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I have quite childish taste – teenage, at the most- and it leans towards animation, sci fi and comedy (in that order). I could easily do a top 10 for each of those three genres, in fact, but I’ll try and cull it down.

I’ll make each one a link to the movie’s trailer, or my favourite scene. (Or, in the case of ‘Bomb It’, a link to the full movie.) This list is subject to change, and it is NOT in order. It’s hard enough coming up with the top 10, let alone ranking the damn things…

videos may contain adult language + themes

• Princess Mononoke
• The Big Lebowski
• Repo Man
• La Haine
• Baraka
• Ghost in the Shell
• Children of Men
• Bomb It
• Delicatessen
• Nausicaa: Valley of the Wind

You can purchase these beautiful pieces of decorated cotton apparel via their website, or by visiting the bFM offices and buying one straight from the hard-working music elves themselves.

(Warning- this image may feature a monster eating a baby. There are possibly brains being chewed. bFM and the artist take no responsibility for any offense that may be incurred by the wearing of this shirt.)

Anyways, here are a few of my favourite comedic sites, if you need some reading material for the summer break. (Or if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, and you need some reading material for being snowed in.) The overwhelming tone veers between ‘nerdy’ and ‘cynical’, but that’s just a reflection of my awful sense of humour, I guess.

(The Customer is) Not Always Right - This one’s for anyone who has ever worked in customer service, and has had to deal with those doe-eyed idiots that stumble around this world causing car accidents and buying Black Eyed Peas albums.

People of Walmart - Sorry, my American friends, but your ugly and weird people are so much uglier and weirder than the ones you find anywhere else.

E-mails from an Asshole - What it says on the tin. He’s an asshole who replies to classified ads in the manner of an asshole.

27b/6 - David is strange, rude, funny, and comes from Australia. I won’t hold that against him though, since the funny outweighs the rest.

Freelance Freedom comic - For any designer (web, graphic, print, etc) who has ever worked from home as a freelancer. Tthis comic speaks to us all.

Pictures for Sad Children - The adventures of a ghost, or something. I get easily confused when I don’t take those pills.

XKCD - Comic strip. Geek humour. Awesome, awesome geek humour.

Clients from Hell - More designer humour… the scary part is, they’re all real.

Superuseless Superpowers - Like “having ‘Laser Pointer Vision’ – it’s not strong enough to do any damage, it just points things out.”

Cracked - It used to be the lame cousin of Mad Magazine. Now, it’s a humorous website full of bitterly cynical writings and lists, designed for the soundbite generation.

Regretsy - “Looks like you made it with your feet.” This is the bastard offspring of Etsy, the site where you can sell your handmade wonders to the world. This site collects the things that, um, maybe you should have just set on fire and forgotten.

Lamebook - In a similar vein, this one collects stupidity from the ubiquitous social networking site we all know and hate.

OK… I’ll add more to these over time. Check back.

So I’ve rebuilt my website. Again. I think this is the seventh version of this website I’ve built since it’s launch in 2001 — but this is the first time I’ve been able to build a ‘proper’ site. Mainly because up until now it was hosted on a pocket calculator.

Does this mean I have to keep doing interesting stuff in order to blog about it? …how about food blogging? …the last thing I ate was a banana stuffed into a bread roll. I doubt ya wanna hear about that.

Anyway. Better things to come. stick around punks.

-P