#tyiwm

Animated TV shows are awesome; Pokemon, Digimon, CardCaptor Sakura, and so many more, and then there's animated shorts online on sites like Youtube and Newgrounds. They can be beautiful, hilarious, emotional - anything the animator wants, and if you have the technical know-how and time, a great animation can be made by just the one person working alone. I suppose that sounds kind of lonely, but imagine creating a 3 minute animation entirely from your own willpower, time and expertise, imagining something and not just drawing it but bringing it to life, if only digitally. SURELY THIS IS THE WORK OF GODS.

I managed to get a whole day on a friend's computer with Adobe Flash and a good tutorial, and from zero experience I made these 3 not half bad very short animations. Give me some time and the right University course, and maybe I could make something really special :)

Brief:

Create an animation I'm proud of and share to Youtube. Could come in the form of a music video, short story, comedy shorts (animated comics), etc.

Ok, so this is a very strange thing to announce you're going to try and work on. More than any other area, if you tell people you're going to try and develop skills in the realm of comedy, you will get regarded through a peculiar, hyper-critical lens. Why?

Because you're trying to be funny.

Everyone loves a good comedian but if in any way they come across as trying to be funny, they are a foe. Or even someone to pity. Either way, knowing that they're trying and not simply being funny - it gives you a different perspective and takes you away from the very place in which you are most likely to enjoy their comedy. You start to analyse and stop laughing.

So...

I am not going to try and be funny.

Brief:

Make a series of short 'comedy' sketches

I am not allowed to script any - they must either be improvised or based off ideas I came up with earlier that made me chuckle

I am only allowed to redo a scene if I mess up my words or the end result doesn't at least make me smile involuntarily

In otherwords, I am going to try my hand at comedy by trying my best to simply be that funny idea that popped into my head. I won't try to change it or focus on trying to make anyone other than myself laugh. And maybe that'll be enough to make you, dear reader, forget about the fact that I said I would be trying to get good at comedy, and maybe you'll laugh.

H x

Around the time of my GCSEs I decided that what I really wanted was to be a scriptwriter. Since then I have composed a glorious total of 0 stories, vast mountains of notes, and 1 unfinished piece of fan fiction. I can at least take solace in my total of 0 'slash fiction' stories. *shudder* That being said, this slash video really is something special...

Fantastic distraction :)

Anyway, what I was really getting at was I love writing but I never get anywhere with it, So! Onto the TYIWM list with you!

Write a book, either; 1) a short fictional story, featuring mystery, murder, adventure and SCIENCE!  2) a mix of cool stuff, including comic strips, short stories, cool trivia, how-to features and anything else awesome that'll fit :D

Complete my Doctor Who fan fiction at last - Sorry dudes, no plans currently to share! (unless maybe...)

So peeps,

What sounds coolest? Have you ever written or tried to write a story, book or fan fiction? 

With that story in mind my 2nd project of the year is to

Get back into magic

Create my own mini show with 4-10 tricks

Perform it to a fair-sized crowd

Now the magic side to it I am really excited about, learning & practicing new tricks - Marvelous. But I still have some performance fears, so it's going to be a real challenge.

So here's a neat example of the kind of awesome I'm going for:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSRk-hAoU9Q

Unfortunately, “I’m serious about fashion” tends to mean ‘I like my pretty clothes they make me pretty :D *mirror pout Facebook photo*’.

I’m somewhat serious. Trends are a curiosity of society, but not very personally relevant.

After the Sherlock S2 season finale, a walk down Cardiff’s Queen street was a bit of a laugh, with 3/4 of young men wearing coats with the collars up. And maybe 1% wearing Watson-esque military or string-belted jackets.

And that there is what I like about fashion. It’s fun. It expresses who you are and what you like, or who you want people to think you are. It’s actually a really interesting case psychologically. Just as the great Sherlock Holmes could tell a man’s profession from just his clothes and his hands, your fashion choices can convey masses about your character and lifestyle. 

What kind of clothes do you wear? Do they express you, or some ideal you? To what extent are you mainstream or intentionally unmainstream? 

Whatever choices you make, whether they be radical or mundane, your fashion choices tell others who you are, instantly.

Personally, mainstream fashion has never held any strong appeal to me. That and, as a student, I have no money.

I think that everyone should have the chance to express themselves perfectly if they wanted to. And I just can’t seem to find that dream shop.

So here’s the project:

Brief:

Design a buttload of clothes

Create an online dress-up game using these designs

Putting the designs into game form will create, I feel, a much more satisfying end product, and, should I decide to take fashion design any further, it could act as a pretty unique & fun advert to customers & companies. Don’t you think? Don’t you? Don’t? 

Here’s some initial designs that I quite like :)

x