Weekly Roundup #016
Aye up m'ducks! I had a funny Fathers Day this weekend... we were just about to head out for the afternoon, my son opened the door with my keys and in the flurry of stress that is trying to leave the house with 2 young kids, we shut the door behind us... with my keys still in the door. One hour later and a £149 lighter and we could get back in the house. Happy Fathers Day!
It wasn't all dramatic though, we did manage to fit in a trip to Forbidden Planet to spend the vouchers that the kids had got for me. I love this Turtles x He-Man collab range they're doing, they figures are just so OTT and they nail the combo aesthetic so much. I've got the Skeletor one already so this translucent hot pink Rattlor was the one for me!
I also managed to get a couple of new tattoo fillers this weekend too, as the lovely Mr Iain Sellar had a cancellation. Longfox is Iain's studio he co-founded, so I wanted to pledge my allegiance with one of his longfox flash pieces.
I finally finished up my lego brick-framed enclosure for the DMX-controlled LED lights that I've been tinkering with for a little bit.
I recorded a proper video to show off how it works, all powered by the Teenage Engineering OP-Z:
At Aardman I finished writing a mega blog for the aards site - a huge behind-the-scenes of how we made 'Wallace & Gromit Shot on iPhone' for Apple. It's packed full of text, image and videos, illustrating every part of the process we went through to take our stop-frame heroes and project them 101-metres tall onto Battersea Power Station! Grab a cuppa and have a read:
Gavin StrangeDirectorDirector
A few weeks ago, after speaking at the mighty D&AD Festival in London, I had a chat with Tom Banks, Creative Editor at The Drum, for a chat about all things creative. From Aardman's characters to my own passion projects, we covered it all! Why not make another cuppa and have a read of this one too:
Tom Banks
That's about it from me, I've still been noodling with my 25 years book but I've got a talk coming up this week that I need to prepare for so I won't get chance to do much quite yet. Until next time, cheers all!
- Gav.
WHAT AM I PLAYING?
I've not been playing much, apart from more TCG Pocket on the iPhone and then some Pinball FX 3 on my Switch. I'm still working my way through purchasing different oldschool Williams / Bally pinball tables from the 90's to play virtually on my 'Pinplo' table:
WHAT AM I LISTENING TO?
I'm in one of those musical-funks where you rinse an album for ages, and then you need to listen to something different but can't latch onto anything new! I'm giving the new Turnstile and new Pup records a spin but they haven't quite clicked, yet, but I'm sure they will. Those bands never dissapoint!
- Turnstile – Never Enough
- Deftones – Around The Fur
- A – Hi-Fi Serious
- Pup – Who Will Look After The Dogs?
I don't know anything about guitars, but this video of David Hilowitz buying an old guitar from a punk on the streets of Berlin and bringing it back to life is great!
WHAT AM I WATCHING?
Oh boy oh boy, it took me a while but I finally finished watching Season 1 of ANDOR. Man, it is such a great show! It really gives weight and humanity to the characters of Star Wars. It shows how truly insidious the Empire are and how far they'll go obtain infinite power. In the same breath, you get a sense for how urgent and imperative it is that the rebels do everything they can to take the empire down. I can't wait to get stuck into Season 2!
I loved the stories and characters but man, the production design, costume and cinematography is in another level. All the locations look incredible and immensely tactile. If you haven't watched it, even if you're not remotely interested in Star Wars, then watch it for the great political sci-fi drama that it is!
WHAT'S CAUGHT MY EYE?
I've been playing with the developer beta for the new Apple Vision OS 26 recently and loving it. The upgrades to the virtual 'Personas' are huge and the Widgets that snap seamlessly to physical surfaces in your space are great (I just don't have much wall space as they're covered in toy shelves!). I love watching Adam Savage's videos so it was great seeing him and Norm's takes on the updates.
