Category Archives: Random

Cock-a-doodle-doooo! (or Happy Chinese New Year)

Celebration, Random,
Rooster - Chinese New Year 2017
© Prop Door Illustrations

The 28th January is the start of Chinese New Year this year, and this time it’s the year of the rooster (in case the picture didn’t tip you off).

According to chinese-astrology.co.uk, people born in the year of the rooster are keen observers, sometimes with the gift of foresight. They’re also straightforward, sociable and like to dress to impress. Apparently they are also true and loyal friends and make great hosts – so if you have a rooster pal, it sounds like s/he’s worth hanging onto.

Unfortunately if you are a rooster, it’s thought that your zodiac year is actually an unlucky one as you’re more likely to incur the wrath of Tai Sui, the God of Age who resides on Jupiter. Bad times. To escape a terrible year, it’s recommended that you receive blessings and talismans of good fortune from your local Taoist temple, generally behave yourself and try to face away from Jupiter as much as possible. Got it..??

Or, if you’re like me, you’ll ignore all this superstitious mumbo jumbo and just get on with enjoying life. I definitely won’t have any form of astrology dictate what goes on in mine.

Have a happy and prosperous year, everybody!

 

British Summer Time

Random

It’s officially summer!! On paper. If you live in the UK and you’ve checked outside for the last couple of weeks, nobody could blame you for thinking otherwise. Welcome to the Great British Summer Time.

British Summer Time - Prop Door Illustrations
It’s up there somewhere.

This picture also seems to reflect the current political mood in the country (in about half of us at least). We’ll need to keep a large umbrella handy for the sh*tstorm that will be here for the foreseeable future.

Don’t forget to smile..!!

Oh, and happy Independence Day to those in the US. Not saying anything more about our so-called “Independence Day”…for now.

Something missing…?

Art and illustration, Health, Random, , ,

I’ve moved from my previous profession of pharmacy to illustration, but I remain a member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society . I still like to peruse the pages of the Pharmaceutical Journal (or PJ as we all call it) when it drops through the letterbox. RPS members now also get a monthly edition of Clinical Pharmacist.

I was slightly bemused when I saw the cover of the current issue of Clinical Pharmacist:

Clinical Pharmacist cover illustration missing

 

Was this a conscious minimalist design, or a deadline rush job? If the latter, I’d be happy to supply Pharmaceutical Journal Publications with an appropriate cover illustration…

Update 15/2/16 – It appears to be a design choice, as the cover of the following issue was just as bare. They used a different shade of blue though. It doesn’t take much to excite pharmacists!

Venturing into animation

Random, TV and film

I’ve finished my first piece of animation! It’s only 10 seconds long, but took a surprisingly long time to do as I’ve never used animation software before. Not to mention I’ve not used vector-based software since secondary school – AutoCAD! – and spent a lot of time finding out where the lines weren’t joined up (“why won’t you fill, damn you!!”). It’s an entry for the E4 channel’s E Stings competition, entitled “Squirrel Hero”. Fingers crossed that I *might* by some slim chance be picked as one of the 16 finalists.