Houses on fire, screams in the background, heavily-armed, swastika’d soldiers and flame-spewing, mechanical beasts swaggering around.
“Monsters did this.”
“Not monsters – men.”
So starts the latest trailer to Wolfenstein II. The trailer itself is a gory, expletive-filled affair, but it deflates itself right off the bat. It fails to live up to its own rhetoric within the first few seconds. Continue reading “on faceless mooks”
Kind of bittersweet, the culmination of years of Zen Brush drawings. I’d wanted to make these into an ebook at some point, but this will have to do. A very rough timeline(ish) of warriors from the dawn of civilisation to the age of wigs and gunpowder.
A while ago I uploaded a video I made onto social media, a speed drawing of a Turkish Janissary soldier. Most of the views were (unsurprisingly) from Turkish viewers, and while the vast, vast majority appreciated it, and were touchingly… touched by the interest I showed in their history, one incident did stick in my mind: one Turkish viewer, a complete stranger over the internet, was so incensed by what I’d drawn that he felt justified cussing me out – me, a complete stranger over the internet – because he felt mortally offended by a silly line drawing, which in the words of another viewer, ‘looks like shit.’ Continue reading “on who we are and what we do”
Too late in life I’ve discovered: I’m a craftsman.
By trade I’m a teacher, and though (on most days) I’d call myself a pretty good one, I’ve recently found that what makes me feel good is not teaching, but making things. Producing tangible things – my latest pet project is carving on rubber slabs with lino knives. I started small, but I am getting better at it everyday. I can see it. As I said, tangible. I also produce educational videos, digital art, which is… less… tangible.
This is what occupies my weekends these days. Only just a couple of months ago my weekends would be exclusively for recharging – my Monday to Friday would be so balls-to-the-wall that if I didn’t sleep all day Saturday and Sunday, I’d start feeling physically ill. Church became an exalted burden. Continue reading “on craftsmanship”
My latest video, refuting the age old mystery of the lost Roman legion in China, part 2 of a two-part series. Click here for part 1.
My latest video, an old project that’s been a long time in the making. Based on a short story I wrote almost ten years ago.
My latest video, my take on the age old mystery of the lost Roman legion in China, part 1 of a two-part series. Call it going down the rabbit hole after my last video.
My latest video, speed drawing a hypothetical encounter between Roman and Chinese warriors. I had in mind HH Dubs’ fantastical but dubious theory on how some Roman mercenaries might have made their way to Han China.
Sadly, almost certainly didn’t happen though.
