What you’re seeing a little over 2cm tall And that’s all you’re getting before the show opens on 26th March at myplasticheart in New York.

It’s going to be a big show of customs, with 50 different artists involved. Click the image below to see just who’s doing a custom Sketchbot.

Better still I’ll be in New York for the launch night which gives me an opportunity to meet Steve in person for the first time and see the customs in all their glory! I just hope my custom makes it across the pond in one piece once it’s finished…

If you’re in the area I’d strongly recommend you visit New Mills Original as you’ll find a very eclectic mix of painters, illustrators, photographers and crafters on display.

Also started a new painting on 2nd January that I’m hoping to finish this week. It’s on a professionally hand made canvas which is wonderful to work on and I’m tempted to drop Loxley and just use these canvases from now on. The frame and canvas quality is top notch and well worth the extra money.

My exhibition in the local cafe finishes in a couple of weeks and it looks like one or two of the paintings are going to new homes, which is nice. I will most likely put the others up for sale online later this month once I’ve got a shop sorted.

Anyway, I hope you’re all sticking to your New Year resolutions and that 2010 is a corker. I’ll be back soon with an update on my doodling and painting.

I have five paintings on display, all acrylic on canvas. You can see better images of the paintings below (again, click the thumbnails for larger views):

The cafe is called Rosie’s Tea and Coffee Rooms and is located on Kinder Road in Hayfield, Derbyshire (Google Maps link). The paintings will be on display for around a month and are all for sale. It’s quite exciting as it’s actually the first time I’ve ever displayed my work in public “in the flesh”. So, if you’re in the area and want to see these pieces do pop into Rosie’s for coffee and cake!

If you click the above thumbnail you’ll get a zip file containing the following versions (download is about 12mb):

800 x 600, 1024 x 768, 1280 x 800, 1280 x 1024, 1440 x 900, 1680 x 1050, 1920 x 1080, 1920 x 1200, 2560 x 1440, 2560 x 1600 plus the iPhone wallpaper

Or you can download them individually from the following links:

800 x 600
1024 x 768
1280 x 800
1280 x 1024
1440 x 900
1680 x 1050
1920 x 1080
1920 x 1200
2560 x 1440
2560 x 1600
iPhone wallpaper

All licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

I should be installing my paintings in the cafe later this week. I’ll make sure I take lots of photos to share on my blog once they’re up.

Anyway recently I’ve been playing a couple of Indie titles – Machinarium and Eufloria (formerly called Dyson before release). Here’s a little potted, not very professional review of both of them

Machinarium

I first saw some footage of this months ago and the art style really got me interested. It’s basically a point and click adventure and is a fairly linear experience. The art style is fantastic, hand drawn, quirky and lushly coloured. The music is spot on as well (I ordered it directly from the developers and got the album in MP3 format which is well worth listening to on its own). As for the gameplay, well Machinarium is part of the long history of point and click adventures – the controls are simple (if a little fiddly in places) and the puzzles are interesting although in some areas they’re not really as obvious as they could be. It’s been a very enjoyable game to play but I wish it had been longer which is really my only negative point to make. Well worth the money though.

Eufloria

Again the art style hooked me into this first of all back when it was previewed as Dyson. It’s clean, minimalistic and procedurally generated and works a treat. Eufloria is basically a game of conquering asteroids with your seeds, growing a big enough army of them and taking over the neighbours. It is engaging, at least for a while, but the biggest problem I have with it is the pace of play. It’s often easiest to just leave it running to build up your seed numbers whilst you check your email or surf the web. The other problem, which is compounded by the pace of play to end up leaving you a little bored, is the lack of variation between levels. It kind of feels like a slog after a while – there are some little changes, a few new ‘power ups’ but basically the game stays the same throughout. Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy it and am more than satisfied with the entertainment I got from it, but my interest waned pretty quickly once it became obvious that it was really more of the same.

So they’ve been my time sinks recently. I’m still waiting with baited breath for Fez, which should arrive sometime next year on the Xbox. It’s the only reason I haven’t sold it

Since then I’ve been working on another canvas which I should hopefully finish this week, time allowing.

This notebook itself is fabric covered, containing high quality watercolor paper and matching blue end papers on the inside of the front and back covers. It is A6 in size and filled with 48 pages (96 sides) of Bockingford 300gsm watercolor paper, bound using coptic stitch. The notebook is entirely hand made. I originally had these notebooks bound by Kala at Chalk Hill Studio.

You have until midnight (PST) on November 6th top enter the giveaway. Head on over to TokyioBunnie to find out more.