Illustration roundup

The Raven by Olly Moss for Empire.




Tron tee by Team Ninjaink on sale here.




Run or Die by Marco Pichardo.





Illustrations by John Trumbull and Axel Medellin Machain for a costume swap theme at CBR.




Avengers poster by Mihajlo Dimitrovski.

*Buy Olly Moss posters at eBay.

Link roundup

1. Banksy in a graffiti battle.

2. Gabe Delahaye's latest Walking Dead episode summary.

3. Custom business card giveaway.

4. The Old Republic is a Gold Box deal right now at Amazon, down to $40.

5. Board game designer Kim Vandenbroucke looks at board games trends from Toy Fair 2012:

Hasbro’s lineup of children’s game and been gender-ized! (yes, I made that word up) Classic games like Candy Land, Twister, Clue and Connect 4 have been redesigned to appeal to one gender. Connect 4 is no longer yellow and blue, now it’s black, gold and red with very masculine packaging. The Connect 4 line extension, Connect 4 Dunk, will have a basketball themed commercial that will target boys. Obviously, with the Battleship movie on the horizon, we all know that Battleship is solidly in the boy’s group of game and that will continue, and Clue will join the ranks of boy’s products with this year’s into Clue Eliminiation. On the other end of the spectrum, Candy Land and Twister are going to be girls’ products. Candy Land Princesses and a new version of Twister Dance featuring Britney Spears were featured in the Hasbro showroom.

I’ll admit that I’m sad to see Connect 4 go to the boys, but I think it will be interesting to see how gender-izing previously gender neutral games will go.

Out of the mouths of babes...

One of my best mates has a two year old daughter who is very perceptive. She's never met Pandora, and we don't discuss her (except in third person) around said daughter. However my friend was on Messenger chatting with me the other day, and her daughter asked who she was chatting with.

"Uncle Bob*," said my friend. Whereupon her daughter gave her a look to say "I love you mummy but you are very dim" and told her in no uncertain terms that she mean Auntie Bob*. Naturally she relayed this to me, and we fell about laughing for quite some time.

*=Not my actual name but you get the idea:)

Butch/femme

This weekend Siobhan has been playing around with trying to look femme in a butch outfit (and succeeding very well BTW).

As a result I've been having a think about my look. I took some pictures this weekend, trying on outfits for a couple of parties I'm going to in a week or so. Yes they're fancy dress!

Annoyingly I've come to the conclusion that unless I make a concerted effort I look odd dressed as any gender.

As a bloke I look (and act) a bit camp. I think its more to do with being comfortable with myself and not caring enough to indulge in macho bullshit.

As a girl, mainly due to my build, I look a bit butch (see this extreme example). Although I do mostly act girly. Even more so when drunk...

Its not a big thing as some of the blokes (and quite a few of the girls) I hang around with are macho enough for both of us. Its just something I have to bear in mind when posing for pictures.

Update 24/07/07 - I just showed my Mum the picture above, and she said, "Oh wow! You look just like the Saturday girl who works in my shop." So I guess its not all bad after all.