Carrot Cake Blog

These past few weeks have been as fun as they have been hectic, and it’s not going to stop there.

It’s strange to think a year ago today I was worried about my GCSEs, and here I am now worrying about my A-Levels. Time simply doesn’t last long enough.

My exams are in a few days and over the next two weeks - my first being this coming Tuesday. I’m worried, of course, probably because I’m human - but ultimately I’ll probably get what I deserve, and then next year will be the same. It’s funny how in just a few hours you get determined a label that will sit above your head for the rest of your life.

I’ll do what I can do.

The school over the past few weeks has been selecting people for ‘Officer Roles’ in the school. If you’ve ever seen any naff American high-school movies were they elect school president, it’s a bit like that. I decided to stand for Head Boy with the simple state of mind: “I’ve got nothing to lose”. A few people told me I was crazy, and I was a little bit - I’ve only been at the school 9 months, and was standing against 6 others that had been there from day one. But, as I said, I had nothing to lose.

And I got Deputy Head Boy, which needless to say was far exceeding my expectations, and I really couldn’t be happier. I can’t say I know the person they selected for Head Boy very well, but from when I’ve spoken to him, he seems like a great guy very deserving of the role, so a congratulations to him.

I was also shortlisted for Animation 13 by Manchester University, and will be returning to the prize-givings for the 4th time with my recent animated poem.

Fingers crossed.

It’s that time of year again.

In the summer Manchester Animation hosts their annual Animation competition, and just before Easter is the deadline. Me being my usual self, I left it almost up until the very day of the deadline. What can I say; I live life on the edge.

Last year, because of GCSEs I decided to give the competition a break, and came back full swing in 2013. I’ve known what I wanted to do for nearly a whole year, however. In English last year we explored different war poems, but “The Man He Killed” by Tom Hardy was the one that hit hardest to me - the speech felt the most human, which is what I believe is most important in poetry.

Three weeks ago I started the animation, and it turned out nicely. The jump, at least visually, from now and two years ago is very apparent. Very little actual animation is there, but I figure it’s strength are more in the field of ‘cinematic composition’ - which I’m sure is a thing.

You can check out the animation over on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qechTHeTEQQ

Or, yesterday I submitted the animation to Newgrounds, and whilst it doesn’t contain poop jokes, it’d be good to see it get as a good a score as possible (I jest Newgrounds, I love you really). If you enjoy the animation, a vote of 5 would really help out, you don’t even need an account:

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/613559?id=613559

Last week I was given the task to help out my house’s school performance of Robin Hood by creating some posters to stick up around school. We decided it’d be cool if we had some “WANTED” posters of the different Merry Men (and Maid Marian). I drew five different characters each with their own poster now dotted around school, looking pretty fine. Usually posters are printed in black and white, but everyone was insistent on spending a little extra for colour copies, I’m glad they did - it meant the other houses had to up their game.

It was good fun trying to capture the different actors in the cartoons, and it also helped me explore my style even further. I’m particularly happy with Maid Marian, she looks sufficiently ticked off.

I’ve got the day off school today, since our school likes placing Inset Days in the middle of weeks instead of at the end of holidays, not that I’m complaining. I’ll try and do a comic today for y’all.

Rock on.

It’s funny how one day passing makes such a huge difference. From December 31st to the 1st of January is no different really from the 23rd of March to the 24th, for instance. Yet it’s hard not to look at it as though it’s the start of a new beginning, it’s nice thinking there’s a huge blank canvas before us, it’s even wondrous just imagining what the next year might just bring along with it. 2012 was a huge year for me, and it’s one I’ll remember for the rest of my life - 2013 may well be too.

I’d like to think 2013 will be the year of constant updates, but the likelihood is that the best of times for that kind of thing are long gone. I’m in the mood for experimenting, that doesn’t mean I’d abandon projects like RUM or Bamboozled, but I don’t feel like making them a chore is the best way to produce content that advances me as an artist or a writer, which is always nice.

The old system never really got it’s feet on the ground and was perhaps focused a little too heavily on attracting more people to the site, but I don’t think I have nearly the ability or the time to upkeep even a small fanbase. Instead of deadlines I think having a time were I put everything else aside and work on producing new content, and then I release that when it’s ready - documenting my progress along the way. I’m tired of rushing things and not enjoying it, when really I want to be doing things because, well, it’s what I like doing best, and sometimes I forget that.

But before I leave you empty handed, over the holidays I worked on a very brief animation to promote a fake film rental company called Screen Ten for my A-Levels. It’s nothing spectacular, and I made it in about a week, but I think it’s got just a bit of charm that makes it worth sharing, chances are though I won’t be uploading it to my channel publically. Also if it interests you I made yet another video of myself animating in a time lapse to show how I worked through the animation. Enjoy!

Here’s to 2013!

Before anything else, this weeks’ comic is waiting for you down below, so be sure to check that out!

As you may or may not have noticed over the past few weeks I’ve been going through a transitional period.

Okay that sounds a little naff, but I can’t think how else to describe it. Just thinking about what exactly I want to get out of this website has got me ticking a little bit. Usually when I finish a comic, I finish it because I feel I have to, not because I want to. When the comic finally looks back at me I usually don’t feel proud, I don’t feel like I’ve created something worthwhile, just something I said I’d do. And that’s just not cricket, is it?

Carrot Cake should be a mutual thing - a place where people come to smile or what have you and where I put out work that I’m proud of and had a good time making. What’s the point if everything feels like homework? This week I spent a little longer on the comic than usual and was a little more artistic with it than I would normally be - and I think it looks tonnes better because of it. And, you know, I hope you think so too. It’s all about finding that balance between quality and quantity which, most likely, I still haven’t found yet. Time does marvelous things.

Aaaaand yes, this year there will be an Edmund and Darrell Christmas special.

Peace out.

The entire gaming industry was left shaken a couple of nights ago after the announcement of the winner of VGA’s Game of the Year Award. Amongst the nominees were the huge blockbuster games - the games that towered over all the other categories. Assassins Creed 3, Mass Effect 3; games with millions and millions of dollars pumped into them to create a polished, no-rough-edges games that appeal to a huge market. But it was an evening of gloss, smiles and rich people quaffing at how much money they made, instead a game built by just 30 people stole the show: The Walking Dead. An episodic, downloadable point-and-click adventure game that costs about 30 bucks beat some of the video game giants.

Did it deserve it? Hell yeah it did.

The game industry is becoming stale. The other nominees aren’t bad games as such, but they follow such a dry formula that they know will appeal to a mass market. The Walking Dead is one of the first games to put story at the forefront and create a changeable and interactive experience that was held together by an original art direction and fantastic writing. It could even be argued that the game doesn’t deserve to be called a video game, but only a video game can provide such a rich, interactive experience. That’s what gaming is all about, interactivity.

The icing on the cake as well is just how tasteless the VGAs usually are. Usually we get a very shiny show that doesn’t feel too focused on the video games themselves - flashy presenters throwing awards at big names like Grand Theft Auto IV in 2008, or Uncharted in 2009. Again, these aren’t bad games, but they’re the same names that crop up time and time again late in the year - it’s everyone’s guess that the biggest name will win the biggest award.

I think this is a glimpse of hope for the industry - whilst the smaller names might sell in the millions, if critics and judges can appreciate them for the their fresh and innovative ideas, then that doesn’t really matter. Big budgets don’t make great games, heck it doesn’t make great anything - ideas do.

After coming home from work today I had initially planned on just crashing, or even sleeping, for the rest of the day - but my brother had two things lined up; the film “Indie Game: The Movie” and the final episode of The Walking Dead video game, which came out a few days ago and we’ve been playing together. Both really opened my eyes. I love that feeling when you leave something and you feel like you’re life could or should change. I love the feeling of being removed from your world briefly only to return and realize everything maybe isn’t so bad.

Indie Game: The Movie followed a handful of indie video game developers but most notably Team Meat, who made Super Meat Boy, and Phil Fish, the visionary of the game Fez. It really provided a great insight into the whole world of indie game development, as none of these people had a team bigger than three people - the stress, but ultimately success, making these games provides. The impact these games have made as well is mind boggling - that a few people could make games considered the greatest of our time. A game like Super Meat Boy that has now sold over one million units; between just two people that’s an incredible amount of profit for the hard work. And rightfully so, huge blockbuster games like Call of Duty can be too glossy at times, and these sales reflect that consumers want quirk and want innovation.

A game that has always really interested me though is Braid. I’ve never been a huge fan of puzzle games and my brother ruined the ending for me - so it’s not a game I’ve felt very inclined to play, but it’s status as more a piece of “art” than a game is what draws me in. At it’s core is brilliant puzzle-platforming with the time-travel aspect that sets it apart, but on top of that it has an incredible art direction and throughout the game some beautiful writing and storytelling elements make you think just what Jonathan Blow (the developer) wanted to say. There was always something sinister in Braid that made it so compelling, something that made you want to dig deeper. That’s something I can really appreciate - when something makes you think about the world in a non-pretentious way.

And at the same time, in a completely different way, The Walking Dead did exactly that as well. It’s not really a video game maybe by the dictionary definition, it’s built and shown more in the style of a movie - but the interactivity the player has with the game really brings something fresh and original to the table, and the idea that all of your decisions have ultimate consequences is uniquely engaging. Whilst a great movie may have deep, three dimensional characters in a brilliantly realized story - the walking dead had that but this time the main character is YOU. You’re the person that decides the fate of some of the most important characters in the game and the overarching story, and that’s something very powerful.
Never before has a game drawn me in so much, or affected me so intensely - only movies have been able to do that. The ending is something that will stay with me as much a great film ending would - but this time I know that it was the ending I helped create through my own decisions, in a sense.

As Phil Fish said in the movie - a video game is a combination of all the arts just with player interactivity, and I can’t can’t help but feel like I want to be a part of that.

Over the past few weeks I’ve really been questioning myself about what it is I want to get out of Carrot Cake Studios. With the new anniversary now been and gone, and with my move into sixth form I feel like redefining what exactly I get from the website, or anyone else for that matter.

It’s been an idea niggling in the back of my head for a long time to have another website that’s dedicated to being my portfolio of work - something like “louisdurrant.co.uk” that focuses purely on my development and my work. Carrot Cake isn’t really that, or at least it wasn’t going to be. The tone I was going for was more along the lines of popular (but now very much dead) flash website Home Star Runner. Very focused on the actually characters themselves or the animations rather than the creators. Unfortunately I don’t nearly have the time or resources to create multiple animations in a week - instead much of what I produce is experimental. And I like that. I want to keep that. The whole reason I changed the name to “Carrot Cake” was because I didn’t want to limit myself to purely cartoons.

Yet having a whole other website is ridiculous, and there’s enough sweat and tears that go into one. So why can’t Carrot Cake be a portfolio instead of an online-tv-channel? Carrot Cake is much less a company and more of a project - and that’s the direction I feel I want to take it, that is without making the website feel too self-indulgent. I feel my characters speak for me much better than I can.

I’ve been told by my graphics tutor that putting together a portfolio of my work for the future is something I should plan to do, so making Carrot Cake an ongoing and developing document would be perfect. My graphic design work my even start propping up - especially since I’ll be making an animated advertisement over the Christmas holidays.

In terms of what I actually produce, this likely means absolutely nothing. Instead I want to rejigg the website in tone just slightly. To start I’ve given the logo a much needed spit-shine with much clearer and more simple lines and shading as well as much more bold and rich colours - especially the green grass which used to look completely washed out.

The website front page is still something I’m trying to get right, and it’s not quite there yet still. I felt it needed a welcome and introduction, but it does kind of just get in the way of the actually content on the page, which for non-first time viewers can be a bit of a pain.

Carrot Cake is in some exciting times, and I’m actually really looking forward to taking it even further. But of course - you can only do that with more, actual content.

I’ll see you on Monday.

And as we all know from the last post, today has been marked as Carrot Cake’s official 6th anniversary. In celebrating here’s just a little comic that conveniently doubles up as this week’s comic:

http://carrotcakestudios.co.uk/comics/bamboozled/22.html

It’s been a wild six years, and I have no doubt there will be some even crazier ones to come. Raise a glass with me to the unpredictability of the future and the sheer anticipation of what’s to come.

Something I’ve never really taken seriously is Carrot Cake’s birthday, or even just how old it is. Many years ago now when I was just a little kid and made my first website it didn’t occur to me that what I created would bring me to where I am now, so took no account whatsoever as to when the website was made or launched. That date is lost in the aether. Because of this I’ve never made a big fuss over the website’s birthday, in fact I’ve never made any fuss at all. I want that to change.

The earliest I can, with certainty, now the website was on the world wide web was 2006, as this is the copyright date I placed on the old site that remains. Who knows though - perhaps the site does date back to 2005, I can’t be sure.

That makes the site roughly 6 years old - which makes my stomach drop. When you’re not measuring something, it can really amount to something. But I’m not sure I’m ready to make the site 6 just yet. At what exact date the site was created may never be known, but I have memories of waking up early in the morning, maybe 6 am, eagerly reading how many more views I’d accounted - even if it was as high as just two. I remember doing this every morning and just how dark it was in the mornings, I remember thinking how cool it was that the spring brought about lighter mornings - it wasn’t something I’d really thought of before. Strange, I know, but it makes me comfortable in saying I would have made the site during late Autumn, or early Winter. Good news too, before it makes the next choice a little easier: to pin point a day.

According my site payment details (which expire every two years) the website was last paid for last year on November 12th. This isn’t perfect in anyway, and it’s likely when I took the site to a paid service that it wasn’t that exact date, but it’s the only choice I have - and hey, it has a nice ring to it.

So there you have it, written down now the official birthday of Carrot Cake Studios will now be November 12th. It’s a shame I can’t be so accurate, but I think this will do just fine - and it’s only in three days time.

Maybe I’ll do something special. Although, 6 years is no milestone.

I’m home and the plane did not crash, which is always nice, and it means I can provide you with this weeks comic!

http://carrotcakestudios.co.uk/comics/rum/TFI/054.html

The plot continues to thicken.

And not nearly as fast as it came the holidays are over. Returning to school feels irritatingly unrefreshing, as though I’d hardly been away at all. Time really does fly by when you’re having fun, though you don’t seem to notice it at the time. Graphics is still going well, and still by far the most stressful experience I put myself through three times a week. It’s less a class and feels more like an army camp sometimes - with the teachers there to help out, but mostly to give you a lecture on how you’re not keeping up and should drop the course. It’s not happened to me yet, but I always take that sort of thing right to heart. When the teacher comes over to check how much progress I’ve made my heart rate always quadruples to the point that I nervously try to show every single little thing I’ve done over the holidays to prove I’m not a slacker - to which is always responded with “Doing good then” then a swift move onto someone else. Breath out. Hopefully it’ll soon come to a point where we’re trusted to be getting on with it for longer periods of time, but in fairness I probably wouldn’t get an awful lot done if that was the case. Hard to believe it’s already been 7 weeks at my new school. Maybe I am having fun and time is flying by, I’m just not prepared to admit it to myself.

But, until next time,
Rock On.
-Louis

I was asked to pack lightly when visiting Copenhagen, and found I could fit almost all of my essentials into my small messenger bag - unfortunately this did not include my graphics tablet, which is my excuse for not doing comic this week. It would have been a shame to pack a whole new suitcase and wait in line, not only to check the bag in, but stand around waiting for it to arrive on those conveyor belts. There’s something really cool about jumping off from the plane, leaving the airport and jumping onto the train.

So far it’s been good fun, we’ve walked around the town and given a few things a good look. One thing that really stands out is the number of people on bikes. Seriously, for every person walking there must have been two or three people on bikes. All along the walls are bikes just leaning against it, hundreds upon hundreds - virtual none of them locked to anything either. It’s understandable why - every single road has a separate, elevated lane for bikes. As someone who’s recently turned to commuting to school on a bike everyday I felt like I was in bike heaven. To think there’s a place out there where you can hop on your bike in your own lane and not get cars deliberately revving their engines to make a point of how slow you’re going, or people walking directly down the very middle of a pedestrian/cycle lane at a pace that could kill a shark. Still, I’m not patient enough to learn danish.

We visited a tower that had something like 400 steps, 150 of which were at the very top and outside, which was vertigo hell. It was very reassuring as well that the door into the door had a sign that read “Visit at your own risk” - I don’t want to be responsible for myself sometimes, I want to know I can sue them. The highlight so far would have to be “Christiana”, which is essentially a hippie enclosure that the government haven’t interfered with since the 70s. Anyone can visit so long as you abide by their 3 rules; have fun, don’t run and don’t take photos. I’m guessing you can’t run because everyone is so laid back, and underneath “don’t take photos” read “Buying and selling hash is still illegal”. The streets were lined with rundown, but makeshift homes with bright graffiti everywhere, amongst which were market stands quite happily dishing out cannabis. Everywhere you were you could either smell grass, see someone walking past puffing a massive toke or see a fairly regular person walking out of a house rather quickly zipping up a pocket. The whole place was as shady as it was brilliantly colourful, as our tour guide explained it was full of “artists, eccentrics and business people” - only now do I see exactly what “business” these people deal with.

Funny stuff!

So today I decided to give the very latest James Bond movie a swing, especially since it was released today and I wanted to get in on the action. It got pretty good reviews and I was very excited to relive the good old, back-to-basics Bond-action. I really enjoyed Casino Royale, it was engaging on almost every level and had lots of turns in the story and made it feel very original - with reviews for Skyfall being pretty top I thought there was nothing to lose.

The movie starts off almost immediately into action, which is always fun, and lead smoothly into one of those animation, arty intros all the bond films have. This one was particularly good and really got me in the mood; lots of suave shots of bond shooting and not short of kaleidoscopic clips of curvey women and guns. There was one really cool bit where bond was in like this ancient ruin with a massive pendulum (or something I can’t really remember) and Bond looks all confused and starts shooting at his own shadows - that was awesome; really arty.

And then the film starts. It had all the great conventions you need; the femme-fatale, awesome gadgets, Bond extracting bullets from himself. Technically the film did everything right, but whilst watching it I just couldn’t help but feel it was missing something, and I’m still not too sure what it was. I think I just enjoyed the classy setting of a casino in Casino Royale, whereas there isn’t an awful lot classy about Skyfall. Important settings feel very derelict, even MI6 is looking rundown - it just doesn’t feel right sometimes. The Casino felt so right, with all the posh looking people throwing away money, drinking expensive wines - Skyfall pretty much had none of that. Most importantly, however, is the villain. As I’ve made clear when reviewing Dark Night Rises - the villain does a lot for me when watching the movie. The villain is the whole drive of the film, most protagonists are the same, but antagonists can almost be anything. I actually thought the villain in Skyfall was really well set up - played by Javier Bardem who I mostly know from No Country For Old Men (a favourite of mine), and plays perplexing madmen that you often can’t figure out incredibly well. I enjoy that unpredictability in villains, it keeps things fresh. Yet whilst the villain had so much potential, it felt mostly wasted. His motive for doing what he does is nothing interesting at all in that all he wants to do is kill one person that happens to be quite close to James Bond. I like the idea more a huge plot devised by some evil mastermind yet the one, brave man just gets in the way - which I think is why Die Hard works so well. In Casino Royale also there was the whole thing of having to beat the villain at poker which was awesome - there was something really cool about watching him lose the game - even though it didn’t have much to do with the plot, it meant everything to him (winning poker), and seeing that crumble before him was a cool plot device.

There was also one scene, and I’m going to say SPOILER WARNING here, but it really doesn’t matter - where the villain in Skyfall says something like “Look what you’ve done to me” and pulls out this denture out his mouth, that also had somekind of bone thing to support his face, and in doing so makes half of his face look stretched and sagged, one of his eyes look bloodshot and zombie like and his top teeth all gone except for the odd sharp yellowish ones. It was a really scary appearance, but then he puts the denture back in and you NEVER see it again. I was thinking that towards the end, in the epic fight between him and Bond, the denture would fall out and Bond would no longer be fighting a man, but a monster - or something cool like that. But no, never looked at again - wasted opportunity there.

Overall though I enjoyed it, I know I’ve been ranting a lot but I just want to get a few things off my chest about the film. The action scenes were clever, tight and well choreographed and even though the film is over 2 hours long, I never looked at my watch once - I was engaged all the way through. It was a bit of fun at the end of the day, nothing greatly thought provoking, but some down-to-earth great action which isn’t so easy to do.

I’m feeling a light 7/10 here.

That’s me done, have a good weekend, if you haven’t seen yesterday’s comic, check it out here:
http://carrotcakestudios.co.uk/comics/bamboozled/21.html

And I’ll see you on Monday (granted I have internet)
-Louis

Teachers have been laying on the homework lately as it’s the last week of term, and next week they want to do all the essay marking to get grades and what-not to us after the week off. I’ve never typed so many 700-1,000 word essays in my life since I started the 6th form, it almost feels odd if there isn’t one to write in the evenings. My band are also releasing our lead single from our LP on the 5th of November and we’ve been doing all sorts of preparation for it this week, recording acoustic b-sides and most prominently filming a music video which we’ll have finish filming tomorrow. It’s a fun little song that’s quite light-hearted, which if it’s your cup of tea, you might enjoy.

What this is all leading up to, unfortunately, is that - no - I have not yet done this weeks comic. Even tonight I’m off to see the movie “Untouchable” (or Intouchable as it’s called in the US, which I’m pretty sure isn’t a word) that’s meant to be rather good. But what’s tomorrow? The last day of school! So you can have my word that I’ll do the comic tomorrow, and if I don’t it’s out of pure laziness on my behalf.

Next week I’m off to Denmark for the week to chill, but I’m told we have Wifi. I’ll make sure that Monday brings a comic, as best I can anyways. If the Wifi has been struck by lightening or something it might be a little more difficult.

Good stuff. Rock on and everything.
-Louis

…this week’s comic will be here tomorrow since for English literature I have to write an essay on The Axe Helve by Robert Frost. I just read it and… well… let’s just say it’s quite a poem.