The BBQ, the cat, and the tesco value burgers...

The stray cat that Louise befriended...

Sup,

We just came in from the outside, it's started raining, we've been having a barbecue. Louise befriended a stray cat called baggypussy...? We all ate Tesco value sausages and burgers... still not convinced that you can call them meat products. Here are the pictures and a video of the cat... enjoy...

Adel and the cat

Louise and the cat (click to enlarge)

Me, trying to cook...
Cat, Adel, Louise and Emily

Louise...

Enjoy...

@BenGP02

Slung Low - Day 5 - Characterisation, props and costume calls

Sup,

I've only been around for the first half of the day because in the afternoon I've been running round trying to find a deckchair, so I've not got a great deal to report.

I started this morning watching Lucy Hind running a characterisation workshop session. Was great to see the principles getting to grips with the script and seeing some of the characters coming to life.

Also took the chance to take down some really good notes and ideas for my own workshops :)

Noelia working on 'Joy'

Here's a quick video of the guys working on the final scene from 'The Great Bear'.




That's it now untill tuesday because I can't make tomorrow's rehearsal. Shame, guess thats what happens when you work two jobs on a Saturday!

Find out more about Slung Low by clicking here!

Follow me on Twitter @BenGP02

Slung Low - Day 4 - Routes, characters and script work

Sup,

Day four has come to an end and everything is starting to come together nicely. While most of us spent this morning continuing to create the images and props from yesterday, I spent my morning (with some help of course) gluing and sticking scripts, figuring out routes, and marking when and where each different event/ image is going to happen along each route.

Golden items from 'Joy'

Making boxes

Cardboard clothes

Building the oil rig

The afternoon saw everyone splitting up to really concentrate on either characters, costumes, or moving to other groups to help out with their images.

I spent my time going through the 'Joy' script with Noelia, who will be playing Joy. Gonna run a short characterisation workshop session tomorrow with all the guys who are playing the main parts.

Not much else to report from today. All the guys have been working really hard and seem to be really enjoying the Slung Low experiance.

To find out more about Slung Low, check the website here.

Follow me on Twitter! @BenGP02

Slung Low - Day 3 - The Great Bear

Lucy Hind giving pep talk

Sup,

Today has been a day of research, continuing working with 'The Great Bear'. Keeping our work away from the script as much as possible, we've been looking at some of the main themes presented in the piece and the ways that we can find images in these themes and present them to the audience.

The themes were:

• Crossing the ocean / nautical stuff
• Gambling
• Ash
• The element of chance

Research

We got some nice interesting ideas thrown about. Gambling with life, addictions, fish and chip stands, Zeus, lightning strikes, and burnt down homes.

Got to see an experiment with the realistic human ash I was working on yesterday. It's amazing how quickly these guys have worked, and the effort put in is crazy. For the chef to look as though he is dissolving into ash, the techie folks have come up with a genius method involving filing tights with the 'ash'. I know the video is on one side, but you'll get the idea.



Afternoon saw the majority of groups getting down to work building things. Check the pictures.

Making a shark fin

Making a 'wind swept' umberella

Alan making another phone call...

More ash

Cardboard clothing

For more info on Slung Low, check the website. Click here.

Follow me on Twitter! @BenGP02

Real G - latest pictures

Sup,

Here are the latest pictures of the Real G project development. Got a proper view of the chest piece and some nice close ups of the legs. It's gigantic. Can't wait for its completion.

The chest piece is twice the size of that van. It's a crazy kind of awesome. God bless Bandai!
For my other posts about the Real G project click here.

And don't forget, we still got the Gundam Unicorn to come. 2009 is a good year.

@BenGP02

Slung Low - Day 2 - realistic human ash and oil rigs...

Sup,

Day two and I'm assisting Lucy Hind, the amazing dance and movement director, as they continue to work on one third of 'Last Seen'.

'The Great Bear' is a tale about a man called Dixie, reflecting on his life, regretting most of it and trying to buy some time before his death... i think... either that or he is dead from the start and the person speaking to the audience is the ghost of Dixie... (I've only managed to read the script once...)

Either way at the end he finally manages to free his soul. This is represented by the ashes of Dixie being released from a suitcase. Potentially an extremely moving scene.

Because (I think) the University of Huddersfield would frown on us using real human ashes, (haha! I'm talking like we could actually get some. lulz) we had to find a way of making some. After talk and experimentation we found a solution. Apparently, a mixture of flour, black powder paint, chalk, and bran flakes looks remarkably like burnt human ash... I know you can't tell very well form the picture but trust me, it really does.


Anyways, this Dixie fella lived on an oil rig so I spent my afternoon helping out a group research oil rigs and figuring out different ways of making one that can fit into a canal. It's gonna involve some Blue Peter style skills! Baking trays, ribena boxes, fairy liquid bottles and paint. Can't go wrong.

Unfortunately I've not had time to take any pictures except the one above, but as soon as we start making stuff, which will probably be tomorrow I'm gonna try get video clips and pictures of rehearsals.

Now that I've read two of the three scripts I'm starting to understand how the three routes are going to affect one another. Can't wait for tomorrow, working with Richard Warburton's group on the third piece.

Should be fun.

Check out Slung Low's web site here.

Follow me on Twitter @BenGP02

Slung Low - Day 1

Sup,

Working with the Bradford based performance company 'Slung Low' is an amazing experience. I should know, I did it last year.

Well I've come back for a second helping, but this time I'm being a part of the 'creative team', so I won't actually be taking part in the actual performance, rather assisting the 'group directors'.

Awesome stuff.

Company director Alan Lane gave his usual pep-talk, introducing his 'crew' of creative geniuses, this year consisting of Lucy Hind, Richard Warburton, Ben Eaton, and.... and.... meh, I forget. Will find out tomorrow. For individual biographies of company members, click here.

Edit: Matt Angove and Heather Fenoughty are the other team members.

Unlike previous years, Slung Low arrived with a three scripts already prepared which all intertwine, cross over and weave in and out of each other. The show will be called 'Last Seen', and involves a show being hijacked by a character who makes sure the unheard stories are heard. I won't give away any more... there's nothing worse than knowing the ending to something.

I spent the day in Ben Eaton's group, helping out the group with ideas and reading through one of the three scripts, picking it apart and finding it's flaws. We trekked over the campus, looked for interesting places to make work and what places we would be able to relate back to the script.

Exciting stuff.

Don't know what group I'll be with tomorrow, but I'm gonna take some photos so you can see the sort of things we're getting up to.

Check out Slung Low on their website.

Follow me on twitter! @BenGP02

Real G: Latest developments

Sup,

Just a quick post to update you all in the developments of the Real G project. For my last post about Real G, click here.

Real G is acctually starting to look fantastic. Both legs are now finished.





They've even started work on the arms!


Looks amazing. What a way to celebrate 30 years of Gundam. Genius.

BenGP02

Infinite Undiscovery - Infinitely Unimpressed

Sup,

The last RPG I played properly was Eternal Sonata on the XBox360. That was ages ago, and I loved it. So when I went into town thinking to myself, 'Hey, you now what, I might buy an RPG today', I thought that a game by RPG legend 'SquareEnix' would just do the trick.

Oh how wrong I was.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for trying something new, I really am, but... nah... just nah... It was one of the few times that I've been suckered in by pretty box art, and a recommendation from the shopkeep.

In a nutshell: The 'Order of Chains' are evil and for some reason they have chained the moon to the Earth. Some pansy called Capelle has been imprisoned by the Order because he bears a remarkable resemblance to the leader of the rebellion, whose name I forget. Capelle also plays the flute (which has magic qualities), and is quite good at using a sword. You are rescued from prison by this lass from the rebellion because shes dumb and can't tell the difference between you and the rebel leader, a person whom she is close to. She is thick.

When I think of games I've played, and enjoyed, in the past, I've always had my attention grabbed from the word go. And that's what a game should do, from the second you press start you should not want to put the controller down. Let me think, what games have done this... Bioshock, Prey, Okami, Morrowind, Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy, Skies of Arcadia, to name but-a-seven.

For example...

• Bioshock (360): you survive a plane crash in the middle of the ocean, only to discover an underwater city... within the first 10 minutes of gameplay...

• Prey (PC): After bludgeoning two drunks with a wrench, you, your grandfather, your girlfriend, and your pub are abducted by aliens... within the first 10 minutes of gameplay..

• Skies of Arcadia (DC): You and your band of 'air pirates' attack and board a flying air ship, only to be attacked by a giant mechanical bull... within the first 10 minutes of gameplay...

In the first 10 minutes of Infinite Undiscovery, I sat through some god awful cut-scene, only to be given some bat-shit stupid battle system explanation, then i get chased up some stairs by an oger with dumb woman getting in the way and helping me to fall to the floor dead every second.

Just nah.

On my way to the first village I'm attacked by a dragon. No explanation as to why I'm being attacked mind, I'm just being attacked and knocked down before I have a chance to get up on my feet. Annoyance.

So I get to the first village and I'm met by those god damn token annoying kids that every RPG seems to have these days. I didn't play for much longer. After the first dungeon I was all done with this game. No more. Swiftly traded it in for Chrome Hounds, some mecha game i've not got round to playing yet.

This game is shocking. The graphics are bad, the dubbing is horrific and the gameplay is fucking balls. Just don't, your money is better spent on used bin liners.

Follow me on Twitter! @BenGP02

Tomino interview and Duke Nukem: Forever gameplay footage!!!

Sup,

The beginnings of an interview with Yoshiyuki Tomino. Click here to view the full interview. You have to install some media player though, which sucks. I didn't bother watching the full thing, it's in Japanese, a language I don't speak and probably never will. That's why subtitles were invented, a thing that this clip is lacking. Cool though... If a subbed version comes around, which I doubt, I'll post it. Check out the Zaku2 stood next to the presenter - that's what I call awesome.


Watch Gundam SP part2: Tomino Yoshiyuki long interview in Anime | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

You remember Duke Nukem on DOS? Then Duke Nukem 3D by 3D Realms? Remember the announcement of Duke Nukem: Forever THIRTEEN YEARS AGO?!?!?!?!?! Well 3D Realms recently went bust, but this gameplay footage has been leaked. Take2 games currently hold the license to the franchise, so hopefully they'll carry on it's development. It acctually looks pretty good.



Twitter: @BenGP02

Final Fantasy 10 AMV

Sup,

Speaking of discovering lost stuff (see previous post), check out this AMV (anime music video) I made ages ago. Like, I think I was 17, maybe... The quality isn't all that, but meh, I think it's pretty cool.



Enjoy!

BenGP02

4ft papercraft Freedom-G

Sup,

I love it when I find awesome things I'd forgotten about. I just stumbled across this gem in my bookmarks. paperkraft.net is a blogger site for anything made out of paper and some of the things are pretty damn impressive.

For example, the speeder bike from Return of the Jedi, Chi and Freya from Chobits, and Manny Calavera from the game Grim Fandango.

However, the video below blew me away. A four foot paperkraft of the Freedom Gundam from Gundam Seed. Insane. Just the shear size of the thing is out of this world. Hope you find it as impressive as I did.

Freedom Gundam - 4 foot papercraft from Taras Lesko on Vimeo.

FREEDOM GUNDAM! LAUNCHING!

BenGP02

Project 'Real G' - this thing is huge

Sup Y'all,

A while back now it was announced that as a part of the Gundam 30th year celebrations, a gigantic 1:1 scale (59ft) model of the original RX-78-2 Gundam is going to be built on Odaiba Island in Japan. It is called the 'Real-G' project. The original concept art had me drooling.

Concept art

Now, a few months later, the project is well underway and it is truly MASSIVE. Why don't I live in Japan? Why God WHY!!!

The massive leg struts

Leg struts with armour

Chest plate

Gundam is also going to be sporting a 'Tokyo 2016' badge on its right shoulder to aid Tokyo in its bid to host the 2016 Olympic games. 'Real G' will be completed mid-July. It already looks awesome. I want one in my garden.Concept models with Olympic logo

@BenGP02 - Follow me on Twitter!

Pictures courtesy of www.akiba-station.com and www.bouncingredball.com

Aura Battler Dunbine

Sup,

Just finnished watching Aura Battler Dunbine. An anime from 1983 by Yoshiyuki Tomino. It's been 49 episodes of hard, yet rewarding slog. Here are my thoughts.

There are two worlds, ours, the 'Upper Earth' and Byston Well. Both are joined by the 'Aura Road'. Creatures known as 'Silkies' are made to open the 'Aura Gate' by the evil Drake Luft, the ruler of some country who is bent on total domination. Once the Aura Road is opened, humans from Earth are taken against their will to Byston Well. Drake trains them to become the pilots of giant insect like mechs called Aura Battlers, which are powered by humans 'aura' or life power. Aura Battlers are made by Shot Weapon, a mechanic also from Upper Earth. Show Zama, the series protagonist, is taken from his home in Japan and becomes and Aura fighter for Drake. After meeting with the young rebel 'Marvel Frozen', an American who was also taken to become an aura fighter, he is convinced that Drake is up to no good and subsequently he changes sides. Taking with him his Aura Battler, the Dunbine, he joins the band of rebels to fight against Drake, and find himself a way home.

The series starts slow and is slightly confusing. In the first episode, Show Zama, Todd Guinness and some other guy are essentially kidnapped and not one of them seem to be that bothered. Admittedly they get kidnapped and given a mech, but if that was me, i'd be raging. There's not a chance that i'd join some dude's army if i'd just been kidnapped.

After Show Zama joins the rebels, around episode 5 or 6, the show starts to pick up speed. The battles get more intense and the story becomes real easy to follow. The rebels made me laugh. There leader is Neil Given, an Irish guy with ridiculous pink hair and a ridiculously stereotypical Irish accent. I mean this guy tries to be the hard man, he really does try, but nah, with hair like that your just gonna make yourself look like a fool. A thing he does on many occasions. He looks stupid, he sounds stupid.

And speaking of sounding stupid, in the later half of the series, the battle for Byston Well begins to gets pretty epic and goes to Upper Earth. The battle involves all the major countries of the Earth joining forces with the good guys. Around episode 35 - 40, Princess El goes and requests aid from the Queen of England. I've never heard a more stupid sounding stereotypical English accent. I half expected her to jump onto a penny-farthing shouting 'EH WHAT? JOLLY GOOD SHOW OLD BOY! PIP PIP I SAY!', amusing though.

Dunbine reminds me of Gundam, which isn't surprising as it was made by the same guy. It was released two years before Zeta Gundam and at the time was tipped as being 'the new Gundam'. It wasn't, but the similarities are all there.

• Aura Battlers - Mobile Suits
• Aura Power - Newtype telekinesis
• Zelana warship - The Argama (Zeta Gundam)
  
• Burn Bunnings - Chronicle Asher (V-Gundam)

Does it matter if I give spoilers? Meh, its 26 years old, I doubt it matters. The series ends in good old Tomino fashion, a huge battle with both side throwing everything at each other.

The last two episodes are genius and make up for all the bad episodes. There is almost more main character deaths than Victory Gundam. I really didn't expect this many deaths. More unexpected than when Misato dies in End of Evangelion. Absolutely EVERYONE dies. All the goodies, all the baddies, all of them dead. It's really bad, Emily gets shot in the face, Marvel dies without Show telling her he loves her, Neil kills Drake then gets his battler shot in the back and Show gets stabbed jumping from his battler into Burn Bunnings cockpit.

This series is occasionally slow and in places the dubbing is terrible, but believe me, episode 48 and 49 are more than enough compensation. The animation looks extremely dated but hey, what do expect from a series that's almost 30 years old. The story is massive. A war that gets so huge its envelopes two entire worlds. Epic stuff.

Aura Battler Dunbine may look old but it is totally rewarding in the end. If you like Gundam, or any kind of mech show, then I highly recomend checking it out.

Follow me on Twitter @BenGP02

Robot boxing...

Sup,

Check this video. Its a 'boxing' tournament with robots. Reminds me of G Gundam.

The robots are 'piloted' by remote controls operated by their creators. Apparently these sort of tournaments are becoming increasingly popular in Japan.



GUNDAM FIGHT! READY! GO!

@BenGP02

Repition is a good thing - Dynasty Warriors: Gundam2

Sup,

Right, so i'm about a week into Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2 and admittedly i've not given it the attention that I should of. What! I've been busy... But somehow i've managed to squeeze a good few hours of game play into my hectic schedule and so far, so good. If you've not played it yet, there's a trailer here.


Yea, ok, so basically it's exactly the same as the first game, you take control of a mobile suit, button bash through hoards of enemy mobile suits and try to conquer the enemy 'fields' or zones. Complete whatever objectives the mission requires and defeat the boss suit to achieve a 'mission complete'.

The first game had its problems, and I was happy to find that they have been fixed. The short boost times have been extended, you can now jump higher and in a direction, combos are easier to pull off and link together and the levels are HUGE. Seriously, these levels are massive and the detail is pretty awesome. You can now also now customise your mobile suit by collecting parts acquired from defeating enemies.


One of the most noticeable change is the amount of playable characters and mobile suits available to use. Pilots and suits from First Gundam, Zeta, ZZ, Char's Counterattack, F91, V-Gundam, Turn A, Wing, and Seed Destiny, with probably more unlockables just made the game for me, and i'm only about 3 hours into it.

The suits and characters are awesome, but I don't think I could finish without mentioning the boss fights. The DW:G1 saw you fighting 'field commanders' who either came in the form of slightly tougher grunt suits, or an enemy character suit. DW:G2 has kept this as the standard 'boss' fight but now includes the gigantic 'mobile armour's'. So far I've only completed Amuro Ray's 'official mode' story line which follows the story of Amuro in the original 0079 series. I got to fight the 'Big Zam' mobile armour. Got my ass handed to me on a silver platter several times. Didn't care, I was fighting the Big Zam. The only other games I've fought the Big Zam in was 'Federation vs Zeon' on the PS2, and both the 'Battle Assault' games on the PSX. I've yet to meet the Psycho Gundam.



Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2 is a re-release of DW:G1 but without the problems, and to be honest, the first game didn't have that many faults. This instalment looks and feels smoother and slicker. It's repetitive but hell, who cares! What game isn't? Only one complaint, where's the Japanese voice overs? The first game had them :(

Hack and slash gaming with Gundams, simple, addictive and fun. Plus, I bought a HDMI cable. EVERYTHING is sweeter in HD, even Gundam.


Thanks for reading. follow me on Twitter!
@BenGP02