Another random update to say I'm still here, and still beading away! The London Film & Comic Con is creeping up and I'm attempting to make as close to 3 days' worth of art as I can. My thinking is this: I took about 80 items to the London Gaming Market, so I should aim to take 240 items to the Comic Con... not going to happen, but it's good to have a target!! I've been away on a course with work this week, but fear not, I brought my beads so have been using every spare minute of downtime to produce sprites. 

Here are some of the sprites I've produced since Sunday night:

There are about 8 more not in the pic, and my to do list has many more on it too. I won't get them all done, but my output for this week is already looking prolific! I'm not looking forward to framing them all next week however...

Another thing I've done this week is create a couple of time lapse videos of me working on a couple of sprites. I've even added music to them and everything! The first one I did was a Captain America NES sprite:

I used the Hyperlapse app to film the video, then added the music in a free program (Videopad) on my Mac. I was surprised how easy it was to edit. 

Emboldened by my first attempt, I then filmed me making a bigger sprite, and I also added title cards and a screen at the end showing my social media info. Enjoy!

Now time for some hard earned rest after so much beading!

It's been a busy few weeks in the Cave - most of my energy has been focussed on creating enough artwork to take to the London Gaming Market yesterday. I ended up with 81 items to sell, and it was the first time I used my new gridwall display system.

The gridwall really helped show off my art and gave me a good way of displaying the bigger pieces. I'm considering getting a second one to go with it and expand my display space even more.

As usual the smaller pieces sold best, although quite a few larger ones went too. All of the Sonics, Marios and Links went quickly - I really need to make more of them for next time! All in all I sold 51 of the 81 items, and it was my most successful market to date!

So what else have I made lately? Here's a little gallery:

As you can see, my box art collection has had a few new entries! I also finished off the Streets of Rage 2 arcade picture I mentioned last time, and it was the first picture I sold on Sunday, going to another stall worker before doors even opened!

I have been working on a couple of commissions too - Sakura from Street Fighter and some Pokemon badges. I had to do a lot of research for the badges as I missed the whole Pokemon craze (think I was a little too old at the time).

My next push is to get as many film and comic related items completed before the London Film & Comic Con at the end of this month. I have about 30 items ready, but as it's a 3 day event I'd like to have 3 times as many items as usual! Probably not going to happen, so I've just got to get as much done as humanly possible - may require a few days off work to concentrate on it! Anyway, I have managed to get these movie-themed pieces done in the last couple of weeks, hopefully they'll go down well:

And lastly, I started an Atari 2600 Empire Strikes Back picture last week... well it didn't go to plan. What started out as a 30x40cm piece turned into a 21x30cm piece when the beads refused to cooperate during the ironing process. Somehow they just kept coming away from each other until it was impossible to fix - there were gaps and beads that didn't line up... I just couldn't leave it as it was, the quality was too poor for me to want to put it on display and try and sell. So I salvaged what I could, and now it's just a picture of an AT-AT walker, rather than the whole scene:

It could have been worse, but it's not as sweet as the full scene it started out as. However, I plan to remake it in full again, and vow to pay more attention to the ironing, so that the same mishap doesn't happen again!