Journal

University admission
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My mum reminded me of a letter than came through today and I decided to check it out, it was rather confusing but I knew it was from UCAS, a UK organisation in connection with a university I wanted to do a course on 'Games Art & Design' for next year.

Eventually I gave it to mum, reading the letter properly to tell me that I had succeeded in my only entry into the Norwich school of Art & design for fun days of fulfilment in drawing and making video games. On a unconditional basis no less, which means so long as I reply before a certain date I'm in regardless.

All those scrabbled days of finding old artwork and rushing them into a portfolio paid off, fortunately an art-teacher and my other student-help teachers were there to help me prepare said portfolio. And my strangely enough, my mother banning me from all internet access until it was done had some perks, I was able to finally focus on some artwork for once instead of being drawn into cheap thrills.

Something tells me next year is going to be a very productive year, I might even upload artwork more than once a lifetime?
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YMCK ...no, not the colour-plate for printers
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One of my friends introduced me to the nostalgic world of modern chip-tunes a week or so ago, apparently there is this J-band called YMCK who's songs are entirely played out in simulated 8-bit chip-tunes, similar to what the original Nintendo or Atari might have played.

The songs were bouncy and upbeat just according to taste, and somehow despite the lyrics being all Japanese and non-understandable, I couldn't help but listen to them over and over again on Youtube. I'm usually the guy who's not into J-music because of said non-understandable lyrics but the whole musical genre allows me to tone out the vocals, they're a nice band!

Their music videos also take on a nostalgia, all rendered with 8-bit similar graphics. Some utilising some rather advanced mode7 manipulation, it fits the music fantastically. If any of you passers-by are curious, just try searching 'YMCK' into Youtube and you should be able to find some of their songs there.

Lastly it seems that one of the band members had made a synthesiser plug-in called the 'Magical 8-bit plugin', it gives AudioUnit/VSTi compatible music composer software the ability to emulate primitive sound-waves to create your own 8-bit chip-tunes, just in case you're curious and musically adept.
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The Colosseum
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I was interested to hear from my recently renewed friendship with *ConnerCoon that he was going to enter a kind of original-character tournament called and hosted by *TheColosseum. For those who aren't aware what an 'OC Tournament' is about, it's a kind of art-battle of people's characters in, you guessed it, a Colosseum.

Since the final date for collecting 'articipants' is the 30th of May, I've decided I'd give it a shot and complete with my main character, Mark Jerry. I'll have to look into the rulings a bit more but it looks I could have a partner compete alongside me, but anyway.

I wanted to try out an OC tournament ever since I saw something called the Winter something.., unfortunately character entries was too far-gone for me to compete. Fortunately not only will I have time to enter, I'll be able to fight knowing someone in there likes me, my good friend *ConnerCoon! :> See you there mate!