For years I've wanted to get 'into' Youtube! I follow so many vloggers and I really wanted to have a go myself, but felt really intimidated because I felt I couldn't really offer anything new or unique, so why would anyone care about watching?

Recently, though, I've been introduced to a whole new scene on Youtube that I just didn't know existed until now! There's a huge artist community on Youtube that uses their videos as a place to showcase their work, talk about how they create, and connect with other artists! I felt so inspired! It's a community I can jump right into and it gives me motivation to create new art as well! I still want to vlog and do some 'my nerdy lifestyle' videos, but it's really nice to have a niche to get started with!

Now I'm brimming with inspiration, I want to blow the dust off my channel and start using it again with some actual direction! Here are my two newest art videos, both video game inspired marker pieces, and both include rambling commentary by yours truly!

I'm still learning and tweaking of course, but I'm super happy with how they've come out considering I'm throwing myself into this blind! I'm really keen to watch this channel grow and for the first time I actually genuinely think I'll keep it up! I'm not only going to post art videos, here are some things you can expect to see on my channel in time!:

• art! digital and real media, with lots of silly commentary along the way!
• convention prep and other tips and tricks for selling art at cons (I wish wish more videos about this existed when I started selling!)
• 'behind the scenes' at conventions, setting up a dealer's table and what to expect as a dealer (plus, a chance to see MCM Expo before the doors open!)
• art challenges and tags (3-marker-challenge, blindfold challenge, etc!)
• lifestyle vlogs, including convention reports, random nerdy adventures, cosplay and, of course, simple things like book hauls, reviews and slice-of-life moments!
• maybe even a little gaming and nerdy fashion!

While not everything may be directly art related, I can guarantee it will all be nerdy in some way! If did decide to do a fashion video, for example, it's more likely to be cosplay or Disney-bounding than high street fashion, haha.

If any of that sounds remotely appealing to you, please do check my channel out and subscribe! I'm really excited for this new venture and I really can't wait to share it all with you! With 2016 just around the corner, I can't wait to see what next year brings!

I've been meaning to take part in The Nerdy Girlie's 'Five Fandom Friday' for ages now, so when I read today's topic I thought I'd jump right in! I've been in love with fandom ever since I got online a hundred years ago. It gets a lot of flack sometimes, and it causes a lot of drama and heartache, but when a community is created out of sheer passion for a subject matter, of course emotions run high. Fandom is home to some of the greatest creativity I've known, and full of the most interesting, intelligent, strong willed and dynamic people I've ever met.

Sonic The Hedgehog
Or... specifically, I suppose, Sonic the Comic, the comic that ran in the UK from 1993 to 2002. As a kid, I was obsessed with Sonic the Hedgehog. I had all the consoles, all the games, and my room was decorated in about every piece of merchandise you could imagine. I collected everything, from cans and crisp packets featuring Sonic and his buddies, to books, posters, ornaments and bubble bath. I actually still have it all in various boxes up in the attic, because I can't bear to part with any of it.

My favourite of the whole bunch, though, was Sonic the Comic. For a time, it was one of the best selling comics in the UK and I was obsessed. STC made me realise how badly I wanted to draw for a living. I wrote to the artists and the writers behind the comic, asking for advice on how to get into the industry. When we finally got the internet, Sonic the Hedgehog was one of the first things I looked up, and I eventually discovered a whole mailing list dedicated to other fans of Sonic the Comic, and so many of them were around my age, with similar dreams of creating comics for a living. The most awesome thing is that I'm still pretty good friends with a whole bunch of people I met there! And what's even more crazy is that almost every one of us has a job in the video game or creative industry now. STC was the first thing that made me sit down and decide what I wanted to do for a living, and even though I took a very long time to get there (and, heck, I'm still working on it!), I'm so, so thankful for that initial spark. Sonic the Hedgehog as a fandom and a franchise has kind of gone down the drain a whole bunch since its height in the 1990s, but I'll always be thankful to the blue guy for giving me a kick-ass childhood, an amazing set of friends, and a dream I knew could very much be a reality.

Starsky & Hutch
These guys! While I'd been involved in several fandoms over the years, S&H was pretty much the fandom that really exploded for me. When the (pretty awful!) movie came out starring Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson, my Mum and I went to see it because she'd been a fan of the cop duo in her younger days. She then suggested that I should give the original series a try and boy was I hooked! The buddycop dynamic was at its very best, the guys were, let's face it, pretty darn cute, and it was cheesy as heck. It was great fun!

Starsky & Hutch had a large, old fandom, full of people older than me, who had been in love with it since its original run in the 1970s. I should have felt intimidated, jumping into such an established fandom, but they were all so welcoming and sweet. I actually got so involved with this fandom that I flew out to America twice to attend two different S&H-centric conventions (SHarecon and Zebracon), and I had an absolute blast! It was also the very first time I sold art at a convention, winning an award for one of my silly fanart pieces, which made me realise that, hey, maybe selling at conventions could very much be a thing and, well, you guys know where that went. Thanks, S&H Fandom!

Doctor Who
Ah, the RTD days of Doctor Who. I never thought I'd miss it, but as the series goes on, I really do miss the harmless, stupid, emotional days of David Tennant and Billie Piper.

I never watched Who as a kid, and when the series got its reboot in 2005 I came in completely fresh. I enjoyed the show a lot, but it was only when Tennant took over as the Doctor that it really kicked into gear, for me. I absolutely adore the Doctor/Rose relationship, it's still my ultimate ship, haha. I got involved in the fandom, writing fanfic and drawing some fanart, until my buddy Luke and I came up with the idea of making an intentionally dumb, silly webcomic poking fun at the oft-emotional state of Tennant's Doctor (I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.) Working on 'Worst of the Time Lords' was one of my favourite times. It got very popular and we had tremendous support from so many fabulous people. It was the first time I felt like my artistic endeavours were actually really, truly, valued, by a community that enjoyed and cared about our creation. I dropped the ball on it at the end, something I deeply regret now, and I'm very keen to actively get involved in something like it again, because it was incredible being a part of something like that.

Doomsday still makes me cry like a baby.

My Little Pony
My first 'fandom', this is the 'lifer'. My Little Pony was my childhood toy, my kiddy obsession, my first favourite anything. I was a child of the 1980s and My Little Pony was everywhere. My parents bought me hundreds throughout my childhood, and I was spoilt with the larger playsets every Christmas. As a kid, I wrote my own stories about the ponies and drew so much pony art (funny how these things go in circles, huh?)

When our school got the internet installed (before it was a regular household thing, crikey I'm old), My Little Pony was one of the first things I looked up, in a spark of nostalgia. There, I found a whole community of collectors who were now grown up, like me, and who still loved their childhood ponies. I discovered forums and places to chat to other like-minded people. I'd thought I was a little weird for still hanging onto my ponies like a collection (not that I'd ever once had the thought of selling them, mind), but the sheer amount of other adults who had done just that was so inspiring. I joined forums and chatrooms and made a bunch of friends, many of whom I'm still good friends with now! When UK Ponycon took wing, I went along and found a whole community of new friends. Obviously, the fandom has exploded again with the new 'Friendship is Magic' series and I've met some wonderful people through this new, younger community, but I'll always be super thankful to the original pony fandom that gave me so many friends (and so many ponies!)

The Furry Fandom
I actually had a hard time trying to decide which final fandom I was most thankful for, but as I wrote up above about signing online for the very first time and finding other Sonic fans or other My Little Pony collectors, it immediately came to me. Every fandom here has been linked by one thing, really, and that's its impact on me as an artist, and where I am now as a person. As a child, I drew all the time (far more than I draw now, sadly!), but I only ever, ever drew animals, or animal people. If it wasn't The Lion King, the Animals of Farthing Wood or Balto, it was my own creations, my own animal characters doing their own crazy things. I didn't really think anything of it, I just far preferred drawing and worldbuilding around animals to people. Heck, all the books I read were animal stories (Redwall, Duncton Wood, Farthing Wood), and all the movies and shows I loved featured animals as the main protagonists, too. It was only natural that my own stories and art would be all animals, all the time.

I remember very, very clearly, the moment I found 'furry' art online. I found Yerf, which was a gallery dedicated to quality and clean furry artwork, and I found other artists who draw animal people, and I was blown away. I was actually so excited to find other people who drew animals all the danged time, I ran home and told Mum all about it. I was just so  excited - I could carry on drawing animal people, and enter competitions and take commissions and join galleries and it was just so so inspiring. Some of the art and technical skill of the artists in the fandom was outstanding, and I don't think anything has pushed me so hard as an artist as that community has over the years. I'm incredibly thankful for that.

Wow guys! It's been a while! I'm so sorry! The past few months (specifically August, September and especially October) have all been so, so busy I just couldn't find time to sit down and catch up! With November here, I'm finally free! I've got some awesome new plans for blogging in the new year (including finally uploading videos to my long neglected Youtube channel!) so I think it's about time I finally blew the dust off this place and caught everyone up!

Way back in August, the last thing I blogged about here was Kitacon! That same week, Moose and I had tickets to go to 'Secret Cinema'. For those who don't know, Secret Cinema is a whole immersive experience based around a particular film. In the past, they've featured Back to the Future, The Shawshank Redemption and Casablanca. This year, they did Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Moose wanted to go the second he heard about it, but to my shame, I'd never seen Star Wars! I know, I know.

Anyway, he scored tickets for his birthday, and it was incredible! I made sure to watch 'A New Hope' before, and I gotta say I can think of worse ways to watch 'The Empire Strikes Back' for the first time ever! The whole evening was brilliant! Secret Cinema assign you an ID and a role (Moose and I were both 'Galactic Explorers') and tell you a time and place to meet. You're given a dress code, and a pop-up shop in London provided us accurate props and accessories. We went to the meeting point and were directed into a huge building where the fun began! We were being smuggled off Earth, and ended up on Tatooine. We were given tasks and things to do as Galactic Explorers (barter for spices, get droid parts, etc.) but it was also just lovely wondering around and taking in the atmosphere! We bought some drinks ('droid oil', illegal and smuggled), grabbed some food and avoided roaming Jawas. We took a lesson from a real life Jedi, met Luke Skywalker's  Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru, and bartered for illegal spices. The actors were all perfectly on point! As the evening went on, Stormtrooper presence increased. Scuffles broke out between rebels and The Galactic Empire. After a quick drink in the Cantina, it was time to leave. We traded in our spices for a ticket on board the ship that was going to take us on board the Death Star. We were about to infiltrate!

From there, actors replayed the very end of the first movie, and we were a part of it, jeering and gasping as Obi fell to the ground, and cheering with genuine elation as a freaking live size X-Wing flew over and Luke Skywalker stepped out. The whole event was absolultely incredible, and I really can't express how immersive it really was! There were times when I really didn't know how I should react - I was torn between getting deeply into character and taking everything very seriously when the arguments broke out between the rebels and the Empire, or just laughing and smiling like an idiot and enjoying the moment! Serious props to the actors, they were all so perfect and never once broke character. Here's a nice write-up with some photos (cameras and phones weren't allowed inside) that captures it better than I can!