Comics/ Manga Style

 

Doing comics is a quite recent thing for me.  But had been cartooning and doing single panel cartoons for decades.  Have a collection of my original comics/ manga to download for free.  

It was reading all of "Valerian and Lareline" by writer Pierre Christin and artist Jean-Claude Mézières and the 6 volumes of the amazing "Orbital" by writer Sylvain Runberg and artist Serge Pellé, that set me off wanting to try something along those lines in 2017. Some 8 years ago now.  My Terraform is that work, but what I discovered doing that is drawing the same fairly realistic character over and over, and making it color, actually isn't my thing. It took about 3 months to do 15 pages on parts of the weekends. 

I love Masamune Shirow's APPLESEED and GHOST IN THE SHELL, but that isn't the style of thing I would want to draw myself, knowing how long it takes. Complicated action scenes with complicated characters and machines.  Otomo Katsuhiro the same deal. Inspiring but not what I want to do myself.

I always considered drawing my first and longest love, but my career in engineering and software development with a large focus on reuse and not wasting time has lead me to a different approach and style. 

More like Mizuki Shigeru. Simple reusable characters on complicated backgrounds. The way Flash vector animation was done.  Toriyama Akira's Dr Slump is closer to my approach. Jokes are also important to me. It has to be funny, at least a bit. Life is far too serious without it.

I don't mind drawing something complicated once, like a background, or reusable set piece but to do it over and over, slightly different, just awakens my engineering brain that says "that is too inefficient and a waste of time, do it differently, make it a subroutine".

So I have. I make a series of reusable characters and parts for a comic, so a character doesn't have to be redrawn all the time.  Having characters mostly standing and talking helps a lot too. Can't leave out the influence of AMERICAN SPLENDOR there either.  I have had little to do with your standard MARVEL or DC American comics, SUPERMAN, BATMEN etc. The closest being a few issues of SPAWN around when the movie came out. So material about doing comic lettering the American way, is of zero interest to me, and it just seems Japanese MANGA is just so totally different in that regard anyway.  Upper case only text just seems so illiterate to me. 

I have used NARRATIVE CAPTIONS a lot too in my comics. Very effective for me.

I recently re-watched the 1966 surfing documentary THE ENDLESS SUMMER.  Filmed in color in soundless 16mm, the documentary relies heavy on the comedic entertaining narration and music added in post production.  When he initially travelled around showing his film, he played records while he talked live.   So the narration is captivating as it was worked out during many live performances.   

So my own comic/ manga style comes out of my approach to just doing things, and not wanting to draw the same thing over and over again. 

Music + Comics is also something I have worked on for a few years now that I find fulfilling.

Getting an Idea, Making it, Recording it, Improving it, then Listening to the music Out and About. Simple Things that make me a Happy Camper:

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Kyoto to Nagoya and back for お墓参りby Car

 

Yesterday was the yearly trip for お墓参り ( お はかまいり,  O hakamairi). For the last 6 years we went by train and bus, but this year my sister-in-law (SIL) thought renting a car and having our son drive would be fun/interesting/cheaper.

So we drove to Peace Park, cleaned up the graves and left offerings to great grandparents.

A very peaceful place, and we got the last of the good weather before the unbearable heat sets in.

The trip by car on the expressway is a much longer rougher ride than by train and bus. I don't want to do that again.  

SIL had rented a Toyota AQUA Hybrid ( a PRIUS sized 5 door hatchback), which is bigger than our Keicar, but a compact car in the rest of the world. 

Had lunch at a rest stop on the expressway coming back. So many trucks and cars and we got one of the last car parking spaces. 

Over 2 hours by car each way,  6 hours total, and I wasn't even driving and was exhausted from being shaken for most of it.

The Kyoto - Nagoya trip uses a couple of different expressways, but there is little to see. Lots of long tunnels through mountains, lots of valleys cut through small mountains with supporting walls each side of the expressway, lots of walled in sections to keep the truck & car noise in when going through more populated areas, and brief sections of construction or villages or forest. The video shows pretty much it for the 2 plus hours in a minute+.

The music was first time using 8 string guitar with the POD Express Black in Reaper. Drums, 2 guitar parts and ambient synthesizer.  Lots of Valhalla DSP Delay, Space Modulator and Supermassive.

The video is pretty much a reason to use the music in something.  

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Me, Myself & I with a POD Express Black

 

27 seconds of 2B pencil, watercolor, fun and learning my new POD Express Black.  This is the look I did for The Guru Pilgrimage,  that I will probably do a few more of. Fast to draw, no inking, splosh some watercolor around and your done. The cute/ wonky shapes let you get away with a lot. I will probably redo that drum kit though. Love the look of SIMMONS, but that is also something I probably need to stay away from.

 Still to come to grips with BIAS, SAG and other amp controls, but that is all part of the fun.

Since I started recording I have used a distortion pedal into the ADC, then applied a cabinet in REAPER.  I have tried a few, mixing it up sometimes, but always found the Line6 UBER METAL to mostly be the best for me. And it is some 18 years old! The POD EXPRESS BLACK has amp models and cabinets and the above clip is using the POD with a cabinet.

I have effects turned off though, and reverb, chorus, flanging and delay are added in REAPER during the mix.

All the go now is a NANO CORTEX or HX STOMP like devices.  Mattias at his FREAK GUITAR WEEKEND uses 3 patches in a HX STOMP for his sound straight to the PA.

A HX STOMP would be nice, but that unit is about twice what I paid for my most expensive Ibanez RG guitar a few years ago. The cost, and my use of it as a distortion pedal just doesn't make sense to me, as a hobbyist granddad in his home studio, making music for myself that only 3 others will hear.  Unless it is used in a YouTube short, then maybe 250 will.

Some 12 months ago BOSS released their IR2 amp/Cabinet pedal and I was interested in getting that. Watched all the reviews, saw the price of Sweetwater etc, and........... it wasn't for sale in Japan.. yet. So I waited. It took some 12 months or so before it was available here. At which time I had seen it wasn't quite what I was after.  I am really only interested in Metal tones, which the BOSS has the opposite focus on.

I then noticed the recent POD EXPRESS BLACK. Now that is my thing, focusing on METAL tones. The price was right, and available.

So that is where we are now.  The unit can store 21 presets, which is 21 more than the pedals I have do, and means I can came up with 2 or 3 sounds I will actually use. It also has a PC editor, which is so much easier than using the units knobs and buttons.  

It is a power hunger device though, and needs a 500mA 9VDC adapter but runs on batteries too. So after playing with it a bit , I ordered the adapter, as that is far cheaper long term.

This drummer animation works better in a different improv jam with a different preset using the inbuilt cabinet:

Of course the riffs and licks in the above animations are the same old boring things I automatically play, and I need to focus on expanding my musical vocabulary, so I have something new to say musically.

BUT, part of it all is just for my own mental well being, and being a Happy Camper:

And changing topic slightly...

I watched Rick Beato's "what I learned visiting Asia" this morning. Unfortunately, he got distracted by messages coming in when he live streamed and was asked about Atlanta Music shops then talked about that way too long 😖 

What he learnt was music is still big in Japan and Korea. Playing it, Making it, seeing it live, Having places to go to see it performed that aren't stadiums or theaters. So much live music in Japan from overseas touring musicians, that don't bother to visit Atlanta, or anywhere else any more.  Music Stores are all around Asia. Lots of people play guitar in all genres in Japan and it isn't all dead or dying like America is.  

The decay in America isn't universal, but Australia is similar, for the same reasons, related to the destruction of "the middle class" through all kinds of now several decades old policies which favor rich corporations and the super rich. 

When I was at university in Australia, the pubs everywhere had bands several nights a week. But sometime during my time in Japan, 1987 ~2001, all the Pub stages were removed and replaced by Poker Machines, and Australian live band music "pretty much" died. Between 2005 and 2015, 80% of music stores closed around where I lived in Sydney.  Billy Hydes Music, Dicksons Music, Venue Music, Farrells Music all gone.  Just MALL MUSIC Dee Why  and Turramurra Music left when I left the country.

I am glad to be living in Kyoto, Japan at this time. 

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Knowing Where You Are...

 

Knowing Where You Are, in the sense of your creative life, as well as that other till the end one.

The above is a DJ MIX project of this years, currently 29, music tracks. I update it every time I release a new one or do a music+comic. Mostly just trims out long end reverbs. That is better for on the train and walking around noisy shopping malls or sitting in Cafes. 

Recently read of an American who said he doesn't listen to music out and about or in Cafes now as he needs to be aware of a random shooter or other such thing now.  I am in Japan, and that is a non consideration! 😀 I know where I live.

The DJ MIX project is currently 1 hour 7 minutes worth of music rendered out as a single track with consistent levels.  I listen to this fairly often out and about when someone else's music hasn't grabbed my attention.

I mostly forget it is my own stuff and can evaluate it without attachment. I quite like most of this. Hear the mistakes in some of it, but have an it is what it is attitude to it. Sometimes I think of what I should do next track, like some shred like solo or more metal band like guitar chorus.  

The tracks I put on Bandcamp have 1 to 3 listens for the majority, so I don't do this for any audience.  Having a better mix, or mastering or even more popular genre isn't going to increase the audience, when the only promotion I do is to the same few acquaintances that read this blog or my social media posts.

All for my own entertainment, doing what I like, and I don't want to hear from the mass market, or niche genre creeps.  They will have no interest in what I do, and I am not any kind of wannabe celebrity after their attention.  The majority of  social media accounts with large numbers of followers are not my thing at all.

I went to Mattias's FREAK GUITAR CAMP in OSAKA 2025, for inspiration to add something to new stuff I do. I don't particularly care to just play his course tracks like he does though.  Some new musical vocabulary for myself is all I am after.

I told him I love what you do. Which I do, but it isn't all what I want to do though.

And knowing I am a retired grandad, much nearer the end of my life and not a young dude trying to make his way as a guitar Rockstar, makes me much more laid back about it all.  I do have a sense I have to make stuff while I can, before ill health, or just an injury, makes it difficult or impossible.

I listened to a clip from an interview of an American guy recently retired to Japan who said that if his wife died before him, he would move back to his home country.  Had similar talks with wife and sister-in-law, and I am in Japan till my end, even if alone.  There is no attraction to my "home country" to decide otherwise, even if the bureaucratic paperwork on my own would be a pain in Japan.  

My Sister-in-law and Wife are going away for a 3 day, 2 night, trip to a place they grew up from early tomorrow. I will be here with just the 2 cats, which isn't alone at all. They are indoor cats, so spend all their time close by. They talk to me a lot, and one is my constant companion.  I am not the kind of person that doesn't want to be "alone". Cats allowing it, I will get on with various music and art projects and interests.

And there is this too:

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

A Freak Fairy Tale, a true story of WARBLE & CLUKK: 2B pencil & watercolor

 

A Freak Fairy Tale, a true story of WARBLE & CLUKK in watercolor & nonsense in the style of a child's picture book. Based on the FREAK GUITAR WEEKEND in Osaka 2025 I attended in May with the wonderful Mattias Eklundh.

Why would you do that?

It is for my own entertainment. I admit it is a bit silly, and not going to be understandable for someone who didn't attend, or have my approach to things, but is something I wanted to do in the last few days. I was waiting for a customer to get back to me about the latest concept I sent off for a crane shirt design, and it rained most of the week, so going out and sitting in a café wasn't on.

It explains the FREAK GUITAR WEEKEND, without actually giving away too much. There is clapping out KONNAKOL, getting confused, listening to guitar exercises disguised as strange music, and philosophy and approaches to creative music and life.  There is so much material in the booklet we received for guitar boldly going. I also wasn't going to just reproduce that material, but refer to it in an obscure way, like Clukk being a made up word for rhythm, among others. 

2B Pencil and Watercolor?

For the longest time I have had 2 of Hayao Miyazaki's Military Vehicles/Airplane pencil and watercolor illustrated/comic books. Day Dream Data Notes and The Wind Rises. Day Dream has illustrations of tanks, subs, boats, planes and all the crews are pigs, and that "cute" look is part of what I was after too.

I wanted to do something loose along those lines, and last Sunday went out and bought some medium rough watercolor paper and the Japanese brush Miyazaki recommends,

to go along with the watercolor paints and pallet I already have. I did a series of watercolors about 10 years ago, so watercolor isn't actually new to me.

I also discovered that the initial 30 page treatment for LILO & STITCH, that I only just watched as it was the Friday Night TV movie here, was all watercolor illustrations, and just love the look he achieved with that pitch book.

The attraction of watercolor is it is such an uncontrolled medium compared to the vector illustrations I do. A complete change from most of what I do. And just doing the lines in a 2B pencil and leaving them rough and uncleaned up, leaves out all that time consuming cleanup and inking process.

And that is what I was going to do, except a week ago I did this, and painted the alien in Clip Studio Paint using the watercolor brushes it has, and loved the process and result. Fast too!

And didn't have to muck around with water, and the fear of knocking it over in the studio.

So a few days ago I started making notes and sketches in a comics notebook I keep and used my NEXT DIMENSION style characters, as they are just so easy to draw in 2B pencil without working lines, and can still be very expressive.

I also wanted to do a Dungeons & Dragons-ish map in the first panel related to my trip to the Sound Messe  from Kyoto to the ATC Hall Osaka.  Lots of changing train and platforms, and lots of stairs for a granddad carrying a guitar.

So I did a test page yesterday, very like page 1 here. I downloaded font BLAMBOT Ashcan as being perfect for this.  The font is wonky, and has lower case letters and so goes well with the do it in one take, a bit wonky 2B pencil drawings. This style is so I don't have to do any working lines and use an eraser. I did put the crowd scenes together in Photoshop though before painting them in CSP. Even Syd Mead did that.

This Freaky Tale is only 4 pages, and took about a day to think about and do. Leaves space for more stories if I want to do that, such as on the actual guitar exhibits and the like.  Or something derived from this.  

I have A5 Clear files I put a copy of my comics in. This one now has a larger font, so that at A5 size, I can read it without taking my glasses off, which is what I have to do to read the few years older page on the left here. I really do these for myself, like my music and MUSIC+COMICS.

My post Sound Messe Osaka 2025: May 10 Saturday is a different take on it all.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Intelligent Life

 

The Universe is such an enormous place. Filled with trillions of galaxies and yet to be determined structures.

Our own Galaxy is just the one, that we know has some intelligent life. Us.  At least some of us.

And after decades, one of our Voyager probes only recently left our own Solar System.  It is estimated it will take another 40,000 years to reach another star system.

We, our science and engineering may still just be too primitive, but our current understanding is going fast enough to travel galactic distances in a fraction of a human life time is "impossible".  

Don't know what technology will exist in 100,000 years though. But pretty sure humans as we are today will have evolved into something else. Evolution has not stopped.

There must be so much Intelligent Life out there though...  

This is, maybe, the 3rd or 4th time I have done one of these on this subject. I expect it isn't the last either.  

And we bought a One By WACOM (R) to replace our now dead MEDIUM INTUOS WACOM (L) Tablet.

I was surprised to find the active area is the same size as the old one, or close enough it doesn't matter to me. The old one had buttons and you could use your fingers to rotate the display, but I hated that stuff and never used them and had finger control turned off.

The new one doesn't have that stuff and I don't care, and will not miss it. The old one has 4096 levels of pressure and the new one "only" 2048.   

From a quick test, I didn't notice any difference for pen pressure. I don't draw on tablet though, or VERY rarely. I find it very uncomfortable. I do my drawing with pencil/pen on paper then scan that.  I only use the tablet to edit scanned pencil line work sometimes, and the rest is airbrush color.  Select size of brush and fade, then set 8% or 14% pressure and built up the color slowly, for digital painting stuff, like the alien above.  

I had planned to color this guy with watercolors. But with other things going on yesterday, I stuck to Photoshop color, based around rendering clouds.

Edit: 2025/6/11 So powered up my older Clip Studio Paint and tried the watercolor brushes there with the tablet.

Been a few years since I touched CSP and don't remember touching their watercolor features before. I Need practice in the different brush effects, but they are giving a lovely effect! Love the splotchy watercolor look achieved here, and much prefer the color selector and features here over my old Photoshop. 

Indeed, Intelligent Life is a very rare thing, social media shows that very clearly...

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

A Powered USB HUB

Had a few devices plugged into a ELCOM USB powered hub a few months back. 

The WACOM Medium INTUOS Tablet and Logitech HD WEBCAM and the hub don't function any more and there was a smell of burning electronics, that I couldn't locate at the time.

The Wacom was 15+ years old, the WEBCAM was 2+ years and the USB hub 3 months.  Did the hub die killing the rest? These things are supposed to be over voltage and current protected, but I couldn't prove anything without some fancy electronic investigation that I am not equipped to do any more.

I bought the webcam to do stop frame animation a few years ago, as this more expensive model had manual controls required for exposure and focus. But I hadn't used it for over 12 months, and don't care to do any more in the foreseeable future.  I have another 720p webcam, that I have used just once being interviewed. 

I used the Wacom for coloring digital paintings but haven't done one for 3 years or so now. I may have to replace it, or maybe I don't.  At least not today, as I use a mouse for all my CorelDraw illustration work.

The hub? If I replace it, it wouldn't be a brand that just puts its brand on just anything made in China.   

I noticed the hub had failed as my mouse was plugged into it, and  it stopped working while I was using it after lunch one day after using the machine all day, a few weeks ago. The mouse wasn't damaged though, and I plugged it into a passive port I had and I  continued working.  It was then I found the webcam dead. It wasn't till today I discovered the Wacom was dead.

The inconveniences of modern tech art life. 

It isn't that I can't afford to replace them, it is I probably don't need to. The other thing is you can't replace them with the one you had, as that model isn't made any more. 

The ONE By Wacom reviews doesn't make it out to be as good, but it is a bit smaller, which is good for my small working space, and not expensive at 7,700yen, about half what my previous model cost. This will be my 3rd Wacom tablet. What I will do now is not keep everything I don't use very often plugged in all the time.  

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Mid 2025, and has AI changed it all? And Other Thoughts.

 

Almost half way through the year, and have had fewer freelance illustration gigs than have had for the last fair few years. Not that that matters any more to me. I have lots of my own trips, music, animation and comics to fill my time with.  

Maybe I have finally, really, retired?

I think there are a few reasons for this. 

1. Googles change from a search engine to an advertisement delivery platform, means no one can find anything any more.

2. Googles AI search front end makes up replies and doesn't direct people to websites any more.

3. People are probably now trying AI to generate their logos rather than than paying an illustrator/graphic designer.

4. Google is constantly making up new excuses why the webpages that have been indexed for  the last 17 years don't comply any more.

5. I expect with the new ANALYTICS requirement that site visitors have to agree to the tracking or not, and me just making ALL pages DENY TRACKING without asking the user at all, get  down ranked in search.  

I can see from our website stats that visits are way down for people actively looking at logo and illustration samples, and the SPAM email for Improve your SEO with AI is now way, WAY up. 

There is also so much AI generated waffling junk on YouTube and Websites the usefulness of the internet has been greatly diminished for the majority.  Nothing I can do about any of that.

The other thing now seems to be everybody else has a YouTube channel, podcast and livestreams all the time.  

It has been a problem for awhile that real information that should have been a paragraph on a website, probably on Reddit at the moment, or blog, has become a 30minute video, of most meaningless waffle.  But that is the general problem with Social Media. So much noise with so little value, but enough for the uncritical masses.  And everyone is like that sometimes.  

All distractions. 

To come up with your own original stuff, you need to be away from engagement distractions. Just thinking.  I suggest instrumental music doesn't harm and doesn't distract in the same way.

Got to say traditional commercial media is terrible too:

Always with the spin.

But recent good news has been that both Canada and Australia rejected Fascism in their elections. Good to see. Despite the Murdoch owned media in Australia saying in the lead up it was a sure thing the Fascists will have any easy victory! 

I am our cats human. Not the other way round. And for him we made a trip yesterday afternoon to the other side of the tracks, near SUMINODO Station Osaka as that is where the best cat groomer we have found is now working, after being local for years. An hour trip each way. Our cat had developed a rather nasty clump of tangled fur, in his very long coat he could not clean up himself and we couldn't cut off, so we decided he needed a short cut for summer, as we had done previously. Most places only trim dogs, not cats. 

SUMINODO is an area that is being redeveloped, that isn't well off. There was a volunteer driven place for free kids meals for down and out families. Very different from where we live.  

We had to wait 2 hours for our cat's cut and wash so walked around the area, then spent some time in a STARBUCKS.  Nearby we later found a Holly’s Café, Doutor Coffee and a Zetteria.  Zetteria is what Lotteria now is.  I found STARBUCKS annoying as the BGM was way too loud and I couldn't hear what my wife was saying. I hate loud BGM, but isn't a problem if I am by myself and have headphones on.  Had the current Mango Frappuccino and stretched out drinking it to almost an hour. A new record for me.  Next time would try another place. I am not a STARBUCKS fan at all. 

Last weeks MY WAY - SEEKERS OF KNOWLEDGE was on 18th generation Taiko drum maker, Yasuo Asano.

How he has updated the product line with traditional, quality improved and new products was fascinating.  A Taiko Troupe is an awesome sound.

Which is now the next musical thing I will try.  A Taiko Troupe Loop and Metal guitar and Synths, like this:

And the track TAIKO METAL is on our Bandcamp page here.

And the short version, that will probably get more views

First use of Gemini AI asking for a similar image to the GROK rubbish above, and it did a much better job. I did add the logo to the big back drum in photoshop though.

Have a small family trip in a couple of weeks to Nagoya, my wife and her sister are going for a small trip to Nagano where they lived for a few years growing up, and I am now looking more intensely at the options to get a Win11 PC before October.  My existing PC is perfectly fine, it just doesn't support Win11 and Win10 support finishes in October.  

I bought DELL PCs online at one time, then later used a, local at the time, PC store to build them, but now it may be easiest to get a locally assembled machine, such as MOUSE or store APPLIED NET.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

MUSIC + COMIC: Masamune Shirow Exhibit

 

So a  #music + #comic  on the overnight trip this week to the exhibition of the artist's THE GHOST IN THE SHELL, APPLESEED and other works.  

I got the over 65 price of 900yen for the exhibit ticket. 

Seeing the manga pages B4 size,  as they were drawn is extra impressive.   

He used a copier a lot in his process, so has scribbled layouts as well as the inked and toned or colored pages were here too. 

Some of the type set text had fallen off the final camera ready pages. I expect a few of those pages were not first generation, even if that is what was printed.

Unusually for such an exhibit, you could photograph everything, as long as you didn't use a flash.  But as Japan doesn't have "fair use" of copyrighted material, you can't just post that all over social media.  I took quite a few hires photos, but not of everything. All artwork is behind glass though means there are reflections on your pictures.

The exhibition is about a 1/4 the size of the YASUHIKO YOSHIKAZU Exhibit I visited in Hyogo last year, but this is vary much more B4 manga art pages.  

It seemed kind of an out of the way quiet museum with lots of trees around everywhere. Maybe Masamune Shirow lives close by?  Seemed a "good area". Quiet. I actually walked past the Museum at first as it is set back from the street and I walked down the right side of the road, and the museum is on the left.

I expected a big building with a big sign on it. Maybe it is, but that is all hidden by the trees that are all along the street from the station.

There was a large merchandise shop that I didn't even notice till I was about to leave as it was separate from the Museum Shop where I bought the exhibit book. The merch shop is to the left before you go up the stairs to the exhibition, whereas the Museum Shop is in front of the stairs, to the left of the main museum entrance.

They date the ticket, and they also give you a small THE CREATIVE WORLD OF MASAMUNE SHIROW card.  The Tickets are dated as you can only enter the Merch Shop on the day of the ticket.

I did have a look at the Merch, but a t-shirt in my size with a design I would actually wear that wasn't way over priced was not to be found. Others were buying handfuls of them though, probably to sell on eBay/Mericari later.  

Overnight stay in Shinjuku, and apart from getting dinner, was just exhausted and just rested to get back home the next day.  Has been 25 years since I last stayed in Shinjuku. 

Used to stay overnight there once or twice a year from around 1994 till 2000, and visit a few places like, a big resin garage kit store, the huge CD store that was there and go to Ikebukuro to visit Tokyo Hands and a foreign books store.  All these things have gone. Seemed more clothing fashion. Also gone is my energy to visit a few places during a stay. Can only manage one now.  But with online shopping, travelling all over the place also isn't required any more.

And today, May 30 2025, they announced the exhibit will be at Shinsaibashi PARCO Osaka Sep 5th - Oct 5th.

This is only about an hour away by train from me. I could visit again.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Trip Tomorrow and Thoughts

A small 2 day trip, and it looks like the weather will be fine "enough". This time last year did a similar trip to Nagoya for Anno and Nagano Exhibitions, but this one actually has work in progress stuff as well, which is a major draw card for me, as is original actual size inked pages. 

Will take about 4 hours to get to The exhibit museum, door door. Will be a long tiring day. 😀

I think I can probably manage 3 hours in the exhibition, and have enough energy to get back to my Hotel in Shinjuku. But maybe not.

Last year I had to sit for quite a while part way through the Anno Exhibition last year, after spending the morning getting to Nagoya and seeing the Nagano Exhibition.  There were a few comfy chairs in front of these figures:

All were "life sized", or what the suit would be for Godzilla, anyway. 

This getting old thing.  Year by year, getting around gets harder, and those afternoon naps get more vital.  

I will find out tomorrow, won't I?

At the Sound Messe a couple of weeks ago I spent maybe 2 hours walking around and the rest sitting in a guitar clinic. Did have a guitar on my back though. Took me about a week to recover.

I wonder how many years it will be before I just decide it is just too hard?  When I am over 70 maybe?

  

Remembering how tired I was in Nagoya afternoon of the first day last year, and after the Messe, has made me rest most of the last week, except for the normal walking I do..

So the practical side of getting older has been on our mind more than I would like.

Still hope to find tomorrows exhibition amazing. It is the only thing I am going to Tokyo for.

 

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Playing With Mistakes Internet Music Video!

 

Being Real

Fake Internet and Instagram guitarists is a recent noise in the Social Media Swamp. People mime playing to a perfect backing track.  Some get caught doing it, one recent Italian guitarist, GIACOMO TURRA,  got found out other ways.

This video isn't like that!  Mistakes and all!   This came up in Mattias's FREAK GUITAR WEEKEND too, where live with your mistakes , they will lead to something interesting, and was better than being fake.

I have been Finger Drumming for some 5 weeks now, so still a beginner. Made huge progress in the first 2 weeks practicing for 10 minutes a few times each day, but still can't do much with my left hand.  Finger Drumming is really hard, and expect many of the videos I have seen on it are faked, or edited together and refined in same way. 

In my video here I made mistakes in my production method, which then made syncing the different parts together, and then finding it all so tedious I didn't bother to get "the perfect take" before doing the next part, which compounded the timing issues.  

This was my first attempt at doing 3 video files all synced to the same final sound file as an  experiment, so "perfect" and releasing it wasn't my original goal.  This is the kind of thing music Vbloggers seem to do all the time, but I think they have more sophisticated video gear to help in the process.  Not just a bottom of the range Android phone. Many fake parts of it too though.

I just used my phones front video camera and recorded the instrument outputs into Reaper, so I could mix the parts together, and sync that with the appropriate takes.

But having to press camera start and Reaper start and stop multiple times is tedious and seems to increase the chance of making a playing mistake somewhere MUCH higher.  Just more things to think about and overload the old wet cpu...

What the camera recorded for the Finger Drumming take is:

What I realize now, of course, is that I should have had my studio monitors on, so there was a sound I could see to sync the final mix too.  Using just the images at 30fps is rather hit and miss in my Vegas Movie Studio Editor.

So all 3 videos have stereo sound that I mute, except for my talking at the start of the drum clip. In each of the videos, it was only the last take I needed, and syncing that up to the final sound visually is just not the way to do it! All tracks were played live, mistakes and all, but the sync is off, so it kind of all looks fake anyway. 

I recorded the drums first, just the sound out of the Yamaha FGDP-30 METAL kit. I then used that as the reference and recorded the 2 guitar parts. The rhythm guitar is out of time for bits, but it is what it is and just adlibbed at the time, and the last take I could be bothered doing.

The mixed Audio from Reaper was then brought back into Movie Studio and I synced them up, until I couldn't be bother futzing around any more. 

Interruptions from the cat, and others, didn't help the calm state of mind I needed. 

It would have looked better if I had mimed the guitar playing to a perfect music track, but that isn't what this was all about.

I started Finger Drumming with an Akai MPD218, but have found the Yamaha FGDP-30 to be so much more sensitive and playable. It is also the best thing to pick up for 5 minutes and practice throughout the day.  Your practicing before your PC based DAW has even loaded.

YouTuber Style

So YouTubers/Instragramers all edit their videos to be perfect right?  So to be one of those, I have made some small changes here to make the guitar parts fit better with the sloppy finger drumming.  I didn't change the finger drumming, just moved the guitar parts to fit better. So the video is now not just as was played. Not sure if you would call it faked though.

So first the rhythm guitar part was moved a little earlier to fit the drums in Reaper. Then the Lead later bit was delayed for the same reason. As can see in the video editor here:

It meant a few frames at the end of the Lead Guitar Part split had to be repeated to fill the gap. That is completely invisible to me. It just made a pause a smidgen longer.

The Rhythm Guitar was advanced a little and that is invisible too.

 And we have put a trimmed version on Bandcamp, with the Bullwinkle reference:

And this more refined as a Music Video THIS TIME FOR SURE:

That should be the end of that!  On to something else...

YouTube shows me a Rhett Shull video recently, where  he identified with being "a maker", and getting inspiration from Adam Savage's book, Every Tool's a Hammer: Life Is What You Make It . 

I wouldn't have expected that, as I kind of thought of him as more of a Country Music Guitarist, which probably isn't fair at all.  But Adam also takes that to mean it is completely fine to dive into your obsessions . 

I consider myself  "a maker", to use that rather recent term.  That people also now mean it to including making anything you are passionate about is fine by me too.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Sound Messe Osaka 2025: May 10 Saturday

 

So I attended Sound Messe Osaka 2025 and 3 of the 4 sessions of Mattias's Freak Guitar Weekend that day.  The clinic was the reason I went. The forecast was for heavy rain. but luckily that cleared up early Saturday morning and went and dropped on Tokyo instead.

It is a 90 minute train trip for me to get there, but that means changing trains 4 times and climbing multiple stair cases to get to the different company train lines.  Made harder carrying a guitar and as the chance I would drop it was higher than normal, I took my oldest and least fussed if it got damaged 1984 MADE IN JAPAN Squire in a well padded carry on your back gigbag I bought some 4 months ago.  And as instructed, a battery operated guitar amp, headphones and tuner.  I have since become a fan of the VOX amPlug2 Metal, even if the 3 effects are way too heavy handed and there is no way to make them a bit more subtle. 

I hadn't noticed the fine print that the show opened at 10:00AM for booth staff, but 11:00AM for the rest of us, so we practiced the Ancient Japanese Art of Waiting Patiently in Line for 40 minutes.

Met a few people and gave out name cards and stickers to almost anyone that I talked with. 😀 I am strange that way!

Don't think of myself as a "guitarist", and don't care to look at all the guitars on show except the now in production FREAK GUITAR LAB Ulvs, took me straight to the ELECTRONIC ZONE Zanshin Booth. 

The Japanese Yen exchange rate is terrible at the moment, but it was still a shock to be told the 7 string made in Sweden Ulv is currently 900,000yen. That was the one I was most interested in, but not for that kind of money. Part of the reason is also the Japanese taxes Zanshin have to pay. 

It was thus interesting to see they are going to make FREAK GUITAR LAB guitars in Japan. This should reduce the cost, speed up  production and maybe have better quality. Japanese guitars are still awesome. The two examples above are the first prototypes and Mattias told me the body shape will be more Super Strat like.  I hope so, as the above doesn't look great to me. I think they should have the same body outline as the Swedish versions even if without the costly beveled edges. Note both of the prototypes didn't have locking nut and trem. But even so, the left TT fret version is some 500,000yen!  TT frets aren't cheap being made in Sweden.  Time will tell if the TT frets will be allowed to be made in Japan too.

Had to get to the Zanshin booth first thing to buy my 5,000yen clinic all day pass and get to the UMERUCUBE.  I then spent most of the day away from the exhibition space, up on 3F at the clinic, in what was a large meeting room. 

And the extra cool thing about that was the toilets were not packed full, and there were a lot of Restaurants to choose to have lunch at. Not like the Exhibition space at all!   

There was a long break between the 2nd and 3rd sessions and that is when I had lunch and visited the Exhibition space of B2F.  RED the Electric Guitars and BLUE, the Tokyo Pedal Show. I ignored Acoustic guitars and the rest except for the ORANGE section of some distributers booth. They had ORANGE CRUSH MINIs on sale for 8,800yen, but I bought one 6 or so years ago for about that price in Sydney. 

There were many performances on 2 main stages, but I didn't attend any of those, and probably the way many attending enjoyed their version of the event. Is that what all the middle aged women were there for? 

Most of the makers had a small stage/demo space in their booth and at around 4:30PM when I got there, there were all playing to be louder than everyone else. IT WAS SO LOUD AND NOISY! Just the kind of space I hate to be in. Most of the companies in the Electric Guitar zone were custom, small makers, with only Ibanez being a big brand. 

I didn't like the noise level at all, so didn't put up with it for too long and left  before 5:00PM, for the 90 minute trip back home. 

Mattias's Freak Guitar Weekend was well worth it to me, even if he spent so long talking and demoing KONNAKOL I really didn't need to have taken a guitar.

Mattias and Tokyo Metal City did give exercises to practice in the hand outs. The FREAK GUITAR WEEKEND 30 page TAB book is great, and he will give us a download link for the backing tracks.  He spent some time using his FLUMMOXED as an example, and that is in the GROW YOUR OWN MUSTACHE Volume 10 I already own.

Mattias prefers single string scale exercises, and the TAB book has an exercise in Lydian, MAY THE FOURTHS BE WITH YOU, that goes through all of them. And this is a practice thing I was playing with that kind of shows my recent, mostly single string with diversions approach.

This is me in my tiny studio, I am recording what I am playing into REAPER listening to the repeating 8 bar backing over my monitors. My SHARP AQUOS mobile phone was in a Ulanzi phone tripod on my desk recording me.  In Vegas Movie Studio I replace the phone sound with what REAPER output.  The scale fret board graphic is something in made in CorelDraw after getting the 8 string trying to work out what I was doing...

Mattias also stressed how important a volume pedal is for him. He uses an indestructible DUNLOP passive volume pedal, around 30,000yen in Japan, which is more than I paid for my Ibanez 7 String guitar! 

I took his advice and bought one mid 2024, the BOSS FV-50H. The H is important as it is the 250k ohm for use with guitar.  Some 6,600yen at the time, and completely fine for my home studio use.

I was pretty much knocked out for much of the next 2 days with sore legs and shoulder. Will do it all again next year, I am sure.

And just before 5PM Wednesday afternoon Japan time, Mattias emailed me the link for the backing tracks, that I have now down loaded. Lots of work here. 

Looking forward to seeing him and Freak Kitchen on stage in September.

But often  practice goes like this:

To get around this constant issue, I bought a music stand to hold the TAB at a height fine for me to stand, so don't need a chair.  I  have guitar straps and strap locks, and have for many years, but have rarely used them. Time to change that. 

Next big trip for me will be to the Setagaya Literary Museum in Tokyo for The World of Masamune Shirow Exhibition. Expected to do that when visit grandson later in the year, but plans change and I should do this before summer really sets in here. Like the last week of May.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology