The Great Spring Whiteout

Happy Easter to all you readers, whether you had an Easter egg hunt or not.

Indeed, March has been and gone, and normally winter would go with it, except this year it's had other ideas. While this year isn't the first time there's been cold temperatures and snow in March, it's still took most people by surprise, especially considering that this time last year there was some great weather. And all things considered, in my area we were relatively lucky compared to other areas of the country - I saw pictures of 10 foot high snow drifts on the news, scenes normally associated with December, January and February. It can't last though, here's hoping that April will see some warmer temperatures (and more than likely lots of rain).

I'm still on that "work programme" that I started back in October, however there's been a change - instead of it being a drop-in and check up appointment, it's now a group training session for 2 hours on a Wednesday afternoon, once a fortnight. I've had to go on worse and longer such courses in the past, so it's really the best case scenario as far as that goes. Just wish one or two of the others on that course would quit reminding everyone constantly how much everything sucks.

Had some internet issues as well, me and my brother's internet router decided to give up the ghost, so we had to wait about a week for a new one to come through the post. We were still able to get online though, thanks to our next-door neighbours letting us use their internet, many thanks to them for that, we owe them one.

On a lighter note, I decided to take the plunge and get myself an eBay account, along with making my first purchase on it, a model plane (for the plane fans, it's a KLM McDonnell-Douglas MD-11). Whether or not I'll ever sell anything on eBay remains to be seen, though I do have a few things I want to get rid of.

My first eBay buy, a model KLM MD-11 plane

Another purchase I'll have to make is a new camcorder - my current one's record button no longer works, thanks to me dropping it one too many times.

Last but not least, me and Nicole have now been together for 6 months, can't believe those months have gone by so quick, let alone the 10-11 years that we've actually known each other for. Still looking forward to seeing her again in June, it needs to get here already.

As always, I'll leave you with some artwork, this commission piece I did for a cool cartoon artist and a recent new online buddy, Doctormetadragon on deviantART - go take a look at his works, especially his "The Show Goes On" comic:

"If We Should Spend the Night Out" - characters © Wiley Bottcher (doctormetadragon.deviantart.com)

February 2013

For me, February means two things for me: cold winter weather, and the yuck-fest that is Valentine's Day, which I've made my feelings very clear about in the past - however this year's Valentine's was ever so slightly different due to the fact that I actually had a Valentine for the first time in 4 years, the lovely Nicky of course. We both sent each other a box full of slushy romantic stuff, as you do. The dinner date will have to wait though. :P

My feelings on Valentine's are still the same though - it's all commercialised. You have all year to show someone you love them, why does it have to be that one day?

Aside from the slushy stuff, I also did something I normally don't do this month, I took a trip to the cinema, only my third time in total - the first time was in summer 2006, when I went to see "Cars", followed by summer 2011 when I went to see "Cars 2". (See a pattern here?) I think it's canny obvious that the only kind of films I'm interested in seeing at the flicks are those of the animated sort.
On this occasion it was "Wreck-It Ralph" I saw, just didn't want to wait for it to come out on DVD, and I'm glad I didn't, because it was a blast. If you get the chance, please go see it, especially if you like your gaming. My brother also saw it, and being a gamer himself, he loved it.

And now for the bad news - I mentioned that as part of my US trip this summer I was going to try and get Comic Con passes for myself and Nicky. Mission failure I'm afraid - I was in the right place at the right time on the sale day, but it seems the Comic Con site couldn't cope with the amount of people logging in to get passes, and loads of people got locked out of the queue, myself included, so I was unable to get passes. There will be a resale of returned passes at some point, but I've decided not to bother taking part, which means me and Nicky will not be going to Comic Con this summer. There is a reason for this, though - may be going somewhere else instead.

And now, time to leave you with some artwork - and it's a slushy one.

 My Valentine's pic for this year - dedicated to Nicky.

January 2013

Well, here we are in 2013 - new year indeed, but so far it's been more or less business as usual, apart from the recent deluge of snow here in the UK - last winter was much milder compared to this one, that's for sure.
I want to apologise for last month's blog, I was in a low place when I wrote it, thinking too much about stuff, which is a bad habit of mine. I won't lie though, I'm still worried about stuff, but I've tried my best to not dwell on it - those hurdles I'll have to deal with once I get to them.
January, of course, is my birthday month - turned 27 on the 7th, and so far it feels about the same. Then again, I say that pretty much every birthday. Me and my brother (who also turned 27 the same day) celebrated with our annual "Birthday Bowling" match at the Metrocentre - neither of us won, our friend Sean came from nowhere and took the match right at the death.
Bought a bit of music as well - the albums "www.pitchshifter.com" by Pitchshifter, "Dysfunction" by Staind, "Finelines" by My Vitriol and the much-awaited new album by Biffy Clyro, "Opposites" - however if I had to pick a favourite out of those, it would be "Finelines".
Aside from my birthday, another big thing happened for me this month - I booked my flights for this summer's trip to the US. They cost me £565, but it could have ended up more expensive than that. It'll be worth it though - I'll be flying out on June 23, and coming back on August 5. The next 5 months need to just fly by in a flash.

As always, here's a bit of artwork to end proceedings: 

"Cereal Killers: Nectar Nuggets" - my entry for TopperHay's art jam on deviantART.

Year's end

So another year's gone. 

It's safe to say that 2012 has been memorable for me, with plenty of ups and plenty of downs - with this being the first full year of me and my brother living in our own place there were times this year where things got too much, especially with the whole arrears situation at the start of the year, and of course my continued failure to find a job. Can't forget what seemed to be an endless deluge of rain for a month or two, either.

There's been good times too, though - the numerous times me and Chris hit the quasar at South Shields with friends; me getting out for my long hikes up the Deerness Valley Way and enjoying the sun and the countryside; hitting the beach at Tynemouth in the summer, plus watching the aerial action at the Sunderland Airshow. Can't forget about this year being the year that the Olympics were held in this country too, even though I didn't watch much of it.
However, for me this year has had one clear highlight - two awesome weeks at the end of May when my long-time friend Nicole from Connecticut in the US flew over to visit, just like I'd visited her the previous year. The weather was beautiful for those 2 weeks, and we made the most of it, seeing the sights and most of all being together - it was the push that made me realise that I needed her in my life as more than a friend.

I have to mention the festive season too - went to Christmas Eve mass with my grandma as I always do every year, it was a nice service, and it just felt like for that whole hour or so we were there that the outside world just disappeared.
Christmas Day was good too - I only asked for one present, but of course I ended up getting far more, from family, friends and Nicole. I also sent out quite a few presents and cards to family and friends. Me and my brother also had a nice quiet dinner, chat and telly at our grandma's house too.
Boxing Day was also good, spent the day at our grandma's house again, only this time a few of the rest of the family were there, along with a buffet, some music and a very animated game of Bop It - all in all, it was a good Christmas.

However I'm not going to sugarcoat anything, not even at this time of year. It's always the same, the festive season gets you feeling all warm and fuzzy and upbeat, only for the new year to come along and break it at the neck without any warning. 
I can't say that I'm really feeling very positive about 2013 - I have no job, the chances of getting one seem to get worse every year, with all the cuts the government are making plus the price of everything going up in April I'm worried about how I'm going to be able to afford the flat etc, not to mention the fact that I'm still hoping to fly back over to the US in the summer, and that stuff like that could wreck it and/or any other future plans I might have.
And then there are other things - stuff that's going on in my family that just really get me down, stuff that I'm not going to discuss here.

All the same - wherever you are, whatever you're doing, I wish everyone all the best for the New Year.

Snow Sam

With it being winter, and the festive season just about out of the way, I think it's time I said a bit about the backstory behind one of my many cartoon creations - I'll cover the rest at some point, but right now, I'm going to concentrate on my walking, talking snowman character Snow Sam. (tagline - "Move over Frosty, there's a new snowman in town")

A couple of things inspired this character - the first was when I walked into a post office in Durham in winter 2005, and saw a little snowman toy for sale, at a reduced price. Couldn't resist, so I snapped it up.

 The snowman toy bought from the Post Office

As well as that, both the song and the character "Frosty the Snowman" had a hand in it as well - and while the sketch of the character was originally intended to just be a seasonal one-off, I found myself wanting to try out a comic strip with a walking, talking snowman, and it didn't take me long to give him a name - I chose "Snow Sam" because it sounded similar to "snowman".

  The very first picture of Snow Sam, from December 2005

Snow Sam was officially created on 15 December 2005, and his first comic was created on 16 December 2005. Keeping in mind Frosty the Snowman, I decided to make him a friendly and cheerful, yet sort of "anti-Frosty" character who likes to take a grounded yet humourous view of life as a snowman, and everyday things around him - he's never short of a witty remark or two.

Sam's not alone in his comics - in Snow Sam Comic #2 I introduced his clumsy, baseball cap-wearing fellow snowman friend Fred, followed by a more feathered friend in Comic #3, Rosco the Robin. Completing the cast was another snowman, the adventurous and portly George, who I introduced in Comic #6.

Another twist to the Snow Sam artwork and comics is that I mostly only draw and upload them at winter-time (with the odd exception), as the comic is meant to be set in my home country (UK), and of course we usually only get snow during the winter months (again, there have been exceptions), so that's the premise that the comic schedule is based on. It's also so I can have time to work on other comics and artwork, of course.

 The cast of "Snow Sam" (l to r): George, Rosco, Fred, Sam

So there you have it - all you need to know about Snow Sam. If you want to check out his comics and artwork, just point your cursor at one of the links below:

Snow Sam artwork: http://bluebottleflyer.deviantart.com/gallery/949436

Snow Sam comics:  http://bluebottleflyer.deviantart.com/gallery/556370 

Getting chilly

Aye, it really is getting chilly - it's that time of year when Autumn starts to change in Winter, everything gets colder and the heating bills get higher - but it is what it is.
On the jobs front - same old, same old. Many applications, but not one interview. Just got to keep trying though, as always.
Also, this month there were a couple of days where I just had that feeling of "why do I bother" - and it's just stupid little things that set it off, like someone not responding to a picture I made for them on deviantART. Like anytime I feel upset, it starts as one little thing and other little things build up, before it ends up being everything. It soon passes though, as it has.
On a brighter note, remember how I've mentioned leaks for the past couple of months? One leak has finally been fixed - the leak from the bathroom. The council finally decided to come and reseal the bath, as well as ripping out the part of the cracked front room ceiling and replacing it with new cement. No leaks since, and all it needs now is a good painting over. The leak under the sink is still dripping away though.
I've made a start on my Christmas shopping too...however, as it always does, it's coming along at a snail's pace, because I'm in the mindset that I can leave it till "2 weeks till Christmas", which I should know by now is not the way to go about it.
And last but not least, me and Nicole have been together - well, as together as we can be with 5000 miles and the Atlantic separating us - for just over 2 months now. Hopefully the next 7 months will fly by as much as this one has - can't wait for next June.

As always, I'll leave you with a bit of artwork - made this one for an art jam by a good DA friend of mine, Rich (FAC-AgentC on deviantART, go check out his artwork), mixing two things I like, which are cartoons and music:

   "Goof's Art Jam 2012: Musical Bugs"

Leaks, love and Halloween

OK, so I thought it was cold in September - scratch that, it's been colder this month. In fact, cold enough for an early snow shower, which thankfully cleared off as quick as it turned up.
Colder still is the trail of looking for a job - still no luck on that front I'm afraid. Also, I mentioned a lot of leaks in the last blog - they're back again. The leak under the sink has started again, which means I might have to get the washer hose replaced, until then there's a towel and a bowl to collect the leakage. As well as that, a crack's appeared in the ceiling of our front room, the part with the bathroom above it, because of shower water pouring behind the bath seal - the crack's been getting bigger for some time now, but the last straw was when, guess what, it started to leak water into the front room. That's since been remedied by sticking a towel on the seal to stop the water going down, but it still needs fixing properly, and I can bet my last tenner that the council won't fix it.
Anyhow, that's enough about that...in my last blog, I also mentioned that there was an announcement I wanted to make...

Well, here it is.

It's something that's been bubbling under for a long time, but I finally got the guts to make it happen. Nicole, my long-time friend from Connecticut and I are now an item, since September 28. It's been a while since I've been in a relationship, and this is without a doubt the first long distance relationship I've been in, but those aside, it's as simple as this: I love Nicole, she loves me, and neither past relationships or how far away we live from each other are going to get in the way.
So yeah, there it is.

Obviously as I type this, it's almost Halloween, the spooky season. To be honest, in recent years I've found that I prefer the spooky season to another certain festive time of year *coughChristmascough*, despite the fact that it too is also heavily commercialised. I guess it's just because it's darker. 
I've only ever dressed up for Halloween once, and that was as Dracula - but this year I'm going to dress up for it again, well, sort of - you may or may not get to see a pic and video of me all zombified.

As always, I'll leave you with some artwork - and here's a sort of creature you'd normally run away from - but not this fella:

  Bartholomew, a not-so-scary bat

PS: As I type this, the tropical storm Sandy is currently causing chaos in the northeastern US - hope everyone I know over there stays safe.