Mr Edison “E’boy” Laroza

Mum was sifting through some old clothes and she found a couple of dad's late 70's, tailor made blazers. I'll end up either ebaying them but before that I got dad to try them on. The blue number was the jacket that dad wore when he first arrived in England in August 1975.

Mum said that when he she met dad, he would still get his clothes tailor made back home in the Philippines and get them sent to England. She showed me some white flares that dad apparently measured her up for and sent the details back 'home' for the trousers to be made. Either they didn't make clothes that fit the properly or they were just as picky as I am with my clothes! He's not too bothered with fashion anymore, he prefers to be comfy clothes. I wonder how long it will be before I want to just wear 'comfy' clothes... whatever that means!? He's still a cool dude in my books.

Nikon 50mm f/1.8 Series E Lens

Managed to pick up a Nikon FG-20 35mm film SLR with a Nikon 50mm f1:8 Series E lens... which basically means... I CAN USE IT ON MY NIKON! SCORE! I was initially looking at the Nikkor AF prime lenses online but they were coming in at £94.00 on Amazon, which I couldn't really afford. So the camera and lens came at a steal for £10!

This lens makes the d5000 so portable. It does however mean that you have to compose your shots with more thought as it it is a prime lens.

It's definitely an experience using a prime lens, you tend to be skipping back and forth trying to get everything in the picture. Then you have to manually adjust the aperture ring and manual focus using the range finder within the view finder. It's going to take a fare bit of practice... luckily you don't have to pay for film or batteries anymore!

www.anyonebutmefans.com – A WordPress based fansite

Finally finished a fansite for a friend: www.anyonebutmefans.com

"On the 8th of December 2008 a webseries premiered its first episode. Its premise was to introduce ‘a new generation – gay, straight, and ethnically diverse – struggling with identity and modern relationships’."

The site itself is based on a WordPress theme and just tweaked here and there to suite the content. I still have to do a a few video tutorials describing how to use certain features of the site, but after that it should be easily maintained. I know my friend will take great care of it as she loves the show and loves writing. So if you have any time spare on the web have a gander at anyonebutmefans.com.

Go Team Rachael!

My Batcave… what’s yours?

This is where I spend most of my time exploring. We all have our own Batcave... where we solve questions. Or walk around in a mask. What is your Batcave?

First HDR test on Nikon d5000

So I thought... "I have a DSLR now, I better try out Photomatix and some HDR!" Well I didn't say that out loud, but I thought it in my head. Here's a pic of the back garden, with the 3 bracketed exposures.

I liked the saturated colours. I'm definitely going to have to play around more with this! Once I figured out how to the bracketing on the d5000 it was a case uploading and bringing together in Photomatix, which took around 5 minutes. Twas only an experiment, but I really like the results!

Just tried another variant of the same pics:

Jason and his new toy…

So I've always wanted a DSLR and could never afford one. So this summer instead of going on holiday abroad (as I usually do every summer), I decided to invest in one. I had to settle on a budget first or else I would have gone for the Canon 550d or the lower end Canon 500d. Instead I went with the Nikon d5000.

Being new to the DSLR game I had no idea what to expect, but I did go into Jessops and had a play with it. I have had an old 35mm SLR so was used to the manual controls... to a degree, but this is another level as it also has 720p HD capabilities. I like the feel of the camera as it's quite light (in comparison to the Nikon d90) therefore making it more portable and it has a tilt screen. Wasn't sure about the tilt screen... that's until I had a little play. Anyhoo... since last week I've rediscovered my old Flickr account and Vimeo.

Here's a few photos I've taken so far:

And a video I created for a friend of his Supercharged 1330 Rover Mini:

Justin's Supercharged 1330 Mini from Laroza on Vimeo.

I Love Cupcakes… and alloy wheels.

This was something I was working the other day. My friend (Captain-Chants a talented illustrator) and I went window shopping in the West End and had cupcakes so we thought we'd have a little bash at making them in Cinema 4D!

After I put it together, I stuffed it in an Emitter, along with some some cupcake sprinkles and rendered the bad boy up. Pretty happy with it but it did take a long time to render and I can't imagine how long it would take to render as an animation.

Before I did the cupcake I decided on seeing if I could make a realistic model of something. In this case my alloy wheels for my mini. Some people have been asking me to sell it to them so I thought to myself... "Let's see if I can fool them with a 3D rendered image!" So I gave it a go:

Turned out pretty well! Plus I fooled a few people! It'd be so cool if I could just design some wheels and get them made... now that's a thought!

Colab… To be continued.

78 York Street – Freelance

So I re-designed the logos for 78 York St. and also designed their business cards, invites amongst other things. This is what came in the post today!

Chinese Style Dragon

So my friend Tino popped over with his two boys (later followed by his wifey!) He brought over a little drawing that he wanted to get vectored out for his Mum's B&B in Blackpool for Chinese Takeway that they offer. Tino has always been good at drawing and brought this sketch:

Click to enlarge images:

Then I took it into Illustrator, where I showed Tino how to trace an image. He did a 2 hour stint which is pretty awesome for his first time. To where I then finished it off and added colours and shading Manga stylee!

Then we tried out a few different layouts for the banner that will eventually go on the front of their B&B.

Then at the end of the day I thought I'd take a polaroid picture of The Humans (their surname). The boys Logan and Raiden (yes named after Wolverine and Raiden the lightning dude) Look at their faces! Jackie seems to be the only sane one... so far! Love em!