All good things…

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Well this is it.

After six years or so this will be the last entry on Quit Your Day Job.

That’s right this blog will no longer be updated.

However, this is nowhere near the end.  I’m simply moving to a new blog and starting a fresh beginning.

My new blog is called Too Short To Be A Storm Trooper (although I’m clearly not).

QYDJ has served me well over the last six years and you guys have all been really amazing but for reasons that I slightly touch on in this post I feel that I need to close up this shop and start off somewhere new.

I will be keeping the site on though for at least a couple of years (you never know I may need to come running back to its familiar embrace after failing miserably with the new blog) in archive only mode.

I really do hope that you come over to the new site, not for more of the same but a new start and a new energy.  I’m not making any promises with the new site but I do want to forge ahead into the unfamiliar for a while and I’m really looking forward to it.

This wasn’t an easy decision, but it’s the right one.

As a friend quipped when we discussed this new world:

“The blog is dead, long live the blog.”

Head on over to the new site and make sure you update your feed reader!!

Thanks for everything!

Thoughts of a Storm Trooper part 64 and 65: the finale

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Just give me a minute.

I think I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that all of these posts were written months ago so this moment has already happened quite some time ago for me.  I guess when I’m reading this along with everyone else I expect to feel similar to how I felt those months ago as I typed these words.

Firstly I would like to thank each and every person who took the time to comment on these little slices of silliness that were only ever meant to entertain myself.  To everyone who sent me emails or messages lending their encouragement.  I really appreciate it.  It’s weird that Thoughts of a Storm Trooper has been a part of my life for over two years now and that we’ve finally come to its natural end.  It looked like it would not make it several times but I’m more than happy that it did.

A special thanks to Arjan who on more than one occasion picked up a spelling mistake, the irony being that English is not his first language.

So where to from here?  Well I’m going to take a break from the “Thoughts of” series for a while.  I may come back to do Empire Strikes Back or even go to a whole other franchise but that’ll probably be a while off.  In the meantime I will bundle these up to make it easier to read them, no doubt in a pdf and I’ll let you know how you can get that and share it down the road.

Thanks again everyone it’s been fun.

My morning with the Storm Troopers

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If you’re a regular reader of the Thoughts of a Storm Trooper series then you may have seen Steve aka TK5389 mention that Brisbane’s very own garrison of the 501st  Legion the Redback Garrison would be out in force to celebrate Star Wars day and to help raise funds for the Starlight Foundation.

An opportunity I was not going to miss out on despite having to get up very very early to see the guys before work.

When we got there the guys hadn’t set up yet and I was a little worried that some other area of Brisbane had latched on to them and that I was going to have to start wandering the CBD.  Several tense texts to a friend who had come along to be in the presence of Boba Fett soon gave way to two 30+ year olds gleefully texting THEY’RE HERE and IT’S THE FETT!!!

As we milled around not wanted to rush Steve (Boba Fett) like screaming fanboys I was accosted by a filthy Sand Person who brilliantly had completely committed themselves to the role.  Scaring a couple of people enjoying their breakfast in the park was pretty hilarious.

Then we got to meet Steve who was taking his Boba Fett costume out for the first time:

It wasn’t until I met Steve and some of the others that I completely get why they do this.  Apart from the great opportunity to draw attention to a charity of course, when these guys and gals put these costumes on they become absolute rockstars.  The smiles on everyone walking past has got to be worth the value of building one of these really accurate costumes.  Adults with looks of pure joy on their faces as Imperial forces marched towards them, it was really inspiring to watch.

I’m really happy that I made the trip in and was also excited to discover that there is a Ghostbusters equivalent here in Brisbane!!

These guys do a great job, thanks Steve for inviting me along!!!

If you want to find out more about the Redback Garrison check out their website and to find your won local garrison check out the 501st Legion.

Half a sketch with my new Wacom Inkling

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So for my birthday Tracey got me a cool new toy to play with, the Wacom Inkling.  Basically the device allows you to sketch on normal paper using its pen and it will record every stroke and store it digitally.  You can then upload the image to the computer and work on it in whatever graphics program you wish.

So after it all charged up I couldn’t wait to try it out so I read what minimalistic instructions there were and quickly scribbled down a pivotal moment in Hulk / Thor relations:

 So the notepad I used (and it can be absolutely any) is about A5 size but it handles standard A4. Unfortunately I must have missed something in the instructions because the pen didn’t start transmitting until an entire Hulk in.

But it did capture the Thor half and I thought it might be cool to show you a video capture of what it actually records:

So a couple of lines are off but that’s because I moved the page around a lot, by a lot I really mean a lot as well I thought for sure at one point I’d been too rough but it’s quite robust.

Should prove a lot of fun when I work all the bits out.