I love spending quality time with my loved ones … but here’s just a small problem I face whenever I’m playing Ingress with Cartcart.
Banksy in Rome?
While Rome is full of unsightly graffiti, at the same time, there are a number of interesting street art to be spotted out.
Recently, I saw a post from Trastevere regarding Banksy possibly in Rome.
Banksy is an English street artist who is revered by many because of his evocative images. Mostly known for his use of stencils, I admire how he is able to combine dark humour with satire and how he could work with something completely innocuous and incorporate it into his artwork.
Like how he was use the morning glories as part of his art.
There has been reports that there are a few Banksy around Rome with images such as these spotted :
Unless if it’s signed, sometimes it’s hard to tell whether if it’s a Banksy or not as there are a number of similar looking styles to be found, especially in the bohemic Trastevere area. I don’t know the exact location for them unfortunately, and it’s been quite challenging to do a research on them online.
It may not be Caravaggio or a Botticelli, nevertheless, I think that they are unique in their own way, are fascinating and I’d love to see them in person.
The things we do for love
This post was adapted from a very old toon I did time ago.
It has been about 6 years since I’ve had chicken chops from NIE. I wonder if I’d still enjoy it now that living in Rome has influenced my taste-buds.
This is married life #9
I’m really happy to have a supportive partner but still …
Riding a scooter in Central Rome
If you’ve ever been to Rome, you would have seen plenty of cobblestone roads around the Central area. It makes the area look charming, but it can be quite a workout if you’re on a two wheeler.
If you carried milk with you, it’ll probably turn into butter after riding around Central Rome for about an hour or so.
Shoes. A true story
Attending my first instameet in Rome
It’s quite amazing to find out that it was already the 9th instalment of the worldwide instameet on the 17th March 2014. This is a day where instagramers meet up and explore and shoot an area near them using the hashtag #wwim9. It was lovely looking through the hashtag to see the entries from all over the world.
While I’ve been an instagramer for a couple of years, I only knew about the event quite by chance through a mailer in Meetup.com. I’m a casual ‘grammer who normally post pictures of food through my account, but I was intrigued enough to check out the instagram community in Rome.
The event was held in front of the monumental Castel St Angelo, which was a weaponry stronghold with a long bridge connecting directly to San Pietro. We were lucky that we had a ridiculously gorgeous day with amazing blue skies and bright, fluffy clouds, making each shot practically postcard perfect.
For our task that day, we were to complete several challenges using the following tags :
- #WWIM9
- #MEETROME
- #WALKROMA
- #TRAVELDEEPER
- #OLLOCLIP
- #FROMWHEREISTAND
- #THROUGHTHEFENCE
- #ISEEFACES
- #JUMPSTAGRAM
- #LEANWITHIT
And here are a few of the shots I took on my phone, most of them edited through Snapseed :
I didn’t manage to complete all my tasks, nevertheless I had a lovely time hanging out at my first ever Rome Instagram meet. 🙂
The problem with Spring is …
Prior to living in Rome, I’ve never experienced this issue before as Singapore has a tropical climate. I am now considering of getting a N95 mask while going around.
Piazza Andrea Pazienza – A homage to Italian cartoonists
Thanks to Ingress, I’ve discovered a place where there is a mural of cartoons. It looks so charming to me, and the place seems so new that even street view thinks that it’s not passable.
Piazza dei Fumetti, also known as Piazza Andrea Pazienza, is a square, paying homage to some of Italy’s beloved cartoonists. Inaugurated by the XII Municipio in November 2009, many of these murals I recognize as Cart, has a number of them in his shelf.
Going past these murals was impressive to me as they looked quite beautiful and the cheerful colours gave a rather atypical feel compared to the regular Roman neighbourhood scenes.
Some of the protagonists I was surprised to see there as I didn’t realise that they were Italian – like Dylan Dog, which I assumed was American.
One of the cutest character for me personally would be Lupo Alberto. He’s a wolf that lives on a farm and is in love with a hen. Cart has one edition of this Cartoon and I loved going through the strips and the silly storyline.
There was also La Pimpa, a spotted dog that lives with her master. A cartoon meant for children, the show can be caught on Rai Yoyo. While La Pimpa is meant for kids, the cartoonist also does political cartoons.
It’s an interesting place and I think I’d like to explore more as the entire neighbourhood seems to have a comic theme surrounding it.
Make your own comics with Bitstrips and Pixton
At this moment I’m looking for a software where I could create and make my comics look more refined in an easier manner. So instead of a comic that looks like this, I prefer it looking more like this :
This looks much cleaner and neater in its own strip. I think that you’re able to do this from Photoshop elements, but I think the steps involved are quite tedious. Instead, I’ve been spending my time, researching and trying out the different kind of editors out there.
For now, I’ve stumbled upon Bitstrips and Pixton. They aren’t exactly what I’m looking for as I have my own drawings which I want to use. Nevertheless, I think that they are really fun to play with, so much so that I was completely engrossed playing with them and spent my entire day exploring their different functions.
Pixton
Pixton is an award winning website created by a husband and wife team. I like pixon as it’s easy to edit – you just click and drag by directly on the object you want to adjust.
If I wanted to move my avatar’s limbs for example, I just click on that part of the body and rotate them around. So easy. I also loved that I could adjust the poses and expressions quickly from the templates.
There are so many other customization that you could adjust – like the shape of the hands which I appreciated. It’s the little details like these that gives the overall website a professional feel.
One downside is that free users are limited in what they could do – only a maximum of 2 characters and if you wanted to download your own comics, it requires 25 credits each. You could earn 5 credits by logging in daily, or you could get an unlimited subscription plan for about 4 euro a month.
Here is a strip that I did with Pixton. I love the style of the drawing. I think it even looks good in black and white.
On hindsight, I should have used this for my actual Cart and Rinaz comic.
Bitstrips
For those who are active on Facebook would be very familiar with Bitstrip as its app has been very popular as a way to convey status updates.
But bitstrips also come in an online version where you could create full cartoon strips.The interface is clean and I loved the cheeky look when creating my avatar each time I progressed a step further.
It appears to be completely free, and it seems that you are not limited by the amount of characters that you wish to create here. You are also able to download your strips when you are done.
While there are preset poses that you could use in bitstrips, unfortunately you can’t click on the limbs and move it around directly, and instead you’re required to adjust using the control panel.
Nevertheless, it’s still easy to use and I especially liked that you could even adjust the props. All the furniture in the above strip can be rotated and you can also change its shade.
Here is a strip I made using bitstrips :
I love how cute Bitstrips avatars looks like. And on hindsight, I think I should have made this into a Cart and Rinaz comic too!
Nevertheless, I had so much fun creating and playing around on both the websites and they are both giving me so much ideas on how to improve my own comics. Feeling quite inspired right now. 🙂