Busting Blocks

Busting creative blocks that is, or at least attempting to, for here we have another game show title sort-of-recreation-but-not-good-enough-to-be-exact-so-let’s-call-it-a-redux. And that’s Blockbusters. I’ve gone with the original, lesser-remembered sequence, used from 1983 until around 1986, when the more famous metropolis with flying hexagons came in.

Aside from adding some extra pink glow and turning the “stream of knowledge” into some trippy tunnel – and with different nuggets of said knowledge – not a huge amount has changed. This one was good fun – frustrating in places, but it seems like every 3D project goes that way to a degree. I’ve learnt some nifty new shortcuts on this and the Countdown attempt, so they’re not completely pointless (now there’s a game show you’ll never have to put up with here!)

As far as I can tell, there aren’t any screw-ups in this one, either, so that’s something to hand jive about. I did have to pull the original version from YouTube because of some horrible flicker on the aforementioned glow, but that seems to have been fixed.

For reference, comparison or just sheer nostalgia, here’s the first ever episode of (UK) Blockbusters, from almost forty years ago.

Complete Titles

Happy New Year to you. You crazy fool, sticking around for all this time.

So. A new year. A bit battered, a bit tired, but a fresh start apparently. So let’s go back to the late eighties while also throwing back to last year. In a semi-response to a post from a few months back, here we have a complete Countdown title redux.

The real thing here is, can you spot the cock-up in my recreation?

It’s relatively minor, such that it took me a few watches to notice so, if you do catch it, a nod to you for being awake and bothered. There are lots of TV and game show enthusiasts among my YouTube subscribers, many of whom beyond eagle-eyed. I’m frankly surprised that none of them pointed it out straight away.

Anyway, this is based on the titles introduced in summer of 1989. I have upscaled to widescreen and applied a few tweaks here and there, chiefly a more faithful representation of the clock (without losing the aesthetic) and using the familiar white and blue colour scheme for the words, not the red and white which proved problematic to say the least. It’s a rather simple sequence; creation was more time-consuming than difficult. It does look primitive now, but I still think it’s a neat title concept, probably the strongest the show has had.

I’m warning you now that, partly due to the kind reaction to this on YouTube, a similar treatment of the preceding Countdown sequence is underway, so watch out for that. If it’s good, it might end up here. If there’s an error, it might too end up here!

Spotted it yet?

Gameplay

Nerds of a certain age, rejoice! GamesMaster is back after almost twenty-four years, with a considerably longer running time and considerably fewer nob jokes. What’s more, the legendary Sir Trevor McDonald has succeeded Patrick Moore as the computerised couch potato, the titular Gamesmaster.

There isn’t much more to this little experiment; struck by once again seeing the lovely gothic ‘M’ which has ever adorned the GamesMaster logo, I fancied playing with some similar letterforms. Nerds rejoice once more.

After the usual dithering to start off, it was quite fun trying to create a harder, more angular counterpart to the the traditional flourishes of old English lettering – though, on some occasions, it might have helped to actually deviate from my beloved grid. They look quite brutal and industrious. It may be worth a full-on revisit at some point, perhaps attempting to introduce some curves and arcs.

By the way, the first episode of new GamesMaster is pretty good! Having been let down by so many of these big comebacks, I wasn’t expecting much at all, but they’ve actually done a fine job of not tampering with a winning formula and maintaining the delightfully cringeworthy spirit of the original. Whether such a show needs to exist in 2021 is perhaps up for debate, but there are only three episodes in this series so I say just enjoy it while it lasts!

What do you want to watch today?

Working on another Pixel Dailies prompt, “computer icons”, again with a 32×32 pixel restriction, I ended up going back to the days of Windows 95 and its incredibly familiar (at least for those of a certain age) teal desktop.

What if contemporaneous TV shows were available to stream? One-off streams had already been done by this point, but can’t you just imagine the quality of an on-demand catch-up service in 1995, and on a dial-up connection? As nightmarish as it would inevitably have been, some would doubtless be waxing nostalgic about it today! But let’s suspend our disbelief and imagine that technology allowed it at a passable standard…

I had a bit of a think of what shows I remember from that time; I was only three years old when Windows 95 was released, so, besides a couple of personal favourites, I’ve gone with shows that I remember my parents watching. Brookside and Coronation Street narrowly missed out. The icons don’t look too out of place, so I’m counting this as a win.

Mazemaster and Mumsey

Would you enter a dungeon to play a game devised by these two?

I hear that the new The Crystal Maze has been axed by Channel 4 after only three series. I must confess I stopped watching it about five episodes in, feeling it was not made for me. It doesn’t sound like it ever improved, and indeed the trajectory of viewing figures suggested it wasn’t made for lots of other people also. Going celebrity only for its final run was the final straw. It’s a frustrating misfire; the first episode back in 2017 drew one of the biggest audiences of the year for Channel 4 and the opportunity for something special was obviously there. Oh well! At least we still have the original series, and that was actually quite good.

With that mindset, you can understand why, on hearing of its termination, I produced this. Here’s a pixel art portrait of our mellifluous maître-d to the Crystal Maze, Richard O’Brien and his Mumsey (Sandra Caron) from days of yore. The style is loosely based on the RetroMania characters I worked on. Neither look particularly like their real-life counterpart – I’ve tried Richard several times in pixel and have yet to perfect his unique visage – but the “eclectic” outfits were fun to work on. I wouldn’t want to complete a sprite sheet of either, though!

On a completely unrelated note: did you know it’s once again possible to access the Classic Editor, free of blocks? Maybe it has always been there, I’m not sure, but I thought if anybody out there is still annoyed by them then you might want to know. In your admin, go to Posts and note the ‘Screen Options’ tab in the top-right corner. Change to Classic View. You’ll then get the little ‘Add New’ button with the drop-down menu which allows you to select the Classic Editor. Hooray!

Four for 4

Honestly, I’m surprised it’s taken as long as it has to come back to this. Here we are now, three years younger and hopefully three years more experienced than my last play with the Channel 4 blocks.

There really is something special about those original Lambie-Nairn idents; there’s the inspirational and nostalgic element, of course, but I think that does them a disservice in some ways. Despite being renders from almost forty years ago now, they still look fantastic and most definitely hold up as a symbol of what Channel 4 was meant to be. When it comes to my favourite TV presentation, they’re a front-runner, just ahead of the BBC balloon from 1997 which, incidentally, was another Lambie-Nairn creation.

I started playing with the Interlock sequence above, which was actually relatively simple, only taking an hour or so once I figured out how to group the various sectors.

Above and below were inspired by the Explosion and Around and Back idents, though I didn’t go for a straight recreation this time, instead trying to give them an original routine. This was much harder to crack without clipping or just looking entirely inelegant, but thankfully anchoring each block to a circular spline made things easier, and I probably could make a total recreation with that knowledge.

This was when I started throwing unnecessary extras at the blocks, such as volumetric lighting, but they make for some interesting stills. There’s also a frosty 4 there, because it’s nearly Christmas, in case you didn’t know.

Throwing a transparency channel onto the blocks made for some pleasing jewel effects, especially with a faint glow. Not quite so nice fully-formed, however, which I suppose is quite important:

Taking the easy way out, I removed the front face of the blocks and put some fairy lights inside, with a floor to take illumination. Perhaps more disco than Christmas, but never mind – the music is festive, so of course it now works perfectly. As it turns out, C4 did similar to far greater effect last year for their Christmas presentation, but oh well.

I haven’t had as much time as I’d like to do 3D lately, so these have proven the perfect exercise – all relatively quick and never throttling my PC like other projects. Let’s see how we get on with the blocks in 2021, eh.

Transformers

It’s been a while since I dipped my toes into the alien anime scene, with Astro Boy now almost two years old, but it’s returned with a vengeance of late, thanks to certain Frenchmen. We begin with these twin terrors. Though disparate in derivation, they are brought together by one powerful affinity. If you thought Sonic the Hedgehog turning yellow was impressive, well, take a look at these chaps.

Firstly, from Naruto, is the titular hero of a series which has appeared in various incarnations since the late nineties. It appears that his particular ability comes courtesy of his ninja father – whilst fighting a monstrous nine-tailed demon fox, Kurama, his father somehow managed to instill the beast into his son’s body so that only he can use it. This was not without consequence; it was in fact a sacrificial act, leaving Naruto orphaned and something of a pariah in the world of Konoha, for they know what lurks within. In a bid to follow his father’s footsteps and gain the respect of his fellows, Naruto strives to become a ninja himself, while also learning to taking control of his inner demon.

I was initially compelled to try a ‘split personality’ angle, but I soon found that rather difficult given the extreme disparity in scale, and besides, people have done similar elsewhere, and much better than I could. With that, I moved to a simpler concept of our hero standing as guardian before his beastly companion.

The murky orange overlay seemed to add to it, and that progression lead to the final, with some texture thrown in, just because, really.

* * *

I thought I would carry this over for Gnar, our next subject. Part of the League of Legends series, he is a prehistoric creature whose cute, delicate exterior masks a very different reality. Quite the temper, fury and rage is at the heart of Gnar’s combat – he thrives on it. One most definitely shouldn’t wish to incur his wrath, for Mega Gnar is ever waiting to be unleashed, turning this curious little critter into a gargantuan monster until the blaze dissipates.

Following on from Naruto, once the characters were drawn it was a case of trying out some different effects based on the colours of creature and beast:

And experimenting with custom typography, though I ultimately decided against that. It’s a relief to have them done and dusted now, since they’ve been in the works for a while, coming to life almost immediately after the Twenty-Six Spins challenge (I promise to stop linking to that now). I’ve been slapping effects on here, there and everywhere for a while, and not to a tremendous benefit.

There we have it – for now, anyway. I know who Naruto and Gnar are, now. There may be more of this ilk to come.

Winging It: Countdown to 1994

Yes, it’s what you’ve long clamoured for – and that’s a nine-letter word.

A return visit to this Countdown malarkey (only eight, but a darn good word) is, admittedly, normally code for having a thirst to create but a total drought of practical (nine letters) ideas – it’s often the way, or vice versa. Had I the skills before, though, I probably would have gone straight to this one, rather than chip away at the very wooden predecessor. It was a bit of a nightmare with curve upon curve, and troublesome splines all over – a lot of the successes came from just winging it, but I guess that’s part of the fun. I’m pretty pleased with what I eventually coaxed out of the chaos, and I’d hope it’s all the better for the time that’s passed since my last go.

A retro look for the early nineties, the show went truly overboard (nine!) with lights – hundreds of the things, in strands strung from the clock in chevron-esque ‘wings’, which I always presumed was a grandiose (again!) nod to producer Yorkshire TV’s logo-mark, but I could have overthought that. They would even blink when somebody scored the ultimate goal of a nine-letter word – a reward whose manner probably says all that need be said of Countdown.

With all that flash and the show being at its peak during the nineties, it’s probably the definitive Countdown look for many; it’s certainly the one in which the warmest memories are wrapped up for me, spending half an hour each day in the company of avuncular pun-master and sartorial deckchair, Richard Whiteley and, in the perfect TV/dinner partnership, a bowl of Alphabetti spaghetti. (I think it’s this wistful nostalgia that tricked me into thinking that stuff tasted good!) I’m moved to think of my grandfather excitedly telling me that Countdown was about to start and sitting me on his knee, or asking if I managed to outdo the contestants last time. The answer was always no, but he knew that one day I would figure it out, and, sure enough, I did! Appropriately for a game dominated by a big clock, Countdown over its thirty-five years has forged an affinity with time like no other TV show I can think of – both my grandfather and Richard are now but memories, but they come to mind whenever the music hits. They were happy days.

There are probably several nine-letter words in there.

All this being said, it figures that it jarred somewhat when the show was given a makeover, but the flowing locks live on as that thing of unmatched beauty, the victor’s teapot, which takes its form even today.

I should put this in the Timepiece series – yes, the one I started in September and haven’t added to since; a much-needed kick up the arse for it, let’s hope it works! And it’s not like it’s unjust. The nation can continue without Big Ben, but I wouldn’t fancy our chances if the Countdown clock were silenced, would you!? Long may the clock tick.

Farewell, Caped Crusader

It’s a shame to hear of Adam West’s passing. A fine comic actor, but most of all the man who gave Batman a sense of humour in the legendary TV series. Certainly, the quips, the puns and the sheer absurdity of it all made the franchise accessible to me as a young boy, providing some light relief from the gloomy and scary Tim Burton films of the day.

The series doubtless threw up many classic moments – and dance routines – there’s the bomb, but for me it’s always this particular scene that springs to mind first. Hilarious. You wouldn’t catch Bale or Affleck doing this…

 

Interlude

An interlude, at least, in that we’ve broken away from Norfolk and plunged into Suffolk – gasp! As it’s Saturday night – it’s party time and not one minute we can lose! – I opted to go wild in such a way and… draw a windmill.

Here we have Pakenham Mill, situated near Burgh St Edmunds. Built in 1830, it has stayed in resplendent condition for most of its life, and in 2001 was brought back to full working order. It stands not too far away from an equally beautiful watermill; I believe both are open to visitors.

Though always something of a star, the mill had a wider brush with celebrity some fifty or sixty years ago. Its operation was shot by the BBC as part of a series of short Interlude films – a placeholder while studios were dressed for the next programme, or to cover any breakdowns in still relatively new technology. The ethos of ‘mildly engaging but not so much that anything would be missed by looking away’ makes the circular motion of the windmill’s sails a perfect fit. As you can probably guess, though, I find it hard to imagine looking away – where were these when I was a child?