I've just added seven new images to the Photos page. These are some of my favorite shots from over the last six months, including some photos from Japan that I haven't gotten around to posting on my Japan site yet.

I took the photo on the right as I was about to land in Vancouver after spending a couple weeks in Calgary for Christmas. Check out the rest of the new shots on the Photos page.

It's been quite awhile since my last artwork, so I decided it was time for a new one. Here's a pencil drawing of Kaori Mochida, the singer from the popular Japanese group Every Little Thing. I got into these guys while I was in Japan last year (which reminds me to mention: I returned to Vancouver last November, after my one year visa was up), and their infectious blend of very-blatantly-80s synth pop and various other styles has grown on me like a rogue weed.

This time I mostly used my mechanical pencil, though I did use HB and 2H pencils in a couple of spots, and of course, a tortillon. I spent about 6-8 hours on this one.

Welcome to the new Stormchild.net. After 6 years, and numerous abandoned attempts to redesign my site, I have finally come up with a new design that I like. The previous site was launched in August 2000, and — while it served its purpose — I've been wanting to redo it for a long time.

One of the highlights of the site is the new image viewer, which you'll see whenever you enlarge any image on the site. In the art galleries, there are back/forward controls for moving between images, and you can use the left/right arrow keys on your keyboard for that as well. In all images, you can exit and return to the page you were viewing by pressing the 'esc' or 'x' key on your keyboard.

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Pardon the long hiatus. I moved to Japan last November, and I've been pretty busy here so far. I was teaching English until the end of April, and I've moved three times in the last 6 months. I'm now in Kyoto, relatively settled, and I've been able to get back to producing music and DJing lately. Since I'm only in Japan for a year, all of my gear is still back in Canada. However, I've got my laptop, all my usual software, some good headphones, and recently bought an M-Audio O2 (a very compact MIDI keyboard).

I recorded a new DJ set today. Since my turntables and records are all back in Canada, you might be wondering how I managed to do that. The answer is: Ableton Live. A "Lite" version of the software was included with my M-Audio keyboard; I recently got into using it for DJing, and I like it a lot. I'm using the knobs and buttons on the O2 to control it, and it works very well. I bought the tracks as WAV files from Beatport and Stompy. There's also a new, unreleased track of mine in there, which I wrote in one night last week, in a sudden spurt of inspiration. Enjoy.

I've just finished a new pencil drawing of my favorite JPop star, Ai Otsuka.

As usual, I used a mechanical pencil, as well as HB, 2H, B, and 6B pencils, and a tortillon. I used an eraser to "draw" the highlights in her hair. I lost track of time while working on it, but I would guess it took about 15 hours.

Here it is...my newest illustration. The subject is Miki Fujimoto — a Japanese pop singer, of Morning Musume fame.

I spent about 30 hours on this one...which is probably why I don't do many of these anymore! As usual, it was made entirely in Adobe Illustrator. I might make a desktop picture version of it; I haven't decided yet. If I do, I'll either have to cut off half the image, or fill the extra space, since the image is portrait- rather than landscape-oriented. We'll see about that.

Here's a collage of the production sequence, with snapshots taken during the process.

Reason 3 (a popular music production program) was released today, and features a new, updated version of my track "Arithmatrick" as one of its demo songs. The new version is a lot warmer and punchier, thanks to the new MClass Mastering Suite in Reason 3, which includes an excellent new compressor, limiter, EQ and stereo imager. Reason 3 also features a new Combinator device, which allows you to build your own, new instruments and effects by combining any of Reason's other devices. I used one of these to pack up my SubTractor drum kit (all of the sounds in the song are made with SubTractors, including the percussion), and another to pack up an effects chain.

The song is included as an RPS file in the Demo Songs folder when you install Reason 3. You can download the MP3 here:

A new track of mine ("Thru An Angel's Eyes") was released today on Roxy Re-Modeled, a tribute to Roxy Music featuring new house and downtempo versions of their classic songs.

My track is a remake of "Angel Eyes". It does have the original lyrics in it, but you'll have to listen carefully, cause I spoke them through a vocoder and blended them in as if they were an effect.

The website has more info and samples of all the tracks. Those of you who are Roxy Music/Brian Ferry fans should definitely check it out.