Roundup

Weekly Roundup #010

Gavin Strange

04 Apr 2025 — 4 min read

Ello 'ello! The sun's out, isn't that nice!? Another busy week, Aardman stuff is keeping me nice and busy and in the evenings it's full steam ahead getting everything ready for the Beyond Tellerrand titles! I've been speaking to my friends at Stickerapp too, and we're gonna have some very special sticker packs up for grabs, can't wait to share those! If you're in Germany then get yourself a ticket to the event, it's gonna be rad!

Last month I went to BAFTA's beautiful HQ in central London - the illustrious '195 Piccadilly' building - and as part of that event I gave an interview to Young BAFTA about transferable skills, all as part of National Careers Week. Hopefully it's got some useful insights for folk looking to get into the creative industries!

On a completely unrelated note, as TCG Pocket released a new set last week, one of the new cards as part of that release was 'Wugtrio ex', a wonderful trio of Pokémon inspired by Garden Eels. They're my new favourite card to play with, just a super fun (and surprisingly powerful):

Inspired by that, my mind went wandering and from "Wugtrio" to "Wugs" and then to "WUGLIFE" and that's when I knew I had to make a silly graphic, to fully complete the connection of 2Pac's 'Thug Life' tattoo to these funny wormy bois.

But as soon as I'd done that, I knew I had to try and mimic that lush, tactile 'shiney' aesthetic that Pokémon cards have, so a bit of time in After Effects resulted in this bit of fun nonsense:

Haha, one of those great side quests that just make you giggle as you do it. It seemed to go down well on Reddit too!

Gav.

P.S Happy Mothers Day to my Mum, the awesome Cindy Strange, and to my Jane; amazing mum to our 2 kids. We had the perfect end to the day with chips on the beach!

WHAT AM I PLAYING?

Yeap, still on that TCG Pocket tip! It's the perfect game to have 10mins or so at night, it's so much better than letting myself endlessly scroll Instagram!

I got myself my first rainbow border card too, and the illustration is lush!

I picked up a copy of Mortal Kombat II on Vinted for the Gameboy, to play on my ModRetro Chromatic and let me tell you, it is RUBBISH! Ha, I forgot how bad a Sega Megadrive game ported to Gameboy would be, it's so basic it's pretty much unplayable! Still, love the art on the cartridge though, so it's £7 well spent!

WHAT AM I LISTENING TO?

Arcane – Season 1 Soundtrack
Idles - Joy As An Act Of Resistance
Russian Circles - Blood Year
August Burns Red – Rescue & Restore
Parkway Drive – Deep Blue

I also went down a YouTube rabbithole - starting with this 1998 MTV deep dive and stumbled across this absolutely banging performance by Prodigy last year at the Isle of Wight festival, so so good!

WHAT AM I WATCHING?

We finished Severence! Wow, flipping heck, what a ride. It's just so damn good isn't it, so brilliantly executed. A masterclass in entertainment! I like not knowing everything, it adds to the charm and definitely suggests Lumon are really, really messed up.

I also, kinda accidentally, watched the first episode of Adolescence. I didn't plan on doing that, as I really can't handle heavy subjects, but i was drawn in and it really is a masterpiece. Absolutely harrowing and heartbreaking, but expertly crafted and conveyed. I'll see if I can let myself watch the other 4 episodes, I'll let you know!

WHAT'S CAUGHT MY EYE?

Of course, the Switch 2 has caught my eye... and I was so excited for it, but at £435 including a game (even though that game looks AMAZING - Mario Kart is sheer perfection after all) - that's a big chunk of money in the year 2025 when everything is so astronomically expensive, It might have to wait a while. I was also hoping for a new Animal Crossing announcement too, that would have been the dealmaker for me!