Long, long time no speak. Firstly, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! So yea I have to admit I haven't been up to much. I have done a few wee bits and pieces designing some stuff for a few lovely people, and working my wee bum off in my none arty farty job, which suuuuuuuuuuucccckkkkkssss!!!! But we all gotta start from somewhere. So yea, I had a fantastic piece of news over the Christmas holidays that a few of my t-shirt designs sold from my RedBubble store! super happy about that! I have decided to kick my self up my own arse and get back to drawing again. Here are a few recent things I've done: One of my closest fiends went to a wedding recently and asked if I could design a wedding present for the newly weds. What I love about this is it's so different, very much keeping up with pop culture. Breaking Bad, this was a lot of fun to do, I haven't experimented with using smoke brushes in a very long time.....7 years roughly.... So this was a lot of fun to get back to. I also have been such a terrible friend, one of my oldest and dearest friends is in an amazing band and every single time he had a gig. I couldn't make it due to working. Sad faces all round :( So to make up for my absence and still embarrass him as I have been doing over the years at his gigs. I made him a cheesy fan girl t-shirt. This is probably the first one of many that I have made that looks professional I actually got this printed on about 5 t-shirts and gave them to everyone at my friends annual Christmas gathering :) it was well worth it! here's their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/paperdogsband/?fref=ts Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paperdogsband/ Please like, share, follow and fall in love. I've even started to experiment with polymer clay. I have to admit I was very much inspired by Amanda Louise Spayd's dolls: AMAZING AREN'T THEY!!!! So yea I decided to use polymer clay, watched a hell of a lot of youtube videos on it an thought, yea, I can sooooo do this. I even got glass eyes and fake resin teeth (Spayd actually uses real human teeth, I did hunt the web for them but couldn't find them, and then as soon as I said to my partner, 3 clicks and he found them.... had when that happens AND you've already purchased resin teeth....ANYWAY) I wanted to make my own monster. When I got my polymer clay I was actually super surprised at how tough the clay was to work with. I have worked with clay before and fully loved it, but the polymer was very much a dry touch clay. Even plasticine is so much easier to use. But anyways I persevered and created my snot monster Edger: Thought this was hilarious as the only good things about him such as his eye and teeth, I didn't even make.... LOL but yea I haven't done anymore polymer clay experiments, because of the clay being hard to work with, it has sort of put me off. I still have loads left over so I think once I come up with a better idea of a monster, Ill go back to it. Until then though I have really missed drawing and making the fan girl t-shirt made me realize that. So I have been thinking about going back to the Illustration Friday competitions.
BUT! I'm going to start off gentle, I really like the idea of a word and building on that, but due to not really having much of a social life, I don't know when Ill get it done so I make use one word for over a month, who knows. I've also been thinking back to my old art that I love and actually really miss doing. Been even thinking how I can improve on the ideas, So don't want to give too much away but, I will say that it will be more physical forms of work rather than a pretty picture. Probably more fine art actually when I really think about it. So yea. This year I will hopefully be more balanced art and work wise and who knows hopefully find another job more to do with my art :) That's all from me hope you've enjoyed, I'm not even going to make a promise of when I will keep up with the blog. But until next time Happy New Year! :)
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so, ok. I lied about blogging once a week. things have been a little hectic lately. I got a new job working at a call centre, I also just haven't really felt the want or need to design anything lately. still adjusting to life at home after four years of university, Aswell with the fact that I'm no longer wanting to stay in education. so, sadly I just haven't really done any design stuff..... until last night. my partner is a gamer, like most folk. he has decided to make a twitch account and for people who don't know what twitch is: twitch is basically an website/app that you can go onto and watch live streams of people playing a plethora of different games. if you find you like watching a certain player you can follow them and even donate money to them. as far as I'm aware some players are so popular that they actually are able to live off the donations. Every little gamers dream right? (I really hope I got all that info right or I'm in trouble..... I'm totally not a gamer) sooooooooo, my partner asked me to design and create his profile picture, cover photo and any buttons that he has on his profile. Now, anyone who knows my partner, knows he's uppsessed with cats...... see where I'm going with this? I actually had so much fun doing this. I have managed to get his profile picture finished, I am currently working on getting his cover photo finished, here is a few of my enitial drawings it's been a long time since I've last drawn but you get the idea, just imagine it all......waaaaayyyy less scary than my sketches. so all the little drawings were my ideas for the profile picture. As (I.probably should have mentioned earlier) My partners name on twitch is "ShleepyPete" he also sleeps more than most humans... so the idea was basically to make him into a cat, he loves both his cats which are both pure white. I think I have an image on my site, that i did a few years ago. A game of thrones style portrait. It's of my partner sitting on the iron throne with his two white dare-cats on either side of him. I'm currently on my phone writing this blog (first time ever) so I don't have the image on my phone to upload, on here. if your interested. it should be on my commissions page. here's an image however of my partner with one of his cats (hopefully I won't get murdered for putting it up) isn't he sooooooooo cute! talking about the cat here guys... :P so I based his cat on him, I however didn't include the beard. I sort of felt that the cat it's self had enough fur, never mind the beard. So here's the finished product, I am actually so pleased with this, I now just have to get the cover photo done and then the buttons that will go on his Twitch account
That's all from me today :) Today I didn't get a much done today as I wanted to, I did a bit of research today, looking at piggy banks for the end of year show and even researching prices for foam board for the show, I haven't yet ordered my playing cards. I am still hoping to get others opinions, but I plan of making the purchase tomorrow, as well as trying not to cry over the price of them. I did however, re-take images for the No Say, Coca Cola image. I realized that all of the images I had chosen to use,like the facebook and the bar-code images. I had my hair tied back in all of them, So although, I felt I had a good sort of contrast with the images I have. I didn't really feel it quiet worked. So I re-took the images. and low and behold, I don't like any of the re-taken photos: I want to go back again and re-edit the image in a different way. As this seems too worked on.
Short blog today. That's all from me for today. Today I pretty much wasted it by going from website to website, trying to find a company that would print my cupcake deck of cards, for cheap. It was unbelievably tedious as I had to make very quick designs of just the numbered symbols for each suit, Most websites were very slow with the uploads, they wouldn't let me edit the images to the way I wanted them displayed on the cards, Some websites stopped uploading my designs after a particular number. I was pretty much like 4 hrs of trying to get the right company to print these. I finally got it sorted. Although for one pack of cards it'll cost me roughly £15. Which sucks, although I think it will be worth it. I also have been trying to write my blurb, which will be the little bit of information that will go beside my work at the end of year show. To be honest, this week has been a complete nightmare. Just so much stuff to do and next thing I know a week has past, and the work I have done is not as much as I had hoped to have done. I have been looking at the whole planner for the end of year show, even looking at people from the past years, and I hate this feeling I have. I honestly don't feel like any of my work is good enough, the work I have done in my side projects I feel more confident to show than my main project. Even looking through it all, I can see exactly where I have gotten lost. I had originally wanted to do really mad, in your face posters showing consumerism. I am now doing student financial advice. Making a video, I honestly don't feel that comfortable about. I just really really lost. So looking at the wall planners and everyone else's displays from the past years, I have decided to continue on with the video, and see how it is at the end, maybe Ill surprise myself and it'll be the most amazing thing. Although I have also decided to create posters, which was my original idea in the first place, many tutors have more or less talked me out of it. Saying in the usual nicest possible way, that they didn't think that it was the best Idea. I just feel like I'm drowning. So screw this, I am going to do what I want to do. If it ends up looking shit, at least it'll be my colourful shit and stuff I feel comfortable showing. I also went back and re-edited my Coca-Cola portrait. I am actually really happy with it and have decided it will be my piece for submitted to the ViewBug unique portrait challenge. This is very simple, although I find it very effective and I think it really stands out. I am happy to upload this for the ViewBug Challenge, I plan to do a few more tweaks to this image, such as having a fact about Coca-Cola on the image, and even fixing the hair a little bit. I also finally got round to testing my line drawing skills, to make a ghost in Illustrator: I am actually so happy with this, I want to fix the eyes a little more. But minus that I am really happy with this. One down, 11 more to go.
That's all from me today, I am going to do a few sketches for posters for students on financial advice. But the way that I want them to be. I am even slightly playing with The pressure is majorly on! Everyone is beginning to run round like headless chickens. I have been super productive today in the hope that my head won't explode. So I have been re-designing yet another story board and started to design all of the elements for that so here is a few small things I did today for the video: So the first image, I thought would be funny to have, as he was designed to look like he is struggling to hold up a title within my video, I did however draw him with no reference and was more or less just messing about. The second image I used a reference for. I am still not too sure I like him, I think it is probably the structure of him as himself, as well as me being very picky. The third image is just to be a background image, I am however very tempted to give the queen a Mohawk, and a pint and maybe a cigarette. Although I don't want to over complicate the image, I may do this anyway though for a bit of fun and also, just to see how it would actually look. I wanted to get more of this done, although I realized I sill hadn't fully finished my cupcake cards. So I went back and made a little design for the middle of all my cards, then went in and added the suit symbols and the letters for each card, now officially finished. I am hoping to get started on the next theme which is monsters for my deck of cards. Here are all 12 of the cards: Going back through my research on the monster theme of cupcakes I can't help but think about my tea towel portrait I did of myself and how that might look for this theme. I will hopefully have sketches up of it tomorrow. As well as more images to show within my main project. I also have a ViewBug competition I am still to take images for. It is all rather chaotic at the moment. I have also been talking to tutors about the development of my small video for my main project. As it have been well over a year since I last used the program, so a wee refresher on the program would be amazing. I mainly need help with how I will export the video and how I will render it so it is small enough to go on the likes of You Tube etc. aaahhhh so many things. I'm going to leave it here for tonight, more info and more colourful things hopefully to show tomorrow
Today has been a pretty productive day. I have bought this domain name! Yay! I have an actual real website. Very happy! I have also been working more my main project with creating the website, I haven't gone back to the video since I last worked on it as I thought it would be smarter to make all the scenes and elements before diving in, and then just add what I need when I need it. I have been adding more elements to my website, such as information and my survey info graphics: Not terribly impressive, It has been a rather slow job and if I am honest. I am hoping the video will look better than the website. However it is early days still. That is it from me today, I am currently trying to get new characters drawn for the video, my graphics tablet is however being funny with me, which is a bit of a worry. But i am hoping it will sort it self out.
Oh I am also getting my business cards designed. I just have to figure out the exact information I want to put on them, here is a little sneak peek into what I may be getting printed: I have missed another day of blogging due to illness, I was so determined to go to uni yesterday, despite feeling unwell. I got ready, got the bus and began to feel worse. I got three stops away from my flat, got off and walked back home. I have to admit, I am so happy I got off and went home when I did, as I got so much worse. I did however manage to get a few illustrations of my cupcake done yesterday for the diamond suit. Although I have to admit, these aren't brilliant and my heart really wasn't in it. I just felt so ill but I wanted to do what I said I was going to get done yesterday, done. There is a lot of different variations of the same sort of design, there are at least two designs here that I really like and I want to use in my final designs, such as the 1st cup cake on the 2nd row and the very pink cupcake also on the 2nd row. I also really like the elements of the very first cupcake. This cupcake was actually the last cupcake I made of this set before I really started to take a turn for the worse. These cupcakes are in no particular order, just the order that they have been uploaded on here in. Today I still feel very much under the weather, so I have decided to continue with my cupcake design suit. finishing off the diamond suit and continuing on to the spades and clubs suit. So, I have finished the whole set of cupcake cards. It took me a little while, I started on the spades and clubs and got a little confused on what I was doing, so I looked up chocolate and coffee cupcakes for inspiration, warning this may make you hungry: So here are all of my designs from today with the club and spades suits: So with the coffee and chocolate cupcakes as my inspiration, I created all of the above, there are of course some that I prefer to others. But I am just so happy t now have two different themes of cards pretty much done. Here are the finals, the following orders and in threes, So they will be in the order of King, Queen and Jack: So yea, these are my cupcakes, of course a few need wee tweaks, here and there. Over all very pleased with my results. I am hoping to continue on with my cards, my next theme will be monsters. I have previously spoken about maybe merging cupcakes and monsters together.
Tomorrow I am going to continue on with my main project. I am going to go back to the drawing board with the website and really draw out how I want everything to look. Then I am going to experiment other website builders to see if I can really recreate the look and feel of what I want my website to look like. I am also hoping to go out and do some photography, depending on weather and hopefully feeling a lot better tomorrow also. That's all from me today. Well it has been forever since I last blogged. I have been a busy bee as well as going home for the Easter holidays. I have been designing a logo for this website so I can get my business cards printed and what not. There will be even more work added to the website. I am now into my final 2 months of university, which is a very scary thought. Here is some of my characters for my student help guide, these are not finished yet, but they are a work in progress: from the top left, we have the hungover student, Hipster student, Sport student, Geeky student, Protester student, and Ghost student. I have also been researching the most expensive cities to be a student, in within the UK. I have already gotten 125 responses to my survey. Which is fantastic! I have a lot of information from current and past students. A lot of students have found to have the same problems and have solved them in the same ways. I have a lot more research to do, but I don't want to get so caught up with research that I am not really doing a lot of work. Which to be honest, is pretty much why I haven't blogged in a really long time, no pretty pictures to show and what not. On another notes with my logo project I have been experimenting with different colours for my logo. See below logos: I also really like the idea of having my logo be a gif that goes through all of these different colours. I am not too sure if I should continue with that idea, but I think Ill do it anyways and see how it looks. I have also been thinking about how to have this website. As I do love the amount of colours within it, I may keep this, but I would like to change the layout a little more, so the plan is to hopefully do Code Academy. I will also be able to create a website for my main project also.
I haven't managed to get much of my playing card project done, however I plan to get really stuck into all of my projects and knuckle down in my last few weeks of being a student. That's all from me today So I have been pretty productive, so productive I didn't even notice I missed another day of blogging. So firstly. My survey is done, so if your a student or a past student. Please, please, PPPPPPLLLLLLEEEEEEAAAASSSSSEEEEE do my survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/S2C6VY3 I have also finally completed my first set of cars in the traditional style. I have also been playing around with the idea of having little characters around the answers and advise I get from my surveys, here are some illustrations I have been looking up, for inspiration and ideas in general I have been trying to identify stereotypes that everyone sees at university. Like everyone knows a few of them and can even identify to these stereotype characters. I thought this would be interesting, although it's all still very early days. The character idea could end up being a total flop and not work at all. Hopefully I will have sketches to show tomorrow. That's all from me today.
I didn't get to post yesterday due to feeling so ill. I didn't manage to get any work done yesterday. Still feeling crappy today. however I was actually finally able to do some work. Not a great amount but still a fair bit. I finished my Queen of Spades card, I am now currently working on the jack of spades. I also skipped a little bit a head and have started to design the newest deck of cards design, Cup cakes As you can see, I'm just on the concept of ideas, I plan to go ahead into illustrator and see what designs work better than others. I also have been toying with the idea of giving the cupcakes a bit of a horror/ monster feeling to them, I am as yet unsure. As I feel that the monsters could again be another design of a deck of cards on their own. I am hoping to be well enough to go to uni tomorrow, being ill is getting boring and I am dying to get my teeth stuck into my work again. That's all from me today, hopefully more to share and see tomorrow.
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