Saturday, February 13, 2010

Enter the dragon head

Here's another project I've had to do at my job in the library - for the Chinese New Year which funny enough is tomorrow in my time, I've been asked to create this Chinese dragon. I'm not sure what else they're doing to this display but if they're doing anything else interesting I'll be sure to get a shot.


First I drew and painted the dragon's head using several printed references I was given from the staff. The design had to be quite big because it was being put up on the boards on the walls so eventually I had the final design drawn on a piece of my own paper that I took the trouble of bringing in. Also brought my own watercolours as I've done with the birds, because well, felt tips aren't the best things to use to fill in such large areas with colour. Several layers and blends of watercolour later, I gave it a final touch of gold glitter glue. I had a bottle of gold paint somewhere at home that I would have brought in, but where I've been moving everything about it's gotten misplaced.


Then I was assigned to create the body just by sticking scraps of different coloured paper and foil [or rather, a McCoy's multi-packet] in some wriggly manner and then cutting it out. Might seem easy stuff but it was actually quite tedious to position everything and then stick them down with PVA glue. Then again this is the children's library after all, plus I get paid to do this sort of thing so who am I to complain?

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

First post of the new decade

Hello, I'm back on Blogspot. I hope everyone's had a happy New Year's, Christmas, Boxing day, Guy Fawkes etc. All I can say for myself is that the past 3 months have been a rollercoaster.

First of all, I did indeed go to the MCM expo in London ExCel, which was absolutely fantasico. I will certainly be going again and cosplaying the next time which is in May, hopefully by then I'd actually be able to buy more stuff from there. You can view my take on it at DeviantART, and more photos can be found at my FlickR page.


The next epic thing going on is that I now have a job at a library, as my profile now states. Unfortunately I don't work many hours a week, which isn't my fault, but the pay has been amazing [for me anyway] and I've been on some major spendups as well as supporting my family with it. Some of the things I do there include shelving, shelf tidying, unpacking and stamping new books, flat packing boxes, and even art and craft - since they've discovered that I draw and paint, I've been set up on working on displays for the children's library most of the time, as well as preparing pieces of paper, felt etc so that the kids don't have to when they make penguins. Below is a recent project where I had to draw some birds for a birdwatching event the kids are having.


The robin's a bit fat there, but I think it's given me a little experience on drawing birds, something I rarely ever draw. I've also finished up a pretty funky looking Chinese dragon for Chinese New Year, which I might post as soon as I can get a photo of it. Additionally, I painted up some sort of mural in the women's toilets, which is basically a montage or stars, moons, butterflies and a mountain. I'm surprised my clothes didn't get ruined while I was doing it.

Lastly, just the last weekend alone has completely flipped my world upside down. Not only did I go to the cinema for the first time in 2 and a half years to see Avatar, I have found myself an other half, and that other half is none other than Aaron Foster aka Gagaman. For the past 5 years I've been a fan of his artwork via DeviantART, but it wasn't until about 3 years ago [or 4, if the first time I ever spotted him counts] that we had bumped each other in real life at boot sales, funny enough, and I plucked up the courage to say hello.

Since then, we had been very good friends because we're very like-minded, but after the expo in which we spent quite some time hanging out with each other, we had gotten closer and closer, and eventually arranged some days to meet up and hang out some more. It was only when that last weekend came and went, that I've expressed my feelings for Aaron. Now, I'm still besotted [I'm shaking as I type this] because of how he feels for me.

So that the past three months. I am only praying that the future stays this perfect.