Card making

In all honesty I haven't been making a lot of digital art as of late because once again my tablet has gone a bit doo-lally. While I found that I can make oekaki art for example entirely with a mouse, it just feels a lot better with a tab. So, I've taken up the art of card making.

This one here is an original painting that I just painted onto a bit of watercolour paper I folded in half, and for once, I'd take a crack at using gouache paints again as well as watercolour and white ink. I found that using an older shader brush can achieve some realistic effects, like the daisies in the grass, the foliage in the background and the tarmac. As with all techniques, it takes practice to get it the way you want it. The full picture can be found here.

It's a little known fact that I really like cross-stitching. Although very time consuming, it's a soothing activity for me really, and a rewarding one too, as the finished results can make great gifts for the family, even if they were copied from magazine designs. During the last few months of last year I was working on a Christmas themed one that I aimed to give to my nan as a present, and despite a few mistakes here and there, it turned out to be a lovely gift that my nan loved.

This one above is old, must have finished it months ago, but it was only until last week I decided to make it into a card. In Hobbycraft, they sell lots of different cards that are designed for card making - ones that come in different colours and sizes, and one that have already had holes cut in them, perfect for stitchings to be stuck in. For this though, I had to buy two, and cut a heart shape in one of them to match the shape of the heart. Maybe I should get cookie cutters next time and try those to cut out neater shapes. I don't know who to give this one too, so I'll make a few more. I just hope that they never get thrown away after all the hard work I put into the stitching.

Back to paints now, and here is my desk that gets easily trashed, and two more cards that I'm painting on. The one on the right is done entierly in gouache so far, as it is much more opaque than watercolour. For the other one...something tells me that the masking fluid I'm using is going a bit off, and it ain't just in the smell, it also discolours [and sometimes tears!] the paper.

It might be quicker and cheaper just to get a pack of 40 Christmas cards from your local Woolworths, but to me, making my own cards feels like I'm putting my own effort in it. What it was, I bought a pack from the charity shop I work in and gave a card to each of the other volunteers, and my manager said to me "These look like PDSA cards". Quite embarrassing as back then I was a bit strapped for cash.

Eyes-a-popping Joe

Oh my god.


See that fella on the left? That's me, during the only shot I had at acting. I played the main character of a film my sister was working on when she was studying media at college way back in 2004, called "Eyes-a-Popping Joe". Not sure what exactly it was about, but I think it was about this guy trying to warn a young girl [played by my younger sister] that she's gonna get run over by a car. Apparently it was supposed to be a surreal film.

Filming it was quite an experience. It was shot at the beginning of 2004 during the winter, and god only knows how cold it was while I was clad in a thin back cloak, the slipperiest shoes I've ever worn, a hat, and two of those goggly eyes from one of those bouncy eyes glasses things from the joke shops. I had to walk all the way to the park like this, carrying the props with me which made my arms ache right into the next week.

It was then a long day of sitting on the damp grass and playing my parts, where I have a tea party with Jesus [played by my sister's friend, who's female BTW] and try to suffocate the young girl with a pillow. Man, the laughs we had due to our poor acting, but eh, no-one else would do it. The final result was a ten minute film with some weird colour effects and a Billy Idol song at the end. You should see the damn out-takes, they're quite hilarious.

Art dump numero dos

Blimey, after looking through my 2008 art folder it seems that I've been doing more art than I thought. So here's just a selection of what I've done in the past month.


This is one of a number of commissions that I've sold to a few members of furry website Furaffinity for $5 a piece. I had to lower my usual price so that I could quickly round up some money in order to pay for an eBay sellers' fee that pretty much took me by surprise. The first lot's been paid, and now I'll have to wait for the next invoice to come. In the meantime, I've been selling a few DVDs that we don't watch anymore, and thankfully all of the ones I put up so far sold.


A couple of weeks ago, I came across a toddlers' programme on Nick Jr called Yo Gabba Gabba, which pretty much absorbed me these past few days. It's kinda like Sesame Street but shorter, with only 5 costume characters, and with more modern musical pieces. Soon I had read an article about how some hackers used a picture of Brobee to deface a Metropolitan Police website, which was one of the funniest things I read last week. So, here is Brobee being a British policeman, watching you in a newsagent near you.


As of late I have come back to one of my old fandoms, the Rayman fandom. I bought a copy of Rayman Raving Rabbids for the GBA the other day [more info on that will be posted on my new Rayman blog], and this picture was inspired by a certain level in said game.


I've also made myself into one of Rayman's kind for use in the Rayman fandon. Not to worry, I'm still keeping Robo.


Lastly is an original that I am quite proud of. For this I had been experimenting with Chinese brushes and ink, which were effective for making silhouettes of trees and foliage in the moonlight. I think I was remembering some scene in a collection of Disney cartoons called Make Mine Music where there were two swans flying about in a blue lagoon. Other than that I'm not sure why exactly I chose to paint swans, but eh, anything for an original piece.

Bye Bye Wartie

A mere two hours ago, I had my first ever operation. A simple procedure that took only ten minutes, in which I had a big wart taken off of my ankle. I had the thing for several years, and only recently it had become problematic because it looked like it was going to fall off, and whenever I got dressed and that, it'd catch it and sting.

Basically, it looked like this.

And after I had the op...


... I had three stitches, and I'll have to come back next week to have them taken out. Because of these I'm not sure on whether or not I should go to work or not since one of my only means of getting there is by walking. If anything is not right by Monday I'll give them a call. So why am I posting this? Well, because this blog is also about my real life experiences, and that was quite an experience to me since I never had any operation in my entire life. Besides, this blog needs an update anyway.

It started with the usual iodine application they do, and a local anaesthetic near the wart. I'm not really one for needles, so there I just took deep breaths, and that was over. All I could feel then was the doctor and nurse pulling the skin about and make the stitches, and after about ten minutes as I said, it was done. I couldn't put my shoe back on though, so I had to limp about with half of my sock on my toes. Maybe I should have brought a slipper. Oh well.

At least now, I won't have anyone being grossed out by the "thing on my ankle" anymore, neither would I worry about my clothes catching it. All I'm worried about now is how I'm going to shower with that dressing on...

Say Hi to Jess

I've been meaning to post this for a long time but I had spent too much time downloading stuff via bittorrent. That's my little doggie being all cute like she always does. To think that only today she was having a nutty half hour over a glass of water!



Doesn't she look adorable though?

I'm thinking about...taking a break from fanart so I can concentrate on drawings like this, because I get much more kick out of drawing things from life than copying the same cartoon picture over 100 times. Having said that though I've to make more Duckula images to replace some of those on my fansite that are rusting a bit, and I have concept art for a rather mental SpongeBob SquarePants/Crystal Maze parody to finish.

And to be honest, I don't give a shit if I don't get so many comments on my original art on DeviantART. It's a good thing actually, most of what flows into my inbox is quite retarded, especially on my old Mario fanart.

Cheerio.

Holy Rhino Daily Dev!

Remember the painting of the Rhino priest I showed you earlier? Well, the other day this very pic earned me a Daily Deviation at DeviantART, meaning that along with a number of others, it was featured by a gallery director [in this case, by one of the two directors for the Anthro gallery] for a whole day. Man was I ever thrilled by it, it shot my spirits so high I could barely type into my Livejournal because I was shaking! I got a shedload of favourites flooding my inbox as a result, and well, I don't know what else to say about it.

I always wanted a Daily Dev someday or another, and every day I looked and looked to see if I got one. And it's a good thing I got one on one of my anthro pieces, because it shows that those are just as appreciated by many people as my fanart. Maybe I should do more stuff to do with anthros and animals more often!

Anyway, for good measure I shall post some oekaki work I did a few weeks back.

My hips don't lie...

This pretty much sums up how I've been feeling recently. For about two weeks now I've been having this dull ache in my right hip and it worsens whenever I move around. I've tried having hot baths and using freeze gel, and I've tried to rest, but nothing seems to work so far, so I guess I'll have to suffer it for the time being. I could really use a hot water bottle right now. [Art was done in a friend's oekaki].

Blackpool 2007

Last week I travelled to the north west of England to have a short holiday in Blackpool, one of the most popular seaside resorts in the United Kingdom, well known for its long line of dazzling illuminations and being home to one of the country's tallest towers.

We left home in the morning on Monday, and were on the road for over six hours driving nearly 300 miles, including the time when we had a flat tyre and stopping twice to have a few snacks and going to the toilet etc. By evening, we finally arrived in our caravan park which was about six more miles from the actual town. After we unpacked and set ourselves up for the next few nights, we had a look around in the town, had a meal in a chippy [which I hate because chips and egg are the only 'vegetarian' things to eat, nothing healthy at all], and mucked around in arcades and the Central pier, where I could see the sun setting into the sea... I can't tell you how beautiful that was.

As it got darker, the lights were coming on, so we then drove up to see them again. Since we were constantly on the move, I had to take some video clips with my camera. The whole line of illuminations was a never-ending five miles long, and had various themes such as sirens, small characters and even Doctor Who, not to mention a giant disco ball and some road side displays. It was pretty cool to see those first hand, I must say! By the time we went back to Fleetwood, it was night time, so we stopped at an ASDA store for a few bits and went back to the caravan.

The next day, after a lengthy wait at a garage while some new tyres were being fitted into our car, we went to Blackpool Zoo, were we got to see several animals such as orang-utans, giant tortoises, capybaras [they're like giant guinea pigs], tigers, lizards, monkeys and parrots, the latter of which were being displayed at a special time which we sat through at one point. There was also another part called Amazonia which was like a walk through dome where all these squirrel monkeys were roaming free and jumping everywhere. It was a good thing I brought two SD cards, because I almost thought that I had no room left on the first one I used!

Despite almost being harassed by some kind of black and white goose for my lunch, we had a great day out there.

Wednesday was even more epic - we went most of it in the Pleasure Beach, where me and my mum went on most of the white knuckle rides except for Bling, including the all mighty Big One. Now, I have to admit, I was nervous when I went on this one, but it was such an awesome ride down a 230ft height! Other great rides included InFusion, Space Invaders and Valhalla, which was one of the best water rides I've been on, and I don't even like water ones!

After all that, my dad dragged me into a steak house which I didn't want to eat at, but fortunately they had a vegeburger that wasn't that bad. This was followed by yet another drive up and down the illuminations area much later at night when the sky was pitch black and you could see them a lot better.

The next day started with a good visit to the Blackpool Tower, a rather posh looking place which started with an aquarium, and had a massive ballroom that reminded me of Moulin Rouge. It was just so beautiful in there, what with all the red and gold designs and a guy playing on a wurlitzer organ.

But the bit that really made the day was when me and my mum went up the lift and into the top of the tower - while my mum was shitting herself scared, I was amazed by how I could see the whole of Blackpool from up there! Sadly the weather wasn't that great that day, and my camera's battery kept going flat whenever I wanted to take a good shot, but that's not to say I didn't take any pictures from that high up at all.

We then went around the shopping centre getting some bits for ourselves and for our family. I bought myself a plush of Plankton from SpongeBob SquarePants from a shop called Who, which to my astonishment had a life-sized Rayman statue on the upstairs floor. It wasn't for sale, but I really didn't think I'd ever see one, certainly not in Blackpool anyway. I also got the second season of SpongeBob on DVD, and a DVD of the entire Sonic SatAM cartoon from their HMV. I'm surprised I still have some money left after all the other crap and spent it on!

We left Blackpool the next morning, and drove for yet another six hours, coming back home in the late afternoon. I thought it was a great holiday, we got to do all those things in such a short time, and it was a whole new experience for us all. I can't imagine what this blog would say if we had gone to Great Yarmouth instead this year.

We're in talks of going to Spain next year, where my sister is currently at.

Some more sighing

Guess what, I'm in a bit of a rut again. Since I got my old tablet working again, I've been wondering, do I really need to get a Wacom yet? Don't get me wrong, the old one is a dodgy old thing, but it still works and serves me well. I can remember when I first got it I couldn't draw on it at all! Trust me, you don't wanna see the first pictures I did in them. Ever.

I did a bit more tidying up in my other wardrobe recently and found more sketchbook type paper. There's the thing about me, whenever I'm out shopping, I always buy stuff like sketchbooks, pads and pencils even though I don't really need them, which is why I have so much stuff that could last me well into the next decade or two.

There was quite a few things I needed more than all that stuff, such as a new pair of non-in-ear headphones [I wanted to avoid using the shitty iPod in-ear ones whenever I could because my ears are infected again and they make it worse. That reminds me, I've got to get some new medicine for that], a new microphone and some new ink cartridges.

Artsies!

I've been on such a creative flow since I got the old tab working again, I thought I might have took some time to do some art in it. It gets just a little dodgy at times, but hopefully it'll last me for long enough, considering that it's a 4 year old Aiptek Hyperpen 6000.

Hello back to you Berk.

It's supposed to be Simba of Lion King fame, but gone quite horrible wrong ;D

Fishie! Man, either GIMP's brushes suck or I suck as CGing.

The latter I spent the most time on, since I was trying out the ink tool, which, with the right tweaking, proved to be more effective than using the brush. Thing is though, it's really difficult, and there are times where you have to flip and rotate the picture just to ink with the tab more comfortably. But as they say, practice makes perfect!