Moved... for now.

Have successfully moved into a new place off Tamborine Mountain (thankGOD for that!). This is, however, only a temporary move as I shall be moving into the city in early January-ish with the fantabulous Dr Nayu. I'm highly looking forward to moving to the big smoke! :D

Here's an arts in the meantime. :3

Cyber Blue - Vectors.

Available as a print on RedBubble and DeviantArt.

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Moving House + Arts

We're moving in about 3 days time so things are hectic and crazy and nerve-wracking, especially since we only found out TODAY that our application was accepted.

This, of course, leaves me with little time to work on my art or bookbinding projects (as most of my binding supplies are packed away anyway) and I'm sleep deprived and low on art motivation.

However, I have been working on a new vector illustration lately which will probably be finished after the move.

Hoorey! no more crazy long drives up and down the mountain!! :D

Here's a peek at what I'm working on:

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Feather Tattoo

Another daily girl finished and finished!

Drawn and coloured with vectors.
I actually began with just a feather and it sort of went from there.
I was consciously trying to make her face more 'interesting' than conventionally beautiful, thus the odd, androgynous features. I rather like them. :p

This pic is also up on my Red Bubble Gallery for sale.


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Up To No Good

A daily that turned into a finished image again, i never realised how easy it is to get carried away with vectors. :p
I initially wanted to do a portrait of some kind but when I got started it became more and more stylised, so I just pushed that further until you have this. :)

I recently purchased a fashion and costume book from the Kyoto Costume Institute and I've been ogling the gorgeous styles, craftsmanship, fabrics and the whole opulence of, in particular, 18th and 19th century fashion. As I moved through the fashionable ages, I noticed, however, a distinct lack in the 1920's section and a sad lacking of the lovely flapper style I admire, so I threw in some of that deco influence here as well, to make up for it in my mind. :p


Hmm. I can't decide whether I feel this one is right for Red Bubble gallery or not, any thoughts please?

Also cross posted to my Daily365 blog.

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Palest Doll WIP

A work in progress again, once finished it's going up on my Red Bubble account. :)
Vector illustration of a doll since it's become my recurring theme these days ^^'
I'm having some issue with the background colours though, i'm just not sure it's working... any feedback would be greatly appreciated there.


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Doodle Swap 2010 - First swap of the year!

Doodle Swap 2010 #4

"Water Lily"

"Little Branch"

"Leaf Blown"

"Karahana"

"Ivory Lotus"

"Gerberas"

"Brambles"

"Agapanthis"

These were posted out a couple of days ago (I was a little late in finishing them, the technique I used was a little time consuming) for the Doodle Swap Project.
This is the second time I've participated and it's always a nice little refreshing change of artistic pace. Figured it would be ok to post these as no one really knows which one they're going to get.

I went with a flora theme this time. Nothing is actually a real plant though lol, they're all out of my imagination.

I used ball point pen, which I generally shy away from, but this time is was rather enjoyable and has opened up a new technique for me that I'll probably be using more often in the future.

p.s. Sorry about the terrible scans, a lot of detail was lost. Had to use parental's dinky scanner as mine is in the process of dying. Guaranteed they are much nicer in real life, dear recipients. :)


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Gold and Girl Book - a quick preview

Latest book I've been working on.
This one took me a little longer due to the drawing I added to the cover.

Do take a look at the full size image (click on it) for better detail.

The book is soft card cover with a reinforcement of a secondary inside cover of gold paper, same paper used for the cover drawing. The pages are thick, off-white paper, bordering on cardstock; really nice to draw or write on.
The book will come in a silk case, once I get it done lol.

The drawing itself was done in sepia pen which I moved around with a detail brush and a little water, to get that watercolour effect. Highlights were added in opaque white pencil.

Unfortunately, pearly gold paper doesn't photograph very well. Click to enlarge for a better view.


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Work is going... quietly.

Work was unbelievably quiet today (read: painfully boring) so I got to do a bit of sketching in Painter; haven't used it in ages, it was nice to crack it out again, even with my old 4x6 graphire.

Basically just messing about with shading and pose. Yeah, sorry bout the scratchy lines mess XD

Actually, I managed to do two sketches today but one is getting coloured so i'll post it within the next few days, work permitting.


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Finished 'Mum Book

As promised in the previous post, though a little later in the evening than anticipated.

Finishing up the binding and tying that badboy off!

Book photo!pr0n! XD

Little bit of scale, it's actually quite small and cute ^^

My only reall little issue with this book is that the bindings ended up slightly looser than I'd have liked, and the fact the covers are attached just by the tapes is a little disconcerting.
Still, I'm really happy with the colours and the visible threads look really pretty.
I've already started my next book project but since it's a little bit of a secret, I won't be able to show any progress photos until the very end.
Thanks for keeping up with my bookbinding shenanigans!


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Laptop-less For A While

My computer stopped working last Wednesday and i've been silently suffering without. I make no excuses about my addiction to the digital realm and without my programs, internets and music (which is ALL on my comp) I may as well be without a limb.
I am making do with spartan use of my mother's computer, though it is clunky, missing favoured and what i consider, necessary, software, it is still a little lifeline of escapism I need.
Today, I gave in to my digital sketching addiction by installing GIMP on this poor RAM deprived machine and gave it a good go.
Like a friend said, it's no Photoshop *sobs* but it will do for now, at least until I get Laptop back.
This is what I managed to doodle in GIMP.
It's a very close program to photoshop in regard to options and specs but there's just something missing about it, I can only say it's the fluidity of use, or something, and perhaps the sensetivity of the brushes themselves that feel different in a very noticeable way. Eh.
Blah, enough rambling. Get to the arts.

I agree, it's no Mona Lisa, but whatevs.
It was also meant to be Felicien when I started it but... no. Sigh.


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Moo

I spent the day with the lovely Bleupencil today, trolling cafe's and getting caught in storms, and we chatted about a possible collaborative project between us (we've talked about it in the past but finally decided on something lol... sort of, between drawing and laughing and dumb/awesome ideas XD).

Suffice to say, I was very inspired by the concepts/ideas we were throwing around and when I finally managed to get home after further adventures afield (aka, appointments and then another impromptu meeting with a friend), I got to drawing something that may or may not go towards said project.
Thus the sneek-peek only. ^^

Drawn and inked in Photoshop.
Also, today's TaD. #20!! w00t!!

Oh and the title?
Totally has everything to do with the picture. XD

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Day 17 Thing-a-Day

Day 17's Thing-a-Day will be posted here coz the site is down at the moment :(
Not that today's in anything to throw a party over. :/

Base sketch again, this time for another painting i'm working on in Painter at the moment.
Only a sneakpeek though. ^^


Yup, now if I could just get to sleep sometime before the sun starts coming up, that would be neat.

MP3 Pouch - TaD day 5

Today's Thing-a-Day was more sewing!! Yay! XD
Day 5 I decided my little Samsung MP3 player deserved a new case to keep it safe and warm and happy.

I based the design off the tutorial by Petchy, found on her blog. I changed a couple of things here and there but it pretty close to the original source.
I used a quilting cotton for the top and some red felt for the interior. A piece of shiny red ribbon topped it off. I'm quite happy with how this turned out! Yay for more practise!! :D

If I got my coding half right, clicking on the images should bring up a larger view, if you're interested. :p

Pink NM

There were parties afoot for AustDay here in the house today, so I took the opportunity to hide myself away in my closet and make arts.
I recently stumbled upon SpoonFlower and was very inspired by what they have to offer.
The site specialises in printing personalised fabrics, from a few centimetres (swatch size) up to 3yards (2.74m for us metric users).
You create your own designs to go on the fabrics and they print them on high quality cotton and mail it anywhere in the world.
Suffice to say, I am very excited. :D
So today, hidden away in my cave, I whittled away the hours with a little design work, in Inkspace of all programs (which actually isn't that bad once you get the shortcuts down and stop mistaking Illustrator shortcuts).
The design is a little busy in the end, but I'm rather fond of it now, the more I look at it ^^
It also makes me realise just how rusty my design skills actually are; this took me way longer then it should have if I had made sketches and thumbs before hand, rather than plopping myself into the deep end and working straight in Inkspace.

Lol, by the end of drawing my eyes were like dry crackers from all that pink. XD
Trust me, you wanna click on that pic, it looks waaaaaay better without the blogger compression.

Those links again:
SpoonFlower
Inkspace (vector drawing freeware program)

Illustration Friday: Pale

Very last minute post for Illustration Friday.
Couldn't really sleep so did this. Have to work tomorrow... why aren't i asleeeeep??? =_=

Painter.

PE Brethren - "Light"

Drawn today for the PE brethren section, character is Moonstone (9), theme was "Light".
I tried to show a few things with Moon within the context of the theme;
- His light colouring
- Light as in weightlessness (though I don't know how well that conveyed)
- Light as in the directional bg light.

Yeah I probably sound more artsy than I really am XD
Drawn in Painter in about 3 hours (waaaaaay too long for an overworked sketch :/ )

Paint.net has it's turn

Because I seriously need to be drawing more, even if it's just grubby sketches like this one.
6am this morning and I was already up and bored out of my mind. I don't start till 9:30 so there I was staring blankly at my screen cursing the early hour and the lack of decent things to watch. So I cracked out the old Paint.net (lol but it loads a lot quicker than Painter or Photoshop) and played around with some of the weird and wonderful brush settings. Took me all of half an hour but yay! arts! XD