Well yesterday the family arrived back home from a whirlwind tour of the British Isles. I might have a recap up of what we all saw, but then again I might just let Jessica explain all the details.
More importantly, I must share with you a video starring little pillow monsters. It’s a music video on YouTube for the song “One Man Wrecking Machine” by Guster. The animation is quite good, and quirky enough to stand out.
Well, just as quickly as it was posted and approved, the masses have spoken and they do not want a Blobber t-shirt. The average score over 700+ votes was 1.6 out of 5. That automatically removes it from the voting area, essentially knocking it out of the competition.
Oh well, maybe another design later on would garner more votes.
Well that was fast. The Blobber T-Shirt detailed in my previous post is now available to be voted upon. Vote People, Vote!
C’mon people, vote on this thing. Let your friends know about it too!
For folks that know me, it’s pretty apparent that I’m addicted to the fine quality t-shirts provided by Threadless.com. My closet has a cornucopia of rainbow colored shirts which are decorated with imagery and phrases that I only seem to find interesting. It’s a simple pleasure that makes casual Fridays all the more enjoyable… at least for me.
So I’ve debated submitting my own designs for their competitions before, but I never got around to it. Their current catalog is driven by user-created submissions that are voted on by the users themselves. Popular items get a higher ranking and might possibly be turned into real live shirts.
Enter the logo for the Blobber.
The Blobber used to be the mascot for a short lived web site put together by my coworkers, which resided at oddly enough theblobber.com. The site no longer exists, and the Blobber is no more. The basis for the site were a bunch of silly eating competitions we dreamed up, and we’ve since outgrown that. Pics from its humorous history can be found in my boss’ Flickr albums if you are interested. Our motto was: “Masticating for your pleasure”.
I’m quite proud of the Illustrator work I did on this piece oh so long ago. I still feel it holds up, and so I figured I’d submit it to the latest Threadless competition just for the heck of it. The original had a much larger, softer color palette; but I was required to reduce the unique color amount to 4 because of the rules for the competition. Two different variants of the original can be found here on white and here on black (my fave).
It still has to be approved in order to be voted on, but as soon as it is (prolly when I’m travelling abroad oddly enough), I’ll be whoring for votes left and right from whomever I know.
If I can, I’ll post again when voting becomes available. At such time, I’d really appreciate a vote or two. Feel free to be honest with your opinion, but think of the possibility of wearing such a magnificant shirt for your casual Friday…
Hello there.
Can you still see this site through the remaining cobwebs? It’s been a while since my last post, so I had to evict the resident spiders who moved in this past May. I’m sure they’ll be back soon enough…
As far as updates, it’s not like there wasn’t anything that has happened this past month. Instead it was almost like there was too much information to post… and then I’m lazy.
So here’s a quick rundown of what I’ve been up to:
See, I did a lot of stuff. I wasn’t completely useless.
Anyway, the family and I are heading on a whirlwind tour of the British Isles in the coming weeks. I should have more to write about then.
I am often amazed at what someone is able to do with Macromedia Flash. Whether it’s a great visualization, smooth animation, or just great design I’m usually impressed.
Well I’ve been following the work of Adam Phillips since his first or second Flash animation. He is truly a master at what he does, and I can only strive to have work that somewhat mimics his. His skill with effects animation is unparalleled.
Recently, his next animated short was released and it’s his best ever. The YuYu continues the story of Brackenwood and its main character Bitey. If you haven’t seen these pieces yet, you really owe yourself to sit down and watch them. This latest one is actually split into two films. So here is the first part (Littlefoot), and here is the second (The YuYu).
While you are at the site, I recommend watching the other films Bitey of Brackenwood and Prowlies at the River.
I first began using a digital pen tablet back when I originally made this site with my family’s Macintosh. Almost 99% of the Little Yellow Guy’s art was done in Dabbler, using my old school Wacom pad. I think it was almost 5 x 4 inches if I remember correctly. Tiny, but quite useful.
Shortly after getting my own Windows PC, I bought another cheap Wacom pad to replace the Macintosh one I could no longer use. The Graphire 2 tablet I currently own works admirably, but it doesn’t seem anywhere near as smooth or accurate as my old serial pad. It’s imperfections are a big reason why I don’t do much digital art anymore.
I’ve always liked the thought of using a tablet type system, and on several occasions I debated as to whether I should break down an buy a Tablet PC. For one reason or another, I’ve put the thought into the back of my mind.
And now comes along the tablet above all other tablets: the Wacom Cintiq. I had seen advertisements for these before, but the sticker shock has always scared me away. I thought owning one, let alone using one, was a pipe dream.
But recently I saw a live video of one of them in action, and now I’m in complete and utter awe. The video must really be seen. The tablet is so much larger than what I thought it was going to be. It must be amazing to even be within it’s gigantic presence.
Of course, it’s still like a million dollars (about $3000 to be exact). But hey, I could always lease one right?
I watched a lot of PBS growing up. Mister Roger’s Neighborhood, 3-2-1 Contact, and of course Sesame Street.
For the most part, I loved Sesame Street. Grover, Big Bird, even Oscar the Grouch were entertaining and interesting.
Unfortunately, there was always one skit that scared the crap outta me: those blue and pink Sesame Street aliens.
Their wacky mouth movements, voices, and special effects would force me to turn away.
But now thanks to the popularity of YouTube, I can watch those little bits with no fear at all. Quite funny to see them in this new light, even if they are still a bit scary.
Well, it seems I’ve neglected this blog with all the things that have been going on recently. Amazing how one can get too busy to keep up one’s journal. I’ll try to do a quick recap and then finish off with something spectacular.
I’m still going to the Life Drawing class and my pictures have begun to improve. We are in the final weeks and recently I’ve been fooling around with graphite pencils. With them I’ve been able to get finer details and play around with linear shading. I have taken pictures of the pieces, but honestly they were from the past few weeks and I’m too lazy, so I probably won’t post them.
Last Friday, my team from work visited Google Headquarters. It was my second trip to the idyllic location, and the experience was great. Recaps from my co-workers can be found here and here.
Right after arriving back home from the Californian pilgrimage, Jessica and I headed off to Las Vegas for just over a day. We stayed at Treasure Island (now known as just ‘ti’) and caught another Cirque Du Soleil show. I finally was able to see the original “Cirque in Vegas” show, Mystere. I honestly found it to be one of the weaker shows of the few I’ve seen. Awesome giant inflatable snail though.
And to conclude, what sparked my desire to post was the image that I came across to the left. Quite amazing isn’t it? I can’t believe there really is a Corn Dog Air Freshener. I can’t imagine what other great stuff is available from Archie McPhee’s. Oh wait, yes I can.
We started using non-charcoal materials this week. We briefly used graphite pencils on Tuesday, and today we used white pencils on black canson paper. The images from this post are from today’s excercises.
It has been a nice change of pace, and I like the results. The “She Hulk” one is interesting with the green pastels as a base, but I’m not a fan of the blending I used. But it is definitely something to look at. My favorite is the close-up below.
