Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Repaired photo

A repaired and restored old photo of a teenager friend of my mother. It was accidentally ripped to pieces but not out of anger but out of depression. There are many more photos like this only some have missing pieces and can not be fully restored. I think I did a pretty good job of it. Of course it wasn't that hard to do. It was one of the easer ones. I've done more complicated restorations, one of the photos being of my dad when he was young. The paper had this annoying texture, which made the photo scan with this annoying pattern, which was complicated to get rid of. It took me several weeks maybe two to restore the whole thing properly.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Nautical style Christmas ball




Click one the pic that shows the whole ornament to see all sides of it.

A Christmas ornament that I designed with a nautical theme to it. Using materials such as a glass ball, twine for the net affect, an assortment of shells with bits of coral that I personally dove and found from Florida and made little acrylic paint starfish to accent the whole thing. Then for the finally I added raffia for the ribbon and a nice clear coat to make the shells all shiny and pretty to look at. I think in the future I would love to make more of these hand made Christmas ornaments out of things that I can recycle and make it really attractive looking. As I said before I wouldn’t mind trying out to see if they would sell on E bay.
Probably won’t make it this year to sell them on E bay but there is always next year during the free promotion thingy they always have. I’ll be able to take advantage of this since I haven’t tried to sell any thing there yet. It would be fun to see if it does sell.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Christmas "E"

What I’ve been working on lately is a Christmas ornament. I decided to use some stuff around the house since I got tons of it and I might as well get rid of it in a useful fashion. Might even eventually sell it on E bay to make a little cash as well, I mean why not, eh?
I got a glass ball, made a twine fishing net and stuck it on. Then glued a few shells that I got in Florida a while ago and I have yet to polish the shells I stuck on and finally I’ll probably stick a beige raffia ribbon. Yeah you guessed it it’s a nautical style ornament. I decided to use a neutral ribbon so it draws attention to the interesting shells and the net design.

I’ve also been working on restoring a ripped up old photo. Look for it soon in the Mini galleria section. You can find the link at my web site.

Friday, November 03, 2006

Newly renovated

Just finished the new designs for the animation pages on my web site and most of the stuff for the character designs I had before are up again. It looks super. If you're wondering why I didn't go with the jungle vines though out the whole web site is because to me it wouldn't have all fit with the theme I was going with, which is again based on one of my cartoons. I kind of wanted the visitor feel like they’re in my cartoon world and visiting the different environments while looking at my artwork. As an addition to my artwork I have a series of Easter eggs that can be found in the animation pages for added amusement. If all goes well, I will add more possibly with a few simple sounds FX. As well as the interesting Easter eggs, I again experimented with the Styles in Photoshop with the results that I expected for the machine frames.

Monday, October 02, 2006

My other personality pictured


Finally got around to finishing this thing. It was originally a doodle in one of my sketchbooks. The time was right and so I though I finish it up. Thought it would be a pretty cool idea if I do it entirely with Styles in Photo shop since I could get a really nice metallic look with out creating more work for my self. It turned out pretty much the way I hope it would look. Would have even looked cooler if I could have experimented in Maya with it but don't have it installed currently and can't unless I get a new computer. I just don't want to strain an already elderly computer. The pic still looks cool none the less. Please note that this character is not based on my characters for my cartoons but was intended for an avatar pic and then an experiment. As always its still mine and no one else’sand you know what that means. ;)

Monday, August 14, 2006

more progress......

Finished, I think for now my illustration contracts. Its as good as it can get for now, but I’m sure that I’ll probably have to adjust it once I can find more info. Finished making a job jacket for, just incase, an art approval sheet and a personal time sheet. I might make similar ones for animation stuff. Probably won’t be too different. Now I just have to find out how to properly estimate how much a job/ gig is worth and how much do I write up for my work in general, like the hourly rate. Sigh, its not my area of expertise. I wonder if I can find info like that online or is it only in that book. Humm. Will also have to look for the Canadian copyright information for illustrators and animators. Got to look for that.

Monday, July 31, 2006

researching

Been doing the search on the business end of forms. I managed to find a few samples of invoices and other handy samples for artists. Couldn't find an invoice samp though just for illustrators. Kind of a bummer but oh well. I'm just going to have to make some guesses and sort of figure out what things should be included on things like invoices and forms like contracts and approval forms. I could though get a book that's out of print or something like that at Amazon. I also looked to see if my local library had it and even looked in to Chapters, neither have any. Hummmm! Then there is the option of looking in to a membership of some kind but at this time I can't afford that kind of expense. Bla! I guess if some one really liked my stuff it wouldn't matter at the time, at that time being.

Sunday, July 30, 2006

Got to send a massage

Finished my presentation for what ever company I decide to send to. Well it’s more for this one company for now that I’m interested in. I made it into a Power point presentation with the ability to be able to print off of. It took me awhile because I had so many things to fix up. I made my presentation flexible so that I can either send just some print outs or the PP thing. Any ways the presentation works quite satisfactory. I added a small sound bite for the transition of the pages. I avoided adding music because I feel that it would be more suited for an animation reel. I could have added some animation or even my short that I made in school but I really feel that I could have done more to it. We were unfortunately rushed and I did not really get to make the short they way I wanted it. But at least its satisfactory. In the future and when I actually get the money for like a decent paper cutter, hole puncher specifically for animation paper and eventually a new computer I will maybe make improvements to the short. A decent animation reel would be nice too. So far I got a decent digital camera, some software a satisfactory light table but it could be better and a decent scanner for the other things. I also need to make one of those things that are on every show at the end to show what company the animation is from. I have a decent one in mind with some sound FX that I could get using a really old tape of sounds and voices me and my neighbor made when we were children. It’s going to look and sound cool. I only wish I had made one for that last short that I made.

I’ve also been doing the usual surfing the net. I went to my usual favorite sites, Red dwarf being one of them and spotted a nice article of some really cool illustrations. They were featuring an illustrator and his latest work. What particularly caught my eye was the part on how he goes though the different processes of his illustrations until he gets to the final approved art work for a DVD cover. Well I learned yet another thing they don’t teach at school or my last job for that matter. Before the final this guy does the pre finals in scanned layers. I guess he sends them for approval and then I guess the art director chooses the perfect layout. After every thing is ok'ed he does the colored final and whala. I guess I’ll have to do it this way too. Its not a bad thing since it will save me time and effort. I didn’t really do if for my self cause when I do some illustrations for my own use I usually have an idea of what I want or do several small rough drawings for what I’m looking for and then do the final est. Sometimes I surf the net or have samples of my own to use as reference to get the look and feel of what I want for my layout or illustrations.

Anyways got to pack up my presentation in one of those bubble envelopes and make an invoice template, a contract thing and a whole bunch of other things that I have still yet to get to. Fewwww!

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Sneak preview


Finished that new thing I'm designing for my web site that I'm definitely going to move very soon. I'm going to move it for good reasons because my old site provider is not as flexible as I would like it. For one thing you can't use Png files. I only hope that my web page maker is just as flexible. If not going to have to get another one. Yeah I could use HGML but to me its a real bother. Don't like getting a headache as a result of just trying to make stuff looking cool est. I'll stick to my web page maker thank you very much.


Anyways here's a sneak preview of the new things that are going to be at my revised web site. Going to make another border like it too, for other parts of the pages.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Dream carrots


My latest illustration was originally drawn on the back of a finished sketch book during my break. I decided to colour it the old fashion way, with coloured pencils and markers like I use to do it when I was little but a whole lot better. I got really skilled at it because every Friday when I was in my late grade school years I use to work on this one cartoon. I would still work on it story and all if I had my own place and wasn't so busy with real life things. I would reveal what cartoon it is but its near and dear to my heart and so I'm very careful to not to show it off that much. I would show it off if I ran my own studio and of course it would have its own web site but for now its in the vaults of my mind and sketchbook.

Anyways getting back to my illustration, it features a rabbit sleeping in a fantasy type setting of carrots. I guess when I actually made the drawing I was dreaming of being else where. I was currently at my crappy job. I'll probably talk about it another time when I'm in that sort of complaining about my previous job mood.
To see more works go to my site and enjoy!

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Crazy like a fox

I took a small drawing of a funky fox I drew from one of my sketch books and fixed it up a few days ago. It looks pretty cool and I'm going to place it in my web site soon when I get the chance. I painted it in bright colours of water colour and made it look fluffy. It kind of reminds me of a puppet. You know like the feathers that Jim Hanson puppets use. I'll probably do a few more drawings like that in different medias too. I have so many projects and so little time to do them. Its a good thing that I can remember them all. I'm also going to have to eventually do that jacket like I planed. I'd like to see if I can sell it on Ebay. Its going to have a panda bear on it with the words panda in Chinese characters. The characters are going to be "blinged" I hope it turns out like I imagine it in my head.

I’ve also been looking at other web sites that I like and making a sample of them for future use. I plan to take some elements of the ones I like and add them to my own site but utilising my own ideas which of course will reflect my cartoon. I'd like to eventually be more public about my cartoon but for now it remains a secret till I can actually afford to get a great copy right for it.

Sunday, April 16, 2006

Updated my site

Hum I guess you can consider this an art project. Any how, I cleaned up the fan pages, gave it a nice new name and put in some new buttons. Its looking purrrrdy. Going to have to find and reload up those game posters because of some odd problems. Geocities is weird.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Sticking with it.

I think I'm going to stick to this blog provider after all. I tried the other one for a while but I really didn't like all that those ads with in my profile. It kind of looked unprofessional.