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Archive for February, 2009

Publicis book covers.

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

I know I said last week that I was going to blog about the dog show, and I will, but right now I just have time to show you this cool book cover I made last week. Remember this Publicis book cover I made?

Well, I saw January’s cover for Computer Arts and I was inspired to do something similar for my next assignment. Here’s January’s cover:

See how it’s kinda sorta three-dimensional? I took that plus the look of the previous cover and spent a hefty amount of time in Adobe Illustrator making it all diagonal-like. I didn’t use any extrusion tools either. I built each and every chunk using guides and anchors – lots of anchors. And skewing and rotating as well. I think it turned out pretty spiffy. Hopefully the powers that be here will like it and use it for something in the near future.

Posted in Advertising, My Art/Design/Business, New York | No Comments »

Two things.

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

1. I was watching the Ace of Cakes marathon on Monday and kind of half-paying-attention while working on other things, and Duff was talking about making something and probably giggling (he does that) and… wait, is that a jellyfish cake in the background?!??

Dude. AWESOME. I don’t care for many of Ace of Cakes cakes because I find them too cartoony, but seriously, that jellyfish cake is super-rad. I realize only the dome top part is edible and the rest is structural, but who cares? JELLYFISH CAKE. I bet Snorth is cursing herself right now for not having that as her wedding cake.

And yes, I’m quite aware they are not called jellyfish anymore, they’re called jellies. But “jelly cake” means something totally different. For those of you kids playing at home, starfish are now called sea stars and seahorses are now called… something else. I forgot. I can’t keep track of politically correct ocean nomenclature.

2. I saw Slumdog Millionaire. I saw it based on the reviews I read. You can read one here. Note the words they use in the review: “beautiful, sad, sweet, uplifting, and thoroughly entertaining”. Yeah, sounds lovely, doesn’t it? I’m going to totally ruin the movie with a mess of spoilers right now because no review I read did that and that caused me to have to choke back stomach acid while watching this film. IT’S AWFUL. The first half is disgusting and the second half is boring and a bit silly, plot-wise. Let me first clue you in on the disgusting bits: Jamal the Street Child lives in absolute squalor in Bombay (it’s still Bombay at that time). He is defecating at the local lavatory (a shed over a pit) when his favorite movie star lands in a helicopter nearby. His brother locks him in as a prank, so to get to see his movie idol, Jamal pinches his nose and drops himself into the pit of human excrement, then crawls out underneath completely covered and rubs his liquid-filth-encrusted-self on members of the crowd surrounding the movie star in an attempt to get to the front. I’m turning green just thinking about it. Shortly afterwards, we see Jamal and his brother and mother washing at the local watering hole, when apparently a religious riot breaks out and Jamal sees his mother get whacked in the face with a hunk of wood and die. Jamal and his brother see other people being torched and killed in front of them, and on their way back, they see their mother’s corpse floating in the water. Wait, it gets better. Jamal and his brother are living at the local dump when a man shows up and offers to take them in. He teaches them to sing so they can sing on the street for money. However, blind children get twice as much money, so when he finds a particular child with good singing skills, he drugs them and blinds them with boiling hot water and a spoon. OH MY GOD. This is all in the first half-hour. How can no one mention this in any review anywhere? The rest of it is all about finding the one true love of your life you are destined to be with and fate and all that whatever and it ends with the lovers being together and a bollywood dance number. Aside from Dev Patel, who plays the adult Jamal and is excellent, this movie blows and if it wins a slew of Oscars I’m going to be very, very unhappy.

Addendum: I am very, very unhappy.

Posted in Movie and Book Reviews. Possibly With Spoilers., Tasty 'n' Delicious, The Telly | No Comments »

I made a softie! Tongue-twister: Red shantung silk softie.

Monday, February 16th, 2009

I can’t sew. In college on my costume rotation, everyone else in the class was given cotton to sew their final project. I was given muslin. No one else got muslin, not even the lighting designers. I wasn’t worth using cotton on. That gives you an idea of my complete sewing suckitude. Which is why the fact that I crafted something out of fabric and it chose not to set itself on fire out of shame is marvelous. So check it out!

It’s a softie made from red shantung silk (see title of post) with tan silk on the side which I beaded as well. And then there’s the face. Close-up:

It took me a really long time to come up with that forehead design, but I’m very pleased with it. I wanted a very mellow, gentle sort of look on the face and I think I achieved that. And this little softie gets along quite well with Snorth’s sheepie-sheep.

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Cameras and Comics.

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

Well, I officially killed my camera. I carry it around in my purse and it gets kicked and punched and dropped regularly (because it doesn’t cook my dinner the way I like it! Why do you make me hit you?!) and it decided to rebel by not taking pictures. Oh, it acts like it’s going to, the flash goes off and it makes a little “click” noise and you think, “I have taken a picture!”, but when you go to the memory card… no picture. So I went on my ole buddy Amazon and bought m’self a new Canon Eylphe OCD-2000 or whatever in slate blue. I will also get a case for it, so while it will continue to hang out in my purse with my keys and a myriad of other scratchy pointy items, it will be protected.

So, this past weekend. Cool experience. My friend Jem was in town (Glamor and glitter! Fashion and fame! Truly truly truly outrageous!) for the Comicon in the Javitz Center. I met up with her on Saturday night and we went to a utterly touristy place for dinner, Bubba Gump’s Shrimp Co. It’s one of those places I wouldn’t go to unless I’m with a friend from out of town. It was a lovely dinner, though. If you go there, I recommend the Louisiana Lemonade paired with either the dippin’ shrimpin’ broth or the spicy Louisiana shrimp with jasmine rice. Afterwards, Jem told me about a party occurring in her hotel. Here’s the back story: Person A bet Person B that he couldn’t get a Wolverine comic book signed by all six contributors plus Hugh Jackman. Person B accomplished the task and now Person A, having lost the bet, had to kiss Person B’s rump. The gathering in the hotel was to witness the booty-smootch. We showed up for a short while, but people were kinda just sitting around and talking quietly amongst themselves and no one was going to kiss anything for some time, so we said, “See ya,” and headed over to Connelly’s Bar for the Marvel party. It was, to use the common vulgar term, quite a sausage-fest. I am not what one might consider “smokin'”, yet a drink was purchased for me by a male. I attribute this to the lack of bosoms on the premises. I ended up in a corner talking to the guys who run the Toronto Comicon. They kept pointing out important comic people to me, saying things like, “People cry when they meet that guy… he’s like one of the gods of comics,” and to me, the man referenced looked like a sweaty bank employee – no shoulders, pasty and plain-looking. It’s amazing how ordinary celebrities can look if you don’t have a freakin’ clue who they are.

Next entry: Westminster Dog Show. I something-other-than-a-poodle won. I am happy.

Posted in New York, Stuff | No Comments »

Giraffe.

Thursday, February 5th, 2009

Remember Sloth?

I have since decided to make the white part a yellow-orange, give it a little more zip! and ping! And I thought Sloth there needed some friends, so I designed a giraffe to go with him.

New ‘n Improved Sloth:

and Just Plain New Giraffe:

I really tried to capture that bored, slightly stupid expression giraffes have. I think I got it. Maybe I’ll make another forest creature that lends itself to the long, thin layout. I have to think about what animal would suit the space.

Addendum: After looking at the giraffe and sloth together, I think two things: one, the giraffe needs more greenery around him, and two, perhaps he needs a small butterfly or tiny bird on his horn. The sloth has that vine he’s hanging off of, so incorporating elements that aren’t the animal itself is okay. Revised giraffe coming soon.

Addendum to the addendum: Decided against butterfly or bird. Increased greenery. Better giraffe.

Addendum to the previous addendums: Oh dear God, I’m totally overthinking the foliage around this giraffe. I’m going to stop now.

Posted in Random Art Bloggery | No Comments »

I went to a reptile and amphibian show. I saw many cool things.

Monday, February 2nd, 2009

I went with Snorth last weekend, and it was delightful. I love all of God’s creatures, but I especially love crested geckos. And lo, there were many a crested gecko there. I got to hold two of them! One even licked his eyeball clean! And I exploded with happiness! I also forgot to take pictures of him while I was doing this exploding, so I found some good pictures of crested geckos online that I will post here. Imagine I’m holding one of those.

In that last pic you can really appreciate their windshield-wiper feet that allow them to stick to glass like suction cups. Crested geckos are also called eyelash geckos because of the little ridge of eyelash-like scales over their eyes. They’re just the greatest.

So, The Reptile and Amphibian Show happens semi-annually at the Westchester County Center, which is a giant hall, and the hall was filled to the brim with beasties in plastic containers. As we came in, the first booth on the right had this grotesque 3-D display.

Welcome to the reptile and amphibian show! We have corpses taped to paper! Enjoy your breakfast that you’re trying to keep down right now!

But at that booth, there was a smootchie little Western Hognose Snake. Hognoses are known for being excellent pets, laid-back and friendly (as friendly as snakes get). And I got to hold this little fella. What a sweetheart.

They live for about twelve years and get to be a bit bigger then a garter snake. You can’t appreciate it in this pic, but the hognose snake is called the hognose snake because its little snoot turns up at the end like a tiny cold-blooded piggie.

I think it looks more like a shoehorn with eyes, but it’s called the hognose, and hognose-named it shall remain.

So Snorth and I pottered around commenting on the beautiful patterns on all the beasties (quick recap: they were very beautiful) and we saw a little boy chillin’ with some big ole lizards. Big. I took pictures of the lizards with the child so you can see the scale.

And I got a shot with some flicky-flicky tongue action! I think the lizards were plotting to eat the child.

And there was a man selling a variety of reptiles with his favorite on his shirt, literally hanging out.

I was so envious. I want a dragon hanging from my shirt all day. I talk to myself a lot, and I could pretend I was talking to the dragon instead, which is slightly less insane-looking.

This particular vendor had a pretty standard snake set-up, which I took a picture of so you could see it. And one of the snakes was shedding, I think.

See him? Lower right-hand corner? And not only were there snakes and frogs and lizards, there were also tarantulas and walking-stick bugs and giant African millipedes. They really covered the whole creepy-crawly gamut. It was wonderful, and I can’t wait to go back next time, if only to cuddle my beloved geckos.

Posted in Beastiesbeastiesbeasties, Nature, Stuff | 1 Comment »

All The Way Down: The Tortoise piece is complete.

Sunday, February 1st, 2009

I finished the tortoise piece. Wow, that only took forever, didn’t it? But it’s done, and that’s what matters. I spent four hours tweaking those four words – a little taller, adding pointy bits, deleting something, blah blah blah. But (again) done, most important thing. So lookit.

I did the four-hour-tweaking, then I printed the words and cut a stencil (that took forever too) and painted the words with a semi-transparent silver on a chunk of a board I found on the streets of New York. I think, as long as you know the story (story here) it’s a kind of cool piece. I’m pleased with it. And hopefully you are too.

P.S. I gave B. the moth I painted and he liked it, he really liked it! Always nice when that happens.

Posted in My Art/Design/Business, Nature | 1 Comment »

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