CherryFizzWhizz

HourlyComicDay

2012-02-01T23:48:00.001Z

Just found out that it was hourly comic day, and that such a day even exists, so I thought I'd quickly doodle about my day today. Not all that eventful, but good practice to draw mac keyboards over and over and over again and still not make them look anything like real ones ;) It's a skill, I feel.

Although we did have a representative from the British Red Cross come and give us a mini presentation today, so it wasn't all bad.
Soo here was my day -

wake up to find out last year's results, me and Am feel sadface about them

super-fast mission to uni, trying to keep warm in the -2ish weather

Our tutor explains about our next brief (pitching)

and that Martin from the British Red Cross will be giving

us a talk about our potential project

Martin arrives, says he's naff at presentions and

doesn't support a football team in the spirit of neutrality

(any reason is a good reason imo)

a non-liquid lunch in the student bar

& some actual work in the mac suite...

...at least for an hour :P

come to the dark side, we have cookies

taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaaptap

even colder rush home, fuuuuuuu-

munching chocolate and preparing for a night in front of the telly

finding out about this whole thing through twitter, and then

sketching the sketch of me sketching this sketch *inception style*

being on the phone to the council with generic hold music.

If you want me to listen to your hold music, at least be inventive about it.

Virgin Media rickrolled me once, that was much better.

and that's it, I'm bored of drawing poorly drawn doodles to represent the epic-ness *cough* that was my day. And from now on all you would get are hourly updates to my tv schedule.

I want to spare you that much at least!

Another Year

2012-01-19T20:05:00.001Z

So, it's 2012 now! Pretty exciting stuff (unless you count the possible end of the world...)
I was going to make a new post yesterday, but with all the SOPA/PIPA protesting going on I figured I'd rather twitter related links all morning (since I'm non-american and can't call a senator), links like this one which I shall call WTF is SOPA/PIPA?
which has a handy dandy graphic design-y video. It explains it far better than I could.
But yeah in summary SAVE THE INTERNET from bills with weird acronym names that think censoring the whole internet is a good idea.

Right, on to things that aren't words, this is my final outcome for the font I had to design; I decided to create a child-friendly typeface and really enjoyed it!
each letter creates a part of the character's face :)

I also have the January blues, so I doodled this too..

More things to come soon, I have a week off so I want to catch up on sketching anything and everything. Hope you're all having a good 2012 so far!

website! almost christmas! good things!

2011-12-11T21:19:00.002Z

Hello everyone!
I feel like using way too many exclamation marks
because it's almost christmas again(!)
and December is going far too quickly.
I want to bottle up December, infact I think that will be my next illustration.
I also turn 22 this month, Madness. But good madness.
anyway, actual *news* -

cherryfizzwhizz.co.uk goes live!

it still needs a few extra tweaks, but overall very happy with my first real attempt at a little bit of web design :)
I'll make sure to post up a blog when I add the shop, which I plan to do over the holidays, which will include things like cards, badges etc. I hope you guys like it :)
feel free to let me know what you think through the octopus-infested contact page.

I finish uni for the holidays this friday so expect a crazy-backlog of projects and things I've been working on/toiling over that has meant I haven't been blogging as much.

but for now, here's a doodle I doodled when I was using sponge printing for my fonts project - she has koi for hair because why not?

4 robins christmas card design

2011-11-29T21:26:00.000Z

....or *are* there four robins? ;)

Making lunch FUN again

2011-11-13T13:31:00.000Z

Comp entry for Anorak's FUN LUNCH, I think I would've eaten far more fruits and veg when I was little if they were edible dinosaurs ;)

click to make bigger :)

christmas cards coming *very* soon, I thought of an extra idea that I want to try out so just putting the finishing touches on that before I release them out into the wild wide web.

Postcards and Recycled receipts

2011-11-11T00:55:00.001Z

If you remember me mentioning those number postcards I talked about a few weeks ago, I have finally finished them (unless my tutor says otherwise) so here are the results! I'll put a short explanation next to each number and some initial sketches to give you a better idea of the project.

We had to pick 3 different numbers that had some personal significance to us and then design a postcard to represent each one, these were my initial ideas for the number five (obviously) because I was five when we got our cat - and she lived to the grand age of over 11 in people years & was/is a big part of my life.

and the outcome for my postcard

next was the number 27, which is significant to me because it's my birth date and I kind of think that number makes me, Me. So I went with the middle sketch idea because the symmetry makes it look like a person :)

final outcome:

and finally the number 9, because it just has a funny way of appearing in my life all the time; years, dates, house numbers..you name it. So since the number leaves me with more questions that answers I decided to combine it with a question mark, and decided the final sketch was the most-effective.

final outcome:

Also to finish off on something non-uni based, here are two receipts I found folded in strange shapes in my pocket that turned into mini doodles

Ooh also also, before I forget, I must mention the really inspiring lecture Brian Grimwood gave at University Campus Suffolk this week, check out his stuff and if you have the chance to go and see him talk do it, because it might just change your life.

Until next time...

Good morning starshine...

2011-11-06T10:49:00.000Z

More thumb prints today, I'm aiming to create a huge batch of them and then go through and select the best ones, I'm putting in a proposal in the next week or so and if I am successful - expect to see a little solo show next February :)

I will also be making some of these designs into badges (and possibly stickers) and putting them up for sale on bigcartel SO if you have seen any that have caught your eye, here's a good opportunity to snatch them up! They will be very limited in print and I will write a teeny signature on each one for people who like that kind of thing.

*Also* I decided to design another xmas card this year, I don't want to give too much away but it involves potatoes, reindeer and coffee. But not for the reasons you might think.

I'll put the finished piece up on here next week (so you can see that it's not as weird as it sounds) and then add it to bigcartel as well incase you want something a little bit quirky in a card this year.

Either way I'm mailing these out to my whole family + friends so I want them to look pretty special.

Ok, without further ado, more thumb prints!

my number postcards for uni will also be ready to show next week, it's going to be pretty busy for the next month or so, and personally I cannot wait to get into the christmas spirit :)

Fancy seeing you here

2011-10-28T00:18:00.000+01:00

Ok, lots more to show today :) this is my latest batch of inked thumb prints that I am currently compiling to make one big exhibition-able collection called 'all thumbs'.

and this is my bride of frankenstein thumb-ink in time for halloween, although I think she looks a bit like Olive Oil from popeye...

and I just love the simplicity of this one

They're always really fun to do, I might add colour to a few of them later to see if it makes any of them more effective. We shall see, I've got some inked life-drawings to put up in the next couple of days as well.. although drawing from life will never be as rewarding for me as *trying* to tease something out of my imagination. stubborn imagination :P

shoes!

2011-10-19T21:39:00.000+01:00

Ok, maybe everyone doesn't get that excited about shoes, but they are quite fun to draw :) this was for our new weekly drawing class, maybe next time I can throw some heels in there, literally! (I was wearing boots that day).

I tried out a newer style I've been tweaking of working with thick colourful marker pen vs. ink. I'm enjoying it so far, our next class is tomorrow and I think it's character design which should be awesome. Will be sure to post up any decent outcomes :)

I've almost finished my postcard outcomes for our graphic media module as well, so expect a whole separate blog on that this/next week :]

Also, it's getting cold again. booo winter.

Woah

2011-09-28T18:15:00.000+01:00

Who's seen the new dynamic layouts? Don't they look snazzy? ...Except for the whole no-sidebar thing at the moment. Hopefully they'll fix all that and I shall switch to the magazine layout :)

more people-practice:

for my best friend's 22nd birthday, because she loves fairies :3

and a sketchy group pic from a recent night out, I'm in the middle :]

Book cover project!

2011-09-24T10:09:00.001+01:00

Hey everyone, I'm back at uni again so expect loads more updates now I have internet once more *touch wood*

Over the summer the illustration pathway students (including yours truly) were set the task of re-designing 3 book jackets in a more illustrative style. When we came to present them the tutors admitted the covers they had picked were challenging on purpose :P but it's always good to be challenged. So, here are my attempts, which on the whole we were both pleased with and I had quite a lot of fun designing :) I still need to keep simplifying my work, but I feel like I've improved a *lot* over a year, and practice makes perfect.

original:

redesign:

original:

redesign:

original:

redesign:

Hope you enjoy :) more updates to come soon, including all the doodles from this summer's sketchbook

back from Reading festival!

2011-09-01T12:30:00.000+01:00

Hello everyone! I am indeed back, I was only out of town for 4 days so you may be wondering why I haven't updated my blog in about a month...but there are far more important things to wonder about :P don't worry though, from now I will (try) to be regularly updating again every few days since I have new merch-type projects in the pipeline (badges and keyrings anyone?) and that will be an adventure in itself since I've never tried to make anything like that before.

SO, Reading, well it was my first time going there so I can't really give you a non-biased opinion of the festival itself - unless you want one, then I'll crank out a whole blog of words because you may not realize this but I am an excellent waffler. I just try not to bore you guys/gals because this is a picture-y place rather than a personal blog. But I did get a tumblr the other day so I could start using that if you want to be nosey. Hmm, anyway

After coming back from the fest with a new-found love for a bunch of new bands (and reaffirming some old ones), I felt a bit inspired and decided to create some quick band logo-type-things that represent their music to me

I've done 2 so far, hopefully a few more to come.
The first is for Cage the Elephant because I thought they were amazing live, and I really like their sound, and the energy and the lyrics and just everything ^^

The second is for MUSE because they were the biggest headliners for Reading this year and lived up to all of the hype, the performance was intense, the atmosphere was perfect and they had inflatable eyeballs bouncing around the crowd. EYEBALLS!
They played the whole of Origin of Symmetry so I tried to incorporate that into the logo by replacing the U.

Hope you enjoy them, I still want to do one for Frank Turner and possibly for Friendly Fires and Cults if I have time :)

Another day, another poster

2011-08-07T22:32:00.001+01:00

This time it's a poster to promote a very nice lady and her jewlery, because she has made some earrings to donate to the RSPCA shop.

So instead of just having words in the middle and pictures of the different styles of earring round the outside, I wanted to be a bit more creative so I thought about the different places where these earrings could hang from, then thought about nature etc. and decided a tree would be a nice option, and owls could be sitting in between the pairs of earrings on the branch to make it more colourful and animal-filled.

yay

so here it is!

I used a bit of ink for the texture of the tree, and basically I really love this style and the way it came together :) hope to see it laminated in the shop windows soon :D

voldemort voldemort ooh voldy voldemort

2011-08-04T19:22:00.000+01:00

Ok, so now I've given away what this post is about :P but potter puppet pals is awesome so I regret nothing!

I wasn't planning on creating anything to do with voldemort.. but while I was doing uni work I noticed a part of the book design looked like a snake and since I am still on a potter-kick at the moment it kind of just...happened. But I like the final result so that's something :) I ended up doing two versions, one is the whole thing with the page of horcruxes on one side, and the other version just has voldemort and a bit of nagini in.

hope you like them :)

RSPCA tombola poster

2011-07-31T21:21:00.001+01:00

My first graphic design job for the RSPCA Suffolk East and Ipswich branch :)

My favourite part about it has to be the kitten, I just love the wide-eyed expression.

also considering it as a tattoo idea to represent my own kitty who was a tabby,
I think it's got a kind of children's illustration/japanese cartoon feel which I really like ^^

More soon :)

magikderp

2011-07-20T22:08:00.001+01:00

this idea popped into my head yesterday and wouldn't leave me alone until I quickly sketched it/photoshopped.

...Because the last fish you'd want to bump into during an urgent fast-paced search for your son in the seemingly endless depths of the ocean is, magikarp.

Dory is off looking at cute jellyfish at this point.

and I felt like drawing something silly :) maybe marlin will get lucky and magikarp will decide to evolve just as he's about to give up.

Maybe not :P

double rainbows and sugar skull owls

2011-07-18T18:47:00.000+01:00

It just rained here far more than it should in summer, but there was a double rainbow afterwards, so that makes it a bit better. I don't feel like yelling at it in awe while filming the whole thing and uploading to youtube.. maybe you have to be in the woods or on drugs to fully appreciate them.

So, onto the owls :) I can't remember exactly why I chose owls over other animals..I think it was because some of their heads are quite round and they can sometimes be associated with darker themes like death *shrug*. I just really love the look of sugar skulls and thought animals decorated in the similar colourful patterny look would be good :)

They still need colouring, but here are the outlines for the 2 I've been working on so far

Might turn them into a t-shirt design, which is better - lots and lots of owls on one t-shirt, or one big owl proudly sitting in the middle of your chest? hmmmmm.

Ah and before I forget, also I'm now volunteering weekly for RSPCA, and they were excited that I do Graphic design-things so there may be a few posters up in the coming weeks *thumbs up*

Rebekah

2011-07-12T10:19:00.002+01:00

I'm not usually one for political illos, but since this story is literally *everywhere* (for good reason) and Miss Brooks hair is so incredibly huge, I decided that's where she must keep her secrets and lies.

Moar people and some suncatcher designs

2011-07-04T21:33:00.002+01:00

A few more people portraits (the second one kind of looks like a scary dot cotton)

As for that possible children's crafts designer role, they filled it, so here are some of my test designs for (seasonal) suncatchers. They vary from more realistic birds to a bit more cuddly looking animals since the age range was pretty big. For anyone who has never really come across a suncatcher think of it like a stain glass window; the design is made up mostly of shapes which the kids can colour in with paint and when you hold it up to the sun all the colours shine through :)

Also the lovely Daniel Brückner invited me to join Artflakes, so now I'm selling some of my work over there :) clicky

I did mention on twitter that I don't really expect people will be able to afford the prints/posters if you're an average student like me, but single greeting cards are around £3 if you're feeling spendy :)

feel free to say hi on twitter btw, the more the merrierrrr

http://twitter.com/CherryFizzWhizz

Real people sketches!

2011-06-29T22:49:00.003+01:00

Because I realized I barely ever (never?) post realistic-y life sketch-type things.
And I wanted some more practice :)
More to come, drawing people fascinates me (it's just very hard to get right).
all of the people references came from googling 'b&w portraits'. such beautiful photography!

babies are deceptively tricky.

Also, although I don't want to jinx it, there may be a chance I will be able to start designing some things for children soon; more info on that if and when. Created some test designs so when I get a definite answer I shall post them up too :)

Fun with hipsters

2011-06-27T17:21:00.007+01:00

Tis the hottest day of the year so far.. everyone's melting..we're like human popsicles.
Think I'm going to get through a whole pack of freezepops (slush puppie flavour!)
but I still prefer water fights in the sun to being freezing cold, so waheyy Summer.

Anyway there was a request on twitter from computer arts mag to draw some hipsters doing some "interesting things" this was like a week ago, so I figured they'd already hired their 'hipster maker' but I couldn't resist drawing up a few of my own.

Now I don't mean to offend anyone and if you're unsure of what a hipster actually is (do self-proclaimed hipsters even know what they actually are??) then just google 'hipster ariel' and you should get a better idea.

Either way they sure are fun to draw ;) try it! and then link me to them

You expect me to believe that scantily clad, in the arms of another man, in the middle of the night, inside an elephant you were rehearsing?

2011-06-26T23:02:00.003+01:00

I'm surprised blogger let me have such a long title..but yes, MOULIN ROUGE one of my personal all-time favourite films ever. And besides the fact that it is incredibly quotable, it's also the topic of this new sketch.

It came about in a weird way, because I dreamt the thing up, literally. The way my dream-logic worked was that ages ago I did a project for college on 'obsession' and then for some reason my brain took that, and the quote from Moulin Rouge 'ridiculous obsession with love' and came up with this, the same layout and everything. with the thought bubble and every 'love' crossed out individually. The only thing I added was the audience (...those circles at the front) and the curtain.

All this coupled with the fact that I've never dreamt about an idea for a possible sketch before meant that I kinda felt like I *had* to draw it just to get it out and make everything come full-circle.

What I didn't realize after this initial idea was that both the characters are hard to draw :P

buut I finished it anyway. This is also the scene where they're on stage and he throws the money at her feet saying 'I've paid my whore' and everyone's crying, including me (sometimes). I was going to colour the curtain a proper Rouge red but I thought it would distract too much away from Christian and Satine and we can't be having that now can we? even if they do look a little fail.
(I still like the concept though).

For anyone who hasn't seen Moulin Rouge (Baz Luhrmann version) doooo it. It's one of the most over-the-top spectacles of romance ever. and it's funny too. But it's not a romcom. HOORAY.

Trying to get my hands on some sumi/other colourful inks at the moment, watch this space for a gazillion brightly ink-washed illos afterwards :)

for any festival goers out there

2011-06-17T19:01:00.001+01:00

Still working on the RB sketch, but in the meantime I've been thinking about what I'm going to take with me to Reading fest(!), and since I like making lists I decided to illustrate one for the kind of things I must remember to bring with me (since it's easy to forget).
Then I realised it might come in handy for some other people too :)
(there are some things left out - like tent things, and food because there's a tescos just down the road)

here's the original sketch..

and here it is finished :)

click to make it big
hope you all enjoy the festival season! :D

Don't quit your day job

2011-06-13T17:11:00.003+01:00

Unless you want to, then go ahead and run away with the circus/buy a boat and become a DIY pirate.

But if you don't *have* a day job right now because the government is so incredibly ~~competent~~ bad and Mr. Cameron is a massive ~~genius~~ douchebag for cutting so many people's jobs then maybe you'll relate to today's strip a bit more

- The feeling you get the longer you've been looking for a job because you've been turned down from the things you're actually qualified to do, after about 3 weeks you start to justify reasons for being the perfect person to run a marathon while analysing spread sheets and serving coffee, as long as they pay you over £6 an hour.

and yes, I'm still looking :P
rebecca black sketch should be up tomorrow..

Also I can't finish this entry without showing you this:

Hilarious genius ;)

'I remember Golden Days when all this was a mystery'

2011-06-07T02:09:00.001+01:00

I've got lots of stuff to post in the next few days :) I did just plan to do the rebecca black sketch (just needs to be coloured now) but ended up spending most of yesterday sketching more ideas and then today finishing up this Dresden Dolls piece.

The Dresden Dolls are my favourite band. period. They shaped me into the person I am today and although I may not be fully-shaped yet (ok this metaphor is getting weird) both Amanda and Brian have had a Big impact on me.

The reason I decided to make *this* fan art is because a. about 4 years ago I tried to do some fan art of amanda...it didn't look like amanda (I'll attach it when blogger starts working properly again) so I just wanted to see if I could do an updated version which actually looked semi-realistic. I also tried to draw brian which I didn't dare even do 4 years ago :P he looks almost-himself in this one

and b. I haven't doodled anything DD related in a veeery long time.

so here it is!

all in all happy with it :)

I also forgot (scatterbrain) that I was featured on ArtWaffle *clicky* a few days ago for an interview, it was a pleasure and I really like the variety of different artists the site features.

also also I should be out in print again soon for issue 1 of The Lost Generation. excited!

will keep y'all posted.

tomorrow is Saturday & Sunday comes.. afterwards

2011-06-03T22:56:00.002+01:00

So it must be FRIDAY.
Think I'm going to have to do a rebecca black sketch soon, it's not that she's an easy target....
but she totally is.

Anyway back on planet earth,
I got a nice surprise in the post today :D
(not that I wasn't expecting it, but American shipping usually takes loonger)

Awful/Resilient by Alex Pardee :) and I was also lucky enough to be one of the first 200 orders, so I got one of theseee

but numbered and signed, I would've scanned it but then something bad probably would have happened and I might have cried a little.

For anyone that's a fan of Pardee's work I recommend this book highly,
it even has that new-book smell! and that's a free added extra!
Or if you're a big spender you can wait for the limited edition cover version of the book which will be out a bit later.. but that involves waiting :P

new arts should be up very soon, probably tomorrow, because I'm in a productive mood :]

Help me nyan cat, you're my only hope

2011-06-01T16:40:00.002+01:00

So I was watching the un-escapable meme of nyan cat the other day, and it made me think about other things you can find in space...and since I've never seen star trek, and am not into sci-fi that much except for my childhood love of star wars, I thought...let's play on that joke that it's a small world; so space is small too, and that means everything/one in space is bound to bump into eachother once in a while.. And how *confused* would you be if you were flying around in a serious space craft and saw... THAT?
It brings both the forces of good and evil together to agree on something :P

'NYAN WARS?'

then there is the killer ovaries illo that I was talking about on twitter, you didn't think I was serious? BEHOLD!

Right now it's a pretty accurate representation of how I'm spending my time of the month..

Summer collage and a bday sketch

2011-05-26T18:06:00.002+01:00

Hooray, summer is pretty much finally here (although this non-british HOT weather fooled me with its early glory) and you know what that means...

well, lots of good things, but I'm taking about FESTIVALS!
Ah festivals, the thing I look forward to every year even if I don't end up going.
There's just something so great about wandering around in welly boots, wearing silly hats, singing along with the crowds, getting really drunk and passing out in your tent... ok maybe not the last one.

But anyway today I felt like making a summer-y collage soo

and since I know some of you people like glee (myself included) I decided to put up the birthday sketch I did for a friend as well. What did I learn from making it? - santana is really hard to draw without exaggerating too much or too little.

lord tubbington likes cupcakes.

Rolling in the deep

2011-05-25T17:08:00.002+01:00

because Adele is an inspiration :) (with apparently tiny feet, according to this sketch)

Six Word Story posters

2011-05-18T12:31:00.000+01:00

For our last project before the end of the year, we were all given a story written by one of the English students. If you're wondering what the deal is with six word stories, check out the SWSE blog and SWSE website. Highly recommended, and great to see how different designers tackle such short stories.

Anywhoot, the one I chose/was given was 'Tattoo? Left or right arm? Mistake.'
So I started to sketch out what that could mean (we had to do one purely typographical poster and one illustrative)

for the illustrative one I liked the idea that the guy was getting a tattoo of his girlfriend's name or something, and he's just sitting there like 'ohshitohshitohshit' but trying to seem fine with it.

Sadly I had to ditch that idea in favour of something a bit more subtle and open to interpretation, so I decided to use an illustration of a tattoo gun instead

and here are the final posters, there were a LOT of alternate versions but in the end these were the two that stood out to me the most.

typographic

'Hi, I'm Chucky. Wanna play?'

2011-05-16T22:34:00.001+01:00

Another for Phantom's Reviews :)

will post up some posters/promo material from my latest uni project tomorrow

boom baby! I'm back

2011-04-25T17:39:00.005+01:00

and I have the harry potter sketch, plus 2 extras for Phantom's Reviews

Hey guys

2011-04-13T21:49:00.000+01:00

For anyone wondering where the harry potter sketch is today, sadly I busted my toe pretty badly yesterday (note: pasta sauce jars are Heavy) and I've been bed-bound, as soon as I feel better I'll be right back to posting :) but don't worry I haven't forgotten

who needs redbull when you've got tigerblood?

2011-04-12T16:56:00.001+01:00

I'm back :) uni got crazy-busy since it's almost the end of my first year and then HOT weather happened which to every brit means 'find a pair of shorts and meet me at the beach! I don't care if it's April!'

I'm guessing by now you've all seen that infamous Sheen interview and the autotune vid that spawned from that? Regardless of how people feel about Mr. Sheen as an individual, he does come up with some damn good catchphrases.

So now here I am with my sketchy un-finished contribution to this madness, which I accidentally posted to Monday Artday first because I'm a spanner.
Anyway bit late to the party, but a Charlie Sheen party never ends...so

couldn't decide if the thing he's drinking will be tigerblood...or if the tiger actually needs to be bleeding. Will update when it's done :)

Also something faaaar more important to me than Charlie Sheen (namely Harry freakin' Potter) is coming to it's cinematic-end soon (nooo) and I've also drawn a little sketch of Harry, Ron and Hermione which I shall post tomorrow, since it needs cleaning up a bit first.
More uni work to come soon as well
Enjoy :)
hope you all have a great easter/chocolate-related holiday

Raindrops are fallin' on my head

2011-03-09T21:18:00.003Z

but that doesn't mean I'm not carrying an umbrella :)

but before more umbrellas (although you lot seem to have a strange fondness for them too)

here are the final designs for my manifesto posters, produced as part of the 'Contemporary Debates & Practices in Design' module

aaaaaaaaaand here are the remaining umbrellas

enjoy :)

purtopus needed a sidekick...

2011-03-02T16:17:00.001Z

so I drew a puffer fish, with a distinguished moustache, obviously :P

see how he judges you with his EYES? like a spikey christmas turkey

umbrellas, everywhere!

2011-02-27T23:05:00.004Z

More umbrellas for my 20 drawings uni project, this time in the medium of potato printing, tea rings and glue guns!

My spidey sense is tingling?

2011-02-26T01:24:00.003Z

It's Friday, and I bring you news! I'm going to be teaming up with Phantom of Phantom's Reviews and the rest of team awesome (name to be confirmed) to bring you (yes you, or maybe you) a brand new ezine focused on film, games and general good stuff, the first issue will be The Spidey Spectacular - I get to illustrate a bunch of the characters & the front cover :)

here are the character sketches so far...

(I've based them mostly on the 90's cartoon show

since I've never read the comics)

doc oc, and his terrible dress sense

lizard, and his ripped trousers

green goblin, and his halloween-related shenanigans

I like drawing them all squished-down into bite size chunks :)

more process sketches (& these ones coloured) to come

Have a good weekend everyone :]

new layout!

2011-02-25T02:04:00.002Z

One minute I was trying to update my header banner & border for the blog,
the next... BAM!
I'd managed to eff up the whole layout to the point where starting from scratch was the only option.

So, thanks to my utter failure at technology (at least the CSS kind) the blog has a new layout! which I'm quite happy with :) (including purtopus: the posh purple octopus)

more art to come over this weekend :)

Something old, something new

2011-02-20T20:02:00.001Z

Hey everyone, thought I'd do an update even though I don't have much art to show you at the moment

but that'll soon change since I'm challenging myself to buy some paints this week and create a lot of non-uni things,

because Graphic Design is starting to make my brain a bit stale, think I need some time away from my screens and electricals.

Hopefully I won't resort to tree-hugging, we'll see.
Maybe I'll paint an evil tree that goes around hugging people, who knows?

Anyway, the piece I wanted to show you comes from one 'random' day back in college in one of our drawing lessons; and it just so happened that the drawing board that I picked up had white paint smudges on it - I started to draw an outline around the shape and it all went from there..it turned into a kind of ghost-train/truck/flying machine? image with the grim reaper and two guys standing on the back and a bunch of ghosts on the roof...yeah, my imagination must have been pretty buzzed that day.

here's the smaller version, giving you an idea of the overall picture

and here's a biiiiiiiiiiig version if you want to click it to see all the strange details, including some kind of toothy monster holding onto the bottom of the truck

It's a shame all I could get was a camera phone picture...because I quite like the white paint & pen on wood look :)

and although it's taken me a few years to actually post this up, it's probably still one of my favourite doodles

Ok, to end with I shall post up the two umbrellas I have finished already, it's for a uni project and the brief was about experimentation, each person got assigned a different object and colour - mine was 'cerise umbrella' which turns out to be a shade of hot pink which I'm growing quite fond of.

and I'm tip-toeing into print making again which is far less daunting than ink.

first attempt, wanted it to have an underground-ish band flyer feel

and this ones just...weird, but I like it

finally finally before I forget, I wanted to let anyone know who doesn't already about an amazing artist called Alex Pardee. he's quite awesome. I stumbled across him about a year ago, after realizing he was the creator of The Used's heart noose logo (and now their updated logo); and I can safely say he makes all weird things wonderful and all wonderful things weird. Whenever I'm in a creative funk (especially in these cold months) his blog inspires and excites my eyes, and maybe he'll inspire/excite yours too :)

(plus, he likes star wars)

V.S. the world

2011-01-19T20:28:00.001Z

I really enjoyed Scott Pilgrim a lot more than I thought I would.

I wasn't sure what to expect since I haven't read the comic books, but it was awesome, and ever since I watched it I wanted to do some kind of fan art for it. This was going to be a more elaborate scene - but by the time I had convinced myself I'd got Michael Cera looking right, I didn't want to add anything else incase it ruined the whole thing. So, this'll do for now :)

click for full-view as always, I recommend this film to anyone who grew up with nintendo references :]

Matt Smith as The Doctor

2011-01-17T15:47:00.002Z

I wanted to see how much I've improved over a year or so since drawing Mr. Tennant as the doctor,
I tried to capture more of Matt's likeness and I think it worked :)

still can't decide if I like the b&w one more or less...

Uni work - Book Posters/bookmarks

2011-01-06T12:32:00.003Z

One of the projects we just finished last year was based around the re-branding of Waterstones,

it could catch on, but now they have the same brand logo type as HMV it looks kind of....wrong.

(that's just my opinion, anyone graphic design-inclined can go look it up and debate themselves).

ANYWAY, that's the boring backstory.

So, I designed 2 posters and a bookmark for an 'Alice in Wonderland' theme that would promote the new waterstones logo, and this is what I came up with...

They were a lot of fun to do, since we don't really get to do any illustration this year.

feel free to full-view the posters, they've got quite a lot of detail and were designed to be pretty big :)

more personal work to come in a bit

Misfits, and one more

2010-12-30T14:21:00.003Z

Thought I'd try my hand at some misfits characters, since most of them have funny proportions and they're all quite... different (for anyone who hasn't seen the show, it's skins with superpowers...basically).

Happy almost-New-Years-Eve!

Kelly (because she's a nutter) :)

Nathan

Simon (who I think looks a bit like a monkey)

and a random sketchbook page, line-y style

I'm back! and december is upon us!

2010-12-18T22:07:00.001Z

This may confuse you since I never said I was going anywhere..

and I'm sorry for that, but uni has been piling on work like Santa piles on fat, a lot.
Ok, maybe that's a bad comparison..
but still...it's now officially The Holidays and I am back :)

On a happier note, I got my first real taste of graphic design-ing a few months ago,
when I got a gig making a poster & postcard for BBC Radio 4 to promote the IDE UK appeal.
It was pretty swanky to be asked,
and although I have now developed a chronic teeth-grinding problem due to stress, it was all worth it.

So, these are some of the things I've been working on since I started, there's more to come,

just need my scanner to start co-operating again.

Most of it's personal work rather than uni work... but that's because 90% of uni work had to be done

in Indesign, which I hate. And don't really like the results of. ah well.

I hope you're all feeling festive :)

and welcome to the new followers that my email account neglected to tell me I had!

I have more commissioned work in the pipeline too so I promise not to leave y'all hanging again for another 3 months.

..................

First up is a series of ink prints that I dubbed 'all thumbs' for a good reason :P

I'm starting to get to grips with ink as a medium a little more now
(click each pic for better view)

the penguin it definitely my favourite :) going to make a penguin-y christmas card with it.

Ok, I think this is image-heavy enough now - will update again later. Enjoy!

more felixstowey-ness

2010-09-24T20:39:00.002+01:00

haven't posting any photos in a while, and looking at Katie's Blog today got me all kinds of inspired (it's amazing!) so I decided to put up my research fotos afterall.

Super image heavy, needs a nice lj cut

this little guy was just hanging out, I'm not too keen on spiders but this one made a for nice photo

loved the way people personalized their beach huts :)

this guy, and the lady dancing to his music, offered plenty of entertainment!

in the otherwise dull town centre

there's plenty of amusing signs there :]

I opened the book of happiness & found a dedication inside :)

tacky arcades :P the fact they had a 'gamble' button made me laugh

fun with masking tape

and finally we had a sit down in the pub, nice view. Mine's the rum & coke ; )

friday feelin'

2010-09-24T13:34:00.001+01:00

yep, all settled now.
Our first brief was set in Felixstowe and my group chose the theme of opposites and contrasts,
I decided to experiment with a bit of typography...way out of my comfort zone...but someone had to create some poetry. So the type is made up of a rhyming poem detailing the good, and then bad, of Felixstowe beach.
(I'm also going to have to get used to liking macs, because at the moment they remain a huge pain in the arse.)

I didn't feel like it was totally finished, but we had a day to create our presentation making the deadline rather loomy. I wanted to add a chocolate flake in there too (mmmm) one of my tutors suggested using an exclamation mark for it, which I thought was a great idea. I had a quick attempt adding it in (see below), but it might need a bit more time to get everything just right.

sunbeams, spilt icecreams, feeling quiant, peeling paint. Dancing gran, sunburnt tan, cheap booze,
old people snooze. Tacky prizes, dogs all sizes, beach huts galore, another over-priced store.

reminds me of the fairly odd parents intro ;]

be right back

2010-09-21T10:15:00.000+01:00

just going to take a few days to settle into uni and then I'll be updating again,
so far though, it's great :)

shiny new things to come when I return

just another alice sketch, coloured :)

2010-09-16T22:30:00.000+01:00

wanted to try it with limited colours...
click for full-view,

hope you enjoy : ]

Harmony has minions??!

2010-09-13T23:16:00.002+01:00

depends which season you're watching, but the Harmony I'm actually talking about is a nifty drawing app here

last one is totally going to be a t-shirt when I get some screenprinting time

2am sketchyness

2010-09-13T01:46:00.000+01:00

I like the inked version :)

Someone was talking about how they played with plastic dinos as a kid and also watched the moon landing when they were ickle inspiring them to go space-exploring - thus, dinosaurs in space!

mandatory alice doodle, I might be doing a wonderland-type theme for my friend's bday card this year..hence the idea. Partly inspired by potato farm girl's grumpy alice : )

brain-splurging some ideas for the children's book page I'm illustrating; going to see the exhibition the book is based on this week so I can get a better feel of what the characters should look like, but it was fun to draw a bunch of grandmas (and one princess leia for no reason).

speaking of star wars, this was my attempt at teeny picture charades last week. Luke/Han Solo is missing, depending which one you think it could be in the first place. Boba fett should be in there too.

this was fun

2010-09-11T20:00:00.000+01:00

Influence Maps going around dA

click on the pic for full-view :)

Ok, from left to right -
Richard Scarry: I used to have his story books as a kid and they're one of my earliest memories. whimsical characters and pretty watercolours :)

Pokemon: couldn't leave out one of the biggest parts of my childhood ; ) especially the first few games/generation

Amanda Palmer: Could have just as easily been a Dresden Dolls picture, but quintessentially her writing and outlook on life helped shape me into a much more well-rounded teenager. And probably adult.

South Park: Eric Cartman is a tubby, foul-mouthed hero, and I love Matt & Trey's writing so very, very much.

Calvin & Hobbes: Intelligent, witty, love.

Daria!: I need to get the complete collection now it's finally out on dvd...even if it's in region 1! Sarcasm is not the lowest form of wit : P

*next row*
Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends: I was so pleasantly surprised when this aired on cartoon network, crammed full with imagination and Things That Actually Make Grown Ups Laugh. The character design is spot on and looks like so much fun to work on

Jhonen Vasquez: He just pips Amanda for my biggest influence. Whether you know him for Invader Zim or Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, or even filler bunny, hopefully you can see why this is. His hilarious dark humor is only matched by the level of detail put into his work. Wacky Mr. Vasquez

Harry Potter: Totally, adored the books and some of the films didn't make me want to retch my guts up. That's enough for me. Never got my wizard letter but I suppose I can forgive Rowling this once.

Catdog: Did you see this show?? It was amazing! from the title sequence to just.. all of it. If I ever go into animation that's the kind of thing I'd love to make.

*next row*
Mitchell & Webb: My British comedy fix. Although I am British, but most of our comedy at the moment is poor. These two keep me sane whenever peep show isn't being filmed and that mitchell & webb look hasn't finished airing its current season. Basically what I'm getting at is there should be MOAR of them. on the tele.

Disney: Of course I watched countless disney films as a child, but my all-time favourite probably has to be Robin Hood. It's my most-cherished and the one I can still happily re-watch again & again (close seconds are Lion king, Hercules and monsters inc). For some reason I didn't enjoy the princess ones as much... but this one has a maid, a talking rooster and a king that sucks his thumb. What more could you want?

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Yep, I mentioned my love for this show before, and indeed pretty much all of the Jossverse because it's the writing that *really* makes the show what it is. And gives you perfect one-liners to use such as 'What is your childhood trauma?!' and 'I'm an old fashioned girl. I was raised to believe the women have the babies and the men dig up the corpses'.
Seriously, the show has so many amazing quotes that getting through this wiki page could take you hours...hours of FUN
[link]

Fairly Odd Parents: There was a slight obsession that went around when this show started. I liked it. Lots of people could see how big the demographic was and I'm sure it'll still be as funny to watch in the years to come even when I'm a sad old adult. Obtuse, rubber goose, green moose, guava juice,
Giant snake, birthday cake, large fries, chocolate shake.
hehehe.

more art to come sooooon.

very quick things

2010-09-11T02:43:00.001+01:00

been lacking inspiration lately which is always annoying especially when you have projects to start/finish including a chance to illustrate a page for a children's book for charity.
I know I need to do these things...

anyway, more messings with sketchbook pro,
first the initial sketch which I was starting with

Yaaaaaaaaawn. Nice early-morning stretch.

and here's the texture version without the outline, creates funky effects

tomorrow/sunday I'll try different ways of completing the pic including printing out the texture version
and inking a new outline over it. Will also try vector-ing the original sketch...

*changes topic*

I'm a big reader of webcomics. I don't read that many non-web comics except Calvin & Hobbes (although their internet database is tres helpful) and JtHM (for anyone who doesn't know what that stands for feel free to google it - Jhonen = artistic hero-person of mine). But yeah, webcomics, I read a lot of 'em. Usually I like them for their immediacy to tell a story or deliver a joke; not so much for the painstaking art..since I understand most webcomicers don't have the time for really fancy images even though all/plenty of them are perfectly capable of producing intricate life drawings when asked.
Just in case you're wondering, my favourites include xkcd, Girls With Slingshots, cyanide & happiness and antics comic.
However I had to do a kind of double-take earlier when I stumbled across Tessa Stone's 'Hanna Is Not A Boy's Name'; because it is seemingly pretty perfect. The story-telling - She uses excellent narration to walk us through the events of the comic, and the audience come to know things as the narrator does, making it way more fun to read because it's as if you're on the journey with him/them/her. The typography - something sometimes overlooked in many webcomics but she makes damn good use of it here! But most obviously and importantly, the way she lays out her strips and colours her art is jealousy-inducing :P It was only when I looked at some fan-art based on the characters that I realized some of the forms & shapes were quite simple, but the life she gave them all with shading. colour and texture made everything look so...inspirational.

It made me want to start a webcomic myself heh. Watch this space? ;]

Top 10 sites to promote your art online: part 2

2010-08-29T21:22:00.005+01:00

Part 1 can be found here if you missed it first time round,

as I said before if any of your favourite sites are missing feel free to comment, I'm always looking for new art inspiration : )

Flickr

Ok, so even though I myself don't really use/update my flickr that much anymore, because it's more of a photographer's dream than an illustrator's, it's still definitely worth mentioning here; and don't be put off by the fact the site seems photo-dominated, because that means your art will stand out more. In theory.

Flickr allows you a certain amount of space (monthly limit) depending whether you have a free or premium account, but unless you are incredibly prolific or upload in bulk the free space should be plentiful for general use.

This site makes the most of group 'pools' that you can submit pieces to, or better yet sometimes the groups with comment on your art asking you to participate. Obviously some of these groups aren't as popular as others, but contributing your art to the bigger, more well-known pools is a great source of exposure.

Flickr also allows you to make slide shows of your photostream that you can embed into other sites as a mini showcase that links back to your account. It's a very nifty feature that more sites should offer.

But perhaps the site's biggest draw to me is the fact they work with Snapfish, one of the cheapest ways to get your photos/art printed and their books make excellent, professional-looking portfolios.

Toonpool

This isn't such an obvious choice, but I couldn't dismiss it solely due to its viewing traffic.

I found this site a while ago and wasn't sure what to make of it at first, having steered away from traditional 'cartoons' in a past couple of years joining and uploading was more of a curious experiment than anything; but within that first few weeks I received more friends requests and feedback than many other sites.

It's also the meaning of worldwide, with an option to provide translations for each piece you upload and people from many different countries submitting/commenting on all the art; it's truly a great community to be a part of.

Imagekind

There are so many different sites out there to sell your art: Etsy, Cafepress, Zazzle, Imagekind is technically just another addition to the long list, but it has some features that might make it stand out from the others and prove to be your chosen selling place.

This site has pretty much everything, and I wouldn't be surprised if you've already been recommended it because it is an all-round great selling platform; it's well laid-out, with everything being easy to find whether you want to buy or sell, it gives you your own imagekind page and whether you need it or not it's nice to have an option to link to your items for sale through another site.

Another added extra is that every time you upload something it automatically comes up with an option to notify people on facebook, which could be a great help if you have your own page for your art or have a loyal following on your personal page. Finally they include a selling option which has become very popular recently which is to turn your art into greeting cards, cutting out the middle man when christmas rolls around.

Society6

I joined this site because I'd heard my tutors talking about it and it has recently been getting more and more attention for becoming a Really Good Place To Promote Yourself, although I'm sure that does depend on how many people you can get to click on the 'promote this' button. The front page gives you a quick idea of the art being promoted and you can switch between popular/new to give you a better idea of the typical standard of the work and to show that the selections change daily; giving more artists the opportunity to get featured.

Another nice thing about Society6 is that they really do all the hard work for you when selling your products, including the dreaded packaging/shipping of the art because we all know how expensive nice frames and postage can be when doing it out of your own budget.

Blatantly though, their top feature has to be, in their own words "Every time you Post your artwork for sale as a Society6 product, it is automatically eligible to be sold through the online stores of our Retail Partners" Threadless & Urban Outfitters. That's right, with no extra effort your products will get further promotion from these two hugely popular clothing companies. Not bad at all.

Carbonmade

Even if you don't need to join another portfolio site it is well worth just taking a look around Carbonmade's humble abode.

it is a joy to visit, the graphics are clean, fun and colourful, with a moustache being your way to sign in(!) there is nothing I find dull, uninviting or elitist about this site; and that's why it's one of my favourites.

The individual portfolios themselves are simple and effective, the 'examples' page lets you see what can be done to customize them; but bear in mind the sole purpose of the site is to give all artists the chance to create an online portfolio even if they are html-illiterate, so if you're more a whizz with code then maybe look elsewhere. The site also has 3 useful counters along the side giving you a real idea how many people/portfolios, projects and images have been uploaded to the site. The site even has an active twitter feed in which they thank new members for joining and answer any questions; my only request would be to make a forum/community page because I can see myself connecting with a lot of nice people through this site. Here's hoping, they've got a lot of new things to come yet!

Bonus: BigCartel

I know I said I was going to stick to 10 but Bigcartel is amazing, although they are partly geared towards selling products for bands, record labels and clothing companies, there is also the 'speciality' section, which allows you, the artist, to start up your own online shop and sell sell sell.

Why is this different to previously mentioned e-commerce sites? Well we all know that a web store can be kitted out, looking great with awesome merch but still not sell anything; that's because it's all about traffic and without people to see your stuff it's pretty hard for them to buy it. That's why Bigcartel comes in handy, because it works. Whether you link to it via your social networking sites, or let people stumble upon it, the chances are a lot higher you'll get a sale. One of the reasons for this is it's a big 'indie' shop, so if your target audience like handmade things, zines, t-shirts, generally "different" type things you're in luck. And even if you're not, you can try and convince people otherwise. Their browsing system is fantastic because it puts as many different shops on one page as possible, making it easier to browse and discover art quickly; the best way to optimize this feature is to become visible on one of the first 'most popular' pages, because then you're literally a few seconds away to anyone browsing and won't be bumped off the listings very easily.

If that's not enough, they also have a 'Today's Top Stores' and 'Recently Updated Stores' selection on the front page, from what I can see the site works very hard at getting people noticed.

Hope you enjoyed that mini crash course list, feedback is appreciated & I hope you enjoy whichever site(s) you visit

English Summer Rain

2010-08-29T17:25:00.003+01:00

...seems to last for ages.

On the plus side, I figured out what that horrible noise was after sleeping downstairs last night (I kid you not, it's what you get for watching horror films before bed and having the upstairs of the house to yourself); so now I am *actually* back, and will pull creativity out of the air in order to get the list done today, fo sho, take it as a promise.

Here's some more graphic-y stuff I dug up from college, thought it'd make a nice change:

Uni(!) and things that go bump in the night

2010-08-25T10:59:00.007+01:00

So my super busy week turned into a super busy week-and-a-half, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

I'm officially starting Graphic Design (Graphic Illustration) in September(!) and very excited about it.

also shocked because my original plan was to go to uni next year, so I didn't go through ucas and didn't have my tutors prepare my portfolio - leaving me very nervous for the interview and in blind panic I bought one of those giant portfolio folders (as pictured in previous rant post) that I thought every uni art student would need; but it turns out graphic design is a happy exception so no mahoosive un-storable folder for me. huzzah.

So expect some nice graphics stuff up starting late September :)

as for the bump in the night, it was more of a buzzing whirring death-rattle kind of sound, scared me half to death and I didn't get much sleep. If it was my pc I'm now also worried it will combust during the night. But all the plugs were switched off at the walls and it was a generally freaky experience.

Maybe I should get someone to exorcise my pc?

Anyways, for now there's daylight and I'm safe, so I'll post some art up later today and the other half of the top 10 list tomorrow.

hooray for pre-winter creativity boosts.

boo for possessed technology.

Everyone loves a good rant

2010-08-17T23:08:00.003+01:00

So, uber mundo silly-busy this week,

got job interview followed by uni interview, it's going to be a bit crazy.

Have some art I've been finding while adding to my portfolio/a picture I drew inspired by my portfolio.

I really do hate those things. I cried a little, and if they weren't inanimate objects I would swear I've found my mortal enemy in Life.

ah well.

This is an earlier rant from a few years ago about our 'daily journey' to college - mine always used to include buses. In the rain. That didn't like showing up. Other than that it was dandy.

Something semi-realistic for a change, a group of us used to draw in the college library and include all the tidbits of conversation into our drawings. This one has such gems as 'Where's the lesbian with the russian hair?' and 'Uh! you electrocuted me in the ear!'

the strange and freaky things we heard in that place...

anyway

finally

pretty proud of this one, after weeks and weeks of drawing our life models I think I finally got the hang of it.

Will update again properly sometime after Thursday

with hopeful gooood news

longest Friday the 13th, ever

2010-08-14T01:46:00.005+01:00

So I've been pretty non-bloggish over the past few days,
but fear not - I am working on new things
including the other half of the top 10 blog but figured it could be broken up with s'more art first.
Set up a big cartel store today, it's about time. Getting a 20 pack of postcards delivered next week; really it's just to test them out (although you can never go wrong with Moo.com) but will probably put a pack on the store and some stickers, y'know small things at first. If there's enough interest I'll sort out prints and t-shirts...
So for now I must leave you with these 2 doodles because I've just had a marathon of Friday the 13th movies and am shattered.
The first is a test of dA's newest toy called Muro, tis a self portrait of me looking tired (a very regular occurance). Second is another doctor who sketch - because I love his tiny converse :] which will be refined later.

Top 10 sites to promote your art online: part 1

2010-08-09T20:50:00.015+01:00

I want to point out before I start that this is an 'average joe' kind of list; I know there are many more sites that I have yet to stumble across, and no doubt some of your personal favourites may be missing, in which case feel free to leave them in the comments.
It's not exhaustive, I just thought I'd share this list with you incase it saves some google-ing.
(also, IP1 have been super super amazing but they're more localised and I wanted to keep this fairly world wide)

In no particular order,

Illustration Mundo:

This site has a plethora of images, information and most importantly, ideas.
It showcases artists from around the globe and provides news dedicated to illustration. Anyone can join, but it's best to have your own domain name and some professional work under your belt to fit in with the sites very high, but very rewarding, standards.
It does a fantastic job of promoting its artists, and with the addition of a very comprehensive forum you will never be without answers to the barrage of questions freelancers are usually faced with (e.g. what to charge, contracts, copyright etc).
They also work closely with Escape from Illustration Island, which is by far the best illustration resource on the web.

Behance Network:

This site screams professionalism; from its sleek interface and user profiles to the client lists various illustrators boast.
It lets you upload separate project galleries that fellow members and non-members can then 'click to appreciate', and with enough appreciation you can end up featured on the front page. Needless to say that in itself can provide a fair bit of promotion, although it is worth noting that a big percentage of the site's content is made up of advertising and product design which is done entirely digitally; so it may not be the ideal choice if your work is more personal and traditional.

deviantArt:

Quite the opposite of the first two entries, deviantArt's contributors are as diverse as they come; from poetry to tattoos to artisan crafts there is an exhaustive list of the weird and wonderful ways in which people make art. I'm aware the site doesn't always get the credit it deserves, because of the varying quality of the art submitted, but that's what you get when tens of thousands of users are allowed to submit what they want (within reason). Despite that, as a community this site is second to none. The team responsible for running it provide numerous contests and rewards for the simplest of participation (badges, birthday offers etc.) and there are plenty of famous/established faces to be found, all of whom have found limitless promotion and commission work thanks to dA.
The site's target demographic is obviously teenagers, and this shouldn't be a bad thing, especially if you're marketing to teenagers. However, even if that isn't the case there is still every reason to create a profile here; you may not want to include it in your business cards or set up a prints account with them (poor artist profit margin), but deviantArt is well and truly for everyone.

On top of that, their portfolio service is a huge plus. If you don't have the money to get a portfolio site professionally made (and let's face it, some are extremely expensive if you're just starting out) this serves as a quality replacement. The portfolio layouts are simple and modern, they let your art do the talking and showcase each piece very well. The site also save you from being directly associated to deviantArt, with a choice of '.daportfolio.com' or setting up your own domain name in its place. There are things that still need improving (word limit for biography page), but overall it serves as a worthy stand-in while you generate the funds for a real site.

Twitter:

No list would be complete without twitter, although this wasn't the case a few years ago when the site was still in its infancy.
So, what is twitter? There seems to be a great divide in opinion among people when faced with this site; some see it as the ultimate indispensable tool to quickly connect with people and promote themselves, others see it as a waste of time because of the 140 character limit, and the rest have no idea what 'tweets' are in the context of social networking.

Personally I fall into the first two categories, because although I acknowledge how important twitter can be as a promotional tool (because everyone worth following is on the site) it's still best to use it in conjunction with your other more in-depth networking profiles, such as facebook, and update all of them at once. Relying solely on twitter could be counter-productive because even if you have a high number of followers, there will still be a percentage that won't have the time to search through their twitter stream to find your posts or click through to your profile. Twitter is meant to be ephemeral, that is my favourite thing about it, but this means it is not the most practical promotional tool. In the end though, you're always going to be better off embracing it, rather than letting the twitter epidemic pass you by.

Illustration Friday:

This site has a little bit of everything. It has interviews, a forum, a blog, a shop (although it's closed for now) and the thing it's probably known best for - its weekly participation topics.
How it works in a nutshell: the site updates each Friday with a different word that is used as that week's topic, anyone is then feel to create illustrations in whatever medium they choose inspired by this specific word on their blog on website, and then link it back to IF in a thumbnail image. Some members are showcased on the front page for their efforts, and all seem to get more traffic to their blog or site from fellow members or curious lurkers. It's also nice to see people's different interpretations of the single word, and participating every week means that you never get the dreaded artists-block/have the opportunity to keep practicing regularly with possible rewards.

getting somewhere

2010-08-05T22:24:00.005+01:00

This is pretty much all of the characters now :] I totally underestimated how long this project was going to take from start to finish..
Close-up of Link & Sackboy :D

and now for something completely different

2010-08-05T00:25:00.006+01:00

quick unrelated sketch-type-things, maybe tomorrow I can post colourful things ; ]

quick sketch is sketchy.

playing with abstract vs realistic, it represents those money trays on arcade machines.
no really. I made it at felixstowe (the most fun place on earth..if there were no other beaches)

finally, this really made me laugh.

I hope it makes you laugh too : P
right, I have to sleep now because I'm starting to smell colours and apparently that's not normal, g'night.

weirdest group of characters ever

2010-08-02T18:55:00.006+01:00

yep,
together they make one mess of weirdness
here's another few progress pics

Bowser is grumbling because he can. Had to make this thumbnail
smaller so it didn't stretch the page.
Hopefully I'll be finished by tomorrow :]

The Scooby Gang

2010-08-02T11:48:00.006+01:00

:)
I could gush forever about how much I love Buffy (the show) so I won't.
All I will say is that this illustration accompanies this review here about how in the Scooby Doo live action movie Daphne practically turned into Buffy. She was all martial-arty and headstrong compared to classic Daphne.
It's also made cooler by the fact that the rag-tag group of friends in Buffy the Vampire Slayer are known as 'The Scooby Gang'.

Soo for this piece I decided to create a crossover and it seems Scooby's a bit terrified of vampires :)
not sure if it's finished, will decide later

Scooby copyright of Hanna-Barbera Productions?
Buffy copyright of Joss (I hope)

gonna piece more of the commission together before I post anymore,
all their proportions need a bit of tweaking first : P

Just before I crash out

2010-08-01T03:45:00.003+01:00

Buffy/Scooby Doo one to come tomorrow, along with process sketches from the commission

moving with yoooouuuu

2010-07-29T19:44:00.009+01:00

the title will make more sense at the end of the post ; )

anyway, shall we art? I think so
(if it was a verb)

Aidan was so impressed with the last header I made him
that he commissioned me to do 2 more.
One for his games reviewing site, & the other with all the classic universal monsters on it.

since I'm putting these ones together differently
(each character on a seperate PS layer)
I thought I'd let you see the 2 I've sketched so far:
The first is of Kamal, the other half of the games review team
with a mini chocobo in his hair like sazh from final fantasy;
The second is the character Sora from Kingdom Hearts.

The commission work comes first but once it's finished
I can set about finishing all those other sketches I posted
including the one for Toy Story 3.

for now here's the song that makes the title not-so-weird,
I'm also rather addicted to it at the moment, Netsky & Jenna G are so good.
Together they could take over a small country.

craving a wispa bar

2010-07-24T21:38:00.012+01:00

just some sketches for today, that imma work on over this week
I've changed the type so it's humanly readable now as well ; )

How to train your dragon (woo) fan art-in-progress
might sponge-paint this one, want it to have a children's book kinda feel..

A vaguely accurate doodle of miss aeriepie I found from a few years ago,
figured it could do with some editing :] I like the way she's placed contently in the corner.
will add typography so the empty space ceases to be.

Dresden Dolls/AFP art, inspired by astronaut ('but, you are my love the astronautttt')
and maybe ampersand, want to make this look all mixed-media-y (and blue)

Ok, I admit I only put this here because I miss drawing yeep : P
tribute to kate nash song

finally it's dejavu time but with added pinhead and candyman hook,
hooray the header is properly Done.

Gaah, I live right near a park that loves to abuse fireworks during the summer, so it doesn't look like I'm going to get any sleep any time soon.. ah well, they're being illegal if it keeps going past 11.
anyone else have fireworks for neighbours?

I have a poll!

2010-07-22T12:27:00.003+01:00

I was just wondering since I don't want to make you blind,
so if you feel any kind of passion for your eyes
&/or want to sate my curiousity please vote

*insert special voting picture here*

knackerededed

2010-07-22T09:37:00.007+01:00

That's how I feel today, I don't know why...

Ok first up, the latitude collage made of all the found-things during the festival
(except a big shiny mask that refused to fit under the scanner)
tis called 'pimms o' clock'
(note to pimms company: this would also make a nice ad for you *nudge wink wink*)

Then there's the doodle I doodled, inspired by Aidan's idea. We'd been trying to watch some 3D movies with those terrible glasses & then Velma came up in conversation :)
'Jinkies in 3D'

Velma copyright to Hanna Barbera / Warner Bros?
spoooooky vision.

also, just typing Velma's name into google images gets you some truly terrifying results!
Who knew she was such a secret kink to people??

Thennn there's the toy story fan art that's totally a WIP & is only there to make you laugh/pity me while I try to finish it up, I'll probably post a few more progress pics before then.
They're not going to look like disney copies because I don't draw like disney : P
I know the new toys aren't in there, I might try and make it bigger...
but it's nice to have most of the classics (with added 3D action).
Needs Improving: Jessie's face needs saving majorly & I wanted woody to be yelling/screaming but couldn't find any decent reference pics : [ damn you cowboy for always being cheery!
Woody will look nearer the forefront and the others will be faded into background once finished.
*hippy voice* it needs depth maaan. serious depth.
Also might move some of the characters around & close up the gap between Mrs. potato head & the aliens.
gaah I wish I wasn't showing you something this rough & sketchy.
But it gives me the incentive to get it finished ;)

That's all for now, long live double rainbows!

Latitude aka La-tit-nudes

2010-07-19T16:03:00.007+01:00

Hello people of the internet, I am back from my working stint at latitude!
it contained 3am waking ups and 7.30pm going to sleeps, but it was a very cool experience
(well, as cool as a job involving litter can get, which is trinkets and money).

I have a collage inspired by the festival to make this week,
as well as Aidan's revisions and a toy story 3 fan art doodle.

The festival itself can be summed up by this doodle I did back in '07

Because latitude just struck me as quite a few rich people walking around listening to obscure bands and really terrible poetry, since they couldn't stand the thought of going to a real festival. One that doesn't have people to clean their toilets and reassure them everything they use will be recycled, although most don't actually care as long as they don't have to find a bin to put their waste in. They can feel safe in the knowledge that 'the help' will come and clean it up for them; and as long as they avoid all eye-contact, it's not rude to walk away without saying 'thank you'.
No worries, I mean why should the recession make them feel bad about their lifestyle?
And why should the priveleged kids stop walking around in jeggins and ironic t-shirts?
anyway,
'til I have new shiney art to show y'all please check out Aidan's Toy Story 3 review found here
http://aidanphantom.blogspot.com/2010/07/toy-story-3-2010.html
the film is incredible and it's totally worth a read whether you've seen it yet or not;
his passion for the franchise shows through in spades.

(p.s. some of the latituders were lovely and a percentage of the music was listenable, but it really needed more of a happy balance to make me want to come back.)

Summer is finally here!

2010-07-10T11:56:00.013+01:00

Almost-finished commission for Aidan's website header; just needs one more revision & I'm pretty happy with it

Birthday card design (for mum), I stuck recylced brown paper on the front for the 'Happy Birthday'. Getting it to print the right size was crazy-difficult & it kept cropping half the flower off. Might be hard to tell from the pic but the flower is on the front & the butterflies on the back. It's a shame more cards don't design graphics for the back but I guess it's just more ink...
will get a finished pic later

New peep show piece, better one to come very soon involving superhans

I saw this quote & it made me laugh : ) soon it turned into a digital collage

WIP Sketch of my grandparents, tis in memory of my grandad & I thought it'd make a nice gift for my grandmother. Although her afro hair is probably bigger than that : P

finally, I'm not the biggest fan of football...but when I saw the story about the psychic octopus that can correctly predict the football results I knew I had to doodle it. & then photoshop it. & then change the colours and faff around until I realized I should be drawing something else ; ]

More will follow shortly, since it's summer & my creative kick is thriving at the moment

wooo

2010-06-16T12:59:00.006+01:00

I got my scanner working again,
this is a really good thing.
also as promised, first glee sketch finished.
Obviously had to be Sue Sylvester, she's the best part of the show!

Hope you enjoy :]

waheyy

2010-06-16T00:18:00.003+01:00

I've started another new sketchbook, this means new sketches ahoy,
tomorrow I shall post the glee one(s) (oh come on I only watch it for the songs *shifty eyes*)
which I'm mundo happy with.

Then will be the ny photos or at least my doodle-collage of what the experience of new york meant to me (hint: it includes chocolate & a t-rex)

soo yeah, got my productive kick back and I like it!

after that I'm working on a few more show sketches so watch this space ; )

New post! things! college is actually over?

2010-06-12T15:48:00.006+01:00

I haven't updated in forever. I know. But it's only because I've been super busy doing art-things : P
(and not having the internet in our new house for over 3 months)

But I come bearing gifts! otherwise known as photos and artings.

First, a very quick selection of photos from New york, I'll post way more of them up in the next entry so this one doesn't become too image-heavy

Also got my NY sketchbook to scan and post at some point, woo.
Next is the final outcome of my sketchbook workshop, an example of an illustrated film-zine
with a review for Zack & Miri make a porno since I'd only just watched it at the time : P

Then there's my second submission to lengzine, was trying to go for a yogi-bear type feel : )

Second to lastly there's the sneak peak at my final major project work, this being one of my favourite covers out of the bunch, huzzah for gaga (kinda rhymes?) I did want to actually include a telephone without it being on her head..but couldn't decide on placement in the end

Lastly lastly there's the commisioned header I am designing for my talented-reviewer-friend Aidan. He likes concept/process art like me so I figured I'd actually post a sort of before and after, although it's not finished yet.
We developed the idea for him to be in the center with classic horror figures to the left and right of him; since y'know, he loves his horrors :]

Initial sketch is sketchy.

This is the 65/70% complete version, it looks better at full view but there are still changes to be made to the background to make it seamless and the figures themselves need a bit more tone.
Overall I am happy with the progress though : ) and in the meantime I suggest you check Aidan out (no, not in that way..well ok if you insist) http://aidanphantom.blogspot.com/
feel free to follow him too if you like non-robotic reviewers that actually put passion & jokes into their writing.

Right, my bed has been taunting me for hours while I've been working, (I know the clock thing says 15.48 but that's cause I started writing the entry, then stopped and thought I'd work on the header for an hour, and an hour turned into 8 hours so now it is 1am and I am tired.) so g'night

Leaving on a jet plane?

2010-04-18T02:30:00.004+01:00

guess we'll see by Monday morning : P

I've done some scrappy pictures so far for my art work due in after the holiday,
but personal-wise all I've got to upload so far is this doodle-from-years-ago-turned-into-something-nicer that was recently featured in the love issue of the lengzine mag

g'night everyone, hopefully I'll have a lot moar to put up once I come back from ny : )

Looong overdue

2010-03-13T00:39:00.009Z

I have been keeping to the 1 drawing a day rule, I just haven't had the time (or use of a scanner) to post them, and since I doubt I'm going to get to upload the entirety of 'em - just a handful of pieces I've finished/been working on will pop up. I think I'm getting a little better :)

purtopus (the purple octopus)

posh purtopus, the piece I submitted for the 'Bowler Hats & Monocles' exhibition : )

first completed painting for my 'song titles turned into illustrations' project :]

sligtly-better-but-still-needs-improvement spaced tribute sketch

experimenting with the spray bottle cheap felt tips trick, mmm colours

right, I'm off to pack up my room and collapse into a comfortable sleepy heap, g'night.

The indieVISUAL Journal Challenge

2010-01-10T22:30:00.013Z

Here's my first 5 pictures of the year, drawing one a day for a whole year is gonna get tricky : P

Merry Xmas eve!

2009-12-24T13:21:00.008Z

I've only just got over a complete lack of inspiration brought on by the xmas rush and stress and present-buying-wrapping-making-etc. But now it's back and I thought I'd quickly share a few things from this week

Christmas card for best friend, not being able to convert RGB to CMYK = stupid colour difference. She likes faeries/fairy's and I wanted one to create some snow :]

is kind of supposed to be a new end-of-year ID, except it looks a little too sinister to be me and really I was just trying out a different style. I liked the idea of working on something other than white background.

David Tennant! :) felt like doing a quick sketch-tribute to him as the doctor, like how it turned out :)

that's all for now folks, gotta go help cook/eat ingredients of said cooking for tomorrow
byee

It's christmas already?

2009-11-27T17:26:00.011Z

that answers my question : )

My workshops are going swimmingly so far and sketchbook is fun because I'm menacing a hardcover book which already has writing and pictures in, no more blank-page-syndrome for me!

the rest is just photo-dumpage from the past few weeks, I've finally got my arse in gear and the xmas cards should soon be ready for sale and give-age

felixstowe, trying a vintage-camera feel

fireworks night :) just a shame I missed most of them

messing around in xmas shops

there was a bunch of flowers tied to this lampost & I'm assuming it was a memorial site, so I wanted to capture it nicely with pretty colours (the evening helped with this)

blurry london waterfront, gaah
also I'm popping into the townhall craft fair tomorrow, looking forward to browsing 'I make fun stuff' : ]

I leave you with the Best rendition of pokerface after Christopher Walken ;)

YETI, and book cover challenge

2009-11-06T16:14:00.014Z

The yeti part comes later, but first here's some of the things from Thursday's drawing lesson, which was made great by the fact we got to sit down on chairs, and design book covers : )

chosen pic people liked out of the set of the blonde, next to Nathan's design which I must now re-incarnate into 10 new pieces

Three more, I didn't really feel the 'free fall' one, loved the legs achieved in 'The Tempter'

The windows one which was my favourite (and the nicer copy has been passed on for the same treatment as Nathan's) really love the simplicity which I didn't think I would since I'm such a sucker for detail.

Ok, that's my six, now onto the Yeti I came up with today for xmas card ideas:

First attempt, didn't like the blue-eyes in the end, kinda wish I hadn't inked over it.

Three yeti-expressions, happy with those

experimented with eyebrows and scarf place-age :] fave is in the top center

I like this one :) was also trying to think of a frozen breakfast he might have but just settled on coffeee (which I don't drink, strangely).

And here's one of the final ideas :D I hope you can vaguely see the reindeer legs and understand my slight-dark-humor knows no bounds! Not even christmas ;)
I hope to send this out to the whooole family in December, haha.

You can click for the whole thing but be warned it be Huge. ready for print.

Painting and doodles

2009-11-05T23:13:00.010Z

Here's some of the things I've been working on in the painting class, we got to pick a theme from a list of about 10 ideas, and I picked 'urban'. Thought about choosing 'texture' but wanted to encorporate some into my pieces anyway and thought about painting on some clothes since that's pretty 'urban' and I finally have some spraypaint : ) (no colours though, sob).

Here's the paint splatter idea I have become quite fond of, this time with the traffic lights being the only source of colour in an otherwise grey and washed-out place, ofcourse I soon realized the lights were probably on the wrong side of the road. ahwell. artistic license ; ]

The next idea I had was business suit-type-people getting so stressed out with horrible 9-5 life their heads were *metaphorically* exploding. Not *really*, but I liked the effect and the idea that they would look well-put together and slightly detailed on the clothes and body, just for the head to become an abstract mess.

'Nother one with the same idea, bit more pink, I liked the contrast in colours : )

Right, that's all the college work I've snapped for today, more for tomorrow.

& to finish, the doodles..
SPACED ah I love spaced! I was going to do a rendition of the whole cast but I drew Colin too big and so just decided daisy and tim were enough this time (might do the whole lot later) but Anyway, I think this shows I am improving :} I do think pegg's expression is a bit wrong and his head may be a bit small, but I do really like it :) click for slightly bigger version & if you've never seen spaced please please enrich your life and DO IT.

Birthday card for my amazing grandma (who lives with us) she Hates photos of herself so it was a bit hard finding a reference for this, but still, just wanted to remind her that she's not getting old. Long live DIY cards.

agh, midnight, sleep calls. goodnight.

bit of halloweeeeen

2009-10-27T21:36:00.016Z

Ooh, also I've been trying out different drawing styles based on pics I've found (and loved) all over the web, here are some quick doodle-results:
Peep show reference :]
and Finally, as promised here is my lovely zombie-themed pic for Halloween '09

(Click to make bigger hopefully!)
tomorrow, more work!

Caring is creepy

2009-10-23T14:16:00.013+01:00

Today is a whole day of work, I'm trying to split it right down the middle for personal/college, but it never really turns out that way.
I have lots on my mind.

So, gonna blog-splurge the personal out the way first, then it'll be strictly college work for the rest of today : ) Also going to scan in my tutorial projects so they can get marked at some point.

There's a bit of mixture today, some cartoons and some digital paintings:
Entitled Blueface. Painted this when I was feeling flu-y, there's sposed to be a distinguishable face/head but it does look a bit abstract (at one point I saw a blue penguin with a kind of key symbol on it's stomach), wanted to digitalize it a bit more to have more depth but apart from chopping the hair a bit more nothing else has looked 'right' so for now I'm leaving it. Two versions since the invert is nice too.

I stumbled across a meme on deviantart where someone had made a template to get people to submit timeline-type images of the Past You to the Present. I thought it was a fun idea; would look neater in typed writing though : P
I think clicking will give you full-image.

Finally this is a mash-up of one of my previous digital art pieces with a simple illustration to give it more oomph.
I don't know why I drew a mouse except for the fact it could hold a firefly that way. I've always drawn their ears that way (damn you Tom & Jerry!) and I was listening to that Smiths song at the time; hence the lyrics :)

Finally finally, as a way to make this blog a bit more personal, here's the song I am currently listening to

Mmm tuesdays

2009-10-13T18:31:00.005+01:00

So, today I drew a picture for/of my very good friend, who shall remain nameless for the sake of privacy,
I was proud of her for getting a job since it's been a struggle, to the say least, to get through to the snobby employers where she lives.
and I hate drawing cars..
then there's the whole picture which I fear will either stretch this page or half disappear;
but it's how I intended it so will post anyways. I'm on the right : P questioning my self-worth jokingly.

huzzah for photoshop elements :]

Ahhhh

2009-10-12T15:39:00.005+01:00

I thought I had forgotten something and since my files are all muddled I almost overlooked what is probably my best result from all this photoshoppin'. Tis just a shame I cannot use it all the time.

College Work part deux

2009-10-12T14:36:00.006+01:00

Here's what I've bee doing the rest of today, my eyes are starting to turn into squares..

very simplistic, but could have many many many meanings. I can spot at least three.

And that's possibly one of the final pieces, I like the mood, it's supposed to represent that winter days are like fragments of a whole (all cold and some snowy) and the sharp little pieces symbolize the harsh and depressing nature of winter...any clues that I don't like winter?
Why oh why could I not have a summer birthday... Oh well at least it's blue-tinted.
Love the fact the feather acts as a 'screen break' or 'print break' of the scene and is such a good juxtaposition of the light winter bits and is just really nice to look at.
Happy with this one : )

(although my inner perfectionist is telling me the painted lines are still too obvious, shut up brain there's no such thing as perfection).

College Work part uno

2009-10-12T12:06:00.011+01:00

Ok, so here is the first bunch of jpegs to show what I've been up to in Digital Art & Design for the past weeks, ~~(bearing in mind I'm a total scatterbrain and have lost one of my new usbs with some of the initial work on it yargh)~~ I found them! Huzzah. Still without usb though.
anyway, aren't you excited? aaaand, GO

This was my first attempt, experimentation all the way, no idea what I was trying to achieve, but that's a good thing right?

This one was slightly more thought-out, composition is taking charge and pulling it all together. The best use of an SU flyer by far : P

The little feather made a nice scan, I like this result the only other thing I thought about doing was making the sticky-out feather bits at the top extend past the top edge of the page

I really like this one, probably because it's a bit more abstract, and the happy accidentthat the glue-blue bit in the top left corner looks like a head and became the focal point of the piece.

Again something a bit different, starting to experiment with text and encorporated one of my illustrations into the background for a change of mood.

This was my attempt at simple-ing it up a bit and I decided to use some handwritten elements to make the final outcome more dynamic, while obscuring it in parts to add a feeling of depth.

Under the weather

2009-10-11T19:38:00.007+01:00

Haven't been feeling that great today, been working but slightly brain-dead-ly.
Sure I'll have plenty of College work to post up tomorrow,
but for tonight here's the newest doodles etc.

First off is one of the t-shirts I've been designing, a kind of tribute to pacmanIt would make sense that the reason he's constantly going round risking his life for those little yellow dots
is because they are infact cookies. Everyone likes cookies : P
I didn't know if the 'om nom nom' was too much but I wanted to make it funny; eventhough I know some people won't get it.
(The tea design was/is way more of a bitch to design in Illustrator and is taking longer)

Then it's my little doodle inspired by twitter, oh twitter ¬.¬

coloured it in photoshop for a bit but not sure which version I like better

right, I'm off again, ttfn.

2009-10-07T06:14:00.008+01:00

Just a quick splurge of personal work from yesterday, I do kinda worry blogging these up will just make the tutors think, "But what about your college stuff?" but it is there, just not digitized and bloggable (not a word?) yet.
As usual with blogspot click to see bigger images and whatnot.

My friend Aidan has wanted me to draw him as a werewolf for a while (I don't ask questions, I just draw stuff) and I had a spare 10 minutes so I doodled this; shame you can't see the detail from where his werefeet have ripped through his converse. And I had to draw him with a kitten because...he has a lot of 'em. Kitten expression needs improvement.

These are ideas for a new t-shirt design I be designing (so much grammatical sense right thar) and I will do better versions of them later, my fave being the bottom middle one. But might change the sugar into lumps for greater comedy effect when adding swimwear. Also a pacman-cookie-themed one in the works too.

Apologies for the legs, they're quite terrible. But I love my expression : P
Ofcourse this is only a slight dig at student life, since I have been here for far too long and some reckon I'm as old as the old building (I'm not).
Plus I did ask to be here and wouldn't keep coming back if I didn't like it
since buying art supplies has put me into minor student-related debt ; )
Also done at like 1/2am for maximum strange word arrangement.
Credit also goes to the Pixies for making/naming such a great song.

Right, that's all for now, better go get ready to sign workshop boards before the general population has even woken up to watch Jeremy kyle.

good advice

2009-10-04T17:26:00.001+01:00

Maybe I should post moar?

2009-10-04T16:57:00.000+01:00

A lots gone on since the last time I posted..since that was in February : P
I kinda forgot about it, but now the ND art lot have told us to use a blog so I guess this'll be it.
I'll post a few more recent personal pieces but there's waay too much to catch up on, so just go here for that http://www.flickr.com/photos/cherryfizzwhizz/

blah blah babble babble I don't like sundays.

smoothie s'plosion

2009-02-01T13:00:00.001Z

My carton exploded all over me yesterday as i was opening it, hence the idea for this cartoon :)
I loooove innocent smoothies. They are copyright to themselves,
and the splatters on the page are real smoothie,
I'm dedicated like that ;]

somewhere-in-between

2009-02-01T12:46:00.000Z

This sums up my non-relationship status at the moment : )

2009-01-18T17:55:00.001Z