Holy Hell! Imma gunna be a WIFE!

So it's the end of my life according to this random person I met downtown, because I'm going to be married! Dan and I have been together since April 2004, "and we still act like we met", my friend told the random person.

Honestly...it doesn't feel any different, it's just another step I guess.

I'm a little worried about getting the marriage license because Dan needs to find a second piece of ID before we get it. As for the wedding itself, we have little tiny details to think about, like decorations'n stuff, my mom keeps...well...being a mom (if you know what I mean)

*breath* it should be fine, it's just a wedding it's just a wedding it's just a wedding.

Lots of new things happening!

Well, lets start with art.

The new Tee design will be printed next week! I have a contract to sign and that'll be that for the Perimeter Institute Tee. I'm about half way through the new Tee design, this is to be held a secret until I'm fully finir!

Now let's move on to toys.

I've discovered some useful info from another artisan about legit tags for toys. I am to sign an application for registration as a home hobby/craft operator. This is a specific application in Ontario, anyone who makes/sells stuffed articles should register. It's 20 bucks a year, and that gives you the right (in my case) to create/sell 1-999 stuffed animals in one year. Should you create/sell more, you are to sign a manufacturer application which is a staggering 400 bucks a year! When I've registered I can finally get some contents tags done. I'll follow these guides and visit one of the specialized printers, luckily one of them happens to be down the road from my house!

Before all that happens...

I'd like to sign my name for a small business. I'd like to start doing things properly and I think that'll be a good way to start. It's 60 bucks last I saw (could be more by now), that's to register your legal name only. I'm currently reading the pdf about starting a sole proprietorship and what's involved. It won't be anything big to start but it should be interesting and fun making toys n' stuff all the time!

Hmm what else?

I went to Cuba in February, had a real fun time with a friend of mine and her dad, he goes down every month or so. We stayed in the city of Holguin, did what Cubans do. It was really different and enjoyable. I could really write a whole blog about this alone, so I think I'll do that next!

Here's a greek face for shits and giggles.

-Heather

New tags for DinoSquares!

This morning I wanted to have a bit of fun finding ideas for my new DinoSquare tags. So I spent an hour and a half of my time in Toys "R" Us just looking at toy labels. People were giving me the weirdest looks too! It was fun to look like I was stealing stuff but actually wasn't. >:3

The tag that stood out from everything else was this Hello Kitty tag, it was all pink but had a knock out white Hello Kitty face taking up the whole one side. It was stunning as a tag. It reminded me of some Japanese toy tags I've seen before. So I've decided to base my design off that one. I want my tag to be one solid color with a knockout toothy DinoSquare face and possibly "DinoSquare" written underneath.

Rough Sketch!

There's another part to the tag I need to worry about if I want to start selling these in professional toy stores, that would be the contents tag: What's in it, how it was made, where it was made. As far as I know that's all I'd need...I wouldn't necessarily need a logo tag, but that's would make it look pretty.

This is getting way off the topic, but Dan and I have been casually discussing the fact that I should think about registering my name into the Small Business Association at City Hall... just in case we do come to that decision, I'm leaving my business logo as Heather Russell. I've heard the rumor about registering your name being less of a pain than registering a made up business name.

I'm done.

-H

Alien Transformation!!

I promised it in my last blog, so here it is, a step by step on how I built the newer and more improved "Klyper" alien being.

First I want to admit I was too lazy to imagine a pose so I found a male model on the net and drew the basic skeletal structure of his pose.

I applied Klyper's facial features to this skeletal structure and the basic outline of where his new hair style will be placed.

I then darkened some of those features and added a blue underpainting to start forming his skin.

Starting to fill in features.

Adding a bit more emphasis to his facial features and cleaning up his hair so the outline looks more pleasing. Notice the cast shadows starting to form...

I want to make his skin a little darker, more like the way it looked in my last blog. I copy and paste another body...

...and paste it right on top of the older body. If you are the type of artist that gets nervous of darkening hues, this is a good way to get over those nerves...if you can think of a better way, lemmie know!

Here I add some more skin textures to match the style of the last painting.

He's supposed to be a vampire, so fangs help in that respect.

Final cleaning and texturing.

I fixed the original concept too! :,)

Holy Space Pirate!!

I thought this was a neat commission: an illustration/concept of a humanoid alien space pirate with blue skin, yellow eyes, thick jet black hair, pronged ears, the list goes on. I made a few sketches in the beginning to get the feel of what this guy looked like. When Dan mentioned, hey, that guy looks like Avatar I couldn't help but think of Avatar the whole time. I tried my best to steer clear of that.

Here's my first (hilarious) drawing of "Klyper" the space pirate:

I looked in my old art instruction books for ideas on what pose wanted this hotshot to be standing in, I thought this pose would suffice:

but then I started looking at super hero poses on the web and found this Deadpool dude, he has a much cooler pose:

So unfortunately I don't have a step by step on how I painted "Klyper" but this is how he turned out in the end:

So when my client saw it they were quite happy with it, there are however a few changes to be made to the hair, and I also need a 3/4 view of him smiling with his canines.

I'll post it bit by bit to give an idea on how I painted him next time.

-Heather

Fish and Ships! MMm mmm Gooood...

So here are a few ships I didn't post yesterday because it was getting late. They definitely need more exploration, but it gives you an idea of what we're looking for. I'm posting the Post-It note sketch first, then the more finished version.

Hopefully these lead to newer more amazing ideas soon!!

I thought this looked cool until I realized what it looked like...a mustard container.

This was alright...a little boring though.

I've been told this looks like an organ fighter!

So even though all these make me reminisce about ridiculous things..I'm going keep plugging along and see what else I can come up with. I think my favourite so far has to be the droid I completed (in my last blog).

Doug Chiang experimentation!

So! Doug Chiang... yeah I picked up his book called Mechanika at Chapters the other day, practiced a few of his works, then tried to come up with my own with the book by my side. I was surprised with what I did come up with. I've gotta be honest that I'm not mechanically minded at all, in fact I loathed the very idea of trying to come up with spaceship designs. I was even asking Dan WHY ARE YOU INTERESTED IN THIS STUFF!!? I've always found it too hard to come up with anything that looked good enough.

Just today I proved myself wrong.

Doug Chiang's book on drawing mechanical beings and spaceships really forced me to look on the fun side of all this. He uses a simple yet striking technique that makes the whole process of concept to finished art fun as hell. My concepts are not exactly where I want them to be yet, but I was very happy that I could draw something that looked good.

So the steps for getting from a small concept to totally awesome art according to Chiang (and I decided to change it up a bit too!):

1. Try to draw your earliest concepts on post-it notes. This seems silly but really works. Even when I try to just draw small images on a large piece of paper, I feel inclined to draw those tiny concepts bigger and bigger and BIGGER for some reason. Try the post-it note thing because with what Chiang explained in the book, it forces you to think in the main shapes rather than the details.

2. When you've come up with something you like, switch to a bigger, but not your final, piece of paper. Start with your blue pencil as it's more forgiving when you're experimenting with shapes. You are NOT focusing on the details yet, you're still focusing on the large shapes, but you're further exploring what can be done with the shapes. Try to "eye" what feels best as far as proportions go.

3. Now that you have a sturdy concept, switch to your final paper. Try to find/use the tools he lists, I've experimented with a different brand of marker because I happened to have them kicking around from first year graphic design. I'm using a very light (20 or 30 percent) Letraset cool grey for the base guidelines which will become part of the final drawing.

4. Use a darker tone of grey to start finalizing the guide drawing and to work in some more guides for the finicky detailed shapes. I found the more you use and experiment with your grey markers, the more thought out and amazing the final piece will look!

5. (For the non-mechanically minded) Here is where you want to start listening to some good music. Take your .05 fine tipped Staedtler marker and start bullshi*ing final shapes based on those grey guides you drew. Again, I've got to be honest, I did have the book beside me, but it gave he a good hand in coming up with my own mechanical structures that looked like they would work in real life.

There was a lot more Chiang explained in the book that I found very interesting. He went on about using these toy model cars and other mechanical things as reference for his creations. He also explained that not finishing the drawing (like I did below) is good for letting the viewer fill in the blanks.... I'm not going to get into all of it because I'm really supposed to be talking about Dan's game.

But yeah, I had fun.

Post-it note sketches, they really work!

This guy was inspired by a Stremeline Moderne/Art Deco lamp of all things!

Final Rendering