A math test in my dream??

So, every once in a while I have some strange little dreams that I forget right when I wake up. But the dream I had woken up from just a few hours ago was...interesting. It was interesting enough for me to log in to my blog and write about it (you've seen how many blogs I've done in the past while....yeah).

So I was my 25 year old self as a student in a grade 3 class doing a math test. The test was pretty easy looking, but my problem was I had two or three students poking and prodding at me with their pencils. I started fooling around with the kids attempting to calm them down (yeah, don't ask how that works). So after a while I'm finally able to get to work on this test when the teacher tells me I have to go down to the office to meet with my sister, Margaret.

When I'm down in the lobby area (just outside the office) I look around me and the room is just full of very young children in the age range of 4-6. I sit at a low-down table with kiddie chairs to wait for Margaret and to do some of that DANG test. I look through the test and knowing that I didn't have a teacher to tell me not to, I used a calculator sitting right next to me. THANK GOD A CALCULATOR! I thought. As I look through the test, the questions go from simple addition to VERY complex theories (that a calculator wouldn't help with! *SHIT!*).

As I'm getting very frustrated with this stupid and seemingly IMPOSSIBLE test, this lady/teacher asks me if I can walk this little boy around because his parents weren't with him and he was upset. I told the lady I couldn't because I have this test to do. When I took yet another stab at the test there was a little boy that sat next to me in tears. I stopped the test immediately and asked what was wrong ( I felt VERY connected to this little boy). He told me that bullies were going to meet him after school and throw rocks at him. At that point the test kinda fell in the background and I decided to stay with this boy.

The boy (I believe he told me his name was Dustin) decided to go to the washroom and I was still sitting at the kiddie table. This lady sat next to me (maybe his mother) and told me I can follow him if I want. So I got up and stood outside the washroom to wait for Dustin. When Dustin came out of the washroom there was a really attractive man waiting for him, I asked the man if he knew Dustin and he said "yeah I do", he seemed quite kind, so I let him go with him. It felt like Dustin was safe from then on.

When I woke up I explained what the man looked like to my real-life husband, Dan, and he told me "So you saw a really white Vin Diesel? LOL I think Vin Diesel IS the best picture I can put to the man I saw, except he was whiter.

I phoned my business partner, Amanda, RIGHT when I woke up because she's quite good at interpreting dreams. The main thing is to pick out the highlights of the dream and ask yourself how YOU felt from each highlight.

I said the highlights were:

-The math test

-The distracting kids in the classroom

-The teacher that told me to go to meet Margaret

-The calculator

-The boy without parents

-Dustin

-The attractive man

Lets start with The math test, I felt like it was easy to begin with. There were questions like 1+4 and 2+3 in the beginning. But with The distracting kids in the classroom I couldn't get anything done!

**Amanda associated the test with my real life work for Tentacle Tarte Studios (which I do get distracted from a lot by family/friend issues)**

The teacher that told me to go to meet Margaret seemed like an authority figure, perhaps my father calling me for help with something. In which case I wanted to take my work, The math test, with me so I could finally get SOMETHING done! The calculator seemed like an easy way out for me. But as soon as I had it, the test became impossible to do!

**Amanda told me that with my real life work for our Studio, there is no easy way out. It's a job that I can't cheat in, it takes hard honest work.**

The boy without parents seemed like yet ANOTHER distraction to me. The lady asked me to walk with him because he was lonely and I couldn't because of my work, I told her specifically that "He was not my child, I'm sorry."

**Amanda told me that this was perhaps someone dumping their troubles on me and I decided to stay focused, I thought that was interesting because it's happened to me in real life recently.**

Dustin was the main thing I felt VERY connected to. He seemed to be in trouble and needed help. I dropped EVERYTHING to help him in any way I could. I was willing to stay with him as long as he needed.

**Amanda told me that Dustin was perhaps ME or my family unit (being Dan and I). He's a symbol of the care that I need to put into myself. It could also be a symbol of myself wanting to start a family and have children. This made sense and was very true to me.**

The attractive man was waiting for Dustin at the washroom. I let Dustin go with this man because he seemed quite kind and willing to help. He was a white man who was tall, muscular, bald and he had very kind blue eyes.

**Amanda told me that this was the feeling I have for the situation I'm in right now. I feel a slight concern for the way things are going (balancing a job and wanting to nurture my relationship/have a family) but I know that things will come in time. I have to say that The attractive man was Dan, taking care of the child while I'm in a mess with things. But all the stress seemed to melt away when that man appeared.**

So that's it I guess! I thought Amanda did a really good job interpreting that dream for me. It felt like the right answer. I think what I learned from this dream is to put more of my energy taking care of myself and my relationship with Dan.

Family comes first!

-Heather

Sorry!

I apologize for not posting for a LONG while!

I'm definitely going to start to make constant posts quite soon though. I have a lot of artworks/stories to share, so I will be back soon :)

-Heather

Ontario Tornado Warnings!

We had a pretty impressive storm roll through last night! Dan and I were pretty jittery before the storm. We put all our emergency supplies together and once we heard there was a tornado warning, we grabbed the cat and rabbit and fled to the basement. Our poor kitty (Doom) was not happy about going in the basement, it's an unfamiliar place to her. Her tail was all puffy and she was clinging to me so hard! Once we were down there though, the mood changed....call us weird but we actually kind of enjoyed it (even though we were in a 4'x4' room with a toilet and a lotta spiders). The kitty was a useful barometer, if she started freaking out we knew we would need to stay down there...either that or she needs the litter box.

Ball of ants

No, I'm not going to talk about all the ants invading my kitchen right now.

Do you ever talk to someone really high up in their league and get a little nervous?

I know I do. I was laying in bed thinking about this, and it was kind of a trippy thought...but this is how I get rid of that fear: I think of the earth, the big gorgeous ball slowly rotating in space, glimmering with beauty , and then I think of humans as ants or tiny specs, and I think of myself HUGE hugging that ball with ants on it...and whoever I'm talking to is obviously one of those ants. It's funny, but when I think of people in that way, all connected, all ONE, I really don't feel too scared anymore. Life when you think about it is kind of pointless, but that's why theres no real reason to fear. Love that little ball of ants, they need it, they're a ball of ants for gods sake!

Nosebleed!

Today I had the biggest nosebleed I've ever had in my life! A friend suggested what I do to get rid of it via Facebook. Bring your head forward and plug your nose for about 5 minutes. I did that, but I think I did it wrong because soon afterward I felt like blacking out! It was WEIRD! I jus sat in my chair with a cold sweat and dizziness to the EXTREME! I could taste the blood trickling down my throat which made me feel sick...ECK!

So that's what happened to me today.

it sucked.

A few things

Now that I've added a few gadgets to the Slimecat blog, I feel like I need to post something new...

hmmmm...something new...

Ah! Here's a MAJOR thing! :

Have a look at Tentacle Tarte Studios I've started with my friend Amanda Nightingale-Terwoord!

Being the ditz I am sometimes... I didn't really update about the business on the Slimecat Blog.

Tentacle Tarte is our name and we do Graphic design, Illustration, Toy design, and even some baking!

At the moment I'm working to get a logo finished and sharp looking for Yggdrasil's Child.

Yggdrasil's Child, "Natural handmade soaps, candles, body products, and hemp jewellery"

I haven't tried any of the products yet, but one of my friends says they're spectacular. Her name is Sarah Paulette Bongers, she's a journalist, and she kindly wrote a review for Yggdrasil's Child.

Getting back to Tentacle Tarte, we have a show coming up in Kitchener, April 16th, called the Bloomin' Earth Festival, located at the Kitchener Market! There'll be tonnes of local handmade artisans selling their goods. Being a market day, we're anticipating a packed festival. Let's all hope for a nice sunny day!

We're focusing on toys at the festival, here's a picture of our handmade toys called Dinosquares :D

There's kind of a funny story behind this picture^^^^

Back to work now!

Slime Cat has a Friend!

We've moved! We have a Kitty too! Her name is Doom. She's a cute little black cat with adorable yellow moon eyes and a small tuft of white on her chest (kinda like an opening on a tux). Here are some photos of her:

Doom was adopted at the Humane Society in Kitchener. She was the last kitty of her family to be adopted...I guess everyone in Kitchener is superstitious or something. Doom was also born on site (which is apparently rare). Her name at the shelter was Tinkerbell... yeah, no comment there. They gave her that name so people would adopt her, but luckily they had no luck until we came! We immediately changed her name as soon as we saw her.

She's a happy little thing now.

Packing and more Packing

A few more weeks to go until Dan and I are settled in our new apartment. We'll have a large portion for a studio, a good sized dining room (no more eating while sitting on the floor), an upstairs with a bedroom and a quirky closet, a living room with a glass door; it leads out to a fair sized balcony which overlooks a HUGE backyard with a fire pit...the list goes on! Best part is that it's inexpensive. All inclusive and only $1100 a month.

Until then, we're dealing with the constant haywire of strangers eye-balling our current home. We're hoping for someone to take over for us, but damn it's a pain in the ass cleaning just about every day to show off the place. The landlord lets us know a few hours in advance that someone will be coming to look at our place, I scramble to clean, the people look...and the cycle continues.

As far as packing goes... it's convenient living next to a large appliance store, just today I was digging through their dumpster to look for some jumbo sized boxes :D Bit by bit we're getting outta here!

So on another topic, my friend and I decided to gang up and start a graphic design/illustration/toy business together. By the *end of October we'll have our website up. We're in the midst of coming up with a business name so we can register that title to the Small Business Centre. We're both working on a few projects as I speak:

- Dinosquare toy tag (including the product name and our website)

- Our website

- The first design in our NEW toy series.

- Ordering eyeballs for the toys

- A tag design for LoopClothing

I had planned to make a new website for just myself, but this way it'll be a little cheaper, also stronger with both our voices in the mix.

I'm off to pack some more.

-Heather

*The website will be up depending on how busy we are with the move

Fruit for thought

So a friend of mine requested that I design her next tattoo.

Botanical illustration with watercolour first came to mind when I thought of what she was explaining to me. She told me she wanted something "girly and pretty" with some "realism" in there.

After the strawberry design, I couldn't help but start on some new projects. So I did a few Raspberries...

These were a lot of fun to make, so the next project I thought could be a warmup for a large illustration I'm planning. Here's a little breakdown on the development:

I darkened this a bit in photoshop so you guys can actually see it.

So in that image I'm drawing a basic outline for the layout.

Next the underpainting is applied. This makes all the finishing colours more rich in appearance.

This is when I start to apply the next layer. The greens, and some of the shadows are being formed. It's important to keep the highlights nice and crisp until you know what effect you want. In this case, blueberries have a matte texture to their skin, which means light doesn't bounce off to make them shiny in appearance. In the raspberry and strawberry painting, I had to reserve the whites with masking fluid because they do have a shiny look.

Next I establish the heavier colours and also make some layout decisions (the bottom-most green berry was added to balance the image better). Some of the veins in the leaf take form.

The final layer of colour is applied, some late layout decisions are made (third from the bottom green berry) This is when the blueberries take on their true colour from all those purple tints in the previous stages.

Inking is a little tricky. There was a phrase in Doug Chiang's book "Mechanika - Creating the Art of Science Fiction" that basically explained the process of inking. Carefully choose what you want to ink and leave the rest for the audience to build in their minds. It makes for a more attractive piece of art in the end.

I've still got shit tonnes to learn about watercolour. I wanted to use it for the first time when I saw a friend's work, Oswald Kenneth Schenk. An AWESOME watercolourist/graphic designer. He's dead now...but he was a real character apparently, that's what my mom tells me. He wanted to marry my grandma originally.

anyway, that's all for now

New Website Coming in October!

I just got married, and you know what that means!

NAME CHANGE!!

Yes folks, I'll be going through all my cards and all my accounts and all my addresses changing my name for the next month or two... these new changes are bringing on the awesome opportunity to change my website name and domain.

Here's a little breakdown of my next website page:

Unfortunately this name change stuff is going to be one HELL of a process, but as soon as I get that new birth certificate in the mail I can finally start...hopefully it'll be one more week.

I'll update as soon as I get some stuff on the go.

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

I'm working, yes indeed, I'm working....

This is what I needed to see. I just realized I had a sampler of this book from free comic book day. I picked it up from Carry on comics in Uptown Waterloo before leaving to go to Newfoundland last year. Doug Chiang explains how to build a concept from blue line scribbles to a fully refined piece of artwork. All I need is...(PENCILLL ALLLERT!!)

-my blue line pencil

-30, 40, 50 60% cool grey Pantone Letraset marker

-triangle

-any scrap paper

-fine tip black marker

-Colour printing paper (for the more finished artwork)

I'm now going to take what I've created in my scribbling stage and apply it to Doug Chiang's way of refining a concept! See you soon!!

Menacing faces!!

Trains, especially streamline trains, were scary looking, I'm not talking about Thomas the Tank Engine faces either!!! Have you ever looked at the back bumper of a car and said to yourself, "Hey! That car looks really happy!" or "Hey that car looks like it's gunna kill me." or "Hey that car looks constipated.", well I'm trying to find some good mechanical "faces" for the ships in Dans game. I've been watching videos and looking in books about streamline trains and have noticed a pattern of menacing looking faces. Heres what I'm talking about but with cars.

I have a ship concept that hasn't been scanned yet, but is based on a zigzag art deco motif from a door in the Chrysler Building. It's a 2D frontal view of an eagle with ziggurat wings. Dan brought up a good point that maybe I can try turning those 2D motifs into 3D ship designs. I found an amazing walkthrough were someone uses the body shape of a Manta ray in the design of an organic spaceship. The design I'm doing won't be very organic, but this is kind of the same process I'm going through for the zigzag inspired spaceship design.

H1N1 was the best flu I ever had!

Everyone is freaking out about the piggy flu, but I'm contrary to all the hype. I had swine flu after Dan had it, and I've got to say it's not all that bad. It lasted me a total of ONE day. I thought the symptoms were gonna be back after the tiny attack and they never came.

Every other flu I had was waaaaaay worse.

So I've been too busy for words at work, trying to find the time to do a bit of sketching is tough, but I got ON it today. I've come up with some conceptual work for Loop Clothing, nothing really stands out too much yet though. I renewed the books I borrowed from the library for Dans game. A lot of the Art Deco motif hunting is finished. Dan would like me to get on with the more refined stuff asap. There will need to be a logo for the game coming soon (not to mention a name)...

I'm allowed cry about one thing though... WE NEED A FREAKING SCANNER! As soon as we get one installed I'll be able to show off a lot more than what I have so far. I think I'm going to go hunting for one this week, I hope you don't mind Dan.

Here's a hedgehog I'm working on for sh*ts and giggles.

He's based on this one I found on the interwebs, I thought it was too adorable to pass and not make a character of. I think he'll make a good strong sticker.