Puppies and DIY

Don't be afraid of DIY.

At least that's what I tell myself. And it is true. I see so many things on Etsy and websites that I know I could do myself, but the ease and convenience of simply ordering online and seeing it in your mailbox in two weeks is a trap I often find myself falling into. But not this time!

I have been wanting this adorable necklace. It is a custom, hand painted portrait of your pet, encased in a pendant. My local craft stores do not seem to carry do it yourself pendant kits, but I knew one had to be out there some where. Turns out it was also on Etsy... and Ebay if I wanted to do 20+ of them.

Now I get to make it myself and since I already know how to draw and watercolor, why not?! I get to work on something I will love, that will always have meaning for me, and get to have an excuse to play with watercolors again.

So with the pendant in hand, I broke out the watercolors and some cute pictures of my puppy, Gingko.
I did a few test sketches from a few different poses I liked. Mostly to try and figure out how small the image needed to be to fit under the glass. The Glass dome insert acts a little bit like a magnifying glass and makes the image seem much larger. So the circle of space I had to draw in was about 3/4 of the size of that glass disk. Once I had an idea of how big to draw I switched to the watercolor paper.

Once I had a sketch down that I liked I broke out the colors. Since she is such a light colored dog it was a little hard to get her color right. That image up there is much whiter than she is in person. She is a bit more orange but her face, neck and underbelly are all very white. Since she is a husky mix she does have a bit of the eyebrow markings, but since they are white on such a light yellow gold, you can hardly see them.

It was important to me to get it right though. And I think I did an alright job. One person I showed it to said, "Oh that's Gingko!" so I guess I did ok. Anyway, I am very happy and I saved about $40!

Tradeshow Espionage

So as you might know, just about every industry holds tradeshows at some point during the year. These gatherings of professionals in your specific industry is a time for you to get out there, see what others are doing, try to promote and sell your own product and generally schmooze with everyone.

There are some general unspoken and explicitly stated rules that go along with these events. One seems pretty obvious, but clearly, it is not always followed; Don't steal others ideas you see at these shows.

Day two of the three day show we had not one, but two, breaches of this rule.

First, a young man, clearly sent by his home offices in Japan, was taking every single piece of literature he could get his hands on. Not a huge issue, since we only put what is meant to be shared, but a bit of a tip off to watch him. The issue instead was the Nikon hanging around his neck. It was lunch time and I was the only one not out eating or talking to other customers. I look over just in time to see him snap a photo of the backside of one of our products. This product in specific we have already had people trying to steal ideas from in the form of bogus lawsuits and I know to be careful with it. The product is usually also, kept to the side, rather than out in public and only shown to those with supervision. This man, came in to the booth, picked it up, turned it over and took photos and then left in a hurry. I only saw him take one photo, but I was sure to catch his name on his badge on his way out of the booth. I mentioned it to the vice president who promptly hunted the man down. She asked to see his camera and he pretended to not speak English of course, but after making him flip through many many images of other products finally she found and made him delete, not one, but three images of our product! She took a picture of his badge just for good measure.

Second incident... A pair of men from a company in China are chatting while taking all the literature... again, my radar is going off. But I smile and let them watch the videos and look at the product on display. I'm not actively staring at them, and so only notice at the last minute as one takes a small bag of the product sitting on the table and puts it into his bag. I wasn't sure if they were actually samples or not but I demanded his card so I could at least track it and quickly memorized their faces and appearance. Again I mention it to the vice president, who after 20 minutes of searching the floor, finds them. They also say that they do not speak English and she gestures that she would like to look in their show bag of sway. Our product was 5lbs, and clearly labeled and right on top of their stack of stuff. She returns with the product in tow.

We reported both incidents to the booth of the company that runs the show every year. Both incidents are clearly prohibited and we were told the men would be removed from the show. Unfortunately, I saw both Chinese men in our booth the last day. I am also pretty sure the same photographer, sans camera, with a new and different name as well.

Guess it just goes to show... intellectual property is just as valuable as products. Products that might contain that new information, should be guarded. Keep your eyes peeled!

Hair-Raising Awesomeness

There are a lot of projects that float around in my head that I never get around to doing. I have a bag with a lazy susan, two different sizes of buckets and a tube of glue sitting in my kitchen... Yeah. With a lull in work, I decided to tackle one.

I've had a stack of felt in various colors sitting on the top of my fabric pile for a while now. It's been there so long, I have forgotten what possessed me to buy some of those colors. Anyway, A-kon is coming up soon and I want to cosplay. However, since I don't really have the figure for standard anime girls or time to put something elaborate together, I thought I might rehash my failed Halloween costume from last year; Fiona and Cake. I've got the skirt, socks, shoes, a blue shirt, and a Finn hat that could easily change into a Fiona hat. No Cake, due to this disaster, and no backpack. So, I thought a pin/hair clip might just solve the Cake problem, since she can stretch and shrink just like Jake can. I might have to think about a sword too... but that's a project for another day.

So, I assembled the felt pieces I had, some soft and some of the more rigid type, my glue gun, some hair clips, white glue, a few fabric markers, a permanent marker and some scissors. After an hour of cutting tiny felt shapes, I had created replicas of some of my favorite things. I had already decided to make Cake, so I did Jake as well, also my favorite chibi totoro, and Rainbow Dash's cutie mark. In this image, I had layered the colored felt pieces, adhered them with a bit of standard white glue, and laid them outside so I could spray them with ModgePodge sealant. I hope that will help them stay together, stiff and keep the marker from fading or rubbing off. You cant really tell, but all of them were made from the soft felt and backed by a piece of the stiff felt. The Cake clip, in some places, is four layers of felt deep. For the Rainbow Dash clip, I used the fabric markers to simply draw her mark onto the stiff white felt, and backed it with stiff black felt.

After three coats of sealant and a few hours of drying, I got out my trusty glue gun and proceeded to glue clips to the backsides. This took a little more thought so that I could have the clips facing the right way. I made Jake and Cake a set so if I was feeling extremely nerdy I could wear one on each side of my head. The Rainbow Dash cutie mark is so large that I had to angle the clip so I wouldn't poke myself in the ear with the rainbow point if I wore it. And totoro, being so simple, was my test subject for everything before I did it to the rest.

Here are the finished products!

I can't help but think I could sell a ton of these... And for the record, Cake is my total favorite right now. Now I have to decide which one to wear to the con! Maybe I'll wear the Rainbow Dash clip and attract all the Bronies!

A Summer Wedding

In Texas, the summer is hot.

Duh, ok. So this post is about those wedding invites that I keep mentioning I was working on for friends. I thought I would share the two concepts I came up with. One fit their theme just a bit better, so obviously that is the one they chose. The other... well I will get to that.

Here is the one they chose. With their theme of "Gaming" a little nod to a classic DnD campaign was all that was needed to add a little humor to their invites.

I am not ashamed to say that I was just a little bit loopy when I wrote the text, but I still find it funny, but at the same time, it is my earnest wish for them. Being married myself, I have faced down those opponents in the past and continue to do so regularly.

Here is the RSVP to match.

And finally the second version. This one was a lot more summer and anime themed.

I spent a lot of time on those little caricatures of them and their dogs. I intend to have a nice one printed up and framed as a wedding gift.

Monster Pulse Fanart

Well you got a little sneak peek in my doodles post, but here it is... the final fanart for my girl for Monster Pulse. Since I basically did myself, I figure it's a self portrait too. And I added in all the bits of stuff like I would have in my room.

Thought of all my organs, ears might be cool to see as monsters. Of course you would get a pair too! Since the inner ear is snail shell shaped, I thought it would be cool if they were kind of snail like. Not much in a fight, but excellent for spying since I feel like they would work like extendable ears, as long as it isn't too far away she could still hear. She wears headphones though, since a hole-y head is super gross.

Without the monster ears, I guess it is a better self portrait... if a bit lonely.

Doodle Time

Blank paper and a pencil is better than almost anything on the planet. Yes, I have a tablet. Yes, I mostly color and ink in Photoshop, but really... where does it come from? where does those lines to trace start? With a simple pencil in my hand. Here's a collection of doodles from the last few weeks.

The first two here are a rough sketch for the last post I did of fan art for Adventure Time/ Avatar:TLA. 

This one, and you can see a really rough sketch for this in the first image (upside down), are sketches for an idea I had for wedding invites that I was working on for a friend of mine. I will most likely post images of the two versions I came up with in a future post.

In a recent episode of Adventure Time called "Paper Pete", Jake the dog is reading a large book about the history of Lady Rainicorn's people since he says sometime in the future he might have half ranicorn half dog pups. Imagining what those pups might look like is an awesome fun time. 

The next two here are for more fan art for a fantastic web comic called Monster Pulse. If you haven't/don't already read this comic you should. Right now. Go. Come back when you are done.
So I have been thinking about what kind of monster I might get. Nothing too crippling but still...

This is one of the scenes I sketched out for my submission for the Doctor Cat contest.

And finally. Another quick sketch of Agent Sonar. Since she is basically a space alien for all intensive purposes, she doesn't like the government. Basically they would love to get their hands on and study her. In our last session she was freaking out a bit since she is trapped in a building, inside a car, surrounded by SWAT teams.

Avatar Time!

So if you don't know... I love Adventure Time. I also love the Avatar: The Last Airbender tv show. As I was heading out to get the new Adventure Time comic, volume 1, I was also struck with the desire to find the new short comic for Avatar, called The Promise. Like these things do, a thought came to me in the car while I was driving... MASHUP!

I feel like Aang could get along with Finn tremendously and since Jake has stretchy powers, they could all easily travel Ooo together. This was super fun to do. Not sure why I didn't think of it sooner.

Disclaimer: Obviously I do not own Adventure Time nor Avatar, this is strictly fan fun!