Hannibal & Treadle- life in a zoo

Yesterday Ty and me picked up the kitten. 90 kilometers to drive and a bundle of "meww,mewwwww!" in a box  on my lap.
 One hour never felt sooo long. Nerves: wrecked.
It's impossible to get a proper pic of both when they are dashing around. Therefore one pic with nasty flashlight.
The grey striped buddy is Treadle, the little red one Hannibal. Treadle is shy and mostly a copycat of Hannibal's actions. His favourite game though: digging for hours in the cat's toilet like "Bob The Builder".
O_o

At least they seem to have fun. Hope I can do all things in time anyways, deadlines + cats = doh!

in graphics...

How I feel .... it's actually a side note I send out today with some documents. The person who got this whill hopefully be as amused as Ty was when he stuck all the papers into the envelope.


People found another one in São Paulo, Brazil... oh my... epic fail...

not only chubs...

... somehow i feel weird when I draw anything walking on two legs. I know other people can do better. And for sure my enthusiasm is a bit lower than with "bubble pink elephant with glitter sparkle you get what I mean".
Anyways, it's good to draw kids and if they like it: even better. Part of a sketch for the scouts (yes, a lot lately). Lotsa grassland with a summer setting. Weeee!
Sketch partially done on simple paper with a colour pencil. Corrections and coloration will be done in Photoshop.

... and that's why the airbrush brush is BAD....

Because I am stil working on the image (now the couple .... and gods, Kimonos can cause a trauma XD ) and because the whole thing still bugs me.
A lot of people still use the airbrush brush... which is bad. JD *used* it as well and that's why we actually did the Skype session. I know a lot of people don't get the whole thing because nobody wants to tell and explain but the airbrush versus concept brush pretty much shows why you shouldn't use it for something or better anything that screams: I'm a detail!
I hope JD won't kill me (hun, I love you even if you love the airbrush XD) to show the difference. Left is what I call airbrush fail, right is my cleaned out correction. It doesn't mean I had to redo everything.. just the color. Which is fine because it took only around 1 hour to correct everything. I know it is a matter of taste but the smaller the illustation gets printed the more you have to care for non-muddy edges and good contrast.

And because Mirjam will pop up in some minutes for a photo-shoot I'll rush offline.

urggg... hopelessly overdone...

A loooonnng day. A little detail from a wedding card that was meant to be not that detailled but sometimes you happen to actually like the work and do more even if it means that you get practically zero out of it.
I had a Skype session with JD-Ayane (she helped me with basic house and bridge form since I was short on time ... I hate houses and bridges.. I really do.. coloring those is fine but the basic form... nah!) for the coloration. Being watched and explaining everything made me realize that I normally work:
1. Chaotic
2. Out of Order
3. am mostly bored when I work alone
all of those points are *really* bad but I guess better realize it now than... later.
I just hope the couple will love the card (we do)... If not I'll blow the wedding. Honestly...

Big thanks for JD being my Skype slave for today and labeling the stone Lantern as "Stalker Lantern". I painted ten hours in a row.. gods, I am tired. But happy.

Counting down... for kitteh-time

 What a week! I feel like trying to find the most impossible pose for the Art S.Buck figurine and I guess yoga-Poses are fairly close to overbending the legs :D
Looks a bit weird.. and gosh I really want to know who is responsible for those silikon boobies. This looks so not natural. o_o


And speaking of impossible... my To-Do List gets longer and longer. I am working on three things at the same time but it's kinda hard to keep all in line if people pop up with a "surprise!"and dang, if the job is interesting I can't say no... a totally bad habit.
I am quite happy about it but my projects keep getting dust and that was the last thing I wanted. :(

And because it's Friday and I'll watch "Iron Man 2" this evening  (yay!)I just wanted to add that Murphey's Law struck twice. We wanted female cats... FEMALE.... I thought my Karma was better but... of course we get two boys.
I didn't want to laugh into the phone when I called the cat's mum.
But it was just a total "I knew this would happen!" case.
Anyways, our little boys seem to be fine and with information like "They make three steps and roll the rest of the way" I feel like this gonna be a really inspiring time :B
So we are still searching for a second name since Treadle doesn't sound like a male. Hannibal and.... ?

Scribble! ... but not in a meeting!

... but the pad said: "Create your own work of art here"
I mean... it literally SCREAMS: DRAW ON ME!
Sir Bogard and Little Red Riding Ripper i guess... and no, i didn't want to kill anybody. It was just... oh a girl... and a cape... and a wolf... doh!

done with a Slicci... gods, I love those pens.

ernya got cute!

since i think it's kinda pointless to upload a website banner without a website layout i rather mention that you should take a look at:
http://www.ernya.com/
and stare at the upper part.
Depending on the daytime you can see 4 different versions (morning, day, evening, night).
One of the jobs i really loved to do -inbetween the ZARA fails o_o.

The sad news of today is that Porsche (our family dog, short: "Plush") died after 14 years. My parents had to call the vet who put him down this afternoon. He couldn't walk anymore and was totally disorientated. :( The second loss in 4 months. First Kiki, now the Plush. I am kinda happy that the whole getting worse is over but again I thought he would make it a bit longer.
We got Plush as a baby dog. The vet wanted to euthanize him but my sister grabbed him and took him home. I still remember when my mum saw him, she asked: "Whose dog is it?"
And my sister flatly answered: "Ours."
My family has a weakness for animals, we kinda adopt everything from cat, mouse, fish over racoon and -i guess even that- elephant.

Happyfish & Steampunked

 I forgot which kind of fish those are but every time we get into the pet shop I stare at those ridiculously smiling fishes. I named those Happyfishes.

The pics are bad since the shop owner always yells at us because pics are not allowed. Crap!
I hope I get better ones next time. Maybe with red herring... who knows.
Anyway, look at the mouth.. they seem to laugh all the time :D Happyfish!

The other thing I want to mention is that I worked with Mirjam on her lookbook for nearly 8 hours. And dang, it turned out good. I'm so proud. Mirjam is a fashion-designer and went to the same Art School and I practically wear her shirts every second day. 

Happy(fish) Sunday!

long socks: priceless

I have no idea why but I tend to stick to the Wacom- literally. My skin and the Wacom surface seem to like each other a lot XD Am I the only one having a problem with it? (and no, I don't sweat on my forearm... smooth like a baby booty)


... I should try to reduce that.... :/ ... but honestly coffee+ milk= yum!

Art S.Buck Mannequins -Review

The mannequins arrived yesterday and of course I HAD to test those. First of all: It's a mannequin so you can't expect them to be moveable like a contortionist. Really! Get the idea out of your head.

If you keep that in mind the mannequins are pretty cool. I bought both male and female because I need them for mag work and it's easier to take a pic of them and base the sketch on it than constructing the whole thing? I am lazy, right? But it's okay... If you get a call like "We need illustrations ... like.. .yesterday" you have an idea where you need to save time to get the rest done IN time.

The couple costs around 50 bucks -for me the price is okay but of course consider the price as worth thinking twice about buying it.

What is pretty cool is the male shoulder piece. You can switch it carefully into two different positions (front, back) depending on how you want him to look like (crouched or hero-pose ;) ). The only problem I see with the male mannequin is that his right arm is pretty uncooperative which means a lot of patience and smooth "goodaammit, moooveee!".

One female test which shows what you can actually do with them. Pretty nice, eh? I like those a lot. What a pity I have to work on different things now >_<

If you have any questions about those lemme know. :)

Cloudy

I spend the last couple of days with (wrecking my arm) painting the backgrounds for a web-page. Boring? Well, not. I hope they master to implement it as the concept is. If yes: It will rock! If not: ... can't happen!
1 background, 4 versions. And dang I missed painting bubble-clouds.
Will link the whole thing when it goes online.

And finally... I got my Art S.Buck figurines and those will be presented and tested tomorrow. I already played around with the female version (Barbie for grown-up girls I would say) and well.. you can read the results tomorrow. :)

Dis Mine!

mug design ... because I really wanted a stalker mug. I tried different poses but this one seemed to be the best and Stalker Kitteh is really a possessive kitty.

the "studio" ... or: the dark cave in the app with strange music

Ty and I (okay, just me but he had to help me) decided to redo the working room. The table height was incorrect which resultet in another tendo.
And since I always had the feeling that my screens will fall down we moved the "cg working station" to the wall. The actual table height is 77 cm, which is really high but it is more comfortable since I don't look like a hunchback when I draw. ^^;
The drawing board will be back on the front table but atm I don't need it so well... it looks kinda blank but at least not too chaotic (like it usually does).

Kulla mug! I like it although I still think the company should fix the color ... it looks a bit too yellowish (and not only because of the pink light).


















Useless information about the whole setup. I'm a leftie so this is combination works best for me. Right screen is also useful to dump all Photoshop windows on since I tend to activate full screen for PS.

Copy Fail....

I am still searching for "the thing out of hell". If you feel like joining the "USO"-hunt (Unidentified Selling Object): the USO hunting

And what we learn while searching? We see other fails:
Copy Clone Fail

Original
Copy Fail

Original
Copy Fail

Anne

restless

My night has been pretty bad since somebody posted "hey, i saw that illustration on a sweater". Rahhhh! Rahhh!!! As long as I don't get a verification that it is or not i feel like somebody stole my brain. And of course this thing seems to be from winter season. Which makes the search as complicated as searching a needle in a barn.

You might say:
Write an email to the boss and asks him if it's true. Honestly... if i was him i wouldn't answer. A girl writing "Hey, it might be possible that you copied my work. Is it true?"
Uh... well... think about it. It's as ridiculous as it sounds.

Things i should be doing right now:
- finish a wedding card for a couple or else they end up marrying without invitation cards..
- finish one website background illustration.. a no.. it's four actually..crap
- finish a commission.. at least the sketch is done
- finish my sketches for the big project
- finish cover sketches and story sketches for a magazine

The day started awesome -like.. really awesome- but if something bad happens it drags you down. I hope i can finish my sketches for the mag and start those for the project- at least. What a day!

Happy Sunday - why we don't trust interviews

Whoa.... blogger fail. I still have to find out how to use the new options without screaming... First of all: I like interviews... sometimes. More or less I think it is odd if you have a problem with printed images you personally do absolutely NOT favour, old or not really showing what you can do. Mostly because who might show can't be displayed online -and if you try an armada of company XY lawyers will send you funny bills.
Anyways... Advanced Photoshop was interested in an interview and I thought... k... let's do it. Can't hurt.

Do I have to mention that most of the information are messed up ten minutes before printing? I was 25,24, made my books with water-colours (no, it's ACRYLICS!... Arg!) and hell what else. Since those interviews tend to be messed up I generally don't trust ANY information giving in any interview since you have no idea what was twisted and changed and I bet I can't be the only one getting a new vita every 3 months. So... I am in a Studio now which I rule with my buddy Maike. Cool, I didn't know myself....







We use a collective mail-address since some customers work together with both of us and if we get a job for ---peeepp- we agreed that forwarding can become pretty disturbing. The mail address lead to the assumption: "Hey, these girls have a Studio." I have no idea why people don't ask if it's correct but start writing without getting a check if it's true. o_o
So.. I like the idea of a Studio but again... I didn't want to read about it in a mag... and getting "Cogratulation!" mails from my folks... ew.

The other thing is... I really thought after Ikea and American "call your boss by his first name, we're cool" habit it was oldschool to write: "Pätzke says..." .. Doh! I don't dislike my name but it sounds odd and impersonal.

After being frustrated like hell because of those fails I might mention that I spend 400 bucks on cat's stuff which leads me to the memo that I should start working again to cover those 400-oh-my-gawd-but-the-banana-leaf-thing-will-last-forever-shopping trip. =.=