From the comic strip Nancy

My scanner broke a couple of weeks ago, so no more updates to the sketchbook for a while. Which is too bad because I’ve been making myself sketch more. I’ve found it’s a nice exercise once I can get in the groove.

Hopefully we’ll get a new scanner soon…

So, as a prequel to what I’ll be showing in the line of projects at this month’s meeting, I’d like to display a piece of vector art that I’ve been working on. So far I really like the feel of it, and I can’t wait to finish the whole thing… but that will have to wait till after the meeting. Nick, eat your heart out.

If you’d like to find out more about Otaku Ink you can go to our Facebook page:Otaku Ink . Yeah… kinda lame, I know, but I haven’t had time to set up a website so it’ll have to do for now. 

… and I fell in love with it.

I’ve always liked tuber trees - which isn’t really an official tree classification, but more of a description. What I like to call “Tuber Trees” are those types that have thick wide stumps that are large in the middle and then dwindle out to normal tree size when it reaches the branches - most of the time producing tiny sized leaf bunches that look like a bad haircut. Anyway, I saw this little tree, threw down 20 bucks, and named it Stubs.

I received our new business cards in the mail today and I think they came out fantastic. I mean, it’s not Da Vinci artwork, but it’s the small things that make me happy.

A few weeks ago Brian shows me this flickr set of a guy who created a gigantic pixelated MegaMan on his wall and says, “We need to do that.” Thus the ShyGuy Pixel Project was conceived in all its glorious geek-ness.

The Process

We began by cutting out LOTS of 2″ x 2″ squares. It helps to have one of those scrap booking paper slicer things with the ruler built in. We were desperately trying to use just a T-square and pencil, but it kept ending up horribly, so if you’re going to do this it might be worth it to choke up the $15 unless you’re Steady McGee and can make wonders with straight lines. In addition, it also helps to have alcohol and a movie to watch while doing this because it takes A LONG TIME.

By the way, a major shout-out needs to go to the Pixen creators. If you’re into indie games - whether it’s creating your own or just a lover of the art form - this is a FANTASTIC program to use and it just happened to work perfectly for our sprite project. Go check it out…

It took us around 3 hours give-or-take to put the whole piece together. For adhesive we used double sided tape - saves on the amount of time you’ll have to clean up when you move out of your Mom’s basement though if your Mom let’s you use anything more permanent, like paint, you should give her a hug. That’s a cool Mom.

And Voila! It looks super awesome, check out the pics below. Enjoy making your own creations!

• Watercolor materials (paints, paper, brushes)
• Scrapbook paper 
• Xacto knife
• Scissors
• Double sided tape (specifically made for scrap booking - don’t know if that makes a difference)
• Scotch tape
• Light table
• Pencil, marker
• Patience

In case you’re wondering… no, I don’t scrap book. However, the paper that they sell for doing such is cheap, good quality, and not to mention has some really neat-o patterns. Perfect for the collage work I like to do. I recommend using it.