Operation: Nursery = SUCCESS! And more!

After 2.5 weeks of planning and painting, the nursery is finally complete! I can now resume my normal summer life of sitting around and trying to be productive (and failing)

The entrance

Right corner

Left Corner

The hillside/crib wall

Complimentary Color Tractor. Coincidentally, those were my high school colors. Not done on purpose...I wanted something else purple (other than Grumpydactyl) and I had some extra yellow sitting out.

Becker Dam and Lake feat. Grupydactyl, Elie the Corgi, and the Duck Duck Family.

Barn of Boxes with solar panels and Mudpigs

Zoomed-out picture of main wall

Sky!

The last day was spent primarily painting the sky and clouds. I didn't buy enough of the light blueish white to cover the whole ceiling, so I had to mix another light blue, which is why there's a huge white cloud and a lot of blue. I think it worked out well. The edges of the ceiling clouds and all of the wall clouds were painted using a sponge.

I had a lot of fun painting the room and look forward to Baby Becker crawling around...then walking around....then wondering why his/her uncle is so awesome...then wanting to paint the room black. Crazy kids!

Anyway, it was nice to get out of the house for a while and do something where I had a lot of creative freedom.

*****

Summer is almost over! I have less than a month before I get to move back into the dorms at FIT. August 20th can't come sooner. I'm starting to run out of things to do here!

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With the last month or so of summer, I finally actually have stuff that I want to get done.

First up is this Bayonetta art contest. Basically, you have to draw your own version of the crazy femme fatale with lady with guns and e-mail it to Wizard for fan voting. I've never been good at drawing smexy females, so I kinda wanna dive this a try, as poorly as it might turn out.

Second, I opened up an Etsy account. I don't have anything on my store, but I did see some cool Ukulele Straps and decided to invest in one. If I ever put something up on the shop, I'll post it here! I'd like to make a few Ganpens to put up on the site. I can't believe I didn't think about Ganpen on Etsy before...

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If ya have a Twitter, check me out!

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In the past, I've tried to keep my nerdiness under covers, but...
This is out right now. I want it SO badly. I LOVE Gundam models and Exia is one of my favorites. The Ignition Mode comes with extra parts! IN CHROME! SOAWESOME!

*ahem*

That about does it, folks! Expect another update whenever I decide to get of my lazy arse and do some artwork. I haven't been painting at all this summer (oil painting, anyway) so I expect I'll be really rusty when I get back to school. I haven't been drawing anywhere near the amount I should, but I'm working on that by starting up an art boot camp to get myself ready for the coming school year.

Looking forward to the end!
Of summer, that is.

-J

Long time no update, eh?

After a nice two week period of (relative) relaxation, it's time for me to be productive again!

Now, now, I'm sure you're thinking, "Wait a sec, Jordan! It's been almost a month since you last updated! You've been relaxing for a really, really long time!"

And I'd like to respond: "Incorrect, Dear Reader! My last few weeks of high school were rather hectic! I hardly had time to update my blog in between the final projects and sessions of Team Fortress 2!"

In short, yes, I have been quite lazy. But since summer is here (has been here for a few weeks), I can finally update on a semi-regular basis. Here's a look at the latest GanPen variation:

(The following images may be considered graphic by some, so TURN BACK NOW if the thought of zombie penguins makes you squeamish!)

ZombiePen!
Commissioned by B.Dean



Check out the brains on this guy!









Forgive the low quality of the shots, but I only had my cell phone camera on me. The "zombification" was done using a handy Dremel Stylus to cut away material and Fixit Sculpt to add in some fleshiness, mainly with the brain. Painting was very simple, just a base coat of white, a grey blend, and lots of drybrushed red/pink. The feet and beak were painted with this funky old yellow I got on accident recently. It actually comes out of the bottle looking like it's been sitting around for a few decades.

I have another ZombiePen I'm trying to finish up. Pics of that one coming shortly. I also have a UniPen (UNICORNS!), another PenZilla, and maybe a few other variations, as well as a few standard-issue GanPens coming along.

If you're interested in commissioning a particular GanPen, e-mail me at
jordan.liv@gmail.com
and we can try to work something out. I'm not sure how many more GanPen variations I'd be able to do, but remember! Regular GanPens with a tie color of your choice are still only $20 (plus shipping if you live far away!).

Whew! Time to do something productive!

And now for something different

Here are some things I did in my break time after sculpting for several weeks.
Colored pencil for the lady and marker for that guy. They're not great, but it was a nice change...

Even More Progress!

The last image has Gan-Pen leaning way too far back.
He's almost ready to cast!
I just need to buy the casting supplies and smooth a few things out.
note that the figurine is now in 3 pieces- Feet, body, head. The head and body will be cast together, the feet separately. For now, anyway.

Progress!

Here are some shots of the Gangster Penguin (GanPen?) sculpt thus far. Below is my work area in the Tech Theater shop upstairs.More stuff!

I probably shouldn't be doing that

I also may need to resculpt the feet. Not very penguin-esque.

Hack 2 School

So, here's this really cool website that's nifty for design school people! (like hopefully me).
Core77: Hack 2 School
I found it on the Core77.com design magazine website. Haven't had a good chance to look around much on the site, but the Hack 2 School thing is pretty funny and has tons of links to teach you how to do stuff, like "5 Ways to Sound Smarter in a Crit," "Classmate Designertypes (and what you can learn from them)," and this handy Hipster PDA thing (it's about halfway down the page)

I made my own PDA. I'll take pictures later, someday, probably.

Graphic Designs

Here are some cool things I might add to my graphic design-ish portfolio.


They were done in art class with some weird cutty-stuff. Can't rem-ember what the name is, but it has a white side and a black side layered on top of one another. You cut away the white side and the black side shows up underneath. Then I scanned it and made some nifty things in Photoshop.

Colored 2

This one may or may not be done right away. It has moving parts, so I think I'll be doing this one later. I think I'll have a progression of awesome penguin toys, starting with an un-poseable one and ending with a massive life-sized penguin 'fridge.


This is the one that has Mir-chan-san's influence. She suggested a fatter penguin! And a bigger head. And guns and gangsters and stuff...Real gangsters, not the Durham ones.

Colored

So, I colored them in.
And Re-designed them, sorta, with the assistance of Mir-chan-san

I dunno if I can use the pirate or zombie one...

Ze Project!

So, my second period is Independent Study with Mr. Overton.

I'll be making toys.

To the left is my first plan. Penguins!
As you can see, there is the basic one, which will be black and white. And there will potentially be a pirate one, a zombie one, and a ninja one.

But, that's not all, folks!

Naturally, with an hour in class the think up of this thing, your train of thought sorta leaps to...crazy ideas!

This sorta seems to be like ripping off those professional vinyl toy designers, but to the right, you can see a different penguin mold idea with a wing (or two) to hold stuff in!
I don't think it's a total ripoff, it's more like a common sense type thing....If a penguin is cool, then (naturally) a penguin with a big-ass sword is awesome! Or an umbrella! Or even a lightsaber!

Oh, the possibilities!

That's about it for now, folks!

School Starts..

So, school started yesterday.

It still hasn't quite hit me yet.
Probably won't hit me until college starts.

I'm thinking Governor's School helped me out here-I'm taking a much more "get it done" attitude this year, but I am still quite laid back about doing everything.

Also, this is the first year in all of my schooling life that I did not get a massive stomach achedown on the first day.

How amazing is that?

My schedule:

AP Environmental Science (...eh.)
Portfolio Development (Toys!)
AP Psychology (LOTS of reading @_@)
Art VI (Woooo!)

Meh...

School starts tomorrow...

Not mentally ready for it yet...

*sigh*