Bioshock plasmid adverts

In my new house I have a converted loft (It's amazing!) which is being used as a games room....... I'm planning on it being the most geeky room ever! It's already getting there with all my useless but amazing stuff  I've bought the last few years. One of the projects I've had in mind for a while is designing some posters for the plasmids in my favourite game....... Bioshock! These have literally took me months to make because all the parts are cut out from plain paper and hand drawn. I also got annoyed with the project a while back and had to put them away for a month, ha ha. But at last, the final pieces! All I need to do now is buy some black A3 frames and I'll probably take some better pictures once they are completely finished.

Tigerprint competition entry

After a week of working on this i have finally finished my entry for the Tigerprint competition.  

I am pleased with my final design BUT........ I'm not really happy with the quality of the design i sent in. I had to work to specific guidelines and as i result i have lost some of the quality of my drawings :( Below is each individual seed packet which i have drawn by hand in black pen and then cleaned up using photoshop. 

I also played around with a few different ideas which was fun. If you look at the website you can see all the other entries and hopefully mine will be uploaded soon!

Black and white Tigerprint competition

As it's been a while since i've worked on a brief and deadline, i decided to enter a competition for practise. I first learned about Tigerprint competitions when i was back in Uni. Every month they release a different brief and you can win the chance to have placement at their company, win $200 and a possibility of your designs being sold in M&S. If you fancy entering yourself or looking at their most current brief, check them out here! http://designcompetition.tigerprint.uk.com/
Here is the brief I'm working on at the moment, i've really enjoyed it so far.

As a stark contrast to last month’s colour competition, we’ve decided to run the popular Black & White pattern competition.

This month we want you to focus on black and white surface pattern. We would like you to design a surface pattern for a male or female recipient that could be used across a range of our everyday products including:

Gift bags, wrapping paper, stationery products or greeting cards.

The brief is open, so get back to basics and think about how the pattern is generated. Explore different techniques and formats, and really experiment with the elements that make up your pattern. Think about how different lines, marks and patterns can be created and applied. Look at fashion and homeware trends for inspiration.

To summarize, we suggest you focus on the following elements in your design:

• Organic pattern
• Floral pattern
• Geometric pattern
• Traditional pattern
• Retro/vintage inspired
• Abstract pattern
• Mark making
• Tips for winning:
  • Stick to a theme
  • 
    
  • Try to make it commercial!
    ready for M&S
  • 
    
  • Make it yours
    send us your original ideas
  • 
    
  • more tips...
    
• What you could win:

and a possible placement!

We are really excited to see what you can produce with a limited colour palette. Remember we strictly want pattern in black and white so this means no shades of grey.

As It's getting warmer outside (Yay! Hurry up summer), I decided to base my design on flowers, gardens and planting seeds. I also thought that many different people like gardening: old, young, male and female, so I'm hoping my design will relate to a wider audience. I'm enjoying woking on this as its nice to be working on an actually brief and a deadline, i haven't had practise with this since uni. 

Fox pattern continued......

I really enjoyed designing the fox pattern but as i spent so much time on the computer i was ready for a hand drawn project. I had intended to complete the final piece by hand so i thought why not just extend the project and complete both computer and hand draw design. I really enjoyed completing this and zoning out for a few hours drawing the small lined detail, its really therapeutic. I used only 5 coloured pencils for the leaf work and this was all drawn by hand, as well as the fox. I decided to complete the frame with plain cut out paper as i liked the contrast of the detailed linework vs plain flat coloured paper. I think this will make a nice print if I scanned in at better quality, which will hopefully be soon. I have plans to buy a new shiny A3 printer/scanner sometime soon........ hurry up pay day!

I'm having a break from this project for the time being, but i do have more plans for it! I already have a walrus repeated pattern sketch (he's so cute!!) and ideas for other characters. Im also think I could use this pattern for a cushion or necklace design and make a whole collection from it.

Fox pattern

I've had this pattern idea in my head for months now and finally got round to adding it to paper. I was inspired by the painted patterns inside the temples I visited in Thailand and wanted to make a more modern pattern with a cute style. This was the first time I've ever tried to design my own pattern and it wasn't easy! It took me way longer than expected  but I struggled through until I was happy with the design.

I started the designing in my sketchbook, with the idea my final piece would be hand drawn. After going round in circles and not getting anywhere I decided to complete the design in Photoshop and Illustrator. Here is the pattern repeated, very pleased with how this came out :)

I have realised that every design and drawing I have done is really taking a long time to complete. I feel so out of practise and really regretting the fact I haven't done much creatively in the last few years. But, I can change that now..........to more work! 

Oh my glob......... Princess Bubblegum bowling pin!

I've had this old battered bowling pin for years and just came across it whilst moving house and thought it was a good project to start on. I'm really impressed with how this came out, took me FOREVER...... but was definitely worth it. Here is a breakdown of the steps I took. I wish I had taken photos of the process, but I'll definitely keep that in mind for my next craft project.

1. Priming the surface-    I got this pin because the bowling alley was throwing out all their old pins and replacing them. As you can imagine it had dents, holes and chipped paint all over, not a good canvas for painting on. I decided to prime the surface using a recipe I found online. I did this for a few reasons: I was poor, wanted to try something new and thought it would be fun to make my own! I wish i could find the link for the recipe but I'm sure you can find your own online. I remember it was a mixture of white paint, water, PVA glue and talc....... which made it smell amazing!!!!! I did at least 3 coats of this, leaving each stage to dry completely overnight. 
2. Smoothing the surface-   After I was happy with the priming I decided to smooth the surface by sanding. I thought it would be easier and neater when it came to the painting stage. 
3. Painting-  This was my favourite part, making Princess Bubblegum come to life. I decided on Acrylic paint, mainly for cost and also because I already had some at home. I did look into other paints which may be more chip proof, but as I'm just using this for decoration I decided Acrylic would be just fine.

I wish I had more photos of the process and links to help with anyone wanting to do the same. But as its my first blog post, I'm sure you'll let me off  :)

Test blog post....... exciting ^^