Breaking Bad has become one of our ultimate favourite shows. A few months ago when I woke up too early, I mispronounced it as "Baking Bad". After a good laugh that lasted a few minutes, I thought how funny it would be to do a parody of Breaking Bad in the lovely style of Ardman. A few months went by with our busy schedule. But here it is at last! Enjoy.
So these are photographs of the Cadbury Christmas illustrations which will be set up in their Christmas grotto. They were quite large, so it was exciting and scary to see at the same time. The finished illustrations can be found here
Anyway, here they are! All in their printed glory.
Last month I was privileged to work on a Christmas set up for Cadbury. General ideas are from the wonderful Lynette at MCK. The elf's workbench illustration is approximately 3 metres wide, and the window is 1.3m wide. I am dying to see what they look like in person.
Another spot the difference collaboration with my hubby. Can you spot all 12 differences? The answers can be found here
Illustration Friday: Tree - Because that's what beavers use for their homely abode.
This is a delayed post. I worked on these designs a few months ago, but alas, I've been busy with my life I totally forgot to post them online.
Pearson is an accountancy based in Mosgiel, New Zealand. They are currently constructing a new look for their business and asked me to create a few designs for their new identity.
I had to remove the dollar signs from this caricature, but I like them!
These three guys were also my preferred designs, but the client didn't approve.
Final branding designs!
And some more.
The teal colour used in these designs were sampled from their old logo, to help keep familiarity, as a small link between the old and the new.
This is my 100th post! And to celebrate, I thought I'd upload screenshots of our current illustration website. Why? Because I have plans to change my business (therefore the website) next year.
I do like these hand drawn designs, but I am also very excited about my new business plan (woo!), and hopefully I can come up with a better web design.
Happy 100th post to me! And website, I will miss you. I really will.
If you haven't seen our website yet, please hurry! You only have a few months to see it live! >> chuckletree.com
Oh hello Blogspot. It's been a while! And what do you know, it's almost Halloween. My husband is literally Halloween-crazy, so he's been doing his annual Halloween illustration marathon this month.
His new experiments have been turning out really well, so I thought I would post it on my blog. It is what he calls a "3D Crossview". It works when you cross your eyes like you would for magic eye.
This blog post is WAY overdue, but nevertheless, it must be done.
A few months ago when we came back from the states, I met up with 2 very talented Dunedin based illustrators: Jessica Newton and Mark Leggett.
Jessica offers the romantic, feminine style that is wildly popular, while Mark uses simple illustrations and works with programers to produce iOS games.
Please check out the links above to view more of their works.
This was a fun little collaboration with my hubby. We are hoping to do a series of these this year - we say that about a lot of our collaborations. You can print them out and see if you can find all 12 differences!
I have recently discovered that in the original Three Little Pigs story, the first and the second pigs get eaten! I read the original stories of The Little Mermaid, Hansel and Gretel, The Matchstick Girl, The Red Shoes,...etc where the stories were a little gruesome. But I was never exposed to the dying pigs.
Anyway, here is a black and white illustration I did for the story.
As a freelance illustrator, I have to move around a lot with my digital gear. That includes the laptop, tablet, pen, battery charger, sketchbook, and a pencil.
And occasionally, it's better to share a few sketches to show your client exactly what the hell you're talking about too.
Sadly, small pencil doodles on a piece of paper are no longer impressive and easily lost! So I've started to look for a portable digital sketchbook.
It has to be portable to be more convenient than a heavy bag full of things that need to be assembled to work.
It has to be digital so you can save time - scanning, cleaning up can take a lot of time. And TIME equals MONEY.
I don't want to spend too much money on a "sketchbook". No iPads (those things are not even designed for anything in particular, and I can't stand touchscreen).
Something that's cheap, durable, portable, compatible with a tablet, can run some kind of art software, and can handle a few knocks here and there. Did I find one? Not really.
Strangely, nobody has designed a product that can actually be useful. What a surprise.
BUT I did find a youtube clip that introduced me to a new form of computer. Meet Motion Computing. LatinVixen was kind enough to do a comparison of 2 products. Here is the video:
I just checked out the price of Motion Tablet PCs on eBay, and they are cheap. You can buy extra RAM and HD at a pretty reasonable price too. Keep in mind that most of these computers are used, but if you're like me, and are just looking for something that can handle a few punches in a bag, I think one of these babies are a good buy.
If you are also not willing to pay a fortune for another legal copy of Photoshop, there are open source art apps you can easily download for free - like GIMP (doesn't hurt to make a small donation if you can). Who wants to pay over $1000 for software just for sketching? We all know that artists aren't made of money. Right, Adobe?
Meet Simon (Simon can be seen in these illustrations). This character was inspired by my husband, the wildlife biologist. He's from Oregon, USA. But he knows more about the New Zealand wildlife than I ever will. And is constantly fascinated by small living organisms.
Simon is just a smaller, two-dimensional version of him. A loveable, energetic science enthusiast.
Dan is currently working with velvet worms (peripatus) in the Dunedin area.
For those of you who are familiar with my work and well, ME, you'd be quite surprised to see these. I grew up with ninja turtle toys and I despise the person who made pink a global colour for all women. BUT that doesn't mean I can't illustrate for the girly girls out there. After all, I do know how to dress like a woman.
I was very excited to pick these up this week from MCK Design & Print. And they look fantastic! A whole lot of them are being sent off to my clients as I type. This has been a surprisingly busy year, but it is very important to have my clients remember me AT ALL TIMES.
This is only for temporary as we will be moving away from Dunedin, NZ once Dan completes his Masters. But I know I get curious about how other artists work, so I thought I'd post a photo of my current studio.
I get a nice view of our front garden, and a lot of light coming in through our gigantic windows. So it's a perfect spot to draw, paint, and ponder.
And this is what my lineart pieces look like before being scanned in and coloured. I enjoy the organic quality of watercolours and ink, so if I'm not using traditional mediums for the whole illustration, I try to use them for the lines at least.
A few months ago when I was looking up a Japanese recipe, I found this Youtube channel, Cooking With Dog. And I have been following them ever since. Their videos are well edited, and narrated by what I think is the best Japanese voice actor. If anything, it's just fun to listen to their videos and repeat after them.
The chef for this series was recently injured, so I thought I'd do a small illustration as a tribute.
