It's been a long time since I last updated my blog, been real busy w/ some things that I thought I'd share w/ you.
My baby daughter is getting bigger everyday, and honestly speaking, it's been tough to juggle projects and taking care of her. I don't let me wife handle everything by herself, I take a part in everything we do w/ her, bathe her, feed her, play w/ her, etc. I enjoy it very much, but it just takes away a lot of time from my work, which I hope will get better once she gets older. Hopefully!
I've also took time away from toy customs and art to learn new things; I've been self-teaching myself Illustrator more, to move away from Flash drawing to Illustrator. I love using Flash to draw, but Illustrator is much better and so far, I've learned a lot and can't wait to try my new skills on new digital artwork! I've also taken on a branding project and still in the process of self-producing my own t-shirt. Which brings me to the next update...
Self-producing your own t-shirt is not as easy as I thought. I took a lot of time to research t-shirt printing companies and learn about the various t-shirt brands out there (Alstyle, American Apparel, Hanes, etc). I finally picked my printer last month and after sending in my design and going back and forth on approval, it's a go. However, I also want a hem tag produced to go on the bottom of the shirt, so again, researching companies and getting samples, it took a while. I finally got the company I want picked, paid and now in the process of waiting to get the final hem sample in my hand before I approve it for production. In the meantime, my t-shirt printer will not start until I get the tags to them to make the entire shirt first. Ugh! So w/ many delays and back and forths, I hope, I really hope to get them done by June!
I just hope people will support me and cop a shirt; they will come w/ a whole bunch of items that I made (that also took a lot of time to make and took up my time away from custom toys). I spent a lot of time, effort, blood, sweat, tears and money on these shirts, so if you like them, please buy one, if not, then thanks for looking!
I also agreed to do a 3" custom dunny trade for a friend of mine that will probably be the only custom going on right now. I may have another potential one to do, but the client needs to get back to me first.
Anyway, here is what I envision what my "Circuit Death" t-shirt to finally look like w/ everything together:
The Toy Art Awards - now I was nominated for the Artist of the Year category for the Toy Art Awards by Clutter. I did NOT self-nominate myself; I think that's ridiculous - someone named "Curry Magic" nominated me (this was before Clutter removed the names of people who nominated others). I'm not sure who this person is, but I thank you for the nomination. It always feel good to have people recognize your work; Clutter however, put up the wrong picture for me on the site. They put up a picture of Lumpy Bumpkin by Kidlew and that's not representative of me. That's Kidlew's work; so I tweeted to Clutter to change the pic. I don't want to take credit that's not mine. So they changed the pic.
Now the caption under my pic said something of me being a professional tracer, which I want to clarify. I did an interview w/ Japan Cinema.net, where I described my method of making custom toys. I said I would draw out the design digitally on computer first, then print it out and trace it onto my toy. When I design on the computer, I do NOT trace the design; I draw it out by hand first, then scan it in and then do the vector image. When I do the vector image, it's easier to duplicate more cherry blossoms, more dots, more waves, etc. than it is to draw each one out. Once the final complete image is done, I'll print it out and trace it onto paper to transfer onto the toy. I don't know why the person would say I'm a professional tracer, but I wanted to clarify that.
Personally, I can care less about winning the award or if I wasn't even nominated. But another artist felt the need to criticize me for the nomination, and said "what's a professional tracer". Well now you know the story behind it; and to those that feel I shouldn't be nominated, well that's you and you don't have to agree w/ it, but someone felt I deserved to be nominated. I will still continue to do my own thing and my own art and push myself to do more digital art. Haters can hate; drama may start but I don't need that in my life. My baby daughter made me realize life is not about stupid battles and fights and unnecessary drama; if I can take the high road and even if that makes me look 'weak', that's fine as long as I can avoid drama.
Anyway, think I wrote a lot in this post. Thanks again to those that support me and my work and hope to have another update on my t-shirts soon! Peace.
