Semi-Daily Sketch #3 - Sea Slug

Quick little sketch of a nudibranch, used this photo on flickr as inspiration.

Mini Stories Part IV

Here's the latest installment of my mini stories. I only have a handful left to write now.


Space Cuttlefish
“Floating lazily through space, a shimmering figure is seen from the ship's deck viewport. The crew stares speechless at the sight of the space cuttlefish, all thinking the same thing 'this can't be real'.”

Space Octopus
“The astrobiologist furiously took notes as he observed the space octopus. His scientific reputation would be made once he presented his work on this new species. It was truly a remarkable example of convergent evolution, so alike the earth octopus in appearance yet not even a carbon based life form.”

Image Survey

In my quest to have the best Etsy shop I can I've been tweaking the images I use. I've set up a small survey with 4 image options, please take it and rate each one of the images.

Survey

Launch of New Noadi.net

I just relaunched my website with a brand new look and feel.

Tax Day Coupon

I don't know of anyone who is self-employed who looks forward to tax day. While people with a traditional job who had withholding taken out may look forward to a refund those who are self employed get a double tax bill because it's also when our first quarter estimated taxes are due. So to help soften the blow I got this year I'm offering a free shipping coupon good through the end Monday, April 18. So use the coupon code TAXDAY2011 to get free shipping in my shop.

Semi-Daily Sketch #2

Quick deep sea squid.

Semi-Daily Sketch #1 (Mildly NSFW)

My drawing skills have never been as good as my sculpting skills and I keep meaning to improve them. Since I have my new tablet that I can sketch with without digging out my charcoals and getting all messy (not to mention an undo button) I'm going to make an effort to do at least one fairly quick sketch everyday. I know better than to think I can actually do one each and every day, my schedule and how busy I am is very unpredictable, but I'll do my best. If I like the sketch I'll share it here on the blog. So for the very first one: here's a nude sketch based on this stock photo from DeviantArt.

Having Fun with New Toy

My Bamboo set up next to my laptop with a quick cuttlefish sketch.

Really it isn't a toy, it's a very useful tool for my artwork it's just so much fun it feels like a toy. I recently got a Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch, it's a graphics tablet that lets me digitally draw and paint in a way that feels a lot like drawing with a pen or pencil. I've been wanting to do a series of illustrations featuring the creatures from my jewelry designs and I kept putting it off because honestly I'm just not that great with paints. I need ctrl+z in real life when it comes to painting anything 2 dimensional, painting jewelry and sculpture is a totally different set of skills it's adding color and enhancing texture I've sculpted, it doesn't deal with things like shading and perspective.

The tablet has taken a little getting used to, it arrived from Amazon last Wednesday and I produced a lot of crappy sketches in GIMP getting used to it. The tablet came with Photoshop Elements but Elements has a lot of features missing that GIMP does have or which CS5 has but neither Elements nor GIMP has (which I understand, Adobe wants people to have a reason to upgrade to Photoshop CS5 but is CMYK too much to ask for Elements?) so I probably won't use it much.

So here's a work in progress painting of a Steampunk Octopus.

Mini Stories Part III

Here are a couple more of the mini stories for my jewelry.

Steampunk Octopus

“It lurks in a crevice of the reef, an oddly shiny tentacle darts out. Ignoring the usual prey of an octopus, this one searches the sea floor for shiny bits of glass and metal to decorate its lair. Tiny treasures to remind it of the past while waiting for its gears to finally wind down.”

Steampunk Nautilus

“A solo wanderer of the sea, a relic of some contemporary of Captain Nemo or maybe even the captain himself. The mechanical nautilus makes its way through the water year after year.”

Mini Stories Part II

Here are a couple more of the mini stories for my jewelry.

Steampunk Squid
“A soft ticking sound trailed the sleek body of the squid. It was lagging behind the school of reef squid. Other stragglers were being picked off by predators but they shied away from this bizarre metallic squid with it's whirring gears on it's back.”

Steampunk Cuttlefish
“Gliding through the ocean the clockwork cuttlefish quietly whirred and clicked as it swam. Where this strange creature came from no one know, some strange creation of a mad scientist perhaps? It has been traveling the ocean for years along with it's brethren, the mechanical squids, octopuses, and nautiluses. Until the day their mechanisms finally slow down and they wash ashore to be marveled over by curious beach combers.”