Toy design and finished skate deck

My finished deck design ended up having two versions cause I wasn't sure how the different darker shades of gray and the black would show when printed. It's a good thing I thought of making a gray version cause I ended up printing after 7pm yesterday and the levels still needed adjusting at that point. I lightened the background and they let me adjust the levels in the print program at the print place. I think the keys turned out pretty well...must have been about 8 vector objects for a single finished black key. I just realized after cutting it out that the dials on the left don't show up well on the gray version. This is good so I'll know to make a test print before I submit something like this to a client. I should have gone even lighter with the background gray.

My tatoo design on people's arms:


My toy design is now sculpted and design work handed in. I thought of some versions of packaging that could be implemented too.

(Click on any images to view full size.)


That brings me to the end of my first semester in DMA. Having been here last year you'd think I'd have become used to getting up early. I'm looking forward to a few weeks of getting the right amount of sleep and catching up on life outside of schoolwork.

P!MPED skate deck keyboard

K ..I just had the idea of instead of just copying text from a keyboard's actual settings I could use funny ones like P!mp, word, PWN, 1337 ..etc. and it would appeal to a more hip hop or internet crowd than just someone who skates and likes piano. XD



Here's what I have so far...some of the dials and the ebony keys still need work. I might add more words than just the four shown here.


Lets see what else have I been doing... lots of things. I did some thumbnails on post-its for the sculpture and I think I'll have the larger rabbit sitting down so I won't need to have the block of wood to keep it upright. Hopefully when I bake it tonight it won't get destroyed.

There's a lot of pics I took a while ago when I went on break and thought I had to take pics of a toy doing funny things. I'll post some more later to flickr when I resize them in Adobe Bridge but here's a few.

Rockets are quite possibly the best candy ever!

Just playing games.

A meal that didn't look as good as it tasted.

Every now and then I like to play with my artwork creating something else out of it..this here is a photo I took that I duplicated and altered one so it makes a magic eye like puzzle when you cross your eyes at it for long enough.

Chapter of my psychology text which I'll be studying a lot from until the exam Tuesday.

Sorry for the teddy lovers and legitimately depressed people... but last sketch I did from an idea I had in sketching class is EMO Bear. The name is almost self explanatory. It's a mock emo teddy that is dressed in stereotypical-? emo attire with lip ring single tear and comes with his own fraudulent suicide note and in place of razor blades a nifty seam ripper! :O Oh noes! This will be an im-popular toy idea that only certain people would get and would probably be pulled off store shelves. ..oh and possibly also including a little pill bottle labeled "needless anti-depressants".

skate deck

A further developed skate deck...the stroke on the lines won't be so thick and a lot of the keys and buttons I plan to add some depth to. I had difficulty with some of the objects in illustrator doing unexpected things. The logo I get I think will look best applied to the little monitor.

...I just noticed that there's an extra key on the right that shouldn't be there. I'll fix that when I get colouring and shading buttons. I think I'll colour the buttons and dials cause all black is a little boring. Stay tuned for the final version with logo.

Painting

I forgot about this in my previous blog. I painted a water colour for class from a pic I took from my balcony at sunrise. Usually end up with shots like this when I've stayed up all night doing homework.

So much to do...

I've decided that a milk carton shaped box (2L size) might be good for the toy project. I have one already that wasn't for milk but the shape seems right. I could make the toys look like they are missing (from your collection) like missing persons on milk cartons...not sure of the appropriateness but I've seen at least one cartoon with a lost character seeing their own face on milk and thinking "wtf I'm right here!" I also thought about designing the box like a little boat so it gets recycled and used as a toy itself. Though I think parents would probably end up tossing the package regardless. I've thought of a logo for the toy that incorporates both caracters too which I'll be posting later.
As for the caracters themselves I may attach them to eachother somehow so the smaller one doesn't get lost easily...though there are no shortage of toys on the market that are easy to lose anyway. I don't know how I'll do the clothing yet...probably just mold it out of sculpey too and paint it eventually.

I also have a logo design for me and all that I do as an artist that I'd like to use for the tatoo design art thing. I named the blog digital seahorse cause of the logo that represents me and obviously cause I'm in digital media arts.
(designed last year)

The skate deck designs I did were all approved so I get to choose. I'd like to do the keyboard one as long as it doesn't get too difficult. The idea is that it's multi-purpose and people into music can practice their piano fingers.

I finished my turnarounds for the characters I'm going to attempt to model from clay. I think it will be a challenge to get the sizing accurate without making one too big or too small. The bigger rabbit is supposed to be able to hold the other in one hand. Perhaps I'll end up doing a model of the arms folded around the other as I imagined for the logo...? I'll figure it out with some thumbnails of poses and testing different things if I have time.

Over study week I did a bit of toy play like in the sketching class outline. I'm not sure if we were supposed to or not but it was fun. Most of the photos are posted to my flickr account and the ones that aren't yet will be. The first set is Bop and Beep the uglydoll helping me build a desk. The doll is two faced with Bop being the green side and Beep is the pink.

I made 'their' utility belt from electrical tape. XD
Click the desk to see all the steps to completion.

My group for the video project went out on Thursday morning to shoot 'Walter Bruce' and it was hilarious to say the least. It was freezing out and we're really glad the rain held off long enough.
I think the video will be really funny when we are done. We have a lot of side splitting outtakes too.

After that we found out that we need to have group meetings for the Interactivity project and each of us blog the minutes of those meetings. This prospect is seriously making all of us feel really overwhelmed...and just when I've had appointments rescheduled and had to go book camera and take it out for filming and not been able to focus totally on my presentation for psychology. Nobody has ever had an A mark on the presentations apparently and the outlook isn't that good for me either at this rate.

The toy character creation project is one that I think I'll really like doing. I've been designing my own characters since childhood so I've had a bit of practice anyway..not so much with the building a figure which is going to get interesting. I've been wanting to try making my own characters into toys but for some reason I'd usually thought of plushies instead of sculptures.

These two bunnies are the ones I've decided on...yes two of them. I think they are simple enough I might have time to do both and they are supposed to go as a pair anyway. I've named them Bouncy Bunny and Rapid Rabbit. They'll be fleshed out soon with turnarounds and probably some clothing. They were inspired by the likes of Spumco and I'm thinking of making the serious one a little like Cartman from South Park ..grumpy yet ridiculous.

Ever since I bought a digital camera last year I've appreciated being able to have the camera with me all the time and not missing those little things I notice every now and then.

Now I just need to apply the same principal to my sketchbook... lol


These two are older ones from before September but are a good example of me having the camera at a good time and just experimenting with it. The last part of the sign struck me as funny with the pet being above the trash basket as well as it's mess...funnier if you don't read the words.

Reading week is here so I should be posting more blogs that I didn't remember to make time for earlier like posting updates to assignments and the artwork I'm doing.

Drip...Drip-drip....Drip

Well before I blog about anything else today I think I should mention my ceiling is leaking like a faucet right now. It's been leaking on and off since I got here the first week of September...It was obviously happening a while before I moved in because it's leaking pretty badly. This morning I decided to try to capture the sound of the leak since my audio class has me thinking of sound and I have the Audacity program which is similar to the school software for sound editing. The microphone I tried gave off too much background noise as one would expect from spending less than $10. I also took some video on my digital camera as well as still shots.
The ceiling in the hallway outside was taken out to try to find the source of the leak...lol...This place sure has character and surely will be the source of some creative ideas.

Studio tour and etc.

On Friday there were tours of some of the busiest studios in Toronto and for the first time students were able to see where they may end up after graduation and network a bit. The tours started from FITC. A rather obscure looking building that you wouldn't know was there if you weren't looking for it. They gave us free stuff like calendars and buttons...yay cool free stuff! I had the best cream puff ever at lunch and then watched people falling asleep during a presentation.
Most of the studios looked like places I wouldn't mind working. Some of them had a lot of toys and looked like relaxed places to work. All the studios on the tour were Organic, Henderson Bas, Blast Radius, Teehan+Lax and Critical Mass.

The washrooms in the FITC building were rather odd. Almost thought it was part of their design concept.

It was interesting to see how some people at the studios think. I think this was drawings of their lunch...made me hungry.

We saw some interesting things that weren't part of the tour too. Some things I thought might be good creative reference for later.The sewing theme on this corner attracted our attention too.

I thought this ad was cute so I saved it for future reference.

After the tour I browsed downtown for a bit. There was a guy balancing bricks in seemingly impossible ways. Saw him finishing one of his little towers.










We saw some neat looking milk ads in the subway and street cars. Here's a milk ad "pouring" out of it's holder. lol I went to Silver Snail and bought a book about Dr. Seuss and a new toy for sketching class. Lastly I tried some unique ice cream flavors at Greg's Ice Cream and would recommend to anyone. I tried Ginger, Roasted Marshmallow and Coffee Toffee. The flavors taste like the name literally!