Commissions possibly?

So I'm looking to start commissions on origami pixel artwork like my Zero picture here:

Of course I can make smaller items as well.  If anyone's interested, comment here or send me an email at raya_ikari[AT]hotmail.com.  I don't have any set prices just yet but for larger pieces like this Zero picture it'd be expensive.  Shipping alone will be crazy.

 The picture doesn't have to be in pixel format for me to work with it, I just need a clear picture. The larger the picture the better.

Hope this takes off!

Winter is cold, time for some projects at home to keep warm!

First up is the painted popcorn tin!  I painted this to use for holding my cats' food so it's not just an ugly bag sitting out. Plus then my oldest can't chew a hole through it for no reason.

I got the idea originally from this blog here: 

Tidy Mom

 

So!  Here's what I'm working with!  Notice I have two in the picture but I've only painted one so far.

 

Here it is with the first coat of paint!  To get it to be a smooth color with no indication of what was previously on it I had to apply 3-4 layers of the paint.  The first two would scratch easily so I had to be careful with it.

 Here it is in progress.  I mixed in silver with both colors but it didn't have the same sheen as the metallic sapphire.  At first I intended to make it simple with just the word "Cat"  written across.  Turns out I made the letters huge so you would only be able to see one letter at any given time.  I made the word smaller and painted it in a different color and thought it looked better but needed more.  So then I put the pawprints.

At this point I still had purple and orange paint left over that I knew I wouldn't use for something else.  So I just painted a bunch of dots all around the tin.  All done!  Now I just need to give it a good spray with gloss before I can start using it. Hopefully soon, but with how cold it is I can't warrant taking it outside to spray it.

 

Another idea I got from pinterest:

T-shirt beanbag chair :D

I have a lot of t-shirts from conventions, game promos and limited editions that I really didn't want to have to throw out or give away. So to find this was great!  I still haven't sewn them, but I've cut out the pieces.

Here's a link to directions!

Makezine Pillow Chair 

The ones on the left are going to be on the outside.  I cut solid color pieces to sew the chair out of and then cut out the designs by themselves. I'll be sewing them onto the chair wedges as I go.  The ones on the right are for the inner layer.  I decided to double everything up to give it some more strength.   I still need to make a bag layer for easy washing of the outside and then stitch it all together.

Late Co-worker's secret santa present!

I did give her something that day but I JUST finished the other part of her present. But first, here's what I made her earlier!

Yoshi bathroom items!

The one on the left is a toothbrush holder and the right is a soap dispenser without the top.  This is how they looked AFTER I put them in the oven.  I used the technique with sharpies where you draw and then put them in the oven and the ink sticks. However, I used regular permanent marker not sharpie specifically.  Sooooo that may've been the problem.

 

 Here's what they looked like originally.  After taking them out of the oven I went back over them with the markers and just had them sprayed with a coat of gloss. Much nicer looking for sure.

The next item I made was a trashcan for her.  This was another marker project.  I traced the picture I wanted in black on paper and put it on the inside of the trashcan.  I traced over that and started coloring. Because of the way the green marker would release ink some areas would be darker than others.  So that's why I did the lines in the middle to give it a nicer look.  After I colored in all the colors I went back over it with black.

 And then I dotted it with all the others colors so it'd match with the other two items. 

I'm glad she liked them :D

Mini project: Making both Clannad DVD sets multi spindle

I recently ordered both sets of the Clannad anime. They're both four discs long and come in a pretty wide case. I was disappointed to see that all four discs were on one spindle stacked on top of another. It's a hassle to take out and I'm worried there may be damage to the discs later on so I came up with this mini project!

Here's what the case looked like before

And here it is after. Not exactly pretty but it more than gets the job done. I'm more about the integrity of the discs than how nice it looks inside the case.

What I used:
An old xbox 360 case that could hold three discs
A good utility knife (still using my awesome Kobalt knife)
Hot glue + hot glue gun
Scissors

So first I had to cut out the disc pieces from the 360 case. The middle spindle was easy to remove and I just cut the ends a little so they would absolutely fit in the case.

The other disc piece took more effort. I could cut through the thin pieces of plastic but the edge was thicker and harder to cut through. I had to trace over where I needed it cut and run over that several times with my knife before it made it through.

Here's the pieces cut out. The single disc piece was cut out like that to make sure it would fit well. The sides were important in this case. In this picture there's no excess plastic on.the top and bottom of the piece and that helped with making sure the case would close properly as it wouldn't bump into the ridge along the middle of the case.

Next, I had to cut two more plastic pieces. These were the two ridges nearest to the middle of the case. Since I only need one disc on that spindle I don't need the plastic to be high enough to support four discs. Had I left them there they would crush into the disc holder in the middle and damage the disc. I used a combination of scissors and the knife cutting these out since the knife wouldn't go smoothly through the thicker pieces.

After they were cut out I took all the discs out and hot glued the middle piece in first, followed by the one-disc piece.  Mind you, hot glue isn't permanent on this. It'll stay, but if you try to pull it off it comes out rather cleanly. Not sure if my hot glue just sucks or if it's just the type of plastic. In any case it holds as long as it's not pulled off.

In this picture the left side of the disc holder was still there so it had a lot of trouble closing. I took it off and cut it down and it closes perfectly now!

And a shot of the trimmed edge.

ALL DONE!

Now to clean off my desk so I can get back to working on pony mods and other projects I started up!

Hope this made sense! If not or you've got a question leave me a comment! :D

It's been a while!

Sorry for the lack of updates!  I've been working on a painting commission for a friend of mine and wanted to keep the progress secret since he can check the blog.

Get ready for a LONNGGGG post!   Here's all the progress pictures from that painting!

I drew each character individually on regular printer paper.  Here's Medusa, Palutena, Pit and Viridi.

Here's the comparision for the two versions of Pandora I did.  The one on the left was the first drawing I did of her and looking at it the composition was very off.  For one, she was looking at the viewer instead of the others and that was more breaking 4th wall than I wanted.  I redrew her and I like it much better, her proportions are better and just all around better.

To put them on canvas I traced over the image on the back using a standard pencil.  I did this with the help of a light box and then just traced over the lines regularly.  Originally I planned to have Hades in the right corner, but decided he should be near Medusa instead of Pandora.

Here they are transferred.

Here's everyone.  There's 11 characters in total in this picture and 3 of them were utter hell to paint.  I'm looking at you, Hades!

For fun, here's how I decided who to draw for the picture.  Sadly I didn't put Gaol in simply because they've only shown up once.  And there was no way in hell I was drawing Thanatos. He'll ruin my beautiful work!

Kitty kept me company while I was working on this. Made herself comfortable on some fleece I had.

I started with everyone that had black and white and then went with the gold.  After this everyone got individual treatment.

Here's 6 of the 11 characters complete.  Close-ups will be at the bottom.

Everyone colored in and background started

background colored in along with most of the things on the table.  Pandora and Medusa's chairs were fixed to make more sense with the perspective, which I suck at. Don't lie to me, I know I suck at it.

All details are complete and the painting is done.  Close-ups now!

Pandora

Pit

Dark Pit ( I had the most trouble with his positioning.  I went through 5 different poses before deciding this is the one I'd do)

Arlon (despite his strange shape he was easy to draw)

Palutena (originally I forgot about her gauntlets)

Phosphora (I love the gradient effect on the scarf, especially since it didn't take long to do)

Magnus  (fun fact, he's the only human at the table)

Viridi (I was very tempted to give her gold accents before looking at her picture again)

Medusa (I had to paint the purple three times over because it wasn't dark enough.  Her skintone was a bit hard to get and almost looks white compared to the background.  It's a very pale purple.  I most enjoyed the snakes)

Pyrrhon  (I really hated drawing him.  His flame hair and flame aura were a pain to draw.  Luckily they look awesome with the gradient so that worked out nicely.  I'm most proud of him and his color scheme.  Btw, this is the first time I've drawn muscular men before >.>)

And lastly, Hades.( I hated the colors for Hades. They were all dark or ridiculously bright.  I hate how the cape looks.  Luckily his hair didn't come out nearly as bad as I thought it was.)

Something for the Skylanders

So, after buying into the Skylanders franchise I had tons of figures just crowding up our entertainment center.  It was a mess, I hated it.  So, I decided to make a shelf for them. It started with a large cardboard box I got from work along with a bunch of old posters they had as well.

 I started off by putting them all in the box to see if they would all be able to fit and they did (minus maybe the extra level pieces) so with that I got to work on it.

I made about 18 shelf pieces when I really needed only 16 (plus the large middle piece).  Originally I designed them too wide and with tab that I wanted to put through to the other side through slits.  I did this for the middle but it was a lot of hassle and didn't really prove to add any more resilience.  I had to spend an hour cutting the shelf pieces to fit properly.

I painted all of the shelf pieces ahead of time and started to mark down where I had to put them.  I used hot glue on every edge and it was very sturdy.  I started painting it but then decided to glue all the remaining shelf pieces first.

Progress shot : D

All done!  I sprayed it with clear sealer that had gloss after that. I haven't taken a picture of that, but it's pretty much done.  I do intend to glue something to the back so it can be held up by nails on the wall but for now it's good.


Also, for my gameboy advance games I printed out some fanmade covers from the great people over at thecoverproject.net.  I put them in DS cases and they look wonderful!  I'm looking to do this with more of my games that I don't have any cases for (n64, gameboy, gba, etc)

Annnddd last one for today, an update to the Zero pixel art.  I glued the frame down and need to paint it now.  Unfortunately I messed up a bit with the glue ( i used hot glue on both the plastic frame and the vinyl and it unstuck from the cardboard frame)  so I need to fix that before painting it.

Not bad though, eh?

Comments are welcomed!