A Peach Sticker for a Banana

Add this to that category of things I'm surprised I didn't do sooner. Peach is one of my favorite characters in the Mario universe. Gliding across tough areas in Mario Bros. 2, keeping my party's HP levels up in Super Mario RPG, and knocking fools out of bounds with a well placed butt-attack in Smash Bros. are just a few reasons she'll always be my first choice. I've always enjoyed the rage my friends express when she wins: twirling about, waving, and saying something classic like "Peachie's got it!" or "Aw, did I win?".

Original doodle on a post-it note. Said post-it also contains two more ideas I plan on using this coming week. They involve a wizard, and fist-bumping. Should be an interesting one.

NannerBeetle

I have a weird thing for bugs. Not THAT kind of weird thing, mind you. It's just that, given a blank canvas and my own direction I will often find myself painting a grasshopper or a luna moth.

Insects are an amazing artistic subject. Like flowers, they come in an astounding array of colors, shapes, and sizes. Beyond that, it's a lot of fun to study the behaviors and defense mechanisms of various insects.

Bugs are still pretty freaky. I may feel a sense of awe and wonder seeing a full size goliath beetle perched on someone's hand, but it would definitely squick me out to find one walking across my carpet.

So expect to find more bugs in the future here. I'm kind of surprised I didn't make one earlier. This one isn't based on a particular variety: it's an amalgam of insect symbols from my left-brain informed by artistic processes in my right-brain. In other words: it's a doodle. Enjoy.

NannerMonster

It's October. Halloween is around the corner. Thought I would throw out a Yeti tonight. Nothing super fancy, but fun nonetheless.

Nouveau Nanners

To make up for the lack of a post yesterday, I've decided to make three stickers today. The first sticker is in honor of my second week on the project (numbers are fun). Sticker two is actually a decorative border I will be incorporating into an upcoming sticker. The last sticker is an homage to one of my favorite art movements - Art Nouveau.

I am always thinking about the constraints of these stickers - their limited palettes, limited space, and constant shape. It falls on me to figure out new ways to shape the borders and press against the perceived limits. In this way, these little stickers haven't become tedious or boring yet.

A Nanner Draws Near...

A bit late - but happy 25th birthday, Dragon Quest! Today's sticker celebrates one of the most iconic monsters in the known world: the blue slime. I wanted to hold off on the slime (it was one of my first sticker ideas, actually) until I had something else I could add to it. Consider this an experiment in more decorative borders (testing the waters for an art nouveau-inspired sticker).

Admittedly, I didn't play the original Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior here in the states) or many of the other games in the series for that matter. I recently beat Dragon Quest 9 for the DS. I also enjoyed Rocket Slime and what little I have played of the Dragon Quest: Monsters/Joker series.

Despite my limited exposure to the series, I absolutely love it for what it is. It is awesome to see a game change up its gameplay, story, and themes so much while retaining the spirit of the original game. Other JRPG series added lengthy CGI cutscenes, convoluted plots, brooding teenagers, and questionable fashion. Dragon Quest retains the catchy music, light-hearted stories, and those great Akira Toriyama character designs.

Tomorrow is the end of week two. That was just for me. I cannot believe I'm closing out another week!

Still Here...

To make up for a missing sticker yesterday, I present two semi-related pieces. The first is what I'm told is the Kanji for "banana". I'm not actually 100% sure about that, but it seemed legitimate enough to fool a gaijin like me. The primary element in the sticker is actually the japan-inspired repeating pattern. I got the idea from this tutorial over at vectortuts+.

The second sticker is my take on the classic beckoning cat you've probably seen somewhere at one point in your life. I thought I would make a more rotund version and play around with some of the negative space relationships.

Inkscape's path-finder options leave a barely noticeable seam around the objects they create. There may be a way to mitigate that with some layer trickery. I'm noticing it more on my clipping masks for yellow-on-yellow. That might need a bit of research.

NannerTribute

I didn't have a reference for a real monkey skull, rather I didn't use one. I had a symbol in my head, and I ran with it. I'm beginning to just run with ideas rather than sitting around researching everything and ultimately, talking myself out of the project.

Since this blog was inspired by the book based on the Skull-a-day project, I thought today's sticker would be a tribute to that. Thinking back on yesterday's rushed thoughts (I was about 20 minutes from deadline last night), working with symmetry is great for these little projects. Von Glitscha talks great lengths about designing vectors in this manner. He champions the idea because you basically only have to work on one half of the design to complete it.

Unfortunately, to my knowledge, Inkscape doesn't have a fleshed-out reflect tool. Adobe Illustrator has a fancy one-button-click tool that takes your half of the design and creates the rest of it. For me: I have to duplicate my half, flip horizontally, nudge everything over, select the individual points (we call 'em nodes in Inkscape land) where they need to meet, use the join nodes tool on each junction, then refine the new meeting point node to mitigate "seams". It's that easy.

Maybe I'll happen upon that tool somewhere down the line. Regardless of whether it exists or not, I actually appreciate having to get in there and bang my head against shape-building and Bezier tools. I feel like as I learn more, I am able to take more risks and create more complicated designs.