Robots, Cupcakes, Lobsters & Ninjas

It's always entertaining when I get asked to do several different ideas in one set of Matryoshka, so this set was really fun to put together.

You can see more of my Matryoshka here.

Remake & Remodel - The final 3D prototype

You can find my previous Remake & Remodel project posts here.

Once I finished my bacteria inspired designs I then had to create a 3D prototype of part of my final design. I chose to create the bubble platform. This was a big challenge for me as I'm so used to working in 2D or just applying paint to a 3D surface. The final prototype is made of carved industrial foam, putty, foam spheres and spray paint. I now have a new appreciation for just how time consuming and hard work it would be to develop a professional three dimensional heel. I can't wait to learn new techniques to make objects like this though, hopefully I'll get to use the 3D printer next term!

I feel like I've learned a lot through this project, much of it is thanks to some amazing feedback sessions with my tutors and lots of bouncing ideas off my course mates. The areas I feel I could improve particularly are research and design development. After working for myself and blogging about my illustrations I'm so used to showing the final product and am too much of a perfectionist when developing initial designs. I realize I now need to use quick sketches to develop ideas and make my sketchbook research seem less rigid and for it to flow better and make sense.

You can see more of my uni work here, and more of my illustrations here.

Adventure Time Converse - The land of Ooo

Happy Boxing day everyone! I hope you're all having a great holidays and getting lots of Adventure Time presents.

Here are the finished Land of Ooo Converse. You can see pictures of these in progress here. You can see more of my Adventure Time shoes here, and my other shoes here.

 

Merry Christmas Everybody!

Merry Christmas guys! I hope you're having a great day and eating lots of yummy Christmas things.

Here's some amazing Adventure Time Christmas fanart I found on Deviantart (1. gicouy 2. silent--haze 3. jackie-lyn)

Rupaul's Drag Race Matryoshka

This was a really fun custom order for someone who loves Rupaul's Drag Race. I based these particular dolls on Rupaul, Bebe Zahara Benet, Tammie Brown, Nina Flowers and Jujubee.

Tokidoki Fan Art Shoes

I painted these shoes for a friend who is Tokidoki obsessed. She particularly loves the Donutella characters so I went for a Donutella theme.

These characters are copyright of Tokidoki, this is just fan art for a friend. You can see more of my shoes here.

And here's my friend Lu styling them with some adorable kitty socks:

Etsy Love - Christmas Dogs

After doing my Christmas Cat themed treasury I felt kinda guilty, after all, dogs are just as awesome. So here's some dog themed Etsy love too.

You can see more of my Christmas posts here, and more doges here.

1. Senor Picklesworth / 2. Jazz Loves You / 3. Yastikizi / 4. Restowe / 5. Patchwork People Pins / 6. Textiler / 

7. FRANCEillustration / 8. Ooh Look It's a Rabbit / 9. The Big Forest

Remake & Remodel - The final design ideas part 2

You can find part 1 of my designs here. After discarding my heel designs I decided to focus on sneakers as I think eventually I'd like to go into sneaker design (Hello Nike? I promise I'll treat you good, I won't leave you for Adidas like Kanye did!).

I explored different ideas for the sole, the stitching, laces, materials etc before I settled upon my final design. My final design ended up being the bubble platform, I then had to create a 3D prototype of an element of that particular design which will be in the next post!

You can see more of this project here, more of my uni work here, and more of my illustrations here.

 

Fashion Love - Skinny Bags!

Today I want to share with you a new up and coming brand that I'm totally drooling over, Skinny Bags. Skinny Bags make beautiful quality clutch bags that look like books. These bags can be customized with your own text, making them a perfect and personal gift for a special person.

Skinny Bags believe it's important to contribute to their nations economy, so every Skinny Bag is designed and produced lovingly in the U.S.A. They made their debut during LA fashion week 2013 and have already been a big hit among fashionistas.

I'm head over heels in love the the "Holy Bible" clutch bag, I could see Taylor Momsen or Kelly Osbourne styling it with a rocky outfit.

You can find more info about Skinny Bags on their website, twitter, facebook and instagram!

Desk of the Day - The land of Ooo

This is my newest Adventure Time order I've been working on. The main theme I was given was "The Land of Ooo" so I've tried to include as many featured of Ooo as possible.

It's been fun to think about the background and surroundings of the characters more in this pair of shoes. I'd love to do a Candy Kingdom themed pair one day.

You can see more of my Adventure Time shoes here, and my other shoes here.

Such Etsy, much treasury, so Doge, wow.

By now you've probably noticed I'm a bit of a meme addict, especially when it comes to animal memes. My newest fav meme has to be Doge, if you haven't heard of the Doge meme you can read about it here and here. It's basically a Shiba dog with a funny expression with comic sans text written all over it, and it makes me laugh much more than it should do. I think I can blame this meme for my misspelling of the word "dog" on several occasions recently.

Of course, no meme obsession is complete without an Etsy treasury. Here are my fav Etsy doges, wow.

For more meme love click here.

1. Top Banana Philly / 2. Dorky Dino / 3. le animale / 4. Meme skins / 5. Protoguy / 6. Pendant Geek / 

7. Wooli Mochi / 8. Meme skins / 9. Thousand Skies

Etsy Love - Christmas Cats

It's not Christmas without an Etsy Treasury, and it's not a proper Etsy treasury without cats. So here's some Etsy cat love for you to purr about!

You can see more of my Christmas posts here, but more importantly, more cats here.

1. Wita Puspita Design / 2. Kilkenny Cat Art / 3. Cutie Love / 4. Olechka Design / 5. Cathy Peng / 6. Bee is for Bear / 7. Vernon Shop / 8. Kilkenny Cat Art / 9. Substellar Studio

Remake & Remodel - The inspiration

Most design subjects at uni require you to show your ideas through colour boards and mood boards. Here are the inspiration boards for my Remake & Remodel project. As you can see, my main inspiration came from bacteria and the simplistic 3D shapes of DNA. I wanted to combine the bright, business of the bacteria with simple and futuristic shapes.

You can see more of my uni work here.

Peppy Galore Giveaway

Today I have a giveaway brought to you by one of my sponsors, Peppy Galore. All you need to do is follow my blog on bloglovin and fill in the form below.

Good luck everyone!

Etsy Love - Nature Rebranded

Lately I've been thinking up a new concept for my next design project. I've chose to explore nature and man made, particularly the combination of nature and modern materials.

Of course, it wouldn't be right to start my sketchbook before searching Etsy for some beautiful inspiration.

1. Nervous System / 2. Butterscotch of Brooklyn / 3. Take This 2 Heart / 4. Glass Art Dreams / 

5. White Faux Taxidermy / 6. Mr Lentz / 7.  Glimpse Glass/ 8. Boxwood/ 9. Seahag and Walrus

Remake & Remodel - The final design ideas part 1

I feel like I've been pretty absent from blogging recently, but my last deadline is tomorrow so normal blogging will commence shortly!

In the mean time here's a sneak peak of part of my design development for the Remake & Remodel project. I discarded this shoe design as I wanted to work on a sneaker style shoe in the end.

You can see more of my uni work here, and more of my illustrations here.

Remake & Remodel - Thumbnail Designs

For my Remake Remodel project I did two A3 sheets of tiny designs based on DNA & bacteria. The next stage after this is to take 6 designs and develop them, then choose the final design from those.

You can view more of my uni work here and more of this project here.

Here are my initial thumbnail designs:

Chris Simpsons Artist Matryoshka

A few weeks ago I was contacted by Chris (Simpsons Artist) to paint a set of Russian Dolls featuring his artwork on them. I had to say yes! I'm a big fan of Chris, he has a fantastic sense of humor and his illustrations and captions never fail to make me laugh.

I chose to paint Chris's version of Michael Jackson & Bubbles, The Queen, Salvador Dali, Wookie and Homer. It's been a fun challenge to paint in the style of another artist and I'm really happy with how these turned out. Of course I had to add in some bright colours to PonyChopsise the dolls a little.

You can see the work in progress for these dolls here.

A London Catch Up

I've been living in London over two months now. I'm lucky enough to have found a group of fun, crazy and totally lovable people to live with and I'm loving it here. My first term at uni has been both one of the most challenging and one of the most fun times of my life, I feel like I'm already learning and progressing so much.
London has always been one of my favorite places on earth, it still feels really surreal to be living here and I'm so grateful I get to study in this beautiful, energetic city.

I realize I still haven't shared much of my life in London with you, so here are a few photos from the past few weeks of my exploration of London and a few bits of my uni work (if you follow me on instagram you'll probably have seen these already).