Prickly things

As part of my Mexican project I've been playing about with patterns and typography inspired by cacti (although my housemate tells me these are more like little wriggly caterpillars!).

I really like this pattern and "Prick" typography, so I've made them available in my Society6 Store.

Wow, Such Birthday

I finally finished a Doge Birthday Card. It's available in my Etsy Shop now. My Doge Valentines cards are selling out much quicker than I expected so if you want one now is the time to buy! You can buy the purple version here and the blue version here.

More doge love // More internet memes // My illustrations

CAT Competition entry

Earlier this year CAT footwear launched a footwear competition to redesign their Colorado boot. Being a bit of a boot enthusiast I got a little excited at the thought of designing for such an awesome brand. I love that CAT are now branching out from their famous work boots and collaborating with young designers and I feel so lucky that I had the opportunity to meet the designers and the creative minds behind CAT when they visited my uni.

There's just something about a chunky, work style boot that screams camo at me. So my main influence for these designs was camo with a twist. Don't worry though guys, I threw some kawaii pizzas and hot dogs in for good measure. I've seen a few fashion bloggers styling the Colorado boot perfectly with crazy, colourful fashion choices, so it seemed natural to pull some of that energy into the boot design too.

The design I actually submitted to the competition was the third one, as I think it's a good middle ground between my usual garish, busy, colourful style and CAT's more reserved designs.

I'm still awaiting the competition results and have all my fingers and toes crossed. I'd love to work with CAT some day in the not so distant future.

Very Kisses

My other Doge valentines card is now available on my Etsy Shop. Here's a preview!

More doge love // More internet memes // My illustrations

Such Valentine Wow

The doge illustrations I was working on ended up turning into a valentines card. It's now available in my Etsy Shop to pre order as I'm waiting on the final printed cards.

More doge love // More internet memes // My illustrations

Sushi Cats in love

After months of trying to get some illustrations together, I've finally launched my first cards on Etsy just in time for Valentines Day. I'm still awaiting the final cards from the printers so there will be some proper previews soon! In the mean time, you can pre-order the cards now from my Etsy Shop.

These sushi cat cards will be available all year round, and there will be more sushi cat love to come over the next few weeks.

Desk of the Day - 12/01/2014 Such Wow

It's no secret that I'm a big meme geek. The doge meme still has me in fits of giggles on an almost daily basis.. I can't even explain why I find it so funny. It's pretty much taking over my life and I find it hard to write like a normal person these days. So naturally, I've gotta draw that cute little shibe.

Follow my journey from average person to incomprehensible meme addict here.

Wentle, Andrew & Hypno Elephant

I'm finally getting around to posting a portrait I made for my two of my fav people Wensdi & her fiance Andrew. I had fun using textures in this illustration, not to mention drawing their cute but evil companion, hypno elephant.

Check out Wensdi's awesome illustrations of a confused little boy here.

Desk of the Day 09/01/2014 More sushi cats

I'm back in London after a relaxing couple of weeks back up north. I'm trying to get back into the swing of things with uni work, I'm so excited that I get to make my first whole pair of shoes this term! Today I'm taking a little time to relax and work on some personal illustration work. Yep you guessed it, more sushi cats!

Here's a close up of some of the details I've been working on. You can find my first sushi cat post here.

Desk of the Day 04/01/2014 - Sushi Cats

Have you seen these pictures/videos of sushi cats by Nekozushi yet? Ever since I first saw them I've been wanting to draw them. Here's the first cat sushi illustration in progress, the cat and lobster need a lot more detail adding but I'm really happy with the rice.

You can find more of my cat illustrations here.

Maneki Neki-NO - Grumpy cat and his buddies

Today you're finally getting to see where my obsession with internet cat memes and why I was doing so many Cat Meme Treasuries. 

A few months ago a customer introduced me to Maneki Nekos (Lucky cats) which lead to me having the idea to combine this with my fav famous cats; Grumpy Cat, Keyboard Cat, Nyan Cat and Lil Bub.

It's been a while since I've been able to work on a project for myself, and I've loved doing these cuties. I'm thinking of making them in to stickers and greetings cards, what do you think?

High Top Boots Pattern Design

A few months ago I had an interview at Dr Martens for an internship. I knew I wanted to put some docs friendly designs in my portfolio, so I designed some fabric with high top boots on it.

I'm really happy with how these turned out, my original intention was to put them on some boot designs (I'll post these at a later date). But I like the way these turned out as just a pattern.

I'm thinking of making them available on Spoonflower soon, what do you think?

More of my illustration work.

The Bridesmaids - Digital illustrations

A couple of weeks ago I got asked to do some of my digital illustrations for a lady who's getting married soon. She wanted an illustration of each of her bridesmaids to give them as a gift. I have the say, these girls are probably the coolest bridesmaids ever. I've really enjoyed illustrating their fun hats, hair styles and make up.

Each of the frames was based around an object that represented the relationship the bride had with each bridesmaid.

You can see the work in progress of a couple of the illustrations here.

If you'd like your own custom illustration, check out my shop. I also do completely custom wedding invitations.

More of my illustration work.

New Blog design... again!

I know I know, I have an addiction. I feel like I change my blog design more than I change my nail polish these days, but I think this design is sticking around for a while.

I decided to simplify my blog and make it easier to navigate. I think this new design has done the job. It's going to be strange not having bright colours and patterns screaming at me from every corner of my blog, but I like the idea that a simpler design will help my work shine. I am going to miss my rainbow brogue navigation buttons though!

What do you think of the new design? I bet you never thought I'd go for a simple monochrome colour scheme!

Matryoshka Wedding Invitations

I've finally decided to set up a listing for custom wedding invitations on my shop. After being asked to do some wedding invitations a few weeks ago, I enjoyed them so much that I want to do more! I can do them in any theme (the wackier the better, obviously!).

Here are the finished invitations from a couple of weeks ago, I'm so happy with how they turned out. The brief was Matryoshka Dolls and swallows on brown paper. It worked out better to fill the background with a brown paper texture and print on white card so I could keep all the detail of the bride's white dress.

Parents & the City - Blog Design

Well guys, It's finally here! The design of Parents & the City is finished and live. This blog design has taught me so much. Mainly that I need to try out wordpress before designing the blog, oops! But it's been one of the most fun projects I've done in a long time.

Since I'm passionate about bright and colourful patterns, I was stoked when Diana gave me free reign to design a New York and baby themed pattern! I was even more excited when she wanted to have a statue of liberty themed logo. Baby Liberty is definitely one of my fav things about this design.

You can find my work in progress on this design here, here and here.

If you would to contact me about blog, logo or pattern design email me at ponychopsshop @ gmail . com

Here's some more details of the new design:

Desk of the Day - 29/06/13 - I Love NY

Phew, it feels like forever since I've posted on my blog. I've been crazy busy with painting shoes and illustrating some fun projects. I'm hoping I'll have a little more time to update my blog over the next week.

Today I'm working on a few orders, but mostly I'll be working on this New York & Baby themed pattern. This is for the same project I've been working on for a while now, you can see some more work in progress shots from the same project here and here. I got kind of carried away on this project. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be using Little Baby Liberty as a part of this design now, which sucks. I had originally designed the blog around him but stupidly hadn't realised just how restrictive wordpress can be with editing. So I think i'll be sticking with a basic blog template with a bright patterned background. I've definitely learned my lesson for next time!

Desk of the Day - 22/06/13 - Wedding bells

A couple of weeks ago a girl I used to work with asked me to design her wedding invitations. I feel so honored to have been asked to do this, and it's certainly been a fun project to work on. I've enjoyed it so much I'm considering taking on more work like this in the future.

The above picture is just a sneak peek of the invitations so far. The bride asked me to illustrate her and her future hubby as matryoshka dolls. Today I'm working on adding some extra details and figuring out the composition ready to print some samples tomorrow.

If you're interested in any design/illustration work or invitations send me an email at ponychopsshop@gmail.com

Alex & Arthur

 Remember my Desk of the Day from Sunday? Well here is the finished illustration!

This has been my absolute favorite digital portraits so far. It's for Alex & Arthur, one of my fav blogs! I actually did some Arthur shoes for Alex a few months ago too. It never feels like work when you get to look at the adorable Arthur for reference pictures!

This felt like a super easy portrait to do because I already felt like I knew Alex's style and the kind of colours she likes. Alex asked me to include her dinosaur necklace, which I think works well. I wanted to find a way to make it a feature but not to over power the illustration.

You can get your own custom portrait here. Or if you don't have an Etsy account you can contact me about custom orders at: ponychopsshop@gmail.com

Phoebe & Rei

Do you remember a few months ago I painted some Justin Bieber sneakers and Persian Cat Sneakers? I painted them for the Canadian Much Music host Phoebe Dykstra.

Phoebe is a super cool lady, she has rad fashion sense and she's such a sweet person. Plus she has an adorable persian kitty named Rei. I just had to do an illustration of them both!

This was my first time illustrating tattoos in one of my digital portraits, and I'm happy with the way it turned out.

Here's the portrait of Phoebe & Rei, If you'd like your own portrait doing check out my custom listing on Etsy.

And here's a couple of photos of Phoebe & Rei. Look at Rei next to PonyChops sneakers!

You can find Phoebe on Twitter, Instagram & Tumblr. And Rei even has her own Instagram now!