$5 Promo!

Hey there blog readers,

I have an amazingly fun project to share with you.

Last fall when I went out to California for Lost Weekend with the other KidLit Artists, our mentor David Diaz, gave us a wee homework assignment. Create a limited run promotional piece--beyond a simple postcard--for $5 or less. The piece should showcase your work in a unique way and get art directors and editors interested.

I thought for a while. I wanted to make something fun, but I was worried that my ideas didn't really showcase my portfolio. Finally, I gave up trying to showcase my entire body of work and decided to create something that would highlight a few of the things that I'm good at-- like lively characters, lots of fun details, and even a short narrative--and would later entice folks to check out more of my work on my website.

Speaking of website, I'm also in the process of planning a major website overhaul. Let's be honest... it's long overdue. Sooo, I decided to tie my promo into rebuilding the website. When I first started planning this website overhaul, I wanted to create a new character... a sort of avatar, if you will. Leafing back through an old sketchbook, I found this:

The penguins became puffins, and I began to figure out who this little girl was.

When it came time to settle on a format for the promo, I finally decided on a "paper-doll" magnet with a limited edition mini-sketchbook. I started by creating a wardrobe for my little pilot--let's call her Rosie.

I printed Rosie, her little puffin buddy, and her wardrobe out on paper, pasted it onto adhesive magnetic sheets, and then cut them out with a scissor and an x-acto knife.

I'm also a sucker for tiny, miniature things, and I wanted Rosie to come in a neat little package. The prototype for the promo is actually an old Altoid tin that I painted, but I found a supplier online that sells tiny white metal tins for less than a dollar a piece. Later I'll paint and decorate the boxes with enamel.

When you open the tin, the little girl and her puffin friend sit neatly on the left side, and on the right is the Limited Edition Sketchbook.

After removing the sketchbook, you see all of her little magnetic clothing.

And then the fun begins...

Seriously, I could do this for hours...

Her dress even has tiny little airplanes on it. (I want one!)

The Limited Edition Sketchbook has all of the prep sketches that I did for the website and Rosie's cardboard box airplane.

Ta da! Such a fun project.

I'll be printing a small, limited edition run of 100 to be sent out when I relaunch my website, this Spring.

(If you want to see more of the projects, check out our tumblr page: http://5dollarpromo.tumblr.com/)

Websuccess!

And it's done!

(Well nearly... bells and whistles to come, but for the moment, we have lift-off!)

Check it out!

Redesign!

Yes, my fabulously astute readers, Hogwash & Nonsense looks a bit different. Quite observant of you!

Since finishing the comics class, I have not yet taken a (much-needed) break, but have spent the past nine hours or so working on redesigning my website (read: alternately staring at the computer screen until my eyeballs glaze over and smashing my head against the keyboard).

Sigh.

But, in anticipation of the redesign (and in order to once again feel like a competent human being) I made some changes to the ole blog.

So sit tight and hold onto your hats... it's going to be exciting!

More Secrets! New Website Design!

Hello lovely people!

So following last week's super secret project, it's been back to work on the book project. I finished-ish a new spread for the book... as in the majority of the painting is done, so now I hang it on my studio wall, stare at it for a couple of days/nights/weeks and try to figure out what's wrong/what it needs until my eyes go crossed and buggy and I either smoosh some more paint on it, or with a sigh of resignation, add it to the ever-growing pile of mostly-finished spreads. I also figured out a sketch that I am semi-content with for one of the two remaining spreads. That being said, I will probably sketch another bucket full of thumbnails, throw them all out, but perhaps, perchance, just maaaaybe come up with one I like better. We shall see... so the book project is wrapping up, albeit rather slowly.

But in other news, I am giving my website a major-for-serious-redo-everything sort of overhaul. The design of my current website is severely lacking, so at the end of last term, I had come up with a new idea that I started to implement. I tried to work further on it, but eventually decided that I was just getting waaaay waaaaaaay too complicated... and in true Lisa fashion, I scrapped the whole thing, including, quite sadly the little owl lamp (see "Sneak Preview" post for the animation) and the following teacup -

and just because I love it... the owl lamp again...

Alas...

But! But! I sat at my drawing table all week and once again after scrapping sixteen and a half different ideas, did a redesign for the whole site that I think will eventually be pretty sweet. I've spent most of the week working on it.

And thus I give you... sneak preview!

Website!!!! (Many exclamation points needed...)

So you may be wondering where I've been and why my posts have been so few and far between. Well, dear readers, wonder no longer. Much of my time of late has been spent hunched over the keyboard like a good little code monkey punching in all sorts of things that now make some sort of strange sense - divs and ids and classes and <> - and combing through lines of code in search of missing back slashes and semi colons. I kid you not. One missing semi colon is the difference between working code and a big ole mess of gobbledygook. (Apparently gobbledygook is one word... I did not know that.)

But behold! The gloriousness of a website built from scratch!

I know it looks a bit sparse at the moment. I still want to play with the design of it. I have thoughts and ideas and plans but little time for implementing. I intend to keep updating and fixing things as I go along, but for the time being, it's nice to have a working portfolio site.