Moon Goddess

When I originally started sketching the layout of 'Moon', I was inspired by some of the illustrations of the Art Nouveau period which I realised were direct descendants of Japanese woodblocks! Pretty interesting.

I began to imagine a moon goddess with an implacable mask and a fantastic cape, because she's fabulous obviously.

Okay, so the drawing part was easy. but something was off. It looked... incomplete. That's when I realised I needed to tackle territory I am still afraid of - digital painting. Yikes! The problem is, I'm surrounded by absolutely terrific and talented digital painters on my tumblr feed and I think my expectations for myself are a little bit too high. After a quick pep talk and some coffee (and a mini magnum or two) I was ready to take this on.

And you know what? It wasn't that bad. Digital painting is actually really fun once you get into the groove because layers make it super forgiving. So I'm definitely doing it again.

Anyway below, the result. You might notice that I replaced that weird chunky floral border with something with a little more cosmic flavour. Mmmm cosmic flavour.

Personally, I still feel like like it might need something but at this stage I'm very happy with it, and sometimes that has to be good enough! Especially with my type-A, perfection obsessed, Ravenclaw personality.

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What a little figure drawing practice can do...

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I've officially consigned myself to stay home for the next two days on a crafting frenzy before MAAD happens this Friday, but I did allow myself today to pause and slack off.
What usually happens is as follows: I'll go out, have a coffee, take out my sketchbook and do a little figure drawing. I decided to concentrate on animals today and was actually really pleased with the results. I always expect that whatever I draw will turn out to be complete and utter poop.


Then I got home, played some Pokémon Omega Ruby (I've finished the main storyline so I'm hanging about the Battle Maison like a creeper), got some work done (the actual biggest surprise of today) and started doodling. The weirdest part about art or any creative endeavour is that most of the time, it feels like I try so hard to push out something that's just about passable in my eyes. And sometimes, it feels like something with great potential flows out - and that happened today. I guess my Muse was back from her holiday or something.

So I'm going to put this up for sale at the flea market, but as I've scanned it in I guess there's no harm in doing a little digital painting too! Fingers crossed. I'm still a little scared of digital painting, eep!

An End Of Year Promotion!

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It’s the end of the year and I’m looking to clear all my stock to make space for new products in 2015!

I am now offering USD$5.00 off all purchases above USD$25.00 - Just use coupon code ‘SNICKERDOODLE’ at checkout to take advantage of this deal!

*Important note for Christmas shoppers:

Be sure to order early if you’re buying presents! International shipping (outside of Singapore) usually takes 2 - 3 weeks. I provide a tracking number for all orders. If you would like expedited shipping, please contact me directly so we can discuss the options :)


najmetender.etsy.com

Flying on a Flea Market High

Wowzers! So in the past month or so, I've been experimenting with showcasing and selling my items at flea markets and I have to say it's been a very positive experience. I've loved meeting a bunch of new people, getting inspired by other artisans and their handmade items and yes, probably gorging myself on flea market food.

My first experience was at the National Museum, an event organised by forfleasake

Naturally, my mother had to be there.

Yesterday, I was at MAAD Pyjamas, an event organised by the Red Dot Design Museum which went from 5PM until midnight. Wow! Definitely going to do that again.

So a huge thank you to everybody who made selling my handmade goods so a joy! I'm looking forward to seeing all of your lovely faces again :D

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I made a bunch of stuff to buy...!

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What's better than looking at stuff to buy? MAKING stuff to buy am I right?? If you wanted lovely patterned goodies, I gotcha:

If you'd like an embroidery hoop that declares your undying love for butts? I gotcha!

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Glass Houses

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Somebody suggested 'Ready Player One' to me and not really knowing what to expect, I popped in my earphones and listened to Wil Wheaton reading it to me via the wonders of audiobook technology.

I can safely say I was pleasantly overwhelmed geekery wonderousness of it all. So about a month or two onwards, I decided to pay tribute to one of my favourite quotes via typography!

Here's what the final product looked like.

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So this time I wanted to do something bright and colourful to contrast some of the typography I'd been doing lately that looked really gritty and had a lot of texture.

Here's a look at some of the process shots:
 

By the way, you can get this typography as sweet, sweet merchandise on my Society6!


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Hahaha...

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A new piece of design and fancy new merchandise to be bought on Society6! This design is also available as the merchandise below.

Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.

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Another wonderful quote by Terry Pratchett. I'm not entirely sure why but I found myself struggling a bit with those one, where as the other quote, "Humans need fantasy" seemed to flow out from my pen.

I think it's because I wanted to try something new and nothing like my past typography posters, and it's hard to do something that's not natural to your hand I guess.

I didn't realise it but this finished product looked a lot like a grindhouse poster with an even mix of cartoonish 50's sci-fi.

Something else that was different about this project was I'd completely messed up the raw drawing that was scanned in and I didn't realise it until I'd exported the file into Photoshop. That's why a healthy dose of concentration is helpful when trying to draw things, kids. You'll see the mistake below:

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So not only did I somehow manage to change an 'F' to an 'E', I'd drawn out the word 'SIGN' twice. Excellent job, Naj.

It took a fair bit of cleaning up. I usually spend a lot more time with precise lines and layering black ink on black ink to make sure the scans turn out pristine, and this was a complete exception.

The second picture is how it looked cleaned up! A vast improvement.

And finally, these were the three  versions I did up before deciding on the final one!

I also have to add that I did not spot that I had drawn 'a sure sign' instead of 'the sure sign'! Which goes to show you, you really need a fresh pair of eyes to point out these mistakes to you.