Zero2illo week 4 & Award time!

Hi there!

I did say in my previous post that I would blog about the Zero2illo projct every 2 weeks and that I would combine the tasks...well this isn't going to happen haha. Part of the task of week 4 was to blog about the two portfolio pieces we had to do this week. I will focus on characters that easily can be transformed into character for books, future greeting card lines, t-shirt designs, mug designs etc. So for this week I sketched two pieces which you can see below.

The Princesses Tea Party! This is a two spread piece and have to say I'm kinda happy with it. Please don't mind the sloppy cut&paste (you can see 'line' in the middle), but photoshop kept crashing on me (I need a Mac!!). This piece took a bit longer than expected to draw it on paper. The thing was, that I didn't know if I should add a landscape behind the girls. I tried it several times and it just got too crowded. So I'm going for a clean, colorful image, that would look lovely framed and in a children room ^_^. As soon as I have this one finished, I'll show you guys. Please enlarge both pieces to see it in more detail.


Character sheet Dudes with pets: With this piece I'm kinda cheating...I already sketched out characters for friends a while back. One is Pirate Kaja with his pet Pirate Penguin. Also Pirate Penguin nemesis Ninja Penguin. The other one is Mr.Unicorn with his pet...unicorn hehe. I do also have a Ninja character to go with the Ninja penguin. I'm going to make a sheet per character (I think I mentioned this before...). I just made a few sketches to capture them on paper and I gave them a quick wash of colors, to see which I liked best.

Feel free to give feedback/tips on the pieces. For my fellow 12WC members: I will try to keep up with all the comments & critiques for the upcoming weeks! I'm also very glad that we get an extra week after three weeks of creating portfolio pieces, because I'm really going to need that to finish up the 6 pieces and coloring them haha.

Now on to the Awards. I'm very honored to say that I received two awards!!

The first one is the Deborah Award. I got this lovely award from Susan. I haven't known Susan for that long. I met her since I started the 12WC project, but I can already tell that she is a wonderful, caring and sweet lady! I'm happy to have met her and it's like the award says: "friendship isn't about who you haven known the longest, but who came and never left your side". Thanks so much Susan *hugs*!
The second award is the Sunshine Award! I got this from ms. Nicollie aka the Stamp Lady (yes the lady for who I created a few stamp designs). Thanks a lot Nicole!!

I will place them on my Awards page! Sorry I won't be passing them out to other blogger friends (again). I'm cramming so much things to do in the little time I have and it would be pretty difficult to choose among the lovely blogs I follow *sigh*. Next 2 pieces I will show you guys are...Honeymoon in Africa and a Character sheet with girls and pets.

Stay tuned & have a lovely weekend everyone!

Fun stuff: Project Zero2illo & some doodles!

Well hello there!

Before I start I want to pass a big (okay now it's belated) Happy Birthday to my friend. I created this lovely doodle for him. Why this image? Well my friend is called Lord Hats and he has lots of sheep...hehe (and no he's not imaginary...in case some of you were wondering that...).

So next thing! Maybe some of you saw a little logo to your left...maybe some of you didn't, that's why I'm writing this post haha! Oh and I have 2 mug designs for you again.

A few weeks ago I came across a tweet, post or ehm...something else. I can't recall, but it was some information about a blog Zero2illo and a 12 week challenge. I got interested and it did cross my mind though, if it was the right decision for me to make.
You know sometimes you want to do something, but you have this annoying voice at the back of your mind telling you "Ehmmm you sure you should eat that?" or "Are you sure...you want to do that?" ....well this annoying voice wasn't there and I only kept thinking that this was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. I guess if you really want something you can make it work even though you keep on struggling with time and less energy!

So I wanna say a HUGE thank you to Jonathan and Lea Woodward for creating this awesome challenge! I'm so happy to be part of it! I'll try to blog about it every two weeks and give you lovely readers an update on what I've done and learned so far. I'll give a short update about the first three weeks.

Week one: Here we had to choose a focus point. What do we want to illustrate? Well in short, when I sit back and think about my work, I see the characters I create dancing around in children rooms and books. The characters are part of larger Fantasy world and the colors can be either soft and barely there or they are vibrant. Either way, it's filled with adventure! At the moment, I prefer taking the time and create pieces for books, posters, cards, stationary gifts and freelancing to illustrate paintings for e.g. a children room. So my main focus will be on this, until I know what my next steps are.

Week two: We had to create an business plan! It's a one page plan with our objectives, goals, strategies and measures. Ooh exciting hehe. Well surprisingly I didn't found it a very difficult task. Okay, not that I got the perfect OGSM, not at all, but I have a start and I will perfect it over the weeks to come. To get a glimpse, click the image below ^_^. Tips/Feedback/advice are always welcome. Ooh the doodle I have on it is also a mug design print for another friend. You can see it at the end of the post.

I added motivation words for myself on it.
For me, one word can carry so much strength and can remind you of a simple message.

Week three: Now we have to find 10 publishers/companies/art directors etc, that we want to get in contact with. Also we need to think of 6 pieces to include in our portfolio. Fun stuff! I'm still pondering about it, but I already have a few ideas. I just need to see if it's in tune with the OGSM.

This is in short what I've done so far. I didn't focus on how much I want to earn by the end of 2010 or how many commissions I want to have. Honestly, at this point, I wouldn't know what to expect. I just take it step by step and learn about the lovely world of illustrating as I go along.

As promised!! The 2 mug designs for my friends who had her birthday a while back, but I guess everyone is happy with a belated Birthday gift ^_^.

and

Hope you liked this little update! Oh, are you guys interested in how the designs look on the mug itself? Let me know and I'll put some pictures together for you.

Take care & Till next time.