Self-care cockatoos

Designing our own Crash Bandicoot sampler, wedding edition (part 1)

So, this has been a long time coming! Ever since The Wonderful Smaz and I started making serious plans for our wedding ceremony, I knew I wanted to sew my own sampler to commemorate it (like how a Poundland 'wedding plate' is rolled out for every Royal wedding - except, y'know, far better). However, I didn't really know where to start - I knew I wanted it to be Crash-themed, but that was really about it.

Designing this one first really helped, especially when it turned out better than I pictured. Forever a cheapskate, I am still using graph paper, and my resulting designs have become very dog eared, crumpled, and liable to change at any moment. At my day job, they call this a 'living document'.

There are so many elements about my first sampler that I really like but the iconic items (crystals, gems, crates) were particularly fun to work on, so I used that idea of iconic as a starting point:

The top four panels are based off the wall textures from the levels Sunset Vista and The Lost City in the first ever Crash game. Smaz and I have always loved the aesthetic of these levels, and the music's pretty damned catchy too.

 

And below, our names worked in backstitch, the classic Crash icon on the left (again, introduced in the first game although you can see it in the N-Sane Trilogy edition too), Aku Aku on the right, and the Wumpa fruit with clear gems in the middle space - all four of these, can't get much more iconic than that!

I picked ecru aida as I really love the look of unbleached fabric; I get why if you're not a fan, but to me there's a beauty in no two similar pieces. It adds a lot of texture and interest to my needlework and in the case of bright colours (see Aku) it really makes the design pop.

Stay tuned for part 2 ...

Christmas Cards

I am now on Instagram as polyrillustration! I'm a bit more active on there as well as Facebook, if you haven't already gimme a cheeky follow.

For the second year in a row I'm not doing workplace Christmas cards - our department number is now in the 80s and as I'm still part of the Sports & Social squad I'm chatty with a lot of folks across the business. If I did cards for everybody it would be a very expensive (and time consuming) activity for something that's usually disposed of in January, so instead I'll be making a donation to Mind.

However I do make an exception for some family and friends especially those who I won't see in person this year - and instead of buying, I use up some of my crafting material and enjoy a quiet evening with some tea and paintbrushes.

Pampered Peepers

I've been wanting to do some bird illustrations for a while now - I'm a big fan of Gotcha the Cockatoo (Instagram) and Mr Max (YouTube), as well as seeing various bird ('birb') memes floating around Facebook. Drawing birds is a different subject topic for me as well, so it was a good challenge.

After the cockatiel and the pigeon were finished, I printed them out onto photo paper as free gifts for a Lolita fashion meet I organised, and the feedback I got was so nice that I thought I'd do a little postcard run of each design via Vistaprint - and here they are. I've also now opened an Etsy account, which was a very nerve-wracking thing to do but even if I sell a few of these prints, I'm happy!

This is Tatler, the Umbrella Cockatoo - a thoroughly spoiled scream-chicken who lives with his parronts and enjoys dismantling Ocado boxes - and yes, he's dismantled that parasol too.

Winsome by name, winsome by nature! Winnie to her friends, this is a sweet little cockatiel who lives with her refined human roommate Klara, and oversees all the get-togethers Klara has with her equally-posh friends. You can have a tea party safely at Winsome's house; she's taste-tested all the scones and the tea is guaranteed to be quality.

Sir Henry is a distinguished gentleman budgie who lives a peaceful retirement in Burlington Hall with Lord Burlington and his family. A show-off in his younger days, Sir Henry would just rather snooze in his cage these days after a plentiful meal of fresh veggies - and perhaps some scrambled egg on Sunday if he's lucky.

Maevis is a fancy pigeon through and through, used to strutting her stuff at competitions around the country. When she's at home though, she'll go through the odds-and-ends box to fashion accessories for herself, when the lady of the house isn't looking (or too busy with her housemate, Tatler the cockatoo). She is also a big fan of yoga and will start every day without fail with a good stretch.

These are ready to buy at Polyrillustration at Etsy!

Bank Holiday

... turned out all rainy and cold, so I was stuck indoors at a bit of a loose end. So, I decided to go through the old toolbox underneath my desk - I miss working into my journal the way I did when I was at uni, so I had a good creating session!

Illustration Friday: Shoe

 

A homage to my sweatiest hobby was on the cards for last week's Illustration Friday ('shoe'). As of today, it's 43 miles and counting.

I'm not built to be a runner to be honest, but that's not why I do it - there's something refreshing about the simplicity of it, just putting one foot in front of the other. Sometimes I'm accompanied by work colleagues, other times not - either way, I always feel better for it afterwards (well, except the one time where I scraped the skin off my hand and knee, funnily enough, due to not wearing the proper shoes for a run - that was a write-off, took ages to heal too).

Illustration Friday: Delicious

 

I wasn't sure what to do for this prompt, but as it's very foody and it's been a while since I've drawn myself, I naturally have combined the two. The Wonderful Smaz and I don't do a lot of takeout - once a month, if that - but when we do it's that pizza place. His is a Hawaiian, but mine's a vegetarian, thanks.