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.

Radio silence

Oh wow. June already and I last updated in ... February.

Admittedly I do have my reasons. Some very good news is that The Wonderful Smaz and I are now settled into our first house! It's a little old property in a small village, with plenty room enough for my stash of art equipment, and his stash of video games and Doctor Who DVDs.

Then my laptop packed up.

It still works technically - I just have to keep it disconnected from the internet, or else everything freezes. It's doing me some good; I now get much less distracted with the web and have a lot of time to get other things done (knitting!! sewing!! oh my), but at some point I will be getting myself a replacement as I'm currently updating on Smaz's laptop!

Here's some art-related photographs of what I've been getting up to. I've been really into my cross-stitch recently, so I've taken a few shots of the cards I've put together. Some of these were done a while ago, but I don't think I've uploaded them here.

(click to enlarge)

A Handmade Christmas

Wishing you and your family a wonderful Christmas season.

Polyrhythm xo

With a needle and thread

My 'summer hobby' - for when the weather is too humid for yarn - is sewing. These small cross-stitching kits from DMC (I've been doing the Flowers range so far and a couple of the Sweets, although those Vintage sets look pretty nice too) are an excellent hobby for lunch-breaks, the hour I get before work, and summer evenings when Smaz is working on his indie game. Weeny little pictures like this are versatile, cute and are completed very quickly, so I plan to do many more before picking up my knitting needles again.

I also bit the bullet a few weeks ago and bought my very own sewing machine, which I took out for a whirl this Monday to make a couple of shiny new book covers for plain notebooks. I've spent many a year being scared of sewing machines, so I'll start small before working up to big projects.

Polyrhythm the Busy

Hi, blog-readers! Like many university students now, most of my time nowadays is devoted to job-searching. While I do get the occasional commission coming in (which I really love doing), it's nowhere near enough for me to live off of. So far I've had some positive experiences (and one not so great ... but it made for a good story). I just have to keep my head up and keep busy, and that's what I've been doing. It's very easy, when you are out of work, to feel useless. Sadly, charity volunteering is out of the question right now as I have to remain flexible. I have learned that flexibility and a driving licence is very desirable to employers ... and I only have the former.

So I've been preparing for Christmas already! I have quite a sizeable family, and a few friends who I'd like to give presents to - but I somehow think I'm not going to be too flush this year. Even if I get a job, it'd be unwise for me to spend a lot in the festive season.

So, I've turned my monetary situation on its head and challenged myself. This year, I will be giving everybody (well, everyone on a usual Christmas 'buy for' list) something handmade. I have a ton of yarn lying about as well as spare embroidery floss and spare Aida, so this will be a great chance to use it all up as well as ensuring I stay creative ... and get well into the Christmas spirit. Everyone wins, especially my bank account!

(The things above are pin-badges, by the way.)

CMTV has started up again! While there isn't anything official (videos, a YouTube channel, a site) released yet, I'm part of the team behind it once more - and this included writing a short story. The short story - the origin of Polybot - is being told in webcomic form, as seen above. You can read it here (opens in new window)!

The Embodiment journal is still going as strong as ever. I've completed this beast of a book above, and have moved onto a little Cath Kidston number. You can see all the public Embodiment page spreads at my Flickr, here - newer photos are at the bottom!

I made a sketchbook!

It turned out quite well for my first:

The pages are all different papers - different thickness, colour and texture.

The original plan was to have some handmade paper, saved over from sixth-form (that turned out very thick and textured) as part of the cover, but I think I'll save that until I complete the book, if I go ahead with the idea. Either way I'd really like to get to use that paper, especially in the print-room.

Cardmaking, hooray!

It's actually been a week or so since I did these (a couple are already sold in the charity store) but I've been recovering from illness recently - and when you're sick you don't really feel like writing big ol' long blog posts on art.

I did do a speed video of making these, along with explaining the junk I used to put them together. I say 'junk' because they were going to be thrown out if I didn't make use of them (I know a few families might want to hang on to their christening-cake decorations - we decided not to have them in the keepsake box anymore).




Right now; current projects are:

Doing various bits for B-Mask's CM Channel project
I'm afraid nobody gets to see any of what I've done until the episode's released, B-Mask wants to keep it a secret. This stuff is really fun to work on, though!

College work
I still need to take some photographs, and it is very hard-going as I'm not a photographer whatsoever, and then doing 20 sheets based from your photos is a challenge for me. However, here's a couple of the snaps that are my personal favourites:




I also took some close-ups of flowers and even photos of our new house (it needs a lot doing to it, so it's in a bit of a state right now, but nobody said the pictures had to be pretty). I don't have the photos of the house off the camera yet, so I can't show those yet.


Request: Tita Gasman art
Aqazar, who runs JT Forums, recently requested me to do a piece of art featuring his two characters with a 'steampunkish' feel to the setting. I finished the rough lineart and scanned in yesterday, and so far all is good and he's pleased with how it's going. ^^ Lineart, shown below:




And finally - I don't believe I'd posted about this when I did it - I drew a portrait of Smaz and I a few weeks ago. I'm pleased with how it turned out; it proudly sits in my personal sketchbook (the more I use this sketchbook, the more I agree with Picasso's quote that keeping a sketchbook is like keeping a diary).





That's all for now, really; I know, long update is long, but it's nice to catch up.