theworldofsarah

My sister is currently down in Miami doing some charity work with Konbit for Haiti, in response to the recent earthquake in Haiti: Konbit for Haiti.

Due to my current unemployment, I have been able to help them out by making a few buttons and things for their website.  I thought I would post it here on the blog to spread the word for Konbit & make myself look a bit more useful than I am at the moment.The buttons aren’t all that amazing, but I think its what they were looking for:

I made a few more, but they don’t seem to be on the website yet… If you want to learn more about Konbit, please  visit the website.

(apologies for the small borders on the images.. I’m not very adept with wordpress template alterations! I will try to rectify this when I get a chance)

welcome to my re-design…

I have recently decided that theworldofsarah.com should feature all of my work.. and not just my illustrations.  Previously, I was using swanpillows.com, however it was extremely difficult to keep up-to-date, and it was generally less user-friendly.  Its still there - you will see that my ‘art exhibitions list’ link still goes to the old site, but eventually I will sort this out as well….

In other news, I am no longer in full time, permanent employment, and I am excited about pulling in some commissions and freelance work.. so please pass my details along to anyone who might need an artist or designer of any kind!Please also leave me any feedback about my new additions to the website..

Thanks!

So, I continue to submit things to this Worth1000 website I discovered recently..

At the moment, I’ve only been doing things I can manage to create on my lunch hour at work.. I can’t seem to work up the momentum to do these things on the computer when i get home - I think the main reason for this is actually that we have Photoshop 7.0 at home, and i have the full CS3 suite available at work.. not to mention my lovely mac screen is so much better here at work.

Anyway, my second submission was for the literal food category, and i submitted a Pineapple.. and, yes, sadly i spelled it wrong, this has bothered me since I submitted it. heh.

Here is the whole contest (you’ll note i came 4th in this one!  I didn’t think it was quite good enough to come fourth, but hey, i take what i can get.. i got a little gold star! but not quite one of the gold/silver or bronze trophys hehe)

And here is my entry - there are a bunch of funny stats you can see, and you can click through to my username: whoshallisay and see the various stats I’ve got so far.. its kinda fun, i can’t even work out where all the points and things come from, like Karma..

Anyway, I’ve submitted one for the Celebrity Vampire category as well, but i won’t tell you which one it is in case you want to vote or something..

I think I’ve been enjoying this all just a little too much.. but I think it reflects the lack of creative activity in my day-to-day activities.. it also reflects the fact that I don’t feel my creativity is noticed or rewarded in my current employment. In any case.. its something to do on my lunch break… I’m planning on entering the restoration game 6 once they fix the glitch on the website that won’t let me download the main image…

Just a quick note..
Voting has now ended for that silly photoshop contest - I ranked 11 out of 44… which, for my first entry aint too bad I think.

If you follow this main link again, it will now show the entries in order of best to worst (not counting the batman one, which was simply to demonstrate the theme) - the piece that won is definitely the best one, very impressively turning dali’s gala into snow white.

If you follow this link, you’ll go directy to my charlie brown one, where you can see several very nice comments people left…

x

I recently stumbled across this website called worth1000.com - I’m still getting to grips with it, but it seems to hold a series of competitions/contests where people submit photoshopped images, photographs, and other things like illustrations, based on a theme of sorts.  I have signed up and entered the Photoshop category - I dived straight in to the Advanced section - for a contest described thus:

In this contest, you are asked to update an old painting, swapping in a cartoon character for the original subject. Use traditional, two-dimensional characters only: No Computer Generated Characters (Incredibles, Shrek, etc.)

If you follow that link you will find all 44 entries, and mine is on the second page i think:

Its quite cool because they only give you like two days to make it and submit it… (in this category anyway).  I have yet to try anything in the other categories which might include more things like illustration…

p.s.
i think the identity of each creator is still technically hidden for another 12 hours while people vote - so please don’t vote or anything, it might get me in trouble!  If i don’t post this now i’ll totally forget…

Ah yes, the animated bunny…
here we go:

it seems to be a really slow the first time - when its loading the images… then not too slow.. its still slower than I would have liked, but apparently I can’t get it any faster without removing more frames.. and I don’t want to do that.

This animation should appear - when you find a hidden egg on the site.. so you click the egg and then get a little animation pop up of him placing it in your basket!

I will try to remember to post next wednesday - to let you know when the bunnies will be live on Brora’s site!

(ah crud - as an afternote I have just looked at this on the site and in my Firefox on a Mac, I cannot see the whole thing.. because the wordpress template will now allow it.  If you want to see it in full, Click Here)

bunnies, bunnies, bunnies…

I thought why not post them now…

I made the bunny by playing around with these two images:

I played with layer blending options and stuff…
Then I purchased the 3d model of the egg from Falling Pixel and played around with Photoshop CS3/CS4 3d functions where you can map an image onto the surface of a 3d file (obj or 3ds etc).  It didn’t work so well in CS3, but I downloaded the 30 day free trial of CS4 and they seem to have cleared up some of the bugs in this version.. so I was able to map Brora’s many fabric patterns onto the eggs!  If you’re really bored you can have a look around Brora and see some of the patterns…

Anyway, I’ve now created an easter basket full of these eggs and I’ve been working on an animation with the bunny all afternoon, and I’m mostly happy with it but can’t get Photoshop to export it at the same speed its previewing to me at.  I’ve been playing in Aftereffects and all sorts… I’m afraid I have to get back to some less exciting work now!

I will post the animation when I’m finished…

Goodness knows who is reading this…
but I thought I’d try to start using this site again.. My illustration aspirations have gone pretty stale lately, but I’m trying to revive them.

I’m actually working on some Easter imagery and animations for my current place of employment, Brora, and I will post some of these here later this week (lots of cute bunnies!).

In the meantime, I was just going to link in this cool video which has been created to look like some sort of animation, but is actually made of real footage:

I think this was already linked in to the drawn.ca blog listed under my ‘links’ on the right here.. but I don’t always get a chance to scroll through the myraid of posts on that site.. and maybe you don’t either, so I thought I would point it out.

Its made by Keith Loutit, using a technic called tiltshift.  The drawn.ca blog mentioned this technique a while ago and showed a step by step guide on how to reproduce the effect..  I cannot remember if I think I tried this out myself or if I simply read the step-by-step and felt like I’d tried it out… in any case, its a neat trick.

This is a pretty generic blog - just to give you a bit of an update…

I’m afraid I have put my illustration aspirations on hold for just a short while - I have recently accepted a new job as a Creative Artworker in Stevenage, and this means I am madly attempting to buy a car, etc. to make this transition.  I won’t bore you with the details, but this site may be a bit quiet for the next few weeks while I do all of this… I hope to pick up where I left off soon by setting myself more meaningful projects and posting the results here.

I don’t imagine this site has much traffic just now anyway..
but if you have stumbled upon this site looking for a freelance illustrator, please feel free to contact me!  I am eager to start with some commissions!

ta ta for now…

Well, I’ve have a pretty hectic time at my full time job this week.  Not had much extra energy to do any more illustration work.  However, today I sat down and challenged myself to come up with a new book cover design for Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island.  This is mainly because I never liked the illustration on the cover - and it happens to be the last proper book I’ve read.  I’m a bit disappointed with my cover, however… I seem to have made a very graphic cover, when I really wanted to showcase my illustration.  I think I’m just easing myself into the whole thing - I create more graphic material at work at the moment, so it probably feels safer to me.  I’m hoping to take the next month to develop my whole process - working out the easiest way for me to approach a new illustration project. 

In any case, I thought I would show you the cover I have made, even if I’m not terribly happy with it at the moment (it is, after all, just an excercise).

Here is the original cover design which I’m not too fond of:

And here is my cover:

Any comments welcome, of course…