Sunshine Cupcake!

Clay Morrow

noreply@blogger.com (Mona) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:22:00 +0000

In the last couple weeks, Nate and I devoured the first three seasons of Sons of Anarchy. I love Ron Perlman's odd face!

Walter White

noreply@blogger.com (Mona) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 18:34:00 +0000

Here's a "quick" painting I did of Walter White from Breaking Bad in Corel Painter X. This is not the one that I started ages ago and never quite finished. I tried to stay "loose" and not get bogged down in details, but it still came out fairly polished. I guess I'll try setting a timer for myself so I do multiple sketches instead of spending several hours on one. All in all, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Bill Murray

noreply@blogger.com (Mona) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 20:13:00 +0000

Did this one in a couple hours in Painter last night.

HOUSE

noreply@blogger.com (Mona) — Mon, 16 May 2011 00:55:00 +0000

Did this a week or two ago. I usually like to do a drawing in a single night, or maybe two; Otherwise I end up nitpicking and overworking it until it frustrates me instead of relaxes me.

There's a portrait I started a while ago of Bryan Cranston's character Walter White in Breaking Bad that I did in color. It's 98% done but I can't bring myself to finish it, since now I'm trying to make sure it's "perfect." Whereas with this quicker "sketch" of House, I don't feel the need to polish it and repolish it. I usually end up liking these rougher/looser drawings of mine, but then I fear they don't "count" as finished works. Ah well.

Thanks, Jeff Bridges

noreply@blogger.com (Mona) — Sun, 15 May 2011 23:43:00 +0000

It's funny, for the longest time I only drew sexy ladies; drawing men didn't interest me. Then for a long time, once I started working as a graphic designer full time and got a live-in boyfriend, I didn't want to draw much at all.. All my creative energy went into my job designing greeting cards/bags in Illustrator, and the last thing I wanted to do when I got off work was to sit in front of the computer drawing on my tablet.

I had moved past the phase of drawing pin-ups (which began in high school and lasted through most of college), they just didn't hold my interest anymore. But I didn't really know what I DID want to draw.

I'd pore over other people's awesome sketch/concept art/character design blogs and books and want to be able to do what they did, but when I sat down to try, it'd never turn out how I wanted it to. Then I'd get frustrated and go watch TV. I ended up forgetting how much I enjoyed drawing the way *I* was naturally good at, because I was too caught up in comparing myself to others (Oh, Mary Blair, you're one of a kind, damn you).

A couple years ago, Nate and I checked out a local Drink N Draw and I remembered how much I loved just drawing people, trying to capture expressions and moods with just a pencil (or stylus).

Since then, I've found the most enjoyment in drawing portraits (I've always gravitated towards drawing people ever since I was little) of strong male characters in TV shows or movies that I love (Al Swearengen from Deadwood, Locke from Lost, Adama from Battlestar Galactica (nerd alert)). One of my most recent favorites is Jeff Bridges, specifically in True Grit and Crazy Heart (sorry, Tron, CGI-Flynn didn't do it for me). There's just something about trying to get to the essence of what makes him him. Not just getting the proportions and negative space right, but capturing the story behind the smirk/scowl. So thank you, Jeff Bridges, for being amazing.

Also, I seriously need to own the Crazy Heart soundtrack.

Random sketch from this summer

noreply@blogger.com (Mona) — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 21:54:00 +0000

It's been a while since I drew a pin-up.. here's one from July..

"Locke"

noreply@blogger.com (Mona) — Mon, 03 May 2010 15:15:00 +0000

Still have more work to do on this guy, but he's coming along quite well! I don't want Lost to end!!

Girl Doodle

noreply@blogger.com (Mona) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 03:30:00 +0000

Ok it's been a long time since I uploaded anything.. but then again, it's been a while since I sketched for fun!

James "Sawyer" Ford

noreply@blogger.com (Mona) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:38:00 +0000

Ok, so we've been slacking a little in the blog department. Nathan's been swamped with homework and projects since starting classes at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in January, and I've been busy working on Valentine's Day 2010 (sounds like such a futuristic date.. yet it's next year!) for my day job. Nothing much new in the ETSY store, but I will TRY to make some new printables for spring.

For now, here's a digital painting of the dreamboat character Sawyer from Lost that I did last month. I don't usually do much painting, most of my work is in Adobe Illustrator so it was a nice change of pace. With drawing, it's easy to get frustrated when the proportions or lines aren't working out how I'd like. With painting, I can just keep painting over the same area until I get it right. I'm not 100% happy with how it turned out, would like to get more devilish/playful expression in his eyes, but I guess it's a decent first try.

New Valentine PDF available in our Etsy store

noreply@blogger.com (Mona) — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:54:00 +0000

Check out the latest addition to our Etsy store: printable Octopus Valentine's Day cards!

Something like "Love Day," only not so lame

noreply@blogger.com (Mona) — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 02:46:00 +0000

Happy Love Day, everyone!
Yes, I know it's only the first week of January, and you probably haven't even taken down your Christmas tree yet, but manufactured Romance® is in the air!

If you happen to shop at Target, check out the One Spot section (aka the dollar section) for my handmade card and gift bag designs! There are also list pads, chinese take out boxes, tissue paper, etc in coordinating designs.

Finally Finished! Huge (39 items!) printable Totoro stationery set

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan Sharratt) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 22:48:00 +0000

Man oh man. At a certain point we had to say, "Okay stop. There's a billion things in here!" 39 to be exact. 6 PDF pages full of Totoro Goodness® . We could have gone on forever. There's so much fun stuff in the Totoro universe, it's easy to get carried away. But we wanted to get the holiday set listed before the holidays were over. Shocking concept there, eh?

The character designs are all from Miyazaki, but each illustration is original by Mona.

My favorite is the Soot Sprite Christmas Tree.

Includes:

2 Folded gift cards:
• 1 Santa Totoro
• 1 Catbus

4 Flat notecards:
• 2 Santa Totoro
• 2 Sho Totoro

9 Gift tags:
• 3 Santa Totoro
• 2 Catbus
• 2 Sho Totoro
• 1 Soot Sprites
• 1 Blue Totoro with Ocarina

24 1.5" Envelope Stickers:
• 8 Santa Totoro
• 4 Red Sho Totoro
• 2 White Sho Totoro
• 4 Green Catbus
• 4 White Catbus
• 2 Soot Sprite Christmas Tree

Mirror Monster! Rar! Green!

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan Sharratt) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 21:24:00 +0000

Oh man, this dude's miffed. Also: irked.

Another upcycled/altered mirror. We stained this guy green so you can still see the wood grain. Etched some pointy fangs, and painted on some furrowed eyeballs. Poof! Rar!

2009 calendar. Naked. Almost.

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan Sharratt) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 21:03:00 +0000

Just finished posting my minimalist design calendar for 2009 as a printable PDF template. Once you purchase the listing, we email you the PDF file, and you can print out as many as you like. I set them up so that two months are on a single letter-sized page, so you just have to print on cardstock and cut them in half. Give them as gifts, or keep for yourself, or both. Print out on a nice textured cardstock, punch a hole in each one and tie with a ribbon and you've got sweet presents for like, wicked cheap.

Design-wise, each month has a corresponding color stripe that themes with that month's season, and each month the stripe moves one slot to the right. So January is far left, and December is far right.

I hope you like them, I certainly had fun designing them.

More pics on my Flickr .

FOLLOW US.

noreply@blogger.com (Mona) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:43:00 +0000

My good friend Mike just pointed out the "Follower" tool on blogspot, so now you can have our updates sent right to your blogger dashboard! Just click on "follow this blog" in the righthand column.

Bananatee Experiment

noreply@blogger.com (Mona) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 01:03:00 +0000

Earlier today I was envying Jenn Ski's alphabet prints, and given my long-standing obsession with manatees, Nathan thought "You should do something like that, only every letter has to do with manatees instead of different animals." So, naturally, I was saying 'bananatee!!' all afternoon.

Tonight I tried to practice bringing my Illlustrator drawings into Photoshop to give them texture. Seems like just about everyone and their mother already does this, usually with great results, so I'm a little tardy to the party, but what the hey..

DIY Totoro cards.

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan Sharratt) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:45:00 +0000

We've been on a Totoro kick lately, and the latest installment is this set of 4 printable Totoro holiday cards. They're up in our Etsy shop. Once you purchase the PDF, you can print as many as you like! Keep them for yourself, or give out to friends, or print up a set of 10 for a great gift. There are four different colors included, so you can mix and match. Each card template even has lots of helpful tips for the DIYer, like, "CUT HERE" and "FOLD HERE." And just a tip, folding works best if you either crease or score the fold line a bit. Makes for a much cleaner fold.

They measure 5.5 x 4" and should fit most medium envelopes (not included).

I'm finishing up some linocut prints of the same illustration. Except these are limited edition, hand-carved and hand-printed cards. I only have the hats to print and then I'll post pics. I really like how they came out, the ink has a mind of its own. Pretty much the opposite of computer-drawn work. Except it started on the computer. Which makes me like it even more. I'm big on that whole computer/handmade/mush-em-all-together thing, if you haven't noticed.

Great Etsy Newbie guide

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan Sharratt) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:29:00 +0000

Short post, I just saw this great thread on the Etsy forums compiling an enormous amount of information and resources. Enjoy:

http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5581122

Also, some supply secrets:
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5185116&page=4

Mirror Monster! Rar!

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan Sharratt) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:22:00 +0000

Last night Mona finished working on our first Mirror Monster . We got some small blank mirrors from the IKEA place, and Mona etched some fangs into the glass, and then hand painted some eyes (with only a little touchup help from me). They look black but they're actually Paynes Gray, which is more interesting and better than black. Mona's quite proud of her creation.

I like how such small, subtle details can completely change the character of an object. What is ostensibly a pair of triangles and circles, now becomes a cute and super-fierce monster face rar.

We debated back and forth about whether or not we should stain him. Mona really liked the bare-wood naked look, and so do I, but I also wanted to try staining him with this transparent green stain we have. Then we remembered we have like four of these mirrors, so the next one will be green.

To finish up, I stamped the back with our Etsy store address and a little fly stamp I carved. The mirror has some screw-hooks for hanging, but we decided to not install them and let the new owner decide how to display him.

My first stamp!

noreply@blogger.com (Mona) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:12:00 +0000

I finally decided to try carving my very own stamp last night. Since Nathan keeps churning out awesome stamp after awesome stamp, how hard could it be? Turns out, it's kind of a pain in the ass at first, but so worth it once you get the hang of it.

As an illustrator who works almost exclusively on the computer, whether using the dreaded pen tool in Adobe Illustrator or drawing on my Wacom tablet in Corel Painter, kickin' it old school and actually making something by hand was a challenge for me. You see, linocutters do not have an "undo" command. So when you carve a chunk out of your line art on a stamp, it stays carved. Ugh! This means I had to work slower and more patiently than usual. Nathan was a big help and showed me some techniques like... carving in narrow, shallow strokes instead of deep gouging ruts (maybe I need a better outlet for my pent-up energy?) Also, in the real world, there's no "zoom" tool. Some of the details are so tiny, I felt like my eyes were going to cross and stay that way.

Gripes aside, working with physical tools and materials that don't always behave how you want them to was actually kind of theraputic for me, like putting Elmer's glue on your hands and slowly peeling it off.

Nate and I both worked on the same stamp design (a little Totoro) so I could compare my shaky job with his rockin' one. It was hard work, but once I saw my finished stamp, it made me want to make more.

Yay Beer! Coasters!

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan Sharratt) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:25:00 +0000

Just finished up our first sets of coasters: Sacred Beer and Chartreuse Woodgrain. The top image is Mona's original illustration of a sacred beer tattoo that I carved for a three-color print. So that's three separate stamps, which then had to be registered by eye for printing. Of course she had to hand draw an old-timey seriffed font [edit: I thought it was a real font, but Mona just scolded me and told me she drew the text by hand, so I'm editing], which is not exactly easy to carve, but it came out better than I expected. I tweaked the design to allow for things to not have to line up perfectly, and I love how they came out. You can see more pics in my Flickr set. (If you look closely, you can see the etched leaves glass)

We're trying to think of more "useful" items for the shop, rather than just "luxury" collectibles. So into the housewares venue we go. I'm working on some wall paintings of illustrations of mine. I'll post them when I get them finished. I'm painting in oils for the first time, I've never really had the space or ventilation before in our shoebox of a NYC apartment, but now that I do: mmm, colors.

Also in the pipe are some ACEOs of a holiday Totoro from Mona's illustration. I think it's pretty freaking sweet and can't wait to finish it. I wanted to make some prints larger than the typical rubber stamp can handle, and since we aren't in our own house yet and don't have the space for silkscreening, I though linocut prints would be the next logical step. Ouch. Whole different animal. I did a small test on a 2x2 lino block of soot sprites, and so far the results aren't quite what I expected. I think I need to measure my ink distribution and adjust the depth of my detail cuts. I'll keep at it though and post more when I've gotten a bit further along.

Totoro!

noreply@blogger.com (Mona) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 23:51:00 +0000

I'm trying to get back into the habit of drawing outside of work, so I decided to make a few illustrations inspired by one of my favorite movies, My Neighbor Totoro by Hayao Miyazaki. I also might have gotten a little distracted from drawing by all the cute Totoro merchandise for sale on the web.

Since it's Halloween time, a little trip down Big Daddy memory lane. Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan Sharratt) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:02:00 +0000

Thought I would post a few links and relate the story from last year when we made that sweet-ass Bioshock Big Daddy costume. Bioshock, for those who may not know, is a first-person video game that was originally released for the Xbox360, but has been rereleased on the PS3. Set in an underwater utopian city gone horribly wrong called Rapture. The environments are beautiful art-deco inspired vistas, and the story with its themes on personal responsibility and morality is one of the best I've experienced in interactive entertainment.

One of the main icons of the game are the characters of Big Daddy and Little sister. Mona and I loved playing that game. Mona had been known to create a sweet costume or two , so come Halloween costume time, Mona thought, wouldn't it be sweet if we could go as Big Daddy and Little Sister? Oh yes. It would. And it would also be a tremendous undertaking.

We had no idea where to start. We looked online for costumes, but found that no one at that point had really made anything beyond the cardboard and aluminum foil mockups. I wasn't going to settle for a half-assed costume. If I was going to do it, then I was going all out, and make one better than anything out there. In my early years (cause I'm oh so old now), I was very interested in special effects and horror makeup, and mildly obsessed with classic ILM and considered making a career out of it. I had experience sculpting little stop-motion puppets and the like (I majored in stop-motion in my short Pratt Institute career), and with both Mona and me as artists and designers, I knew we could do this. I took it as a personal challenge to make the best damn Big Daddy I possibly could.

So during those three months, I documented the construction process on my Flickr site.

We made the suit for the annual 2007 NYC Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, and let me tell you, I was working down to the wire.

We had started in August, with no idea of how or from what to construct this thing. Three months of trial and error and about $500 later, I was painting on patina as I called a cab to take me to the parade lineup. Getting there wasn't fun either. Mona was working (being a weekday) and so it was just me transporting the huge suit. I was going to have to cab drop me off near Mona's office, which was 21st street and 5th Ave, a block from the parade route on 6th Ave (but, about 12 blocks or so from the actual parade start).

I barely fit the thing into a Lincoln Continental, traffic was crazy, and once on 5th Ave, we couldn't get back to Mona's office because of police barricades. Which would have been fine, but Mona had come down to meet me to help me move the suit, and had left half her Little Sister costume upstairs. Eventually she convinced the cop to let her go back (she had just walked out from the barricade past the guy a few minutes earlier.

Eventually, with much effort fighting through crowds we made it to the lineup. At this point, I had purchased some bulk industrial red glow sticks, and we proceeded to spend a good 20 minutes cracking, cutting open, and pouring the glowing goo into Mona's Little Sister ADAM syringe. It looked sweet, though I'm surprised I didn't lose a finger. You're not exactly supposed to cut open glowsticks, and they certainly don't make it easy to do so.

So, the parade was starting, I suited up and realized I couldn't see a thing. The portholes I was using for visibility were practically useless. In the cool night air, with the heat from the dome lights and me all breathing and stuff, condensation built up to the point that I had zero visibility. Not even like, some; a little; a tiny bit: none. Yay design flaw. Live and learn. Thanks to rob5408 for taking the below pic at the lineup.

This was my prototype suit. I ended up replacing the black paper painter's suit with a sweet, stretchy, XXLarge old man grampa jumpsuit . Jumpsuits rule.

After another couple hours of shuffling along completely blind in the huge mass of smushed people that is the parade lineup with only Mona and our friend Daniel to guide me we finally got to the actual parade. I drilled many people. Unintentionally, of course. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I'm told the parade was fun, with lots of neat costumes. At one point Mona and I were walking by a float playing Prince, so we started dancing.

But all I could think about was, dear god, kill me now. End it. Big old lightning bolt. Bzt. Kthxbai.

By the time we got to the actual parade, I'd already spend two hours or so in the suit, sweating profusely (attractive eh?) thanks to the cotton batting I used to bulk up the non-breathable painter's suit. Thankfully, my parents own a campground and at one point had a big beaver (get your mind out of the gutter, perv) as a mascot for going on hayrides with kids and the like, and had an ice vest that is made for cooling down people in stuffy suits. I had them dig it out of storage and mail it to me in advance. Thank god for that. I'm sure I would have passed out otherwise.

In tests during construction, I hadn't worn the suit longer than a few minutes at a time, and it was perfectly comfortable. After three hours of getting knocked around by careless or drunk paraders and an intense dehydration headache, it was less so. All the weight was placed on shoulder straps, but the weight of the suit ended up making the vinyl settle a bit, so my head and neck also took a lot of the weight. Next time, a waist strap belt to take the bulk of the suit weight.

After 20 blocks or so, I had to bail out. Walking to the train and riding the subway home was also fun.

A shopkeeper in Astoria really like my astronaut costume. After a couple days, things started happening in the internets.

Here's the digg.com post that started it all.

Spectacular Bioshock Big Daddy/Little Sister Halloween Costume! [Pics]

My friend and her boyfriend, known for great game-themed costumes, created Big Daddy/Little Sister costumes that easily trump any others I've seen. The hand-made Big Daddy lights up from inside its dome, and Little Sister even has ADAM! Click to go back to the gallery page for a lot more photos.

Incidentally, this was posted on digg by our friend Rob Sheridan . He works for a band you might have heard of. This ended up on the front page of digg.

Which led to someone submitting our pic to CollegeHumor.com's Halloween costume contest claiming to be us. CH found us on Flickr and contacted us to see if we were the ones who entered or not. They corrected the submission info and we ended up getting second place (behind bender no less).

The CH staffer who contacted me was Jeff Rubin, who also does interviews and videos for the site. He asked if he could interview me about the costume, so he and some other CH staffers trekked to Astoria and there you go :

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

From there, things got quiet. For a while. Until I got this email:

Hey there,
I’m Community Manager at 2K Games, and I’m tracking you down because of your amazing Big Daddy costume. Two questions: First, do you still have the costume, and second, are you available around the dates of December 6th through 8th?
Thanks!
-Elizabeth

Next time, I'll write about the insanity that was Las Vegas and the Video Game Awards. Until then, here's a little sneak peak :

Finished viral infection. Red, Blue and Yellow style.

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan Sharratt) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:31:00 +0000

Finished carving 3 Dr. Mario virus stamps and listed in the Sunshine Cupcake! Etsy store. Red, Blue, Yellow or a set of all three.

As a side note, you can subscribe to our Sunshine Cupcake! Flickr set.

I even went so far as to (attempt to) record a video tutorial on carving 8-bit rubber stamps. Here's a little taste of the awesome that goes on over here in Cupcakeland.

Nathan and I are splitting up.

noreply@blogger.com (Mona) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 01:13:00 +0000

Now that I've seen this guy, no one could possibly compare.