happy birthday to me...

SO I decided to start my birthday off my posting a few baby [how appropriate] sketches that I whipped up for jen's pre-mother's day card a few months back...



... celebrating the rest of the day with a nice walk with the family [jen + lily+ hounds], hopefully picking up a much-needed removable HD @ costco [ugh- costco on my birthday!?], then off to woodinville for a bit of wine tasting, followed by a nice dinner @ [the barking frog].


... patenaude

JUMP START!...

after reading "firefly fred" [the book that i illustrated (poorly) ~a lifetime ago] to lily this morning, i realized that i really should do at least another one. unfortunately every time that idea pops in my head [which happens quite frequently], i get overwhelmed with and stuck on the theme/ idea [which i want to be able to be developed into a series (like i assume all children's book creators are supposed to shoot for)], and fizzle out.

well [hopefully] not this time! i've decided to kill two [actually quite a few] birds with one stone, and use the book[s] as a JUMP START in helping to develop the look and stories for a few game ideas that i've been tinkering with over the years. i have several of them [like most game developers] at various stages of development [yet all quite early], and it seems like this may just may be what it take to nudge them along.

even the simplest games can benefit from a nice little story to guide their development. and because i intend for the artistic style to be a huge part of each of them, i might as well test them out in a book- especially with as easy as they are to print these days!

so there!

... i promise there will be no more talk of this until there are actually IMAGES to post along with the news.

... patenaude

cutouts: round two [in progress]...

now that the game is just about done, and i've had a bit more time for my ART art again, i've been spending a bit of time on another round of cutouts- this time, just making a batch of some of my favorite characters that i've drawn over the last year-ish...

like i mentioned- varying degrees of done-ness...

... a bit more to paint, and of course add those black outlines that i just can't live without;)

i like this green dude so much, that i made two of 'im:)

not sure exactly where they'll end up, since they don't quite jive with the rest of the animals in lily's room & i'm running out of wall space in my office- will probably have to wait until we move into a bigger home for them to take up residence on a nice big wall.

ps. photos courtesy of my iphone [it's just too dang easy not to use].

... patenaude

Update: LILY!

In lieu of a painted or drawn art update, i'd like to kick a link over to jen and my adventures site, to our [warning: cheesy art metaphors ahead] most beautiful collaboration masterpiece of all: http://theadventuresofjenandbrian.com/

ily Robin Patenaude! born on may 5th @ 8:09 aM, weighing in @ 7lbs. 7 oz. if you don't believe me, just look!




... Life is wonderful.

... patenaude

CUT OUTS II sketches...

more sketches on their way to becoming wood cut outs- some were originally created for game designs, some for if she was a boy;), but i figured i'd milk a bit more use out of 'em.

starting to introduce a bit of text again- something i've started doing to some of them, is naming them whatever sounds i think they might make.

"uniphant"

"tweeb"

one of my fav.s- starting on him right now.

"jimmy 2 pockets"

"floating harold"

started added carrot noses to a few of my beasties- something i rather liked and decided to rip off [something i _rarely_ do] from my good friend [junkyard samuel].

... figured i might go in the robot direction if she was a boy- only whipped up a couple up before finding out the good news:)

will be posting progress shots of these + the last two i just finished soon!

in other news, we just finished up the alpha deadline on our game, heading towards beta, and finally found out when it'll be on the shelves- SEPTEMBER 15th- yee hoo! will be sure to post when the press release on the game & company [finally;)] is published.

AND!! only ~1 more month 'til the baby arrives- can't wait!!

... patenaude

baby's room part V...

i'm still planning on adding another handful of flowers- scattering them mostly around the edges, but... for the most part- here it is. walls painted, crib & changing table are put together, the cut outs are _securely_ mounted to the walls... all we need is the baby;)

the "main" wall- again- they're fastened quite securely to the wall:)

here's one that rob retouched in photoshop [thanks!]- quite a bit more accurate ['cept for the lamb is whiter:)]- really makes me want to retouch them all or do a reshoot [possibly after i finish the rest of the flowers]... and figure out the white balance on my camera;)

this little dude _really_ needs some more flowers- i figure i have about 20 more to whip up.

the big pink bunny hangs out alone in the corner- i have NO IDEA what he's up to...

see! lions and elephants CAN get along...

SEE!! lions and elephants CAN get along [yes- the baby is turning me corny]

... and last, but not least, here's where all those diapers that i've been warned about, will be changed.

... all in all, i had a _LOT_ of fun whipping these up. so much so that i'm dying to try this with some of my characters not-so-appropriate for a baby girls room- hopefully jen will let me hang them SOMEWHERE;)

... patenaude

[very loose] game concept sketches?...

so i'm trying to flesh out a game idea by doing random sketches with the characters, to develop their personalities and see where it leads. so far all i have is that they're called "CATTYwampi" [yeah- really clever, right;)?] and and are trying to "right" various structures [each of the team having their own unique abilities to help with the job] that are "cattywampus", due to being vandalized by hooligans, no-good nicks, and the their ilk. nothing too complicated, as i'm trying to scale back some of my ideas these days in an attempt to lighten them up and make them more "doable". these sketches are a bit old, but i figured i should post them before they disappear into the sketch pad archives, and possibly never heard from again!




... more to come on experiments with the actual look, which i'm hoping will be a combination of line work on top of photo textures and dabbled with in last year's holiday card: http://blognaude.blogspot.com/2008/12/this-years-holidays-cards-new-drafting.html
... and i've been dying to do some wooden cut outs of them as well- just have to find a place to mount them;)

oh! and btw- they're actually all based off this sketch which i did a year or so ago, took quite a liking too, and actually appeared in a handful of pieces in 2008.
... patenaude

"Happy Up Here" video...

neat little space invaders inspired video, Röyksopp...


Happy Up Here from Röyksopp on Vimeo.

that's all,
patenaude

baby's room part IV...

long time, no post! luckily it's because i've been so busy WORKING on the project, to POST about it. i've come to a nice break in the process though [waiting to clear the room out, so that i can figure out the composition, attach the various depths of mounts (some will be overlapping others)], to show ya what i've been up to.

after getting a bit more familiar with the scroll saw and cutting out near all of the animals + a ton of flowers...


... it was time for some paint tests. i didn't want to potentially ruin something that was going in her room, so i decided to test out a few characters that jen had banned [too many thonrs;)] + smaller versions of animals that are actually making the cut.

i experimented with goauche, oils, and tube acrylic, before finally settling on CRAFT acrylics [of all things] for the colors, gesso for the white borders, and tried and true windsor newton indian ink for the outlines [applied with both brushes and nibs]. + plenty of glossy sealant to keep it all safe.


because i STILL wasn't ready to wrap up the final pieces, i decided to whip up a blue bee for my good friends chris & angie, who just had their first baby, zachary, and while i was at it i couldn't resist whipping up a second one...


next it was onto the real deal! i ended up watering the paint down a bit and laying on quite a few layers to keep it nice and flat to keep any distracting bush strokes out.


and the flowers- TONS of flowers, which will be sprinkled all over whatever the composition ends up looking like.

here they are, almost done- just a few more paint touch ups + a little more inky clean up work...

to mount them, i'm using long tacks driven thorugh small pieces of scrap wood, gluing the tack head side of the wood to the back of the cut outs- layering more wood in between for ones that will "float" further form the wall. the nice thing is that it's _SUPER_ easy to arrange and rearrange them, because of how easily i'm able to simply push them into the wall.

that's it for now. the next shots will probably be the final product mounted in her room.

... patenaude

baby's room pt. III...

here are a few progress shots from the pieces i'm creating for the baby's room. i bought a couple sheets of both masonite and basswood, but am really digging the texture & thickness of the basswood more, so i'm going with that.


the monkey and cat [which both measure a little smaller than the final pieces] were both primed with gesso before i laid the gouache on. i don't really like how the paint just sits on tops of the gesso though, so decided to paint straight onto the wood [like i did with the bunny] and let a bit of the wood grain show through.

because i got a little anxious, i ended up painting a few of the pieces before cutting. because of the high likelihood of completely f'ing the piece with the saw though, i've decided to gesso just the halo around the pieces to help nail down the shap before cutting [and again afterwards].

oh! and the lines- i debated between black gouache and indian ink [both using a brush], but i think i'll be going with the ink because of how smoothly it lays down. there are some issue with it bleeding into the wood, but that should end up being solved with a proper sealant [debatin between crystal clear, modge podge (which may yellow:(), and a varnish (which seems to be eating away at the paint a bit)].


with the monkey [which i'm a little disappointed with] i experimented with a spiral blade [because i wasn't afraid of ruining him;)], which ended up being a bit too much control for large pieces, so decided to stick with the straight blade to help control the lines a bit more. although i think the spiral blades might come in handy if i end up doing smaller more intricate work in the future.

oh! and if you're curious, to get the pieces onto the wood, i ended up printing the characters in sections [between 4-6] on 8.5X11" paper [didn't want to waste of of the big paper in the nice printer;)], taping them all together with the help of a light table to line them up *breath*, and then tracing them down onto the wood with graphite paper.

so. with the process "pretty much" figured out, it' time to head to the art store for more graphits paper, and good ol' home depot for a few more sheets of bass wood!

ps. apologies for the scattered nature of the post- hopefully you understood at least some of it... or at least enjoyed the photos;)

... patenaude