Slick cards, are you crazy?!

Oh yeah. So these arrived in the mail the other day ;o)

Rounded corners, and a glossy finish on both sides. Now I just need to find something to put them in, LOL! I haven't got a card holder yet and I can't stuff the bulky cardboard box in my purse, hehe. I'd kind of like to get something fun since I'm an artsy type. Etsy has some neat ones. We shall see. I haven't really seen any in the stores, which I find a little odd. Sometimes Target will have some funky looking ones, but they didn't even have anything the last I checked. For the time being, I can put a handful inside my portfolio as there's a plastic pouch for cards in there.

No major updates otherwise though. My mind has been kind of wrapped up in a possible job prospect I've been pursuing over the past few weeks. I have a 2nd interview Tuesday afternoon...weeeee!!!! haha!

Going Whichever Way the Wind Blows

Hey! I haven't updated this here blog in awhile. My plan was to update it weekly, about every Thursday...but arg! Wouldn't you know it. I got caught up with other things, ha! My Labyrinth project has been put on hold until I can get the Fraggle Rock project done, so there hasn't been any progression with it. But my progress with the Fraggle Rock project has even been slow, as I am also progressively doing more job searching...because...well, I need to. HA! But I've been looking "high" ;o) and low for job openings that I can apply to, hehe. I have goals...and I've been encouraged to go for it ;o) All in all though, I'm keeping my options open and hoping for the best =)

Ohh!! I'm going to be working on an easy little project for my mom over the next couple of days. She made a makeshift perch for hummingbirds to land on out in the yard. She's asked me to paint it. So maybe I'll share that here. I'm thinking of doing some funky paint job to it. It was given an undercoat today, so I'll probably start it tomorrow. Crafty projects are super fun to do sometimes. Some other things I've done in the past include painting birdhouses and making Christmas ornaments ^_^

Is it obvious that I'm a Jim Henson fan?

So I bet you're curious about the progression of my Labyrinth illustration! Oh my gosh, it is turning out to be a lot of work, ha! I told myself from the start though, I was going to do as much to it as possible in order to make it look awesome. And by that, I mean put in various color layers in order to make it stand out and not look like just blocks of solid color. I wanted to give it some degree of dimension. I think I'm slowly getting there.
For the past week, I've put most of my focus on getting "Sarah" completed. I'm still contemplating whether I want to illustrate Ludo's body or if I want to finish him up in Photoshop. On one hand, if I illustrate him (like Sarah) it's going to take a very long time and could look cool. On the other hand, if I paint his fur in Photoshop he could turn out to look more "fuzzy" as he really is which could also look really cool! Oh, and it would be quicker, ha! Thoughts?

In the meantime, here is my progress for the past week =)



I also have a secondary project in the works now! I spotted, and had it brought to my attention by a friend, that the Jim Henson Company is doing a tshirt design contest for Fraggle Rock's 30th Anniversary. Now, how can I pass that up? ;oD I have memories of watching that as a kid...along with The Muppet Show. I was known to heavily rock back and forth in a rocker/recliner when the intro theme for Fraggle Rock played, haha! Fraggle "Rocking", lol. A fun, goofy memory from my childhood =)

I'm itching to share what I have started with this project too, but I'd like to hold out a little while. I want to make sure I'm happy with it before I go sharing it because at this point I'm not sure about it. I will however, describe what I had in mind. I was going to do something with the Fraggle gang and Sprocket (the dog)...which could expand even further with other characters I suppose. But so far I've only progressed with Sprocket. I only just found out about it yesterday, so.

Creative Inspiration

[CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: "Til I Hear It From You" by Gin Blossoms]

I think it's maybe time to update my blog here.

Rather than the standard, "what have I been up to since my last entry" sort of update (most that know me, already know I've graduated by now)....I figure I'd kind of toss out some creative ideas that have been rolling around my head these days.

I recently completed building my new website, but I still feel this NEED to do something incredibly awesome and artsy with my downtime of unemployment. Yes. I will be pushing forward with my job searching now. But hey. Who says I can't do other things too?! ;o) Truth be told...for the past couple of years, I've greatly lost any desire to do much of anything artsy that didn't pertain to the job I held for a year and a half, and then school related design/art projects. I've essentially been in a funk for roughly 3 years or so. Gosh. Feels weird to say that. It doesn't seem like that much time has passed.

But I hate that I allowed myself to grow apart from something I loved doing. And I'm hoping to change that...and to continue with it through my future endeavors ;o)

Some weeks back, I purchased two 14"x14" canvases from Hobby Lobby. My intent is to paint something that could potentially sell. I have this habit of holding onto everything I create, and I don't want to do that anymore. I haven't thought of what I would like to paint on the canvases yet. But considering how my Chuck Taylor shoe paintings went over real well...I almost want to do something just as fun and quirky.

In the mean time, to kind of get my creative juices flowing again, I've recently started a digital movie poster project. Just for fun! Nothing more. Maybe sometime down the road I will find a way to sell prints of my work and I'll make that an option too :o) That's something I would have to research and look into.

But I thought it would be fun to combine my knowledge of both Illustrator and Photoshop together. Right now, I have been focused on the vector art of it. Once that is all complete, then it will be brought into Photoshop for additional effects to be added to finalize the piece, which the goal is for it to appear vintage.

Anyway. This is what I have done so far in the span of 2-3 days. If you're a Jim Henson fan, then this should look familiar. Let me know what you all think!

Daydream Believer

[CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: the subtle humming of the computer]

I'm long overdo for an update here, yeah?

I have been meaning to keep this updated weekly for this entire quarter for my photography course, but darn it...my mind has literally been all over the place! HA! From photography, obviously....interning, writing papers, reading assignments, *cough* the cute new guy on campus ;oD ....and relaxing when I can!

The quarter ends in just a couple of weeks. Crazy how fast it's gone by. It was only towards the start of this quarter that I realized I'm officially a college senior now. Can you believe it, I have two quarters left until my days as a college student are OVER! Intense! All I can think is, "Where will I end up next?" I'm starting to think more seriously about putting into motion the freelancing to keep me going. I'm even debating starting a Facebook fan page for Zoody Designs just to help get the word out. I joined Twitter, but I may end up terminating the account. That site is equivalent to learning a foreign language, lol. It's good for spying on celebrities, but beyond that I just don't understand it.

Ok, I'm rambling, lol. But yeah. I'd love to freelance a bit. I just hope I'll be able to make it work.

Based on my schedule for next quarter, I suspect I'll have a lot of down time when I'm home. I plan on using my time to help prepare for life after graduation. One of the things I want to do is teach myself Dreamweaver finally. I see that as an absolute must.

Gah! I probably should wind this down. Getting to be bedtime here. I have a four day weekend coming up though, I'll try and update some more...particularly since I'll be out playing with the camera a bit. I'm thinking of maybe hitting one of the real small towns around here (someplace like Utica, Marseilles, or Leonore) and seeing what I can come up with.

Anyway! Until next time....

(my flickr)

The Next Step...

[CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: "Sleep Through the Static" by Jack Johnson]

It's been quite awhile since I've posted an update, been busy busy! And then...well...lazy lazy! ^_^

The Summer 1 quarter came to an end earlier this month, so my focus has been on finishing up some big projects for finals week. Pretty hectic! But I now have an up and running website!! My first ever!

www.zoodydesigns.com

It was quite the learning experience, I can tell ya that much, HA! I'm pretty computer savvy, but am lacking in the know-how with what it takes to get a website up. A few friends have been awesome enough to help me along the way, and I'm greatly appreciative! **you know who you are**

I also finished up the big cupcake project with my group. Which turned out fantastically! We received a lot of positive feedback. I've been told numerous times, that I should open "Petite Treats" for real! HA! If only I had a passion for baking. I'm fairly burnt out on cupcakes right now, LOL! I ended up baking a batch just to take photos...and of course, ate them all. They were quite tasty. Then I had to bake another batch a couple weeks after for the big presentation. Safe to say, I don't wanna see another cupcake for awhile ;o)

After finals, I had a full week off, so I took advantage for fun stuff. I allowed for some well deserved "lazy time" ;o) playing my PS3 (who says chicks can't play video games!), and also some time with my family. I've slacked on spending time with the nieces and nephew with being busy with school stuff, so I was missing them terribly. I absolutely HAD to see them <3 Went to a few baseball/softball games of theirs too. Initially I wanted to take my week off and head back up to Oregon *sigh* Not in the cards this year. So hoping for next year!!

The Summer 2 quarter started this week though. Hard to say how my courses are going to go...it's early yet. Sounds like I'll actually need to study for some exams though, LOL! Something I've yet to do at my University. I guess it was bound to change at some point. I'll be interning too, I'm waiting for things to start up with that. I'm also in a Photography course, which is sounding the most exciting class for the entire quarter. Today was the first day of that class, and we all went out and snapped some shots of random things from different perspectives. I started out walking around on my own, not knowing what to take photos of. It was all new to me, I'm so use to just point and shooting. It was around 100 degrees outside too, so the fun of it was nearly unbearable, lol. At one point, I ended up near this little lake behind the college where I sat and took a photo of some kind of weed. Another classmate came and sat next to me and talked about how she wanted to walk over to the train station, but was nervous. So we went together =) I debated saving some of my pics for a separate post, but heck...I'll just end the entry with a few of them. I didn't take very many, and only a couple turned out interesting. Like I said, I didn't know what kinds of things to take photos of. After seeing everybody present, I now feel a bit more inspired for future outings. So hopefully I'll be able to share my progression here. Posting my "favs" for the time being...and the rest I'll upload to my Flickr:

[Flickr Source]

Quite Petite!

 [CURRENTLY LISTENING TO: Enough For Now by The Fray]

Today was quite an interesting day in my package design course. For the past few weeks, we have all been working on redesigning or designing new logos for our chosen companies. Some people chose pre-existing companies, while others chose to make up their own. After much thought and contemplation, I decided that it would be a lot of fun to create something from scratch. And to make it even more fun for myself, I chose to design a logo for a Cupcake Shop!

My ideas started off pretty scattered in the beginning, but after much feedback and adjusting, this is how I finalized the idea:

Believe it or not, this is quite a drastic change from where I started. And prior to finalizing to this, I originally had the icing on the cupcake brown...but my teacher very descretely told me it resembled "poo", LOL! I was going for chocolate, but her honesty convinced me to change it ;o)

After finalizing things for the first 2 hours of class, a full class of business students visited us in the mac lab as we not only had to present our final ideas to our own class, but to them as well! AHH! We presented alphabetically by last name, so I anxiously awaited my turn and took in what my classmates had to show--and at the same time, rating their work as we were actually voting for a top 3 for the final project. I really enjoy seeing the work of my classmates...they come up with such fun ideas! It's also inspiring =)

When things were all said and done....we received some great feedback from the business students. When they took off, we were left to find out who the top 3 were.

Zomg! I was picked!

I got a lot of positive feedback over the past few weeks, so I wasn't entirely surprised, haha! But I'm now put in the position of LEADER of a group! ME! Not an opportunity that arises very often for me. One other time, last quarter, I actually took charge of another project and I thought it went quite well. I can't wait to see how things go with this =) The 3 leaders got to choose who to work with, too. I'm pretty confident with my group...they do awesome work.