Papier Mache Pumpkin: Voracious

Hello,

As we proceed into October, I wanted to post a project I finished at the beginning of the month. Much like the past Halloweens, I made a papier mache pumpkin using Dan Reeder's mache techniques. Larger than the previous entries, here is Voracious.

Front View

Side View

One of the challenges of this piece was getting a large enough base mache ball to use for the body. I put together several large newspaper balls with masking tape and then joined them with other scraps, shaping the whole thing into a rough sphere as I went. Here is a sequence of images from the production.

Construction Phase

Cloth Skin Phase

Side View

Paint Phase (pre blackwash)

Once the main ball was mached, I cut it in half to start working on the details. The hollowed out core was easy to shape and I was able to fasten the eye sockets from the inside using two halves of a mache ball with a cloth skin. The eyes and teeth are polymer clay and glow in the dark like the past pumpkins. As I built the shape out, I tried to find some distinct details that would make this pumpkin unique. I settled on the sharp horns and forehead jewels. After the construction phase, it was just a matter of putting the piece back together. I did add a strip of black nylon on the inside of the mouth so you can't see into the hollowed out core. Once the piece was taped up and the shape finalized, I added the layer of cloth and glue and then painted it once everything was dry. The painting was straight forward and I washed over the final coat with diluted black paint to create the highlights and shadows.

That's it for this one. I am working on a multi-part papier mache project that I'm hoping to get done this month. I may have to release it in phases since there are several different pieces I need to make. There will be more to come.

Thanks for stopping by!

~Zan

Redbubble Merch Review 10/2016

Greetings,

We are into October now, the best month in my opinion. As things get closer to winter, the studio is still busy as usual. I've got several projects in the works and we'll see how many I can complete before Halloween. In the meantime, I bought a couple new hoodies from Redbubble to test out some of the more recent designs.



Scyther/Gammoth Hoodies and MH Stickers

 The two hoodies are the same zippered types Redbubble offers. They have the thicker newer material and are pretty well insulated. The Scyther pattern was bought right before I had to take the designs down so I'm lucky I was able to get it. Both the Scyther and the Gammoth designs are pretty sharp and the screening is consistent with the previous hoodies I've gotten. I'd like to get some more of the newer shirt types they've added to the storefronts.

MH Sticker Closeups

I ordered a set of the newer stickers TyvridKizuna has been adding to our store. It's a little tough to see in the pictures but the images are pretty sharp. It looks like they might have improved the material and printing since the last time I picked up some stickers. They come pre-cut on a glossy vinyl surface. One day I might test out some of the Brave Frontier designs in sticker form and see how they stack up.

That's it for this post. I've got the first of our Halloween content coming up shortly so that will be posted soon.

Thanks for visiting!

~Zan

 

Redbubble Takedowns/Pokemon

Hello,

This is a quick update post regarding the recent Pokemon designs I started uploading to our store on Redbubble. Today I received a notice that the Gengar design was taken down as a response to the Pokemon Company enforcing its copyright on the various characters. As far as I can tell, this doesn't jeopardize the store's standing but I went ahead and also removed the Scyther design from a few weeks ago to be safe. As we encountered a similar situation on Etsy, the studio has determined that it's best to remove work that's related to brands with aggressive copyright enforcement. We don't have the time or resources to fight the claims so it's better to just remove potential items. I will continue to work on the Pokemon series on and off stream but there won't be any more designs on Redbubble.

Hope this explains the situation a bit better.

~Zan

Monster Hunter Stickers Are Up!

Hiya,

This is just a small update. I've been working on a series of Monster Hunter faces for a while now on DA. Starting today, I've started putting them up on our Redubble store. At some point we'll probably do a test order to see the quality of the stickers since I've never had my designs on that kind of product before.

See ya!

-TK

Ongoing Series Launches: The Pose Project!

Hiya,

I started up a new ongoing project over on Deviant Art. The Pose Project will be updated at the beginning of each month and will feature the SFBT reference figure. This mannequin figure has 80 points of articulation and is capable of incredible detail. Each month I'll post up a new image in the series. Here's the first entry:

Pose #1: Armed

I'll also add some commentary on the model or pose for each piece. The main point is to provide an additional reference as part of the concept work I do.

See ya!

-TK

Second Official Draw Stream is 7/30 at 6 p.m. PDT!

Hello,

Just a short update this time. I've posted a notice over on DA and Twitter already but I'm doing another live stream on Saturday the 30th at 6 p.m. PDT on my Twitch channel. There will be a Youtube announcement that goes up as soon as we're live. I'll be working on handful of different designs, some planned some completely at random. I will definitely be doing some Monster Hunter stuff. There's a certain infamous high-temperature Elder Dragon from 3U that I've been thinking on all week. It might be time to render it in circular form.

Hope to see you there!

~Zan

Obligatory Introduction Post

Hiya!

The name's TK and this is my first official post here on the main site! I've signed on as a regular contributing artist as of this month and I'm glad to be here! To give a little background, I've been a pencil on paper artist ever since I was very small. Over the last couple years, I've gotten access to some more advanced tools for drawing in the digital format. I'm still pretty new at it but I'm working at slowly bringing the things I drew on paper into the digital realm. You can find my random scribblings on my Deviant Art site. It doesn't get updated super often but I'll usually put new stuff over there first. I've done a bunch of work with the Monster Hunter video game series but I also have my own universe of characters I'm working on. In between I put up random drawings here or there.

As an official artist, I'll be working closely with Zan on some direct collaborations and I also hope to get more items up on the main Redbubble store. A couple of my projects are there already and I've got plenty of other ideas.

Anyways, this is just a short intro post. When I have new announcements, I'll make sure they go up here in addition to journal posts on DA!

See ya!

-TK