New Skull Door Knockers in Progress

Art, Projects

I’m gearing up for my entry in to ETSY.com selling. I know from my experience at Artomatic last year that my skull door knockers will sell. So I went out and found better and cheaper materials to make them, while still keeping the end product the same. I got a 50 lb bag of art grade [W:hydrocal] from a local art supply store, which should be better than the plaster I had from Home Depot.  I made 2 new molds of the original skull and a better storage system for it so it won’t break down like the last one. I’d like to make a few different designs for the skull, maybe a lion! I just think that a awesome/cheap door knocker really cool.

I need to get to know the rules of Etsy selling. My current plan is to make 30 ‘blank’ door knockers and then paint one in each finish (rust, patina brass, tarnished silver, etc) and when I sell that one then put more up. That way I’m not stuck with ones that won’t sell. I’ll have to get involved in the forums to find out the best approach.

I have currently cast 28 skulls, I have received a box of the raw materials for 50 knockers from Mcmaster.com, and I’ve cut out 30 wooden backers.  I would say that I’m at least 50% along in the process and when I finish I can put them right up on the site for sale.

Pictures after the break…

Navigation Design Changes

Projects, websites

One of my little daily annoyances in reading blogs is that there is no standard way to navigate through the archives of posts. I think we’ve all agreed that there needs to be some kind of links at the bottom of the front page that lead to more posts. But what word to use in that link is where the confusion comes in. Some blogs use the word “Next” to denote that you are moving to the next page in the blog, as if you are digging down into the list of posts. Which is technically correct, but the fact that the posts were published previous to the ones on the first page confuses me some of the time.Because they use previous to get you back towards the front page.

It took me a while but I’ve really come to admire Engadget’s new layout. I think it’s very forward thinking and cleanly designed. So I’m using a version of their OLDER AND NEWER links for my blog design.

I’m starting the Society for the Standardization of Blog Navigation Links.

our mission:

  • use Previous to refer to the older posts.
  • or the simpler OLDER POSTS/ NEWER POSTS
  • that’s it.

VIVA LA REVOLUCION!

*UPDATE*

Turns out that I might be on the short side of the argument with this one. Right now Cinematical uses the opposite PREV and NEXT technique and so does the entire GAWKER network… and the rest of Engadget’s sister sites also… But sometimes a small band of rebels can conquer and entire empire.

Cru Jones Rad Hoodie

Projects, Stuff and Things

Gentlemen, behold!

Look what I have created!

It’s a hooded sweatshirt version of Cru Jones’ Rad Racing jersey from Rad. I know this movie came out in 1986 and it isn’t even popular enough to be released on DVD yet. But I just wanted one. I wanted it bad. I think it’s the right time for something like this. I don’t know what you call this genre of clothing. Adult costumes you can wear everyday? Costume Hoodies? I’m starting to see them out there more and more. Marc Ecko has a Star Wars line that is really awesome (I own the storm trooper hoodie)  A few years ago I thought it would be a cool idea to print out my own version of the “Rad Racing” shirt from the movie. But then I found that someone else had beat me to it. If you do a search for that now you’ll find a lot of different versions of it.  The colors of this aren’t “movie prop accurate” but I thought bright red and blue would be too much to actually wear on a regular basis, which is what I made this for.  I can’t wait for the first time somebody gets the reference and asks me where I got it.

When I was designing this I had all these grand plans to sell them on Etsy.com. I even thought of two company names, High Art Hoodies or Cult Status.  I thought that if I could sell them for about $75 it would make it worth the effort. Everything was going great until I hit the last step, sewing. It turns out that sewing is hard. I did eventually finish but the quality is on par with Old Navy not Marc Ecko. Luckily I was going for the comfortable soft felt vibe. If I do get some response on this I’ll probably have to find some ways to make the process easier. Like having someone else do the sewing! I do have all the templates for the stars and letters ready, so that will save some time. I’m thinking I could get them laser cut from a fabrication shop and then find out how much a dry cleaners or alteration shop would charge me to sew them on. With this being a limited edition product with a small but dedicated I would imagine that someone would be interested in it.

Get your taste of the thunder after the break… and more pictures.

New blog post header design

Projects, websites

Before

After

This blog redesign is still a work in progress, my strategy has been to get something out there that is functional and then add onto it piece by piece until it’s perfect. I’d always noticed that the posts themselves were a little plain, but I just couldn’t find something that fit the style. I thought it would be cool to have a sort of Apple-ish calendar poking out of the top of every blog post…. so that’s what I made. Doing these little things is a good way to keep my design skills fresh in between actual paying design jobs. Which are few and far between.

On the code side it’s not that much of a change, just added a fee floated divs here and there and a couple lines to the CSS file. I’ve pushed this template so far that I’m begining to think I should make an actual theme out of it and submit it to WordPress.

Maybe I’ll get there eventually, but it’s not perfect yet.

Bose Stormtrooper Headphones

Projects, Stuff and Things
The Bosetroopers

The Bosetroopers

When I got the IPhone I stopped using the old Bose headphones. So I decided that I would paint them.  The only problem with this is that I’ve never been able to paint anything that looked good for longer than a week. I set these aside until I almost forgot about them, I pulled them out last night to take a look at them. Turns out I used water based paint in the airbrush and it had already started flaking off. So instead of taking my time and finishing the design with perfection, I descided to whip out the extra-fine paint pen and just freehand it. I took a bunch of pictures because I’m sure that in a week or so these are gointg to look like crap and I’m going to have to do a lot of work to start over.