More Great Ideas

(I'm still slogging my way through Vol I and II, but obviously I need Vol III too)

Using the original logo, this is the poster I recently designed for Contact: Swancon 2009:



Supanova was held in Perth last weekend (see mynxii's post for a pretty cool wrap up of the event) and committee were there in force to promote Swancon to a bigger audience, with this as the flyer. I didn't get there, mostly because of pressing deadlines (mostly met - hooray! ;-) so I haven't actually seen the final product yet and I keep alternating between forgetting they actually exist and desperately wanting to see them. Hopefully I'll be able get a couple to keep at the next committee meeting :-)

(I really (really) like it, but I think I need to learn more cool effects for text...)

So the MOO Sticker competition books are now on sale, including my design, Ciggie. Unfortunately, though, it's not been quite the buzzy experience that I might have hoped for. In fact, it's been rather ( an anticlimax )

Now, I'm first to admit that, in the grand scheme of things, a bio and link on the MOO website is not the be all and end all. My life will probably continue on the same path with or without it. However, it is what MOO promised us in the competition and I'm particularly annoyed that they weren't up front about the fact that they wouldn't be honoring that promise. My last email was almost a week ago and I have not yet had any reply. MOO try to promote a very "feel good" image (to go along with their admittedly "feel good" products). However, I have to say that MOO's treatment of this winner (and presumably the other winners too) has not left me with the "feel good" feeling that they try to promote.

Tags: moo, stickers, winner!

MOO announced a sticker competition in April, looking for 90 designs for a custom-made and limited edition sticker book - the brief being to submit stickers that you'd want to stick on a laptop[1]. The prize wasn't as *spectacular* as some of MOO's previous competitions - a Flickr pro account and a bit of glory and so I decided to look through my photos and also some of the illos I did for benpeek's now (sadly[2]) abandoned Dialogues project (originally called Street Conversations), rather than spend huge amounts of time on new stuff. I'd also decided to get some sticker books because MOO had a three for the price of two sticker offer and so I picked a heap of images (mostly photos) for that and I chose five of them to enter into the competition.



And low and behold - one of them was picked for the sticker book!!! ( Do you want to try and pick which one before I tell you? )

[1] Actually, I'd prefer to keep *my* laptop pristine, but that's just me ;-)
[2] Or not!!? I was actually a bit shocked to see how crap some of the illos now appeared. Though perhaps this means I've got better??

Tags: competition, moo, pen and ink, stickers, winner!

So I was pottering around the internet last Saturday and found a competition to design a cover for a book that HarperCollins (UK) is putting out in a couple of of months: 'The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal' by Sean Dixon. I love books - both reading them and as objects and would love to get into designing book covers. There wasn't much time left, though, with just inder a week before the competition closed. After thinking it over for a couple of days, I spent a bit of time with ole faithful, Illustrator, and came up with this.



It was an interesting experience to draw something based on a brief - the author had picked out four excerpts from the book and there was some other info provided too. The composition I came up with is quite different from the first ideas I had. And, oddly enough, it was inspired by the fact that I couldn't find my ruler when I was doing preliminary sketches! (I was using protractor instead and that inspired the setting sun). The rest of the composition loosely incorporates elements of the tale laid out in the excerpts - the Jacob Lighter Building, and a the ferry boat particularly. Although the excerpts did hint that 'The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal' had a dark edge to it, the overall impression I got was of a rather quirky and whimsical story. I *suspect* HarperCollins don't actually want whimsical in their cover, though, and will probably go for something edgier than this.

Like many slush piles the entries range from those who couldn't event follow the basic instructions (dimensions and the text that needed to be included) to some really good ones (I like this one). The competition closes in about 12 hours from now and I think the quality of the entries is ramping up in these last few hours. I'm really interested in see what they pick.

(And I already have ideas of what I else can do with the image, in the likely event that it doesn't win :-)

Tags: illustrator

The launch for Contact: Swancon 2009 was a couple of weeks ago and so the logo I designed (and all sorts of other info) is now no longer secret. In fact, the logo has been plastered on reports, websites, presentations and t-shirts! I've been really pleased with the positive feedback so far - someone's even asked for an electronic copy for their phone :-)

However, it's not been seen in colour yet, so I thought I'd post that here. This picture is a 50:50 picture. All of it was done in Illustrator, however half (the left) was done with a mouse only, while the other half (the right) was the first thing I drew with my new graphics tablet! The tablet is great - I've got a lot more control of what I'm drawing and so (in theory) everything is quicker. My style is definitely different using it, thought I *do* need to spend some more time practising in general and also using the nifty pressure features the pen comes with.

My next big task for Swancon 2009 is to make up some poster designs and they'll be in colour and so I'm looking forward to that. There's lots to look forward to, actually. We had a planning meeting yesterday and there's heaps of enthusiasm and good ideas (plus bananas!). I've got high hopes that it'll end up being a really great con :-)

(Was thinking of having a little competition to see who can work out what the logo is based on. But I think it's pretty obvious, right??)

Tags: art, contact, illustrator, swancon 2009

(I'm slowly catching up on myself)



This is the 'original' artwork I made for the Swancon Artshow this year. It's a companion piece to Exterminate! (duh), which I also exhibited (as well as my print of planeterry's A Lunar Odyssey).

Although it was pretty mcuh the same process, I spent *far* less time on the TARDIS than I did the Dalek, and I'm not quite sure if this was through necessity (I just didn't *have* the time), or becasue it just didn't need it. I'm quietly pleased with it, but I more quietly pleased with the Dalek (and T's spaceman too).

Still, doing the piece gave me a good opportunity to do some work with transparency (it's good to learn) and some other 'flashy' illustrator techniques. I actually quite like the uncropped version, even though it looks unfinished[1] as it has a much better feeling of 3D. I'm not expecting to complete a '3D' version, but it's something to keep in mind about composition.

The other thing I did at the art show was take photos of all (most?) the other entries, which are are now in this flickr set for posterity. Unfortunately it's not a perfect set - some of the photos are blurry or have reflections. I'd scribbled down names and titles as I went along - scribble being the operative word. So if any corrections are required to names or title, please let me know ;-)

[1]I'd always planned for it to be cropped - the uncropped version just shows the bits that went past the edges.

It was lovely to be awarded the Ditmar for Best Fan Art last night at the rather fabulous ceremony arranged by mynxii. The design of the award itself is... unusual. I can honestly say I never expected it to look like this, but I think it's growing on me. (I think :-) Best of all, though, it required modification once I got it home, as they were not labeled when we got them. It had been recommended that we stick the label on with super glue, but I was a bit worried it's make the ink run so I ended up using double sided sticky tape with great effect. Congrats to all the winners - I'm looking forward to modding the other ASif!/Twelfth Planet Press awards, as well as asimum's, if she'll let me :-)

Before:


After:

I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention that the 2007 SpecFic Snapshot was also nominated for a Ditmar for Best Fan Production.

As part of the 2007 Snapshot, Rosie Clarke, Kaaron Warren, Alisa Krasnostein, Ben Payne, Alexandra Pierce, Tansy Rayner Roberts and I interviewed 83 people involved in the Australian Speculative Fiction Scene. (My interviews can be all found here). For comparison, after a stellar job advertising and encouraging people to nominate, mynxii had nominations for the Ditmars from about 67 people.

I'll let you do the maths on that one :-)

I'm really pleased that my Dalek postcards, drawn and printed for the 2007 Asif! Donation Drive, have been nominated for a Australian Ditmar Award, in the Fan Art Category.

Now, given there's only one other nomination in the category, I doubt that this was the most competitive of categories. Indeed, I suspect it's the least competitive! However, it's still really nice to know that other people have liked the Dalek enough to nominate him. He says: "Thanks!" :-)

The Ditmars will be awarded in just over a months time at Swancon, WA's Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention. Interestingly, I'd actually planned to have the Dalek debut *at* this Swancon - as one of my entries in the Art Show. But then girliejones began running the Donation Drive, I thought 'Dalek!!', and the rest is history. However, the Dalek wasn't the only Doctor Who inspired art I was planning for Swancon 2008. In fact, it seemed only appropriate to concentrate on a Doctor Who theme, given that Rob Shearman (a Doctor Who scriptwriter) will be a guest, and that a special photographic retrospective of 70 years of science fiction at the BBC will be exhibited (I'm really looking forward to this). So I guess anyone who is interested in viewing or, indeed, owning the Dalek or other Doctor Who related art, should definitely swing by the Swancon Art Show and see what I've come up with!

And Swancon 2009? Well that's another story entirely.

(I'll keep you posted on that one :-)