I am gainfully employed

So yeah in case you haven't noticed I've kind of sucked at blogger lately.
I'm sorry.
I just recently got this job as an assistant manager of an arcade.
The good news is soon I'll be able to do all those fun things I enjoy again like eating.
The bad news is I have considerably less free time so I'll probably continue to suck at blogger.
Anyway, fun part.
Throw an idea or request at me and I'll do my best to draw it. First 5, absolutely. First 10, probably so.
I can't say for sure when I'll have them done right now but it'll be a fun surprise when you do see it yeah?
1 2 3 go.

Challenge Edition Results Part 2

Alright just in case you missed it here is part 1 of the results.

Electric Addict: "draw some super hot car! i love sexy cars"


Sorry man I really have no idea how to draw cars or what makes a car cool or what :(

Michael Westside: "OK. Picture this. It's a hot summer day. You're on the beach, enjoying your ice cream, and looking at hot ladies and what not. And then, suddenly from nowhere you get teleported to the frigging desert. So you're like "wtf?" and try to take a lick from your melting ice cream. But what is this? The ice cream is gone! You look around and find that it has been stolen by a gecko that's now sitting on a stone, eating your ice cream and taunting you. I'd like a drawing of the moment you realize that you forgot your wallet in your other pants and got no idea how you bought the ice cream in the first place." 


ElliotGreen: "you should draw a picture of a duck!"

Arrpii: "Do a "crappy" version of "Drawing Hands" by M. C. Escher"

Inverse: "Draw an airport landing on a plane :|"

That's everything for now folks. Thanks to everyone for participating! I had fun with all of these and I'd like for you to enjoy them as well. I'll do this again sometime as well as other things. This drawing stuff seems to be getting the most interest and I haven't really thought of anything crafty lately so yeah. I did make really awesome cinnamon toast today but you can get the recipe anywhere. Kind of rambling now...Alrighty yeah. Thanks for reading. You guys have awesome blogs keep up the good work! 

Challenge Edition Results Part 1

I think I'll break it down like this. I'll have the person's blog, their idea, and the drawing. Thanks for all the ideas guys. Some are okay, some aren't. Some ideas I took a few stabs at just for kicks because I wasn't really happy with how one or the other turned out or I was just having fun. Also, I'm out of drawing paper so I had to use an old spiral notebook I found so...sorry about that I guess. We'll do part 1 today and part 2 either later today or tomorrow. Depending how ambitious I feel. 


GMSoccerPicks: I think you should be a guest drawer for my Dino Neymar comic and it should be feature in both blogs. Take a look, i would love a collaboration from you, perhaps a redraw for Dino Neymar or a new character. Look http://www.gmsoccerpicks.com/2011/08/dino-neymar-vs-poneymar-round-1.html

my day in a sentence: 

This might sound weird. But, anyways.
I'd love you to do a drawing of one Freddie Mercury, the late Queen frontman. And the duke of epicness. ;)

I believe your rendition of this rock god could be really cool. :D

D4: 

A cigarette smoking a human, flicking the "ash" into an ashtray sized couch.

Clueless Dolphin: 

Draw Zooey Deschanel on top of the statue of liberty. Pweeeze!

Shockgrubz: 

Sure, I'll bite, A dragon crawling through an eyesocket.

 

I'll leave it at that for now. I think I managed to draw for everyone that's made a suggestion so be on the look out for part 2! Sorry if the layout is weird. This post editing thing is so wonky sometimes. 

Get you some crappy drawings challenge edition.

I thought adding a collaborative twist on this would be a fun idea so let's give it a shot yeah?

For this one I want suggestions or ideas of what you would like me to draw. I'll take at least the first 5 suggestions from followers. I'll make a post with your drawings and links to your blog and all that. The only thing I will say is if the suggestion is too offensive I won't do it. If you are one of the first 5 and it is too offensive I'll ask for a suggestion of something else and draw that. I am a citizen of the internet so at this point it is hard to offend me personally but I have to use my best judgment for the sake of the blog.

Anyway, first 5 I will definitely do. After that, it's a matter of if I feel like doing more or not. I've consistently done more than 5 so it's worth your time to make a suggestion after that 5 mark. I'll probably just draw the suggestions I like after that. Who knows? I'll post the results Tuesday or Wednesday.

Good luck and I'm excited to see what you come up with!

Alright let's party

It's about that time. Haunter's special crappy drawings for your blog contest thing.

How to enter:
All you have to do is be a follower of this blog and leave a comment on this post.

Who wins:
I'm going to do drawings for at least the first 5 followers to leave comments.

What you win:
I'll look at your blog and draw...something. Whatever I come up with. I don't think they are particularly good drawings usually but people seem to like them. Here are the winners from last time. So I will draw some crap and then make a post about it. I'll also link back to your blog in that post.

In addition, I will put the first 5 on my blogroll where you will stay until I do this again.

Good luck.

Heads up

Thought I would give you weekend bloggers a little advanced notice. Tomorrow (not today, this is just a heads up) I'll be doing another post giving you guys and girls another chance at getting your own drawing done for your blog. It will be same as last time, first 5 comments definitely get a drawing done after that it's up to how many I feel like doing. When I finish I'll make a post featuring all the drawings with links back to your own blogs. In addition, I'll make the first 5 a part of my blog roll until I do the drawing thing again.

Good luck guys! Some of your blogs give me some interesting ideas so I'm secretly rooting for a few but I have no problem doing drawings again for winners from last time.

See you tomorrow!

Quick post

So I was thinking I haven't done any of my crappy drawings in a while and at the same time thought I'd make an attempt to give back to the readers and followers. Tell you what I'mma gonna do. If you follow my blog and would like one of my drawings, just leave a comment saying so. If you don't follow me yet then...do that and then comment. These are some of my drawings to give you an idea. I'm not sure how many drawings I will do, at least 5. After 5 it's just whenever I get bored of doing them.

What I'll do is look at your blog and use that as some kind of inspiration to draw something. In my next post I'll have all the drawings I did with a link back to your blog under the picture for you. Sound good? 1,2,3 go.

Self Portrait

Diana

Playing Card Gift Boxes

What does it do dear readers? Today I'm going to walk you through making your own playing card gift boxes. You can make the boxes in a variety of sizes and styles and can use them to store a variety of things. 

What you'll need:

Playing cards. That's it actually. There are a ton of brands, with a ton of styles. You can get a deck of cards for as little as 1 dollar. These are some varieties I have on hand. Some you would have to order, some you can find in stores. Just check around and see who has what, where.

The major factor is what the back of the cards look like. Most cards made by the United States Playing Card  Company have similar faces.

Your box is going to be made of what we'll refer to as WALLS joined together by CONNECTORS.

To construct a wall you need 2 playing cards. For this tutorial I'm using Mavericks in red and Aviators in blue.

1. Arrange the two cards face to face as illustrated. If you would rather have a card featuring the face of a card (say the queens, kings or aces) face outward then have that card's back to the other card's face.

 2. Fold the exposed ends of each card over the side of the other card like so. I usually try to keep the folds as even as possible but it's up to you. Keeping them even gives the box a more uniform appearance. You can look at the number on the face of the card as a reference point. When there is an equal amount of the number exposed on both sides it is okay to fold. 

 It will look something like this.

You now have two halves.

3. Insert the flap from one card into the flaps of the other card as shown.

 4. Do the same with the other side of the flap.

 You now have a WALL. For the box I'm making I'm using red backs for the inside and blue for the outside so all walls are red on one side and blue on the other.

5. Repeat steps 1-4 until have 6 walls total.

6. To create a CONNECTOR simply fold the card in half. 

 7. Insert one end of the connector into the slot of your wall like so. 

A fine point about connectors: When your box is assembled you will notice the connectors are visible between the walls from the outside. This is another way you can customize your box. In the case of this box I used red backed cards as connectors with the face of the card facing inward. This will create a nice contrast on the outside of the box. If you'd like to have white connectors I suggest saving the 2s and 4s from your deck as connectors and folding them with the white side facing outwards. 

8. ...then insert the other end into the other wall.

 You now have two joined walls.

 9. Repeat the process until you have 4 walls joined as illustrated. Notice I have the red walls facing inward and the blues outward. I also make a point to have all wall pieces in the same direction. In this case all the red walls run horizontally and all the blues run vertically. Again, do it however you'd like to.

10. The bottom is the least fun part to me. Take a wall and insert 2 to 4 connectors. I went with 4 for the sake of having the box look as uniform as possible but only 2 are necessary. Inserting 4 connectors can be a little tricky because the cards have to overlap inside the wall, just be patient. If it takes too long try yelling at it or spitting on it. Fire helps sometimes. Or peanut butter.

11. However many connectors you decide on you have to insert all of them into the square of walls at the same time. Push the bottom in flush and you are almost there!

 12. Finally, make one more wall and connect it on one side to make your lid.

 Your finished product will look something like this.

 This is an example of a larger box I made with some other brands of cards. I use Tally Ho Circle backs and Bees for the interior and Bicycle Shadow Masters for the exterior.

 Shadow Masters have a unique joker that looks like death so I had those facing outward at both ends. 

I also made a handle of sorts for the top of the lid. It's done by folding a connector into 4ths, folding the two inside 4ths in half again, and uhh...it's kind of hard to explain. I think you can figure it out. If not, let me know I'll take a picture of it later.

These boxes make unique, thoughtful gifts. The impact is high while the cost is relatively low. I love making these for friends. 

If you have any questions, thoughts or ideas to kick around let me know. I'll be doing a follow up on this project next week. 

Impromptu Board Game Shenanigans Pt. 2 (DIY Tokens)

This was a fun idea I had just shortly after my board game post. I came up with a really easy and creative way to make your own tokens for your board game. Honestly, you can make these things anyway for any reason. It's pretty fun. I just thought it suits the board game theme. 

Things you'll need:

Paper clips, sticky notes and something to draw with

 We'll be using the paperclips to act as 'feet' for our tokens. Fold at about a 90 degree angle along the imaginary line where the two ends of the paper clip are. See picture for reference.

 The sticky note is going to make up the 'body' of our token. I just used sticky notes because they were lying around but you can make the body with any kind of paper or cardboard. Just substitute tape or glue in. Or don't, whatever. Anyway for a regular 'human' type token you fold the sticky note in half, sticking the sticky stuff to itself. 

 You'll have something that looks like this...

 Draw whatever you want on the front, back whatever. You and your friends could each design your own token to pimp out for all your board games you make. You could cut out pictures of celebrities faces and put them on Batman's body, make your own stuff on your computer and print it out. You can even trim the body down with scissors if you want it to look more uh...whatever you're going for. You don't even have to be able to draw well just have fun with it. See my examples for reference. It's some kind of a knight thing.

 Insert the long end of the 'foot' inside the opening of the 'body'. I have the short end stick out the back. Alternatively, you could draw your design first, and tape the entire end of the foot inside of the body before folding the note over in half. Oh you fancy huh? 

 This is a picture of the finished product. The first picture the flash was too bright but I posted it anyway because my cat showed up. 

 From left to right: A ghost, me, a knight.

For the ghost I simply folded the body in half long ways and used the foot to connect the fold. With those you don't necessarily need the glue and can still have the upper half of the foot entirely inside the body. 

Some ideas to kick around: 

-For the smaller tokens you could make monster like ghosts or goblins or your favorite video game monster like bob-ombs or goombas. 

-Use different tokens for different roles in the game. Say you and your friends all play regular 'players' but then have someone play a ghost or a knight. That person could have special rules like say they could start with up to 10 coins but can select how many they will use before each roll. Their goal could be to land on the same spot as other players and when they do that player has to go back to home or they lose a point. You could even have some kind of battle system where you both roll to see if you go home or not. If you win maybe the ghost loses a turn or goes back home. Play it out, see what makes the game more fun or challenging or whatever you are going for.

-You could design large intricate monsters with their own special rules. 

-You could forget the board game thing completely and just do these for fun. Make tokens of all of your friends or do series, xmen tokens, video game character tokens, monsters, celebs, cartoon characters, movie characters, musicians.

-Recreate scenes from movies or concerts with bands or fight scenes, music videos. 

-Make your own tokens for your favorite table top game like D&D or Mechwarrior. I think you could, not sure how those games work really.

The list goes on and on. Guys please, go nuts. Have any ideas to contribute to this? I'd love to hear them. Have fun.

Impromptu Board Game Shenanigans

Randomly had this idea today but I'm sure other people have done it before. Board games can be fun to play anyway why not get creative with it and make your own? On a budget? Not a problem. 

See below some easy to find items you can use.

 Okay the nunchaku are just there to establish that I'm kind of gangster.
At the very least you can make your own board game with a sheet of paper, something to draw with, some coins, and something small to use as tokens. I used paper clips.

 This is the board I've drawn. It can be as crude or as detailed as you like. It's your project, there is no wrong way here. I've made a few different types of spaces that affect the game in different ways.

Here I've drawn up some basic rules for the game as well as a key for the different types of spaces on the game board.

The coins will function as a substitute for dice. Simply agree on a number of coins to use, shake them in your hand, drop them and move your token the number of spaces equal to heads. Notice certain spaces on my board increase the number of coins a player may use.

The possibilities with this concept are limitless. I mean, you can design your own tokens or shop around for little pieces to use as tokens. You can design a full on rpg style board game with character classes, skills, spells whatever or keep it ultra simple. You can turn the game into a drinking game if you're a little party monster (spaces force you to take a drink, etc) or if you want to be entertained and productive you could make spaces requiring you to do exercises such as 10 push ups or roll and perform double that number in push ups. Really, the sky is the limit.

What's more, this is the perfect way to collaborate with your friends. Maybe you have one friend who is really artistic they can get all creative designing the board, tokens, chance cards and so on. Maybe you have an analytic friend who can help with designing different rules and game mechanics in the game. Maybe you just have a creative big picture friend to throw insane ideas at you. Really, whatever type of person you are, you could contribute to the idea somehow. Which is pretty exciting yeah?

You may have so much fun making these game you'll spend more time creating games then you do playing them. Have any game ideas? Feedback? Let me know. Hope you enjoy.