Tag: cute

Twin Lollipops

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While waiting for feedback for the last batch of House of Odd pencils, I finally got my new website up and running! It took me a while to get things sorted out, and parts of the site is still under construction, but at least my registered domain name finally pointed to the site it was supposed to point. It actually took a bit of wrangling, due to issues over transferring a domain name. At least that’s over… for now.

 

I celebrate by showing another batch of felt toys I made. This time, it’s a pair of lollipops! I’m not into candy-type felting because I find the results too small and not very delicate, but this was too cute to pass up, and they’re the right size for a key ring or a hanging decoration.

 

Lollipops - Step 1
Step 1: I bought this Chinese kit in Chinatown for $3.50.

 

Lollipops - Step 2
Step 2: None of the pieces you see here are pre-cut – I had to cut the paper drawings out, trace the outlines onto the pieces of felt, then cut them out. Luckily, it was a very simple design, so it was quick and easy. Most Chinese kits are not pre-cut, so I expected the extra work.

 

Lollipops - Step 3
Step 3: Sewing the bits and pieces together. Namely the swirls.

 

Lollipops - Step 4
Step 4: Sewing the lollipops together, and stuff them with filling.

 

Lollipops - Step 5
Step 5: Sewing the little bows on. This was the most adorable part.

 

And voila, the final product:


Twin Lollipops
Twin Lollipops – Strawberry Cream and Caramel Chocolate!

 

Slice ‘o Orange Cake

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It’s the end of June, and the third “Odd Thomas” book with Dean Koontz, titled “House of Odd”, is up to the final stages. I’ve done all the pencils for the whole book, currently around 190 pages, and after the last 50 pages are inked (and toned by fantastic toner Dee DuPuy), it’ll be officially over. The book is due in April 2012, just after the movie, so keep your eyes peeled for it!

 

On another note, I’ve been doing some more “Knits and Bits” projects on the side. To show folks how my little cakes are put together, I’ve taken a series of step-by-step photos of how I make them from the kits.

 

Step 1: Slice o' Orange Cake
Step 1: The full kit, in its original box. I bought it off an Internet Shopping site, Rakuten.co.jp. It’s kinda like a Japanese eBay of sorts, but with English translations.

 

Step 2: Slice o' Orange Cake
Step 2: Take everything out of the box, and make sure it’s all there. The needle is NOT included in the kit though, and I didn’t know that. Luckily, I had one leftover from a previous project.

 

Step 3: Slice o' Orange Cake
Step 3: Roll up the large white wool, and put it into the cup. The size of the rolled-up wool was huge, and it took a LONG time for it to be made compact enough. Lots of stabbing.

 

Step 4: Slice o' Orange Cake
Step 4: Stabbed the thin layer of Chocolate to the top of the Vanilla. Easy, this part.

 

Step 5: Slice o' Orange Cake
Step 5: Made each of the orange slices. This took AGES and a lot of stabbing all directions, since they have to be shaped in a particular way. My hand got pretty tired.

 

Step 6: Slice o' Orange Cake
Step 6: I then added the little fluffy brown bits, which was quite difficult as the wool felt was kinda disobedient, and was flying all over the place. I struggled to get it under control, then stabbed it down too much. The brown topping is supposed to look more fluffy than this, but oh well. Started stabbing the oranges on.

 

Step 7: Slice o' Orange Cake
Step 7: Adding the little bits of green. Mint? This is the last step. Afterwards, Viola!

 

And now for the finished cake, the Slice o’ Orange Cake-in-a-Cup:

 

Finished Cake
Final Product: This took me 4 hours to make, in-between working on “Odd Thomas 3”, listening to music, watching a Chinese Martial Arts movie on Youtube, and random internet surfing.

 

Bentocomics.com – Meet Mimi Sashimi

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I just came back from a holiday on the Silk Road, spending 10 days traipsing around China with a Hong Kong tour, hitting all the predictable places and having a blast. We went from Urumqi to Turpan, to Hamu, then Dunhuang, from them onto Xian, Luoyang and the Shaolin temple. Sure, the last two isn’t really part of the Silk Road, But I must mention that Xian is a fantastic city and worth going to again sans-tour next time.

Now that I’ve been back for a few days and is rested enough, I bring you something fun and interesting: how we came up with the Bento Mascot for Bento Comics.

 

Introducting the Bento Mascot: I bring you all the mascots we designed before we decided on the official Bento Mascot, Mimi Sashimi. It was meant to be like a design contest – all the participants in Bento came up with their (mostly) food-related designs, and we collectively chose which one we thought was the cutest. Or the most suitable. Or the most clever. As far as these contests go, the criteria is never stable. It’s just a matter of what catches our eye. Which makes you wonder – what makes a good mascot?

Here’s the runner ups, by:

 

Dan's Mascot

Dan – A bunch of taco octopuses from outer space

 

Svetlana's mascot

Svetlana – It’s a happily crumpled piece of paper

 

Myung's mascot

Myung – Food and the one about to eat it

 

And the winning entry, mine:

 

Queenie - Mascot

The whole sushi family

 

I’m not sure what it was about my entry that people seemed to like, despite me initially being too embarrassed to show it. After giggling at everyone else’s mascot designs, it seemed that everyone unanimously liked mine the best.

Perhaps it’s the contrast between the 3 different sushi people – I often find that drawing a few versions of a “tribe” and putting them next to each other can often give personality to what is essentially a bunch of line drawings. It’s human nature to ascribe personalities to a “group” of things, no matter how non-human they look. Observe people pointing at a bunch of clouds and seeing giraffes, elephants and Persian cats. What gives? Looking at the three sushi people, who do you think is the out-going one?

We decided pretty quickly – Mimi Sashimi is our new mascot. We (Svetlana and Dan, mostly) tweaked her design a bit, to make her cuter, rounder, and more edible. Look out for more members of the sushi family later on!

Mimi Sashimi

BentoComics.com – The Two-Dollar Deal

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Wahaay! Two more stories until I end my weekly run of uploading comics to Bento Comics, and this week is a 2006 romance story I did for “Generation” anthology, only 8 pages long. It’s been up on this LJ before, but here it is once again for those who missed it the first time around.

Rundown: Bento Comics is a new website that permits users to read and compile their own short story anthologies. It then prints the book at a printing company called Lulu, and delivers the personalised book to your door. A new publishing model, if you will.

Short Story of the Week: Romance in a tacky two-dollar store. Can it happen?

E-book: Available on the right-hand side of this page, where it says “Ebook Available in .epub!”. It’s DRM-free, and Epub can be read on all platforms EXCEPT the Kindle. I’d like to charge USD$0.99 for this story (like iTunes), but the system isn’t yet in place so you can download it for free.

If you don’t have an e-reader like the iPad or Nook, you an download e-readers for your PC – here’s 2 programs you can download: The Adobe Acrobat eReader, and the Barnes and Noble eReader.

 

The Two Dollar Deal

Click here to read on Bentocomics.com!

 

I wrote this story after discovering that a co-worker at a video-game company I worked at also worked part-time at a two-dollar store. It was quite surprising – she used to bring these tacky yellow rubber chickens to work as a gag, and I used to wonder where she got so many of them. But then I knew. Thinking of all that junk in a two-dollar store prompted me to write this story, which is still one of my favourites.