Not as in-depth as I wanted it to be, but I'll be doing more follow-up videos on my machines very soon. (Plus people always complain that I talk too much so I guess shorter might be better.)
All of my machines and parts came from Button Boy Inc.-1.25" Machine: https://goo.gl/o9V81B
-1" Machine: https://goo.gl/B97bW5
-Pendants: https://goo.gl/v0Y68Z
They have an Etsy shop too, but their main website has lower prices.
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| It's my mouth! I used these for my college screening. People had to follow my lips to find the theater. |
Tiny bit of backstory before the review. I've been watching Rocky Horror, the film version, since I was a child. My parents used to dress up and go to midnight showings, my family has the the original vinyl LP & a re-release and the CDs, we have the original red VHS cassette, the fan books, the trivia books, the action figures... We're HUGE fans, especially of the masterful Tim Curry and his performance in the 1975 film version. I even dressed up and hosted a Rocky Horror screening at my college campus. So to us, this production was kind of a big deal.
Since the get-go I was against the idea of a made-for-TV remake, but when it was announced that Tim Curry was going to be the Criminologist, making a rare on-screen appearance since his stroke, we had to tune in just to see him. Don't get us wrong, we love seeing productions of Rocky Horror done locally, and we love Laverne Cox, but can a big budget, shiny, Fox-produced version airing at 8PM on a weeknight really capture the essence of Rocky Horror?
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| Grab a pom-kin of your own on Etsy |
I partnered up with Connect The Lots in Camden again this weekend, this time instead of painting, I brought my trusty pinback button press to the city to teach kids how to make their own buttons at Camden Jam! It was a HUGE hit.
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| First the children colored their designs, then we punched them out, and they used the press (supervised) to create their finished button! |
Since the event was at city hall, which is a Poke-stop, my contact requested that I make some Pokemon-themed designs. I took my Pokemon Go team buttons and turned them into simple black and white outlines, this way kids could color them in, as well as a generic Pokeball and a Pikachu design. (You can't leave out Pikachu!) Surprisingly, the biggest hit of the day was the paper I left blank!
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| Not your average paint party fodder. This isn't a wine glass, or high heel, it's city hall! |
It was a last minute event, with about 48 hours notice to gather supplies and make a painting with Camden City Hall theme, but I pulled it off! We had 14 painters create their own masterpieces and even with a few hiccups, like no running water, wind, and sun...it turned out great!
We had a really good turnout and all of the participants were very serious and invested in their paintings. My example piece was a bit more challenging than your usual paint party example, but they all did a fantastic job without missing a beat!
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| FYI, the quote is Camden's motto and it comes from Walt Witman's "I Dream'd in a Dream" |
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| Half way gone already!! |
I got this neat thermal reactive paint and I'm trying to figure out how to use it on button designs. Here's one of last night's experiments.
Right now it seems like 2 layers makes things milky and foggy looking, but maybe I just need to wait longer between coats.
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| Current Big Project At Work |
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| Lookin' all kinds of professional! Not like a food crazed sleepless zombie at all! |
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| Bye bye stark white, hello FULL color backgrounds! |
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| This one really makes me want to doodle some burgers of my own! |
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| Images © Kastraz of Deviant Art |
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| Moon Crystal Power Make-Up! |
This one is a bit of a downer and mostly me venting about a nightmare job of mine I should have walked away from a long time ago. Let this be a precautionary tale to those of you starting freelance. |
| Buttons featuring designs from Old Skool Junk |
An AWESOME resource for designers. Several times a week I have clients give me a physical copy of a flyer or business card that was designed years ago and they want me to recreate it in the digital age. Trouble is they want an EXACT copy, fonts and all, and they have no idea what the original typeface was. What do you do?
You take a photo of it and upload it to What The Font! and they help you narrow things down. They aren't always 100% spot on, but it always helps me figure things out and it removes you looking through the hundreds and thousands of fonts on your computer to find the perfect typeface-prince charming. Seriously, this site is a lifesaver and not enough people know about it. Add it to your design arsenal and stop ripping your hair out.
FREE. STOCK. IMAGES. Need I say more?
Client on a budget? This is the site for you! Admittedly this is the B or C-team when it comes to stock images, but you can't beat FREE! They have a decent selection that's always growing, and they even offer some .EPS files and other vectored imagery.
Similar to What The Font!, but this one doesn't require a scan of the font itself. This is a series of questions designed to help you narrow down possible typefaces.
It starts out basic, "Is it Serif? Italicized?" etc, but progresses into different characteristics of certain letters, like the center lines of the letter "M" or the subtle differences in a lowercase "i." If What The Font! fails you, Identifont is a great back up.
Speaking of fonts... this site is the BEST for free fonts. I've been using this site since I was a teenager! They have...I don't even know how many fonts, and they're all broken up into great categories. Like handwritten, serif, script, old school, etc. This is a great resource when you're first starting out and can't afford to buy expensive font families. (Lucidity is one of my favorites! I've been using it for YEARS!) Some of the fonts are licensed for personal use only, so be sure to check the licensing for each one before you use it for any commercial work, but when I was making designs for my college courses this resource was the BEST! It gave my designs variety without having to eat cup-ramen the rest of the week to afford it.
Gumroad isn't free like the others, but it's just as valuable. It's kind of like etsy. Artists have their own little shops where they sell their goods, but instead of physical items, it's downloadable artist materials made by artists for other artists. Music, texture packs, brushes, stock images, etc.
