Utilizing Other Peoples’ Energy

Despite my attempts to minimize social media use due to its adverse effects on… well… basically everyone, I’m still on it. Specifically Instagram. What Instagram can be useful for (if I can resist the infinite scroll) is finding new art tips and tricks, along with boatloads of inspiration.

One of my previous posts mentioned how the Cardboard Queen taught me (via Instagram) a great edging technique when using corrugated cardboard that I now use regularly. However, what I have recently discovered-that is an even better motivator-is comments.

Yes, I know, I know: Comments in a social manner can oftentimes be degrading or repetitive, simply hating to hate, or praising to praise. The comments I’m talking about are related to an individual format: open-ended questions targeted towards your audience. One such response to my first “what characters would you want cubified?” question is as follows:

Now it may have been different if I didn’t know Lily personally, but the energy in this comment was nonetheless immense. How could I not suddenly want to see this character come to life just as badly?

So the next day, I created Buffy.

Yes, Buffy turned out amazing, and I feel was worth the time, but the real reward is the friends we made along the- nah just kidding. The real reward is knowing: If I’m in an artistic rut, not to continue trying to lean on my own interests, but to lean on another person’s. This way I can channel their energy through finishing the piece, knowing they will be thrilled with the result.

2d or 3d Art? Which do I prefer?

I don't necessarily want to take the easy way out and say "they each have their own uses", but I'm probably going to say something like that anyways.. 

The thing about 2d art, or "surface" art, is that nearly every art piece uses it. If I were to make, say, a cardboard dragon, even though it is clearly a 3d piece of art, painting each of those surfaces with a nice pattern is a "surface" art. (I'm sure there are better exaples)
Answering the question though, I prefer 3d art. There is just something about it being so there in the present, taking up space, that makes it more appealing to me. Yes, that means giant murals have that effect on me too. But sketchbooks (though I love them), as well as canvas paintings, just don't get that "Wow" factor that a 3d piece does. 
I like it when the concept drawing has to be drawn from more than two angles because there is so much more offered in the third dimension than available on a piece of paper. 
Short answer: 3d, long answer: both.

MiPads

Compensation is when one tries to replace something they can't have with something else. 
This can take the form of eating extra desserts after you work out or giving yourself a longer break after an extra stressful assignment (not admitting to either, simply acknowledging them). 
MiPads were my compensation for not having a phone.

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They were either really creative, or... nevermind. I'll go with MiPads were a creative replacement for phones. Sure, they had zero functionality and were even more rudimentary than most "play phones" children are given, but they were my zero functionality cardboard phones.
MiPads were two pieces of carboard taped together. One was cut to have a packaging-tape screen, and the other was the decorated back case. Due to the groundbreaking technology, they could have papers inserted behind the clear screen to simulate a phone. These all had to be hand-drawn, as printing without a computer to print from is quite tricky. 
I sold a couple MiPads (don't sue me Apple), but then stopped making them when I had more consistent access to a computer. They were a fun idea, and I've seen a couple other iterations from people since. 
I don't want to go on a rant about how children nowadays don't even need to have a pretend phone, they simply have a phone in their hands from birth, so I won't. I won't rant about how I was one of the last kids in my school to get a phone and I was hardly 13. I simply won't address the exponentially growing social issues connected with phones because I'm part of them.  
MiPads were a great compensation concept realization, but compensated for the wrong monster.

I designed my own Rodeo Stampede Animals

Rodeo Stampede is the best mobile game out there. 
The range of animals you can collect, and the struggle you endure to collect them makes the whole game simply amazing. Created in 2016, this endless runner also features all the clever animal names. 

But no no no, the creators don't shut out the community's creativity. They hold semi-annual animal design competitions, with the ultimate prize being your design in the game!! Honestly, free work for the creators, why wouldn't they do this. 
Of course, being an avid fan, I chimed in with a couple of designs. 

The two shown are the WhaleMan and the Shoester (the shoester is my personal favorite) but some other brainstormed ideas included (but were not limited to):

• Sea Hurdle

• Tricerabops

• Groovester

• Chanta Ray

• Triceranaps

• Planta Ray (this one became a thing, but by another person's design)

• Snale (snail/whale)

• Sea Wordle 

• Bikeratops

• Pieger

• Mooster

• Gooseter

• Hoopster

• Santa Ray

• Wail (sad whale)

• Fanta Ray

• Manta Tray

• Manta Pray

• Tieger

• Rindocerous

• Cluester

• Tea Turtle

Suffice it to say, there are a lot more animal puns and names that can be unleashed upon the world through Rodeo Stampede.
​I'm not sure the world can handle that quite yet. ​

I drew a house

I had wanted to do this for a while, but hadn't known which house to draw. Then came a day I decided to bike around town with my sketchpad and pencils and search until I found one. I came across a nice one shortly after, and sat down to sketch. Nothing was unordinary about sitting on the sidewalk drawing a house, but it was a bit chilly, so I hurried. 
I finished the drawing and went to knock on the door. 
I explained that I liked the lady's house, and handed her the drawing. To my elation she accepted it, and seemed pleasantly surprised. 
A couple weeks later she spotted my Mother at church (I had stayed home that day) and praised the drawing, saying their family loved it so much, it is now framed and on their wall.
It took less than an hour to draw.

How to make the Perfect Christmas gift

As Christmas is rounding the corner, I thought I'd take a little time to talk through my thought process when making gifts. 
There are dozens of factors that like to freeze people in their tracks, including, "Will they like it?" "Do they already have it?" and even "Where do I start?". All of these are solved by how I go about it.
If you deem yourself a non-creative and are unwilling to make gifts yourself, then this won't help you. But if you have any handy skills whatsoever, beit woodworking, papercrafts, painting, etc. etc., this works great.

I start with finding something that the giftee really likes. This often happens by holding a normal conversation, and aiming questions towards the air of preferences until I have a solid idea. This solves question number one: "Will they like it". By picking something they already have a fascination with, how could they not? 
Next, I make something with this idea in mind. The "Where do I start" question is answered by "What do I know how to do?". For instance, my go-to gift nowadays includes something made from cardboard, as I have plenty of it at the ready, and experience galore using it. The perk of making the gift, is that it answers the "Do they already have it?" question, and also prevents them from recieving the same gift twice, as something handmade is one-of-a-kind in its purest form. 
Not only will they like it because they like what it represents, but the time you sink into it shows that you truly care. Handmade gifts have a sentimental value no matter your age or skill level. Parents look at handwritten cards from kids far more lovingly than the tasty box of chocolates they devoured the day they recieved it. 
Whatever you decide getting your loved ones for Christmas this holiday season, consider making it by hand! It really makes it the perfect gift.

Why Sketchbooks are the Greatest Thing Ever

I've begun to develop a fascination with documentation.
I've thought of a future in which I keep weekly journals that document my children's lives, and recreate pictures each year to show how they grow. 
Sketchbooks do this with art. 

If the pages are used in a chronological order, these books document growth as an artist.
Looking back at sketches I made in the third grade, I can see the creativity, but moreso I can see how I've improved. The ability to know "I can make this so much better now" is incredible. 
Sketchbooks may not be as convenient as a digital flashdrive or a physical folder from which you can rearrange and display the art. That does not prevent them from still being amazing in their own rights. The fact that you can hold a sketchbook and know years of your life were spent throughout it is wondrous. 
Sure, canvasses and cardboard will always be great mediums, but the simplicity and perfection of sketchbooks will keep me buying them for years to come. 

Oh Christmas Tree Oh Christmas Tree

Personally I think this looks incredibly polished, and it's all thanks to the Queen of Cardboard.
Though I have addressed my rant of social media making art daunting and truly stunting creativity at times, it is still the home of everyone's favorite tips and tricks. One such tip is for use with corrugated cardboard.

@realsherrimadison is deemed the "Queen of Cardboard" on Instagram for her prolific use of well... cardboard. And she deserves it. 
From what I've seen of her work, it's nothing short of the best. My favorite tip so far is the simple, yet effective use of the top ply of cardboard being cut and glued to cover the corrugation on crafts like this tree. Without such edging, you would be able to see the corrugation, and therefore spots without green paint, and the whole thing would look a whole lot more amateurish. It's this level of sophistication that I've got to praise the internet for, as it would've taken embarrasingly long for me to think to do it on my own. 

[Insert Straw Pun Here]

Projects like this are just tedious. Enjoyable, yes. But tedious.
My art teacher bought bags of hundreds of straws to throw in the ocean, but we ended up using them for art instead.

This was exactly the technique that came to mind when presented with the material, and self-portraits are always a great way to test a new medium. You tend to know, having done enough of them, if it's good or not. There's less worry of "oh, did the new medium just make this one reference look really good?" and more of "oh. I now have my face made out of straws staring back at me."
The main takeaway from this was a lesson on measurement precision. When measuring large numbers of things that need to be equal, the line you're measuring them against must have as thin of a line as possible. What I mean by that is you cannot use a thick black sharpie to draw the line you're measuring each straw against to cut. This increases the range of results way too much. Even most rulers have a larger range of results than I would recommend for this project. Whatever wasn't measured exactly can normally be sanded, but with straws it gets a bit difficult.
I would put a straw pun here to close, but they all suck.  

Minecraft Dungeons was a Spark

The smallest things can alter the course of history. Minecraft Dungeons may have sparked one of those moments for me. 

When a dungeon-crawling game developed by Mojang and Double Eleven was released on May 26, 2020, of course I wanted to buy it. I didn't get it right away, because I had no personal way of online payment, so my thoughts were as follow: Put so much effort into a fantastic pitch directed to my mother, that she would use her card for me to make the purchase. Of course this included me paying for it as well, the only thing really needed was her card's power of online transactions. 
I don't see why more children don't take this approach of educated reasoning when asking for things from parents. It works wonders. 
As part of this pitch, I decided to make the Minecraft Dungeons main villain, the Arch Illager. He is a short little dude with a fantastic backstory that's worth watching. Rather than being truly eveil, he ends up corrupted by a magic stone, blah blah blah. More importantly​, I made him out of cardboard.

Sure that's cool and all, but how was this significant besides getting you a video game you played less than a dozen times?
This is where it gets good.
You see, the Arch Illager I made was crude at best. It was made with random paints and brushes I found in our family supplies, and was overall lacking detail. But it was a start.
But even the start wasn't the significant part. The significant part came with my ego saying "dude. You should take this to school and show it off so everyone can compliment you" because at the time, I didn't have social media to boost it. 
When I got to school, all went well, people complimenting it and making me feel great about myself. And then someone asked how much to buy it.
"Fifteen bucks" I said, and it was a deal. 
They bought the scrappy Arch Illager from me that day, and being the little business man I am, I capitalised on it. I immediately went asking people if they wanted me to make a figurine of them, and that inititiated more, similarly crude creations. These were detailed with new paints and brushes I bought from Walmart using my fifteen dollars.
​The 50 cent paints still offer me a vast range of colors for next to nothing. I bought every color. 

These I sold for fifteen bucks, and they took me 3-4 hours each to make. Then I sold more, and more, earning enough money to buy an iphone, then more to buy a computer, then more to temporarily fill a display case at a local library, then more, then more, then more. 
​
Now, my go-to gift is something along this style:

It's crazy to think... where would I be with art if I hadn't made the first box figure?
​I like to think it's somewhere in Canada with a pet moose.