Love Dove

This was created at our local Ontario Early Years Centre.

Instructions for creating this Love Dove can be found at Craft Day.

Baby Bam-Bam

To make a theme out of things, I went and found this image of Bam-bam from here

Here's my first go-round.

As with the first Pebbles attempt I noticed:

• I make the cheeks larger than they are in the original
• I make the features (eyes, nose etc) larger than in the original

So. Overlay with Photoshop and back to fix the image.

Much better. See for yourself!

Dance, drawings, dance!

This very cool toy created by motion designer Masayuki Kido allows you to draw a two-dimensional character and then it "animates" it for you! First seen at Drawn.ca. Apparently, I didn't understand that you had to draw within the person shaped frame... which is why the character has a square head and only stumps for hands!

I'm having problems embedding the video in IE (Firefox worked like a charm), so here's a direct link to mine.

Key Frame Animation is Canadian

Did you know that? Neither did I.

To find out more about Canadian Inventions, check out the Wikipedia entry based on the CBC TV special called "The Greatest Canadian Invention. "

Here is the list of inventions, in the order in which they were ranked on the show:

1. Light Bulb
2. Insulin
3. Telephone
4. Five-pin bowling
5. Wonderbra
6. Pacemaker
7. Robertson screw
8. Zipper
9. Electric Wheelchair
10. Poutine
11. Cobalt-60 “Bomb” Cancer Treatment
12. Java programming language
13. Bloody Caesar
14. Canadarm
15. Standard Time
16. Electron Microscope
17. Ski-Doo
18. BlackBerry
19. Radio Voice Transmission
20. Birch-Bark Canoe
21. Basketball
22. Retractable Beer Carton Handle
23. UV Degradable Plastics
24. Instant Replay
25. Goalie mask
26. Marquis Wheat
27. Pablum
28. Lacrosse
29. Electric Oven
30. Fog horn
31. Walkie-Talkie
32. Alkaline battery
33. Paint roller
34. Electronic Music Synthesizer
35. Weevac 6
36. Green Garbage Bag
37. Snowblower
38. Self-Propelled Combine Harvester
39. Instant Mashed Potatoes
40. Marine Screw Propeller
41. Explosives Vapour Detector
42. Plexiglas
43. Key Frame Animation
44. CPR-Mannequin: “Actar 911”
45. G-Suit
46. Ardox Spiral Nail
47. Automatic Lubricating Cup
48. Crash-Position Indicator
49. Caulking gun
50. Separable Baggage Check

That's one impressive list!

Baby Pebbles

Since copying seems to be something I'm half decent at, I thought I'd try and copy a cartoon baby.

Using this as a guide:
(originally seen here), I give you this:



I'm embarassed to admit, it was a long journey. Here are the stepping stones I took.



At least the final product is pretty close to the original!

Toddler crafting - Santa and gingerbread

These were created at our local Ontario Early Years Centre.

Instructions for Santa and gingerbread man can be found at CraftDay.

If at first you don't succeed....

Try, try, try and try again ....



The following were done after I received this insightful comment. Apparently I haven't completely internalized my Preston Blair lessons!







I found that rotating the head more gave me a better chance to use "solid" object guides than the "head on" approach.




Clearly I've still more work to do on this. But for now, I'm putting this baby to bed!

I've been published!

Check out the beta of a techie resource for SQL tips and tricks for Oracle developers. Then see the artwork!

Making realistic snowflakes

Tired of making snowflakes that look like they're squares with holes in them? I've posted instructions for making realistic six-pointed snowflakes!

Quick and dirty

Spurred on by a little prodding from Matt I'm posting two quick scribbles.

The first one in honour of the TV show my daughter can not see often enough. (With humble apologies to Chuck Jones)


The second one inspired by this year's brilliant Pampers seasonal commercial positioned in the spot.


You'll notice that when I copy other people's cartoon creations, they look pretty cartoony. However, when I try and take a real-life image and make it cartoony it always ends up looking more sketchy than cartoon-like. (For example, compare the above with Matt's excellent baby post.) Must resist the tendency towards realism!

Toddler crafting - plate for Santa

This craft, created at our local Ontario Early Years Centre exclusively uses Christmas themed foam stickers. Instructions are documented at Craft Day.

Al Hirschfeld on YouTube

Al Hirschfeld creates a Paul Newman caricature.

Thanks to Drawn.ca for the tip-off.

Instructions for making pop-up cards

I finally got my act together to publish instructions for creating pop-up cards.
Vertical fold and horizontal fold directions can be found at CraftDay.

Animator vs Animation (I and II)

Animator vs. Animation

"A simple stick figure created in Flash gets sick and tired of being tortured,
so he fights back. Check out this John Woo-style fight scene that takes place
entirely within a Flash program (which gets trashed in brilliant fashion). "

Animator vs. Animation II

"The badass stick figure is back and this time it's personal. In this
episode, victim becomes victimizer as he breaks out of Flash and takes on mighty
opponents like Firefox, the AOL IM guy and the Photoshop* icon. "

Still more random drawings

from September

Successful


Analytical


Hair


Not sure


Wow