I want to continue updating this site with more things. I have come to the realisation, however, that some things on this site might need to be rejigged a bit. Actually, a lot of it. Like my portfolio which requires a million clicks to get you where you want to go. As well as some of the downloads page, and… well… everything. I’m going to start working on a new layout and I already have an awesome background I want to use. It’s just a matter of finding time to design a new layout – and that’s the problem. Right now I’m pretty busy with work and errands here and there, all the while attempting to finish King’s Bounty (I haven’t even beaten the second boss yet) and Diablo II with Cam. I know, I know. THEY’RE JUST GAMES. But omg they’re pretty epic right now. I need some discipline.

I also want to start making use of my Etsy account this year. I don’t actually know what I’m going to sell yet but it’ll all be handmade I think. Well hand designed at least. It just involves so much planning and designing and reworking not to mention pricing and more planning. I think it’ll eat up a lot of my time. We’ll see how it goes though, it’s still early days and I have a few ideas floating in my head at the moment.

I’ve been meaning to attempt to learn how to use my tablet too but that hasn’t been going so well. I haven’t actually taken it out of the drawer since I failed so horribly last time. Er… yeah… we’ll see what happens once I clean my drawers out. I also need to sell some stuff on eBay. Sigh… So many things to do, so little time… C’est la vie.

Anyhow, there are a few things I aim to do this year on this website, some of which are:

• Update this layout (Cam and I have something pretty cool in the idea factory…we’ve yet to make a start on it though  :o)
• Update this blog once a week with either a new drawing, tutorial, inspiration/idea post, and/or other random fun stuff to be decided soon.
• Make a zine or three to make a new section on the site – I’m nearly finished with my first one! But I bet you all won’t be surprised to see what it is once I’ve scanned it rofl.

Umm…yeah…that’s all I’ve really thought of so far. I’m sure I’ll keep adding to the list as the year goes on. I mean it’s only the end of January after all.

On to more recent news, I came across an unfinished illustration today of a huge ice cream I did last year some time (I know big surprise right?) It was supposed to be for some random competition but I completely forgot about it and didn’t bother finishing or entering it….mainly because the competition was focussed around global warming and I thought my idea might be a bit too sarcastic to submit  SO I cleaned it up a bit today and added a few finishing touches. I have to say I’m a bit rusty at editing colours in Photoshop so that’s why the colours in this are kinda really dodgy. Oh well, I had fun making bokeh light effects anyway (Don’t know what bokeh is!?!? Find out how easy it is to make cool lighting effects in my next post  /shamelessplug).

So without further ado – here is my first drawing for 2012 – what else than giant ice cream.

Everything in this poster was meant to be a satire of “green” products…except I made it kinda cute. I CAN’T HELP IT I can’t do serious.

A few updates:

Firstly, Ephereal now has a facebook page! I actually made it because I thought you had to make one to get the “Like” button to show up on news feeds (long story) but I figured it would also be a good way to post and share my designs. I’m not looking for massive amounts of followers – just people who are actually interested in the stuff I do and little design things I pick up along the way. Please like the page if you are. <3

Secondly, I have a new affie! Please go visit Louise’s lovely site!

Thirdly, I have an exciting announcement to make about a new website in the coming week or so so stay tuned

Fourthly, I’m looking at doing some more tutorials around Illustrator sometime soon, so if you’d like to see anything please suggest. Thanks!

The kind of idea that makes you stay up til 4am finishing the drawing.

The kind of idea that will be gone FOREVER if you don’t start it immediately.

This new layout…started with that type of idea.

I’ve always loved the concept of clouds and deserts and open spaces, and I hope this kind of complements that. I knew I wanted to draw something with clouds and I wanted a whimsical type feel to it, so I drew a lonely happy robot, floating amongst the clouds over a busy city, fishing for star flowers while watching birds and balloons pass by. Joy!

And I’m not ashamed to say this layout was fueled by tea, gummi bears, instrumental post rock and LINKIN PARK. My in the zone music needs to be as mindless/unobtrusive as possible, and for some reason….listening to either of these things in the background helped me to just do stuff.

Drawing the robot was probably the hardest part, only coz I wanted it to look 3D-ish. I started drawing it pretty late at night, and it was the type of thing that if I didn’t finish it at that specific time, I’d never finish it, and the inspiration/in the zone-ness would be gone by the next day. I woke up and pretty much started working on it again, only something felt different, and I hardly made any changes before completing the rest of the layout. Weird how that happens huh?

I wanted to make the balloons individual image links but that all became too hard and messy so I scrapped that.

I was also going to make this a horizontal layout because it just WORKED in theory because the clouds looked better horizontal than vertical, but decided it got way too messy with the divs and stuff (I hate placing div layers next to each other. It makes things so complicated!). I think the city scape at the bottom definitely helps make this layout though because this totally looked like something was missing without it.

I’m also bringing back the lens flare. Yeah. Go me. Next thing you know, I’ll be using Papyrus for an egyptian themed layout. Hah!

One thing I’m really looking forward to is APNGs, or animated PNGs. I know Firefox already supports them but other browsers don’t and its kinda annoying.  I don’t know of any programs that make aPNGs either. I wanted to make some of the stuff in the header animated, but GIFS just don’t cut it with their 256 colours!

I have some new sketches and paintings to add on here too. And photos….haha. Soon my darlings.

Anyway, hope you people like the changes.

If you liked the old layout better, don’t fret. You can switch the themes at the bottom!

So I’ve uploaded most of the stuff I was going to this week- mostly new illustrations and drawings though, which I still need to update and add descriptions and stuff (something which I’m going to do right after this…or maybe tomorrow)! I’m working on adding photos but I have LOTS to go through, so it’s taking a while! I also have to upload all that ‘free stuff’ I promised – though I have to say, they’re not very exciting unless you’re talking about the Photoshop brushes/patterns I made a while ago.

I’m kind of sad though, because I’ve lost some original fireworks and ai files which contained the original illustrations due to me losing my USB, so I can’t make some images bigger than they already are!

I was also going through some old folders with some really old drawings in them, and it brought me back….waaayy back….to the Paint Shop Pro days. The days when I used to use rasters to draw instead of vectors because I didn’t know any better. It was quite cool though, and very nostalgic.

I found this old sketch which I drew when I was like, 12 or something, and because it was the first drawing I tried to make digital I thought it was funny it was still there on my hard drive. Funny story behind that too: I scanned it in the computer to try make it into a digital drawing but found out I actually couldn’t figure much stuff out after messing around a bit in Photoshop. So I signed up to some random Photoshop enthusiasts forum and posted my image and a question to see if any pro artists could give me a few tips on how to go about making it into a digital drawing and colouring it in and such.

I suppose my drawing must’ve looked extremely juvenile (it was an A4 sketch of a fantasy-type character holding a sword…I was very much into fantasy back then and still am!) because pretty much EVERYONE on the board laughed at me and told me not to bother- except for this one kind gentleman who took me through a few steps and how to use the basic tools in Photoshop and the best way to colour it in. I suppose the most important thing was, he was the first person that actually encouraged me to try doing something about me wanting to turn my drawing digital…instead of trolling me off the internet (which wasn’t hard back then because it was all dial up)! I can still remember that to this day and that has definitely taught me the importance of encouragement and motivation instead of intimidation.

I look at other people’s illustrations and artworks now and still get really intimidated about how I’ll probably never be as good as them. In fact, today I was just looking at this woman’s work, and they’re pretty amazing. I’m actually pretty jealous of anyone who can draw people, because drawing people are my worst nightmare.

I guess the only way to get better is to keep chipping away at that rock, and now that I have gotten back into all this, I am going to try get a million times better by this time next year!

I’m also using a new monitor today!! Well I got it about a week or a bit ago but I just got the cable to hook it up to my Macbook today. And it’s AMAZING. I’ve never had a monitor this big in my entire LIFE. And it’s all pretty much thanks to Cam. <3 I can draw stuff on a huge screen now!!! It is seriously the best thing ever.

I also rediscovered Fireworks!! I used to draw on Fireworks ages ago, before I realized Illustrator had a lot more features for print/web graphics, but the one thing that I really like about Fireworks is that the pen tool has a line coming from the cursor so you can angle paths better. I don’t know, I just think- why doesn’t Illustrator have that?! It’s so useful and makes things SO much easier! I know Fireworks is mostly for graphics/webpage integration but drawing on that thing is awesome. Maybe I’ll try using it again and see which program I like better.

Inspiration wise, I had another weird dream last night. It was kind of inception like because it involved a lot of elevators and going up and down into different realms, but the annoying thing is, I can hardly even remember where I end up because I forgot it all before I was about to write it down. You know that feeling when you’re just on the brink of remembering something important? That happened to me today- with that dream- but it wouldn’t come back and it was disappointing

Anyway I should probably go finish off an ad I need to do for dotdotdash and resize photos and stuff.

Goodnight internet!

They’re pretty old and totally nostalgic, but I will probably put them up later .. just because.

I also updated some dead links and in the process of compressing stuff so I can update the art on this site.

People might remember my new year’s resolution at the start of the year, saying how I was going to draw something every week. Well, I kinda have been doing that. Only thing is, I have to admit I did get lazy for a few weeks and drew incredibly scrappy drawings which are completely embarassing.

In order to make up for those weeks of creative apathy, I have decided I am going to post something new each week, either hand drawn or digitally drawn.

My visual diary still has quite a few pages to go- It’ll be a huge accomplishment if I do finish it by the end of the year!

Here’s something I drew quickly while I was on holiday recently (hence the off centre lines and such):

People always talk about how amazing it would be if robots could do housework- well what about machines that can produce floating cake?!

I’m surprised millionaires haven’t already started backing research into this.

About time right?! I think I’m going to miss that old scrolly layout though. Just a bit. I feel like confetti should be going off right about now though. I remember saying at the start of the year I would update this more often, but its already August and … I’m finally getting around to it. Time goes by way too fast!

I wanted this site to be a bit more user friendly so I hope it GOD it works on other browsers. It should look fine on any resolution but I haven’t actually checked on the PC yet so I don’t really know what it looks like other than what it looks like now on my 13″ screen!

Oh well. I didn’t actually spend all that much time changing it up either- which is cool since it usually takes me a while to figure out what goes where and stuff. But I’ve done heaps of little things too…getting rid of old plugins and updating stuff, and changing images a bit.

The only thing I’m worried about is the header loading a bit slowly because it’s kind of a big file but I may change that later when I have more time.

I still don’t know what to do about the background. I think I might make it a tad bigger. And if you’re wondering what I’ve drawn is all about- I wanted to depict a mix of new and old symbols; the contrast between nature and civilization…and the enduring power of the horseshoe crab. Heehee.

I was going to change the image links because green on brown doesn’t really look that great but I was stuck for ideas and … well I think I’ll leave everything for now.

I listened to the same song on repeat while updating this site, and I’m really digging the song at the moment because it’s just the most beautiful song ever, but literally- two hours+ of the same song. It was definitely the tea and Conor Oberst that helped me finish this layout without leaving it half done overnight!

Well now that I’ve accomplished my mission for the day, I might catch some zzz’s. I will update all the links and images very soon!! And add more new stuff. I have a whole load of things to add to this site, once I clear out elusionerie.com.

Hope you like the changes

I have in fact been feeling pretty inspired lately…..actually probably ever since I read more about them crabs. They are seriously amazing. If only everything in this world were as marvellous as those creatures. I think the inspiration has gone a bit to my head because I had THE awesomest, wackiest dream last night.

It involved driving to a random unmarked town fenced off with barbed wire. I suppose it was like a family trip thing because everyone was there, and I remember staring out the window feeling very “bored and despondent”. Suddenly there are huge, gigantic, ENORMOUS buildings that tower over us in our small little rustbucket, and we’re all like wooahhh. These buildings- they’re massive. Like warehouse massive. They are also very futuristic and chrome like and there’s funnels and chutes and pipes coming from all of them at different angles and shapes. Smoke is coming out from chimneys on a few of them – its like we drove straight into a deserted alien town or something. Or perhaps even Area 51. Only it was out in the desert, it was daytime, and there seemed to be no people around but US. It was very odd.

Anyhow, we stop the car and start wandering around. We enter a building and inside it looks like a rundown hotel lobby. It comes to my attention that the entire ‘town’ of buildings are abandoned, and possibly haunted by strange aliens or beings. Wandering around the building felt supernatural-ish. I remember walking over crumbled tiles and looking out windows from high above in the towers, and my brothers voices get farther and farther away, til I realize I am completely alone.

I go to a window and look out to the horizon, and I just see endless desert. Just sand, and blue sky. I begin to wonder how the buildings disappeared, and then I sense a force behind…or around me…and then I wake up to the sound of my alarm. It was weird. Actually, it’s weird that I remember all of this now because when I woke up I didn’t really think much of it. But in retrospect, I think it was a pretty weird dream.

Probably will come back to that in the future when I’m stuck for ideas!

Anyway, I’ve basically finished A layout for this site, but I’m still kind of undecided about it. You know that feeling when it feels like it may be missing something? Or a lot of things? That’s the vibe I’m getting at the moment, the only problem is I don’t really know what to change. It is hard. Though on a landmark note, it IS one of the first layouts I have done 99% of in Illustrator. I just really wanted EVERYTHING to be 100% original; not from some free stock background or brush or pattern, especially since this is a site mainly showcasing MY work…so in that sense I guess I kind of did what I set out to do. In fact, I’m looking at it right now and thinking- the perspective in it is ALL WRONG. I may put it up later when I have time and see what I think about it then.

I had this really cool idea for another layout though, which involves the horizontal scrolly thing happening again, but I may put up the newer one first before making another one because it will probably take a lonngg time to figure out. It involves seamless timelines, horseshoe crabs, wires and plants. Lots and lots of plants. I’ve got it all mapped out in my head, I just need to find a way to translate it onto screen. If I do manage to finish it it will probably end up being layout of the century for me.

…Seriously.

A seamless horizontal layout was actually something I was going for in the current layout, but because things stuffed up and photoshop was just way too slow, I made little panels instead. And I found out, my site actually does work on my iphone! So yay!

Either way, both of the possible upcoming layouts involve horseshoe crabs.

Yeah, yeah I am obsessed with them. Whatever.

The other day I drew a horseshoe crab, just coz I thought they looked cool:

It’s still actually in progress still so I’ll probably add more highlights and stuff later when I have more time. The colours a bit off and this is why: the colour profiles on my mac are retarded and the color profiles seem to change at random. I constantly have this problem with photoshop too – like it doesn’t save colours correctly coz the profiles/settings are different. I didn’t think it’d happen in illustrator as well, but it did, and thankfully there’s an option to saturate colours so I just did that and saved it normally. I dunno. It’s annoying. I should probably synchronize it all through Bridge but I really can’t be bothered right now.

On a site related note, I updated most of the thumbnails for everything….and that’s about it. I kind of need to organize files on my computer and hosting server at the moment because everything is a huge, huge mess and its causing me to lose files and forget where things are then I end up accidentally deleting them which causes me to lose original files which SUCKS because I don’t have enough space on my hard drive to make a complete backup and I seem to have lost my USB stick which had all my old old work and stuff on it.

Ugh. Anyway I seem to have ranted on for quite a bit and I don’t really know how but I did just want to write down that dream sequence so I wouldn’t forget it in the future!

Look out for the new layout- it’s coming! Soon. I know I keep saying that but I’m definitely hopefully probably going to do it tomorrow.

Or today, rather. Uh….in about 20 hours or so.

0:-)

I realize this site is a huge HUGE mess- some images don’t work….the comic page doesn’t work AT ALL….some things just look plain horrible…yeah.

I know.

It’s because when I ported all my folio stuff from elusionerie.com I was lazy and didn’t change all the hyperlinks and image urls. And now that elusionerie.com has expired, it’s not exactly up and running to host all the pretty pictures and whatnot.

I need to do a biiiggg overhaul of this site, starting from the ground up. It sounds totally fun right? ~_~

Anywho. I scanned some stuff that needs to be edited and cropped and compressed, and I also finished my door illustration! Yeah. I KNOW. The one I started all the way back in March of 2009. When I was in Singapore. Yes. THAT illustration.

I opened it up and decided I’d better finish it before the file becomes corrupted from being unfinished for so long. Thing is…I’d kinda forgotten what I had drawn. I’d left some notes in there but I kinda like the concept of this drawing. It’s simple….but I like it that way.

Well…hope you like it:

Uhhh yeah. It’s kinda rough actually. I wasn’t going for the perfect line-age and honestly it could do with a lot more detail, but that may be for later….I am just really rusty with digitization…especially illustrator and photoshop. Thinking bout using this for my blog. Maybe.

Also, thank god I have copies of my stuff on this site because I’ve lost a whole bunch of stuff on my hdd. Like my drawing of the flying pig..and the improved heart dichotomy…stuff like that. Crappy backups and me being stupid being the reason why.

Ugh. Anyway, I’ll get onto the new layout and updatation and removing dead links and replacing image urls soon. VERY SOON! I’m even getting annoyed at myself for taking so long to update this site.

Lazy me. I have just been busy, busy, busy. Sooo busy I don’t even have time to blog anymore!

I actually have quite a few things to add to this site, the only thing is, most of them need to be scanned in or compressed, which takes AGES.

And me being on my macbook and all…..it just doesn’t have the power I NEED to do this all in lightning fast speed!

I’m definitely looking to get a bigger, faster, more powerful desktop computer soon.

In the meantime, I will try organize all my things so I can eventually add some new content to the site!!

Which will be…hopefully soon.