While browsing Tumblr this week I came across these two very well animated GIFs that someone had posted.

They peeked my curiosity so much that I instantly went digging through all the notes on the post hoping someone had happened to say what anime they were from. (Note…I’m not sure WHY this always happens on Tumblr. I guess everyone assumes everyone has seen everything? lol.) Rather quickly I discovered they were from a movie known to English speakers as Wolf Children (Ōkami Kodomo no Ame to Yuki in Japanese.)

A quick Google search turned up a Wikipedia page about the movie. A really simple synopsis: the story is about Hana who falls in love with a Werewolf (they call him Wolf Man in the Wiki article) and the struggles she goes through to raise her half wolf/half human children. The movie is really sweet and I think anyone who has seen any Japanese animated films by Hayao Miyazaki or Satoshi Kon will really enjoy this movie. I had so many feels when this movie was over that I was sad we watched it at night because I didn’t know how I could sleep with all the feels. XD

After watching the movie I was really happy to discover that the director of this film, Mamoru Hosoda, was the director of one of my favorite Japanese animated films, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (another movie I highly recommend seeing!!). He’s also the director of Summer Wars which I have been wanting to see for a long time. Basically, this guy makes awesome stuff that you should see.

I hope you see the movie and some of Hosoda’s other films as well! I promise you won’t be disappointed. :)

Assuming you have browsed the internet for quite some time (which I am sure you have otherwise how did you get here?!) I’m sure you’ve noticed the cute little square icons displayed beside each websites name in your browser. If you have multiple tabs you can see the vast differences between these little icons. Anyway…to my point: today I tried making one of those cute little icons. Let’s just say they look a lot more simple to make than they appear.

While this isn’t my first experience doing this my first favicon for my old site looked like crap. The old favicon image looked bad even before it was uploaded.
And it looked even worse after being uploaded due to it being 32×32 and resized to 16×16.

So today I set off on a journey to make a new one and this is what I came up with in the order they were made.

1. Basically just a resized image of Diego’s head. Problem with this one is it will end up looking like my old one pictured earlier. Blurry and unrecognizable. Next!

2. There isn’t really anything wrong with this version. I basically redid the 1st one and did actual pixel art of it. Problem is that when you resize this 32×32 favicon to a 16×16…

3. You get this. Looks bad to me and not even close to being as crisp as #2.

4. At this point I erased the entire thing and decided to start over. I decided to make it symmetrical so it would look better at it’s small size. I really like this one except…

5. Glasses. I really wanted the panda to have glasses on since it is supposed to be Diego, my leading panda man. It took a while and a bunch of changes…I’m still not quite sold on this one though. I’m thinking I’ll probably go back to 4.

The websites favicon is currently set to #5. I’m not sure which one I like better, but I am happy that my favicon doesn’t look super terrible now. If you have a site/blog and are interested in making your own here are some resources I used while making my own favicon today.

• http://www.netmagazine.com/features/create-perfect-favicon
• http://ma.tt/2003/11/how-to-create-a-favicon/
• http://www.onextrapixel.com/2010/10/06/pixel-art-create-a-better-favicon-for-your-website/

Also, don’t be afraid to look at other people’s favicons for their sites. You can learn a lot just by doing alt+print screen and pasting the image in a Photo editor (like Photoshop or even paint). Zoom in and study their favicon for a while. While this is a good learning method please remember not to copy others designs. If you are still stumped check out some pixel art tutorials first before diving head first into making your own favicon. Deviantart has a lot of great pixel art tutorials.

Hope you enjoyed seeing my favicon making process! I would love to see your favicon if you decide to make one and if you have any feeback on mine leave a comment below.

“Wandering Musician Panda goes around from town to town stopping only to play his guitar and then he’s on the road again. He loves his trusty yellow guitar, his mint hounds tooth fedora, and mint bag. These are the only things he ever carries with him because he prefers to travel light.”

Some time ago this guy popped up in my sketch book. I really liked the idea of this panda going around playing his guitar everywhere he went. The line art for him has been done for a while actually. But I was having a hard time making any decision on how I should finish the piece that he sat around unfinished for way longer than I intended. I suppose all artist struggle with this every now and again, but I feel like it happens to me a lot. Generally it goes something like this: I work out a sketch that I am really excited about, struggle way to much on how to finish the piece, mull over about 5 different ways I could potentially finish the piece, gives up and never finishes piece. This happens a lot more than I like to admit actually, but I’m working on making a decision and sticking to it. Regardless, I’m rather excited and proud with how this piece came out. It’s my first matte print ever in my shop (sorry guys I have a glossy addiction)! The subdued colors of a matte print fit this piece. Plus, I should use matte more often since it doesn’t get scratched up like glossy or show finger prints everywhere. ;)

In my last blog post I showed a sneak peek of the new mini watercolor paintings I was working on. If you follow me on Instagram then you’ve most likely seen all the sneak peeks I posted along the way! I have to say this new jewelry line was pretty fun to work on and I even started another batch. The first batch of necklaces is listed on my Etsy for sale.

This original ink and watercolor drawing I did titled, “Panda Nap Time” is new to the Etsy store as well. I really love these little panda blob things. I call them Panda Squishies. :D

And here is a sneak peek of the second batch!

I’m not really keen on the hamster one, but the rest of these will probably make it into the shop. (Except maybe Mr. Saturn…because I love him and Earthbound too much.) My desk is also a mess…I need to clean it.

There is also a new print I want to add to the shop soon…I will post about that later once I’ve done some test prints. One of my goals this year is to have more prints available in the shop though. All the prints that are currently available have been in my shop for a long time. The newest print, “Panda Shooting Stars”, has been in my shop for almost a year!! Therefore, I really need to focus and add some more Panduhmonium artwork. We’ll see… ;)

Hi lovelies! I’ve missed you all. The end of last month kinda drained me and I feel like I have been drifting ever since. Ross’s grandpa passed away and we quickly had to halt everything and go to Pennsylvania to be with his family. The time there was mostly pleasant though we were there for a sad event. When we weren’t busy running around there wasn’t much to do on our downtime. I guess maybe I grew bored from sitting there and now here I am continuing to sit. I am going through what you might call a dry spell as far as art and creating go. Randomly through the day this past week(s) I will sit in my chair and attempt to work, but usually it results in me sitting in my chair staring at my computer desktop. I have plenty of ideas of things to work on, but inspiration and motivation to actually do so has been zero. Though, I have slowly been trying to message my creativity and do something creative some days. I am trying to let myself naturally go through the funk instead of forcing myself.

Tonight I pulled out one of my large watercolor pads and started doing original mini paintings for some of the pedant trays I bought a while ago. I’m hoping to have a good batch ready to go soon so I can pour resin and get them in the shop.

Also, Ross started working on something new and exciting for himself that he has always wanted to do (career wise). I’m hoping and praying all will come together for him and God will steer him in the right direction. So lately we’ve been dreaming big and I wonder where it will all go.

Also if you would like to share; what do you do to get through creative dry spells?