New Christmas Cards up!

Just got them printed today, check them out in my shop!

After watching Rise of the Guardians (if you haven't you should), I was reminded again of my fondness for Yetis. So it's no surprise that the Christmas cards I drew after that was monster themed.

I had a hard time figuring out a background for the 3 Yetis huddled around a fire but settled on a deep red since it was a Christmas card. Had fun playing around with the shading for this since they were all seated around a fire and would have shadows cast at different angles depending on where they were seated. I also like woolly mammoths so I had to draw one into the picture.

Was inspired by some of the other great card illustrators on Etsy and decided to try a new style, I quite like how it turned out and decided to have a batch printed out as well.

 
That's going to be it for my christmas card collection this year. Tomorrow is the start of December so I don't think there's really much time left to try and come up with new designs.

If you haven't already, it's time to start stocking up on Christmas cards especially if you are ordering from buyers based overseas. Happy Christmas Shopping!

I'll take imagination over reality, please

The girlfriend is off on a business trip, which led to this conversation we had.

Pencil before Pen

Whenever I watch YouTube videos of people drawing, I always see them sketching things out with a pencil first before going over it with a pen/marker. I never liked the idea of penciling stuff first because I feel like it's not as spontaneous as if you drew directly with a pen from the start. I'm finding it hard to find the words to describe how I feel about it.

But anyway, I decided to try it today because I was actually short on time and wanted to get a card done as soon as possible. And man, it makes life so much easier. I'm used to drawing things a few times before settling on something I like but sketching in pencil first will save a lot of paper. Ideally I'll get so comfortable with drawing that I will be confident that every pen stroke was as intended but I don't know if that's realistic. 

So today's 'learn something new everyday' lesson is: sketch in pencil first, save yourself the trouble, save the trees and we will all be happier for it.

Made this congratulatory wedding card today for a couple that liked to bake, cook and ballroom dance. I actually ended up enjoying drawing this one because it's of things I would usually not think of drawing on my own. Looking at wedding cake designs was also probably a first for me. 

Channeling sales through the unconscious

This morning I woke up and the first thing that came to mind was 'I think I made a sale'. The cool part (to me at least) was when I checked my account, I was right! It was awesome that I made a sale and what made it doubly awesome was the fact that I thought I did even before checking.

Re-reading my last paragraph, it borders on creepy with no life but who cares.

It's very encouraging to see people liking and actually buying my stuff. I feel like I've got lots of growing left to do in terms of my style of drawing but that's a good thing because it means having to draw more stuff which is really enjoyable anyway. Win-win situations are always the best.

While the girlfriend and I were out doing our christmas shopping, I felt like I was going to make another sale. When I checked, I did and that was great especially after walking around all day with my feet killing me and dodging humongous baby prams and what felt like the whole of Singapore packed into the mall we were at.

Speaking of which, when did baby prams get so monstrous. Seems like the babies are held up really high and it looks very unsafe though I'm sure the babypram companies went through a million tests to make sure their products are safe.

 

Black Friday - Cyber Monday 2012 Sale!

Jumping onto the US bandwagon and set up a listing for the most awesome shopping season of the year in the US aka Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

From now till 26th November midnight PST, buy 2 postcards and get 1 free! Click here to be taken to the listing

Happy Holidays to all who celebrate!

In other news...

New Series: Grumpy Cat Cards

And they're up! I really enjoyed doing this new series.

Saggybags was up to her usual antics: scratching at the door at an ungodly hour on a Saturday morning, expecting to be fed. When I got up all groggy and gave her some kibble, she gave me a dirty look and promptly meowed at me in a very disdainful tone. When she saw I wasn't going to give her any wet food, she gave me a 'wat iz diz defiance!' and gave me a very deadpan, petulant look of disapproval. That gave me an idea to start a bunch of grumpy cat cards.

I didn't know how many I'd end up with and just started drawing. I had a lot of fun with this and researching the different colours cats had. I only started liking cats this year because of the girlfriend and I'm glad she introduced them to me. I used to be a dog person, thinking cats were horrible pets that gave no affection but I was very wrong. Saggybags and Fatty provide endless amounts of entertainment, it's a lot of fun to have them around.

If you like grumps and cats, then hey you should check out my cards!
Check the Grumpy Cat Cards out!

Web analytics: Get to it

It's probably embarrassing to admit that I'm finding out new things on the Etsy shop seller page even though I've been using it for awhile. I should learn to click around more randomly.

I also completely forgot about getting google analytics for my Etsy page until I stumbled onto people discussing which countries their views were coming from. I was wondering how come my shop stats didn't show any of the details they were talking about until I realized they were using google analytics for that.

Glad I got it implemented but now it means another new tool to obsessively check. 

A guide for dummies: How to use google analytics with your Etsy store