Threadless to a Good Home

Does that title make any sort of sense?
Remember these loveable designs?

A while back I submitted these two and a sleepy ocelot to the Jinx Minecraft t-shirt contest. While the ocelot has been adopted by the good folks at Jinx, these two are still looking for a good home.

That's where the Threadless Second Minecraft Challenge comes in! For a single, one-time free payment of  a 5 vote, these poor creatures can be given a second chance at a proper, professional production cycle.

Click the images above to learn more about these designs. Their future is in your cursor. Vote now. Change a life. In the arms of an angel.

The Cat's Meow

Excellent news, folks! One of my designs has won the Jinx Unsung Heroes Contest in no small part due to everyone who supported this design by voting, who I'd like to thank profusely. Honestly I was under the impression that this was one of my weakest designs. It was the last one I put together, and I actually had a full redesign planned for it. I don't have the file on me, but I'll have this post edited later on to show what I had in mind.

The fact that it was selected as one of the top ten grand prize winners is still difficult for me to believe, in part because of all the other incredible designs that won. But I'm not about to complain about the outcome, so hooray!

Singing the Songs of the Unsung

They're all up for voting! Not totally sure how that happened, but I'm not complaining. Click each of the icons above to be taken to the voting page for that design. Vote well, vote often!

Safe and Sound

I've been busy with class, but so far it seems like there are a lot of interesting things going on in these classes. I'm already working on some neat papercraft stuff in Design 3D that I'll probably have ready to post sometime today, but for now let's focus on the kitty drawings.

Ocelots in Minecraft scare creepers away, and this seemed like a nice, soft approach to this vicious game of avoidance and explosions. Also, I finally got my designs on the proper submission template and submitted them. There's a lot of weird stuff going on with Jinx's qualification process right now (for my three designs I've received three letters of rejection and two letters of acceptance) so I'll let you know when voting officially starts and I know exactly what's going on.

Here are my other two entries in proper t-shirt form. Kinda bums me out that they had such a limited selection of colors, but they all stand on their own.

Creature of the Deep

Avast! Another entry to the Jinx Unsung Heroes of Minecraft contest! This one's a squid, and I love it for so many reasons. It has a pixel aesthetic that compliments the game, it turns the unobtrusive li'l squid into a ferocious beast, and the ship itself is just all sorts of cool.

Working on the ocelot now, and I might have a design before the end of today. I don't think I'll have time or creativity enough to do all ten of the featured mobs, but I don't see any reason not to try.

Super Happy Funtime Fungus Cow Go!

J!NX is putting on another design contest, The Unsung Heroes of Minecraft. They're asking for t-shirts designed around ghasts, squids, wolves, enderdragons, ocelots, blaze, sheep, iron golems, or mooshrooms, which all seem like pretty random characters to group together, but whatever.

The deadline's June 3rd, and I've spent the last few days working on a few submissions. This is the first one I've completed, a li'l Japanese mooshroom. The text under him just says "Mushroom Cow."

I made the distressed t-shirt overlay myself and I'm really proud of how it turned out. Makes it feel like an old thrift-store purchase. Adds character. Yeah.

I've got a squid design in the works, so I'll probably post that one tomorrow.

Draw Duel

Two people, two paper pads, two pencils, and an impartial panel of judges. This is all you need to have yourself a proper draw duel.

The rules are simple. A random subject is selected by the judges or generated by an art prompt randomizer like this one from Magatsu. As soon as the subject is announced, the competitors have ten minutes to create the given topic using nothing but pencil and paper before them. Ideally, they are not allowed to see their opponent's progress. The countdown is kept where both contestants can see it, and at ten minutes, it's pencils down, and the judges must select which drawing best captures the subject.

Draw duels are awesome. They're a great way to settle arguments and breed hostility between your friends while honing your artistic skill. Here are a few of the duels I've been involved in. All my drawings are on the left, my opponent's are on the right.

If you click the little pictures they stop being little pictures but it's okay because then they're big pictures.
 
Subject: A Gas Station in the Middle of Nowhere

Subject: Determination

Subject: A Dusty Museum

Subject: Something Sweet

Subject: A Place Time Forgot

Subject: Chest

Calendar Contest is Go!

The Creative Process

The Contest

The Original Sketch

 

Voting is now live on the J!NX Calendar Contest! There are a lot of great submissions, and you can vote on all of them here. And my design was choosen to go on to voting! Good ol' Endy and Snowfellow can be found here, any and all feedback and votes are greatly appreciated. This project has been at the forefront of my focus for a few weeks now, so it's both a relief and an excitement to see the final stages finally underway.

 

Best of luck to everyone who entered!



The Creative Process

The Contest

The Original Sketch

It's done! I'm finished with my entry in the calendar contest. It's been submitted and everything! And as promised, I'm going to walk you through my personal design process. Let's get started!

Step One



We start with the basic shape of our subjects. The enderman is a tall, slender fellow, while the snow golem is short and bulky. For our purposes, a triangle will be the best shape for the job.

Step Two

Double-click the shape to correct the angles. We now have an outline that'll serve as the basis of our foreground.

Step Three

You know, snowfellow looks a little too nervous. Select and triple click the eyes and pull the anger gradient all the way up. Press the select key to apply the changes.

Step Four

Much better! 

Step Five

Now it's time to add the color. Right click, select "add color," and pick "fancy" from the drop-down menu.

Step Six

Make sure your content awareness fill is turned to "Medium Well" in the settings, otherwise it loses that cartoony look. Now it's time to work on the background.

Step Seven

We'll be doing the background much like the foreground. Once again, draw out the basic shape...

Step Eight

...and double-click to correct angles.

Step Nine

Right click the background and color fancy again. As you can see, this is an integral part of the design process.

Step Ten

Since there are a lot of shapes to fill with a large pallet of color, this process will take a little longer to render than the first time. Be patient, the end result is worth it.

Step Eleven

So we've got a snow golem trying to hit a wily enderman. We need to show that he's been trying and failing for a while. Bring down the top bar, select "effects," and highlight the "snow filter" option. Strike the select key three times to begin the "Lots of Snowballs that Missed their Target" filter.

Step Twelve

 And here's the finished product! Ctrl+S to save, ⌘+P to print, and Ѫ+4 to frame.

So now we just wait until February 8th to see if this gets selected for the finals. If it does, it'll go to public voting. I'll be sure to post the links to all that when they become available.

The deadline's still a while off and multiple entries are permitted, so I might do another one if I get any new ideas. This one came together really well, and with any luck, it'll go far.

I've got a really good feeling about this.

Quit Teleporting!

The Contest

 

 

Contest update time! I scrapped the ravine. The joke I was going to add (long, painful fall) wouldn't have fit on the landscape, so it came between redesigning the whole thing for a pretty stupid joke or starting from scratch.

So here are the characters in our newest design, a nervous Snow Golem and the silly Enderman taunting him. The scene is based on the interaction between the characters in the game: snow golems will try to throw snowballs at any hostile mobs, and endermen teleport out of the way of any projectiles, including snowballs. This leads to a game of cat and mouse which can last for hours if left unchecked.

I'll keep you posted on the design process.

Confirmed: Calendar Contest Capers

New project time! J!NK and Mojang are putting together a calendar, and they're asking folks to submit artwork with the theme: What's the funniest thing that has happened to you in Minecraft?

When they're done, the proceeds from the calendar sales will go to benefit Block by Block, a collaborative urban planning project between the UN and Mojang. The submission deadline is February 8th, and voting on the contestants begins February 12th. The full contest details are here.

I'm entering this thing. I love Minecraft and an opportunity to contribute to the merchandise and a good cause is too much to pass up. I haven't done much yet, but here's a first impression. You know there are good times to be had when you're dealing with a rickety bridge over a ravine.

 

 

I'll be sure to post a link when voting begins. This should be fun!