OOAK.biz

Missed the State Fair

Admin — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 02:27:45 +0000

I missed getting an entry into the Alaska State Fair this year, which is kind of a bummer to me. I had not really realized just how fast the year was going past, then the news suddenly announced that the fair is starting and I was not sure just where that came from. Seems like it should only be early spring, but here we are going into fall now.

I need to find the time to get back into working on things with the polymer clay, but just never seem to find the time to work on any clay projects anymore. Hopefully I’ll get the chance to get back to it soon, just find it really annoying that I missed out on getting anything entered in the fair. Ah well, there’s always next year, huh?

Drawing Tutorial

Admin — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 23:05:10 +0000

I’ve been too busy to get much work with polymer clay in, much less write about what I am doing (or rather not doing) with my clay projects. I am still around, though, and would love to be working on things here. I have plans to maybe change the site around some, so that might just happen before too much longer, we’ll see. I don’t want to mess with the links I know are out there on the Internet, so I am going to be sort of careful in just how I do this.

What brought me here today was the discovery of a kewl video on inking in crosshatching on a Manga drawing (you know, like Speed Racer) by a guy that has a bunch of drawing tutorials up on YouTube. The tutorials are by Mark Crilley, who does the Miki Falls: Spring (Miki Falls) books by HarperTeen (available in bookstores) and show what it takes to create Manga artwork. I’ve included one of the videos he has up at YouTube here, just so I can be sure to find them when I have some time to play around with drawing again. This one is for drawing a character in a fighting pose:

Miki Falls by Mark Crilley

I have not forgot the teapot

Admin — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 01:10:16 +0000

I was asked night before last about the teapot that I was supposed to make a tutorial of. That sort of got sidetracked when my nephew’s dog had puppies under my desk and I moved out of the office for a bit so I did not run over puppy toes with the wheels on the desk chair. I do need to get back to that tutorial, but it is going to take a little bit since I am sort of zoning on minimal sleep this week and as a result have a lot of things I have to catch up on in work.

Site is too busy looking

Admin — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 04:11:30 +0000

It has been a while since I have been to this site and the first thing I thought on sitting back studying it just now is that it is too busy looking. I need to do some work on it, prune a bunch of the “busy” out of the way it looks, but not right now, I am hardly focusing at the moment and sort of drifting along doing minor checks on sites and uploading links to a privacy policy here needed. I’ll revamp this site later on.

A sample of my craft projects

Admin — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 03:04:58 +0000

I have put up a picture showing a sampling of some of my crafts, these are things I am working on or have made recently. Just to show you the kinds of things I get into working on…

(click image to see larger version)

You could win a Hamilton Beach Stand Mixer

Admin — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:52:17 +0000

Okay, I know this is not exactly a crafty project, but I want to let you all know about this because it is very cool for a first contest giveaway. (and I wanna win it ::snicker::)

A Cowboy’s Wife is having a contest on her food blog! You can win a Hamilton Beach® Stand Mixer and she’ll ship anywhere so everyone is eligible!

Really, though, you need to check out the food blog, she has some wonderful recipes. (Helen, check out the pineapple upside down cake she has there! It’s listed under “desserts” in the “courses” menu. Looks like the one I used to make when I was a kid. I’m gonna make one for mom an’ dad.)

Here is an interesting little fellow

Admin — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 23:15:22 +0000

I was idly working on a design for the OOAK.biz sign/figure that I had been talking about. Sketching in ideas for OOAK critters and beings that could be sitting on the sign, when I started just making random lines at the top of the A. I had no plan for what to do with the things, it started out being maybe a elf sitting on the top of the A, then looked more like something’s pick axe stuck in the tip of the A… a few moments later I had this funny shape that I started thinking looked like a gargoyle, then this little fellow showed up.

I had no ides what he was, but he seemed to be a rather interesting little figure, so I took him to a sketch pad and started sketching. First I recreated the basic shapes, thinking how his nose was kind of fox shaped. I knew already the long forelegs were some kind of wings, a little more work on detailing him and I decided he just “felt” like a fox, so I made the ears a little more like a fox’s and the head a bit more fox looking and less sharply angled.

I then added in the top of the A but decided it wasn’t quite right, he needed a size comparison… well, the top of the A was looking sort of like a finger. I narrowed and rounded it some, added a little bit of detail - such as a fingernail.

What had started as claw feet shifted to paws as I worked on the finger, and he got a tail… change tail to be bushy like a fox tail. There the fellow is. He needs a fluffy fox type chest too.

I still needed to figure out his wings, so I started sketching another to show the wings, they ended up looking like a flying squirrels wings. He makes a cute critter, but I think I can see a few other types of little critters in that first sketch, so maybe I’ll end up with a mascot that looks more like the first one I drew and is sort of wyvern-like in appearance.

Well, see. I have a lot to do before I start on another figure.

New Banner

Admin — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 21:07:02 +0000

What do you think of the new banner? I have been playing with ideas and this is the one I like best, but the wyvern’s tail is kind of making the first O look more like a Q … If I keep this new banner then I will need to fix that when I have the time.I will need to see about changing the banner so the wyvern is maybe crawling through the O or something… have not yet decided. Might just design a OOAK sculpture of the whole OOAK.biz URL with the URL incorporated into the sculpture. That would be kewl.

Teapot mockups

Admin — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 21:04:37 +0000

Okay, I have some mockups for the teapots, I created three basic types for this, the elegant serving teapot ready to be painted silver used for fancy parties, the standard teapot for everyday use and the tea kettle for brewing teas and ideal for painting flat black to make a cast iron tea kettle for use on a wood cook stove.

These are the three I made, they range in sizes between 1″ for the short stout tea kettle and 1.5″ for the tall elegant tea kettle on the left. They are obviously rough and not fired, being just basic shape explorations to decide which ones I like. The handle on the tea kettle is a large staple with clay on it, I will use a different kind of wire when I make the finished tea kettle.

For now I need to get a fashion doll and see how the teapots measure up, since I am not sure what the scale is for fashion dolls. I also need to get batteries for my camera. This picture was taken with what I had thought was a new set, however as soon as I took the picture (without flash) the low battery light came on!

Tutorial awaiting camera batteries

Admin — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 02:03:21 +0000

I made a couple of mock-ups for the tea pot, but need to find batteries for my camera so I can create the tutorial. Tried to take pictures and the camera won’t even power on with the batteries that it has in it now.