Mortimer The Book Explorer ... OR ... Kyle Made a Weird Bookmark

Why hello there readers and fellow bloggers, long time no see. ^_^

Meet Mortimer! He’s an Explorer. He loves books. He is a Book Explorer! (It’s a bookmark, or is it?)
What I’m saying is that I created a classy eyeball person with ambition, and then made him into a delightfully weird laminated bookmark for you to enjoy, and quite possibly get creative with yourself. - As it turns out the average size of a standard bookmark is almost equal to a very tall 1:12 scale (dollhouse size) human, so while I was photographing Mortimer he wandered around the studio a bit.
 
If anyone wishes to bring a copy of Mortimer home and use him in weird photo ops, by all means please do. (and feel free to let me know what you’ve come up with!)  
#mortimerbookexplorer Wouldn’t be a bad tag for your pics, just sayin’. 

Ok, but how do you get a copy of Mortimer? 
 
Well here’s the thing: Because this was a weird/random project, I printed and assembled these neat bookmarks in-house. 
Depending on feedback, I can make many more runs of Mortimer and his friends to come, but for now there are only 12 Mortimers available. 
 
3 ways to snag one for yourself;

1. Head on over to ART247 in Lockport NY. There are some for sale just outside of studio 233
2. My Etsy shop, under the *NEW* Misc. Fun! section.
3. Now that you’ve read this far - This post is actually a giveaway announcement! *gasp*

That’s right, I am giving one of the very first copies of Mortimer the Book Explorer away to one of my lucky Facebook followers! 
To be entered, head on over to my Facebook page and hit the like button - You can find a post with the details there.

This is my first online giveaway ever and if it goes well I might just do it again, so share this post to make this giveaway happen and to get Mortimer out there exploring the books and world I would imagine he’d love to see! #bykylelefort #art #giveaway #bookmark #eyeballpeople #characters #dollhouseminiatures #artstudio #lockportny

Not So Much Blogging, Very Much Busy Working

Packing things up for the Buffalo Niagara Reptile Expo (May 3rd, 9:00am - 3:30pm); https://www.facebook.com/events/723840184374069/

My main purpose for attending this show is to help out Nathan Lefort ( https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nathan-Lefort/667222623368680?fref=ts ) so if you like riker mounts/display domes/pretty butterflies/creepy bugs (and you're in the WNY area) - Stop by my table.

Along with Nate's work, I will also be bringing this pile of handmade miniature riker mounts, mini hedgehogs, what's currently available from my Mini Patchwork Dragon Series, a few assorted mini plushies, art postcards, and every metallic art print I have in stock - Including the [finally available in print] Yellow Spotted Salamander illustration I've had floating around online for the past couple years. ~ I have a long day ahead of me, should be fun though. Might take pictures, so stay tuned.

The Curious Concepts Project: "Devon" & Done

So funny story...I was getting ready to wrap up the Curious Concepts project (double checking that I've done everything, getting ready to order prints, etc.) when I noticed something - I never posted the finished "Devon" illustration. At least, I couldn't find any blog post for it. Part of extending this project to a full year can be blamed on computer troubles, so I'm guessing that post just got lost in the shuffle. Oh well, it's done and I'm posting the WIP images now. ^_^

(If you would like to see the original W.I.P. post for this illustration, click here)

I was getting stuck on the background (the original photo was all black), and the forshortening of the fingers was tripping me up, so I started drawing in semi-random shapes and textures in the background (to make it more interesting), and then ended up just cropping out the arms all together.

More textures in the back, and I added in parts of the original photo. 

The face looks a little more realistic now.

The background was getting a bit too busy so I decided to make it blurred and monochromatic 

~ Green was not a good color choice.

Gray was a much better choice, and I found a neat square texture brush in Photoshop - Now that's what I call a nondescript background. ^_^

I also did some erasing and cleaned up some lines, but that's not as noticeable here.

And there we have it, "Devon"

The Curious Concepts Project: A Bunny WIP

Hello Everyone! How are you? How's life? Anyone waiting for an update on The Curious Concepts Project? Good News! That's what I'm posting about today. ^_^
I'm behind on these blog updates (sorry about that), so I'm hoping this post will catch things up.

Before I forget to mention it, the results are in from Facebook. This illustration is now titled "To the Edge and Back";

Thank you to everyone who voted on the name. ^_^

And now what I've been working on lately, by request of my very good friend Elizabeth -"A Bunny"

I asked what kind of bunny should I be drawing, 

but "A Bunny", is the only input I was getting

which meant I could do whatever I wanted (yay!). 

So I drew this classy looking fellow.

I decided to go with red and green since I rarely use those colors together outside of Christmas. Red became more of a pink and purple, but oh well, I have very few rules to follow on this one.

The next few of these are the paintbrush tool and playing with filters to make a really cool background effect.

And some burn tool, shading the bunny.

 I really liked the colors at this point, 

but the bunny looked a lot like plastic 

and you can see the seams of all the layers I'm using.

So I went a lot darker with the shading,

and then I picked out a few shades of pink to paint in as fur.

See?

Cleaned up the lines.

Messing with layer filters again.

Now it looks like it has a little fur, but it's not quite right yet.

Painted in another layer of fur to even out the colors/shading.

The background had gotten a little gray looking so I painted in more green.

Blurring and filter effects.

 More painting and shading. Here we are now. 
Not quite 100%, but it's pretty close to finished.

This new series is almost done now. All of the finished illustrations I posted earlier in the year have been color proofed/test printed. I have to brighten up one of them, and of course make sure the last couple illustrations are printing ok too. Then off to the printers they go.

The Curious Concepts Project: "Colors" - Let's Name It

Ok, I'm 99.999% sure "Colors" is finished and ready for a test print. One problem though: "Colors" was only meant to be a working title.

I talked to Vitt, the person who requested the colors I used for this piece, and she had several ideas.

So here's what we're going to do. You guys get to pick. This is open to anyone capable of commenting on my public Facebook page. ~It's not a contest or a giveaway, or anything like that. We're just picking a title. Ok? Ok. ^_^

Here is the last batch of WIP shots;

Some more shading.

Painting in a big wave,

More painting,

The burn tool,

  Erasing some extra bits, 

and playing with transparencies to make the wave look more like water. 

Done!

If you would like to place a vote for a title,
Please Click Here to head on over to Facebook.

I'll leave that open until the end of April.

Thanks everyone.

The Curious Concepts Project: WIP "Colors"

I've been working on "Colors" (still a working title), so it's time for an update;

 As a reminder, 

This is the sketch I'm painting over.

I traced over my lines in Photoshop to create selection paths. 

You can't see the paths themselves here, but I used them to add in the colors,  

Navy Blue, Purple, and "Silver", which you can see.

Not sure if I've explained this enough yet, but all those shapes/colors are on different layers, one of the perks of using a computer. When I work on digital paintings I can go over AND under what I've already painted in. I can also hide and reveal layers as needed.

Used a soft edge brush tool to add some stars.

A texture brush + the burn/dodge tools.

More burning and dodging. The stripes were given identical textures, 

so you couldn't see them very well until I started shading.

Because you can never have too many dots, 

I used a hard edge round brush and made this spotted pattern.

And it's hard to see here, but I painted a layer of texture onto the ship.

Used the paths again to remove the purple spots

 from anywhere they weren't supposed to be.

Took the round brush and switched the edges back to a soft setting. 

Then I selected the Dodge tool and went over each of the purple dots, 

so now they look round and dimensional instead of just flat purple.

Hard to explain this part. 

Basically I took the original purple lines and blurred them. The selection paths were used to keep  the lines' edges from blurring too. I added a new layer of blue underneath, again using the paths so nothing else in the image would be affected. The blue is showing through the purple a little now.

Painted in some shadows behind the ship and large striped shape at the top.

I also did some more shading.

It's not finished yet, but the next time you see this, it should be. :)
(and I will have figured out a real title-might ask Vitt what she thinks)

The Curious Concepts Project: WIP "Devon" and ..."Colors"

I was working on these two over the holidays, and now it's time to post my progress so far.

As you may remember, Devon's request was a picture of Neil.
So, of course, Neil's request: Devon.

Once again, I was told to grab a photo off of Facebook.
Not sure who took the original, so I'll start by posting it after I already started painting in Photoshop.

It's going to look goofy before it looks awesome. 

Always remember that when using Photoshop.

Flat Colors! 

Not sure about the orange background, but it works for now.

Starting to shade with the burn tool.

More shading, and painting in details.

It's getting there.

 

I also started an illustration using Vittoria's color choices:  

Navy Blue, Purple, and "Silver".

 Silver is in quotations because it's going to be more of a gray. Although printed on metallic photo paper, it might look silver-kinda hoping that works out because Vitt did request silver...

My plan for this one was to just start drawing and see what happened.

I ended up with a ship sailing into infinity.

neat.

As you can see, no actual coloring done on that one-yet. I think it's off to a good start though.

Should I Call It a Thank You Sale?

Thank You to all of my followers/customers this year (and all years previous).
You are a BIG part of why I can continue making small things. And Illustrations. And artwork in general.

As Thanks, from now until the New Year, everyone is welcome to take 10% off orders placed at my Etsy shop.

At checkout, just enter coupon code: SAVE10TODAY

Etsy Shop; https://www.etsy.com/shop/KyleLefort

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I am planning on having an after the holidays catch up mega-post up soon (loaded with neat pictures and everything), but I didn't want any of my blog readers to miss hearing my Thank You, or the coupon. So you're getting this post first.

Talk to you all soon,

~Kyle