Kittys Drawings

Hi Everyone

I’ve been a bit of a bad blogger lately – not having a lot of time to post. Or do anything in fact.

Though I did finish a skirt.
And make this belt. Just last night actually. It was really quick to make – the hardest part being turning the thin strip of fabric right side out using only my fingers and random jabbing with a bamboo skewer. I know there’s an easier way (and the appropriate tool) but I didn’t really have the means at the time. Not that it mattered – I didn’t get frustrated or anything

It’s made of white cotton and I stiffened it with two layers of Vilene sew-in interfacing. The buckle is a vintage glass one I picked up off Etsy. So pretty! I needed a proper white belt too, as the only one I have is off a vintage dress and it’s a bit out of shape. Being white, it’s a bit grubby too – and the one I’ve made, I can at least (gently) wash by hand to get any dirt off.

Isn’t my boyfriend’s camera awesome for taking up close pics with? I don’t even have to do anything and the pics come out so nice. It’s much harder to get a full-body shot with the right light and everything…but simple stuff like this is fun. Look at that lovely depth of field! Heh – nothing to do with MY photography skillz either.

Other news: the new job is still very full on – getting the hang of it slowly. It’s REALLY hard not to eat tons of crap while I’m there – since it’s food packaging, we’re constantly getting dumped stuff on our desk. And it’s a MASSIVE building where there’s cakes and stuff everywhere and general free things. Today I brought home a variety of organic products like buckwheat flour, LSA mix and quinoa flakes. It’s a far cry from my old place where we so rarely had such “perks” as morning teas and going out for drinks with my workmates.

The rare bits of sewing I’ve been doing is finishing off the skirt I’ve been yabbering on about in the last I-dont-know-how-many posts. I’m really behind on taking pics for you all but thankfully the days are getting longer. I have many projects on the horizon – the skirts from my last post….a button up 40′s shirt which is all cut and ready to start….and then I need to get cracking on the dress to wear to my friends wedding in December. I’ve also been charged with making the backdrop for her photobooth which I’ll get to soon Lainey   – unfortch I’m not in the way of Savers anymore but I’ll see if I can track down some suitable fabrics very soon.

On the drawing front – I really ought to get back to it tonight. No time to dilly dally! So I better go now!! See you all!

Hi!

Exciting day! I just picked up my Vogue Kris Kringle present for the year – weeeee I am so happy! I got utterly spoilt with a whole bunch of awesome stuff from lil-miss. *squeeeee* THANK YOU if you’re reading!
Of course, I couldn’t wait to open it – bugger waiting til Christmas! Hehe.

For those not in the know – Each year the girls (and guys) on the Aussie Vogue forums do a KK. The lovely Purplewhiskers takes the time to organise the whole thing, collating the email forms we send her and passing on those details to a randomly picked forum member. Then we all go out and buy a present and send it off, while eagerly awaiting our own in the mail. I’ve always had fantastic presents and have been participating for about 3/4 years now. I looove shopping for my KK too – it’s never been difficult to buy a stranger a gift surprisingly.
Mine hasn’t been sent off yet – I have been truly behind. The present is all bought and wrapped I just need to go and deliver it.

Now what did I get? I would have been easy to buy for because my Etsy favourites list is immensely long and filled with heaps of items within budget. lil-miss got me exactly what I wanted.

Have a look at all the goodies:

A perfect skirt pattern! Woo! SO versatile.

Yum smelling Lush stuffs. Soap and a bath bomb. They made the whole package smell awesome!

Sewing bits and pieces like some nice hem facing, zips and lace trim. Some AMAZING buttons! They are so fabulous – perfect glass vintage ones from an Etsy seller I’ve been eyeing off for a while.  There are 15 – plenty for a dress or 2. Wow.

Also – she even considered my kitties! They each got a toy to play with which I just know they’re going to love.

This is the lot of it. So stoked!

While I was at the post office I also picked up my latest fragrance purchase. I’ve wanted a bottle of Penhaligon’s anything for a long time and they finally had some stock on StrawberryNET – didn’t take me long to snap some up – for a supreme discount price of $53 including shipping. These are usually $120 or so in the boutiques here (not stocked at Myer etc). Unlike many of my previous perfume purchases from SN, I have sniffed this one before.  I’m very partial to soft florals and this really fits the bill.
And would you LOOK at the PACKAGING!!!

So cute!! Smells divine too – bright and fresh on the opening and then dries down to a soft, delicately spicy warmth.

What I also have my eye on is Penhaligon’s Douro – which is actually a cologne but hey, I wear Bvlgari Pour Homme occasionally….anyway – its all lemony and soapy and incredible. But that’s on the longer wishlist along with Parfums de Nicolai – Sacrebleu and Comme des Garcons – Stephen Jones.

Can you tell I really love perfume???

I’ll stop yabbering now. I actually have a drawing to work on. Spent 4 solid hours on it last night. We’ll see if I can squeeze out a repeat performance today but I’m pretty damn tired. Sooo – till then…

Ciao!

Hi everyone!

I thought today I would show you all my house. Since I’m always rabbiting on about how awesome it is and I don’t even have any photos. We moved in last October – renting of course – I could never afford to buy a house like this!
When we walked in we were all “OMG” – I was running around saying “eeeee I LOVE it LOVE it want want want”.
We were mega lucky because the Saturday we went to inspect, it was Grand Final day (massive sporting event “football” for my overseas readers – pah! I have little regard for sport ) so there was no one around. Only two other people came through that day and we managed to schmooze the real estate agent. He even gave us the keys that weekend and told us to show our friends around and come sign the lease on Monday.
So when we went to sign all the papers he tells us that he had over 14 emails asking to come see the property because they were too busy watching “footy” when the open for inspection was. Well – you snooze you lose! Ha!

Onto the tour – Let’s preface this by saying I’m only showing you a fraction of the house. The main bedroom is nowhere near ‘display quality’ as yet and the second bedroom is an utter shambles right now on account of my sewing projects strewn all over the bed.
The rest are the rooms we use most often and a part of the way to being decorated in how we like. All these white walls we constantly need MOAR ART to hang on them.

I’m really not much of a home stylist either so I know there’s all kinds of pics here that could be presented better.

K – I’ve tried to put everything in some semblance of order. The French doors lead out to the courtyard and the window is really high and arched – too high to photograph. It reaches well into the second storey. We have two mezzanine floors above the ground floor Puss likes to sticky-beak and follow me around the house so she’s in quite a few of these photos! The pic on the right is the entryway. There’s a powder-room on the left and the garage on the right. This view looks towards the inside of the building. Picture a big barn with a shared driveway down the middle and all the apartments branching off.  Bamboo floorboards which are nice and quiet compared to hardwood

Boof relaxing (furring) on the couch. That’s his favourite spot and he gets rather upset if you sit in it. The couch set I scored off eBay for $90! Freshly re-upholstered too – great colour. They’re supposed to be Parker …they look it. If they are, then I really really did score a bargain!

Dodgy blurry photo. All these are natural light btw – That’s what I love most about this house – so much light!
Also, the beginnings of our art collection. All from Outre Gallery hehe. We plan to cover both walls eventually. Excuse the vacuum cleaner in the corner *ahem*

The steamer trunk is another eBay find. I won the auction for $150 but the guy dropped his price to $50 after telling us that it had woodworm holes. No matter, it’s great as a coffee table hehe. I really should move that box eh, doesn’t look good there does it.  See – not a stylist at all!
Abstract wooden form there is a piece Dad made and gifted to Jonny

One of our Expedit bookshelves. They’re so handy! Few knick-knacks and models…Playstation….etc

My lovely kitchen. Which is awesome. Except no pantry – see? Kinda annoying. I need to get my butt into gear and design something for dad to build. It needs to be enclosed as that shelf has everything rather precariously balanced. And look – dishwasher!! Been a while since I had a dishwasher before we moved here. I hate doing dishes! Still need to do some of course but its that much more tolerable to have a machine do the majority of the work.

My Ikea stainless steel bench. Another thing this house lacks is bench space. So I “needed” this. Its very handy. Dad made me that chopping block. And the little wooden bowl in the background there that I put sugar in.

From the kitchen to upstairs…. Curious kitty

Random things….Jonny’s collection of “stuff”…on our second Expedit…

Girly art on skateboards…..And my paintings on the right. Sitting on my easel. That Dad made for me. Yes, Dad can pretty much make anything
The stairs leading up to the main bedroom are behind the easel.

My jewelry sitting in a hand-tooled leather bowl I brought back from Hungary. Some paintings Jonny’s friend gave him.

Jonny’s red “man chair” – that Puss really loves to get her claws into. Such a naughty cat!! You can see the top of the rangehood there and the window that leads to the courtyard.

Jonny’s desk. Much more sparse than mine. He doesn’t use his computer – preferring my laptop instead. And he says he’s not a Mac convert. Bull!

My desk. You’ve seen all this before….

That door leads into the second bedroom (with its own bathroom). Bookshelf packed full. No more room for anything! Jonny’s mountain-board which he doesn’t ride all that much.

Aaaand my new sewing area. Yay! I need more storage solutions. Everywhere. I want to hide stuff – begone STUFF!!

So that’s my PAD. I love it. Great place to live even though it’s not quite magazine quality yet. Yes, I want it that way too hehe.

Nowwww – better do some drawing huh?

Seeyas!

Right – So I’ve added some wine to the glass. And also inside the bottles. But they went a lot darker than expected when I put the wine inside. It doesn’t actually fill the entire of the bottle but it’s still rendered quite dark.

It took a long time to get the wine looking as dark as this. It’s still not right by a long shot. Very very tricky this! I don’t know if it’s my lights stuffing things up, or the layer of “air” that mirrors the wine glass (which is used to get the glass looking more realistic).

The wine also reflects too much and I have NO idea what those itty bitty little squares are that are turning up. The lights again? I could pick at this alllll day couldn’t I!?

But the good bits are: I looooove the look of the stem and the base of the glass. I made the rim a bit thicker too so it looks nicer around that area. The bottles are looking pretty good at the mo too.

What do you think?

I’m off to Tassie this weekend too – Just for the weekend, coming back on Tuesday. Shan’t be doing much – Haven’t had time or money to buy things for the press. Not sure when our next trip will be – will have to think about that when we get back to Melbourne I think it’s Mum and Dad’s turn to come up for Christmas. Teehee

….more 3D!

I ditched the last model of the bottle and started again. Shows how much you can learn by re-doing something! I made this bottle to scale as best as I could. The Zork is now a separate layer and the I found out some very interesting things about texturing glass.
It’s all about REFRACTION people! How much light passes through an object and all sorts of mathematical equations which I didn’t really understand, I just copied the numbers. Hehe.

The trickiest to get right was the wine glass. Which, well, isn’t quite right is it? Looks just the tiniest bit odd. I may have to change the shape of it. But I’m pretty happy with it for being a beginner!

NEXT, I fill it with wine! Stay tuned!

LOL!
Teehehee.
This is the kind of stuff I am able to do with my minimal knowledge of Lightwave 3D. Mind you, this is pretty easy – a bottle is not hard to do as it is based on a very simple form, the cylinder.

I have been learning 3D on and off at work for the past year or so. Because we’re quite busy most of the time, I very rarely get to sit down and just play for any long period of time. But the past couple of days I did get a bit bored and started this model. My workmate who has been trained properly with Lightwave helped me out. I wanted this done not just for my folio, but for my parents and also just because!
I completely fudged the actual design of the bottle so it’s not quite in proportion in this render – I changed that just today. The next step will be creating a very fancy, expensive looking wine glass to go with it.
Yessss I know it’s not perfect – there are so many factors you have to think about when working with 3D. I really should focus more on scale (Mum do you still have those dimensions for the bottles we use?). Also, I think I will try to make the Zork cap a bit better. Right now it’s just a different texture on the main model of the bottle…I should give it its own separate layer and modify the shape so it looks more like a proper Zork.
As for filling the bottles with wine???? Eeep…that could be tricky! I’ll let you know on that one.

Should I explain the 3D process? It is quite involved! What I said about the basic shapes before – well, everything can be broken down into what in 3D lingo is called primitives. Balls, cubes, prisms, cylinders etc. Lightwave provides these for you and you can start your model by modifying one or more of them. Once you have figured out the basic shapes you need it’s a matter of extruding, beveling and tweaking the object until you have what you want. This might sound easy right? The biggest problem I have found is that there are many different ways you can create the same thing. You might be halfway through a model when all of a sudden you realise that there is a better way to do it. But it’s not like Illustrator or Photoshop where you just Undo or Erase….Noooo….often you have to start again from scratch. For example…I started this model by using the Lathe tool – where you draw out the cross section of half of the model and apply the Lathe setting to it and it makes it 3D. This wasn’t working as I was getting way too many polygons and the model wasn’t smooth.
So I scrapped that after spending more than a couple of hours on it and used the cylinder primitive to bevel it out.

Once you have your model, you then take it into the Layout part of Lightwave. This is the 3D environment you place one or more models in to do your animation and rendering.
I laid out my bottle and added a floor, plus cloned a couple of more bottles. Also, tweaking of the texture is done here as you can get more real-time results. I was able to use some standard textures that come with the program for the glass.
THEN you add your lights (3 point lighting just like in ‘real’ photography) and set your camera.
Hit RENDER and hope for the best!

Now I haven’t even gone into animating or the finer details of texturing. I could write an essay just on how you do the easy stuff (which is all I know) but I don’t want to bore you further.
Right now my skills are very minimal. I have the relationship with Lightwave that I am only scratching the surface of what it can do. If I come across a problem I don’t have the knowledge to find a different way to do it. It’s like swimming in a murky pond – you know there’s so much stuff out there, you just can’t reach it. I guess it’s just being only a part of the way there – I am used to being pretty good at using any graphic software – but 3D is very different and you do need to put in a lot of hours. It’s that much more involved in comparison to 2D.
It’s also a very niche market. Not many people in Australia do it. More people use Maya and 3D Studio Max. I don’t have experience with these. But I find Lightwave fun! I’ve got the hang of the interface and the 3D environment. Of all the programs out there, Lightwave is one of the most affordable (around $1700 which isn’t too much more than some parts of Adobe Creative Suite)…There are free ones out there like Blender which I tried and found terrible.
The technical aspects – yes you do need a slightly more powerful than average computer and a decent graphics card…but it’s not unreasonable. My work Mac has 4GB or RAM and a dual core 2.66Ghz processor and it does pretty good. Render times are the killer – if you’re animating and have a few objects in there, it could take days (yes, DAYS)…but for stills it’s not long at all. This image took about 20 minutes at a pretty high resolution and 7 passes. It’s definitely fun and very very rewarding! Creating stuff in 3D is SO COOL! Hehehee.

Phew – that was a long post. I hope you don’t mind my rambles. Please let me know what you think of the image and any thoughts on 3D!