Riley The Corgi

"Riley" ( See all proofs)
© rebecca collins / artpaw.com

 I just love Corgis. This project of Riley was a joy to create because the original image was pretty decent in resolution and the pose was adorable. I added some pretty strong strokes to the fur to try to get across the texture and the thickness of the fur.
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Working on pet portraits today. Clients that are waiting on proofs ...  please relax ... we have 20 shipping days until Christmas. That means I have 19 working days ... I will meet my deadlines, I promise.   

Today is the last day to order a pet portrait with a guaranteed delivery. The best way to order is on-line so click here to place your order today.  If you miss this deadline what I can do is promise you proofing by 12/24.

Vienna Water Tower Paper Model

This paper model of a Victorian Era water tower in Vienna, Austria is uncommon for an architecture papercraft in that its template is hand drawn. The ornate brick tower, located in the Favoriten District of Vienna, was finished in 1899. The building was closed in 1956, but a late 80's renovation gave the tower new life as a museum and cultural venue. The details of the paper model are somewhat simplified when compared with the actual building, but the finished papercraft still has a nice look. The four page template for the "Wasserturm Favoriten" can be found at the bottom of the page here.

Gremlins 2 Papercraft: Mohawk

DeviantART member Sercho05 has created another Gremlins paper toy. This time the character is Mohawk, the leader of the evil gremlins from the 1990 Gremlins 2 movie. Sercho has the template for Mohawk posted here.

Related Papercraft:

3D Glasses Gizmo

Gremlin Mask

3 - Dog Night!!!

Ok just a very quick little text post today. The weather has turned here in Texas and the chill is upon us. I am happy to report that we will be having a 3-dog night. Yes we have a chilly winter evening that requires 3 dogs in the house to keep you warm. Well, the universe has thrown a dog at us and we are back to having THREE again!!! It is way too soon, and we are not ready, but little Ajax needs something to distract him from the empty hole that Big Tommy has left in our hearts when he left us. So...........................


We are adopting a Wire Hair Fox Terrier! Thank you Vikki, for forwarding the info about the rescue puppy "Cliff Lee" ... soon to be renamed .... I think .... probably he will be called "Whitman", after both Walt Whitman and Dan's Grandfather, a sweet crusty old guy that lived to be like 95 or something.

Dan once had a Fox Terrier named Scout years before we married. A mythical creature, with fold down ears, I have long been enamoured with the breed!

So anyway ... watch the blog for pics of our little new Fox Terrier ... soon.

Papercraft Rockhopper Penguins

These papercraft rockhopper penguins look a little grumpy. Maybe they are upset about being on the endangered species list. ;) There are several different species of rockhopper penguins, which are also called "crested penguins" (for obvious reason). These papercraft ones look most like the northern rockhopper penguin species. The templates for the two penguins are available for download here.

Traditional concept spaceship environment illustrations by MANCHU

I wanted to post the rest of these amazing images from Philippe while he still had the header. You can buy his book HERE. Happy Thanksgiving!





















Keywords: traditional acrylic on paper science fiction illustrations by philippe bouchet manchu professional artist residing in france new book titled manchu starships published printed by delcourt/serieb editions publications

Antique Papercraft Train

I couldn't find out much about the origin of this French antique papercraft train, but the style of the graphics have a definite 1930's flavor. The first page of the pattern for this locomotive announces that it is a "a real toy" with "easy assembly" and "no glue required". The picture above is a build photo by Patricia M. who runs the Agence Eureka blog. Patricia has the complete template for the train posted here.

3 New Doggy Pet Portraits

"Tinker Bell" ( see all proofs)
© Rebecca Collins / artpaw.com

"Hank & Bentley" ( see all proofs)
© Rebecca Collins / artpaw.com

"Dixie" ( see all proofs)
© Rebecca Collins / artpaw.com

 

 

Working hard this week and pushing to get a lot of folks proofed before Thanksgiving. My goal is always to try to touch at least 3 projects per day. That does not always happen, but it is the goal.  People are often amazed that I can create so many portrait projects during the holidays. It is simple math really. If you try to work 12 hour days you can give 3 portraits 4 hours of time each. That is usually enough time per project although I can get bogged down when there are several pets in one portrait. I also try to work almost every day of the week during November & December so that gives me extra time. I do not work full days on the weekends, but I do work some.  I get totally stressed out each year during the Christmas push, but this year I refuse to go crazy. I know I will meet my deadlines. In fact that is my mantra as I get out of bed each morning now. I say out loud " I am meeting my deadlines today". 
I do have help ....
Oh, and I happen to have an amazing assistant that does all the stretching, shipping and even lends a hand on occasion with the digital prep work. Lola helps out with setting up my Warhol projects, she can fix glow eye and she erases the backgrounds on the photos that come in.  I could not make it through the holidays without her help. Dan usually helps out too, but he has not had to do any stretching at all lately.
So Stay Tuned...
If you are waiting on a portrait proof please sit tight and know it will happen soon. We have a few weeks to go so relax and give me some time to work.

Front Mission 4 Mecha Paper Models

The Front Mission 4 video game was released in Japan by Square Enix in 2003. As part of a publicity campaign, free official papercraft models of two of the mechas from the game were offered. On the left is a Zenith mecha and the right is a Blizzaia L mecha. Although hard to locate on Square Enix's website, the templates for these mechas are still available. The build photos and the links below are both via studionebula.com. From experience, it appears that right clicking and doing the "save target as" option on the links works better than left clicking to download the templates.

Zenith template

Zenith weapons

Zenith instructions

Blizzaia L template

Blizzaia instructions

Mosaic Monday/ Centennial Park.

Dog
Originally uploaded by Maculata Jones

Found this wonderful Scottie dog over at Flickr. The description says Centennial Park. There are a few other dog mosaic shots in the stream by Maculata Jones.

EVE ONLINE create a starship entries

Winners have been announced from DEVIANTART's create a starship contest for EVE ONLINE. Here are a few that caught my eye. Congrats to dreamwa1ker!


















































Keywords: concept spaceship art entries for deviantart create a starship contest for eve online video game ccp games winners announced massively multiplayer online game mmog winner gets a spaceship built in to the game to play length in meters in scale

Getting loose with Homer tonight

"Homer"
© Rebecca Collins / artpaw.com

You know I am trying to break out of my normal art routine when you see the color pink show up. Yes, I have talked about pink before. That hue that seems to only belong to little girls and Barbie®. We saw the new Harry Potter flick this weekend and Professor Delores Umbridge seems to embody everything about pink that drives me crazy. You know what I am talking about, that sticky soft sweetness that is both false and weak. And yet .... if you can manage to punch it up and give it a little contrast, give it some pow, well pink can be rather butch after all. Yea, I said butch, that tired 90's slang referring to testosterone, and how much a guy or a gal may have of it. I happen to think that Homer probably has plenty of it and a little pink in the background of his pet portrait is not going to hurt him at all. With that said I will of course play it safe and show the client some safe blues and greens. I hope they like this proof, cause he is sort of done, and I know this is going to be my favorite proof.

Deformed Paper Toy Car: Pontiac

This deformed car paper toy is a custom design by illustrator Rory Phillips using the car template at the Portland Paper City website. The car is labeled "Pontiac" on the side, but I am unsure what model or year of Pontiac it might be. My guess is it's a Pontiac Catalina from the early 60's or perhaps a conglomeration of several different cars. Rory's template for the car may be downloaded here.

And The Winner Is....

The winner from my Blog drawing for free Big Tommy Holidays cards is Peri. I did a random draw and Peri's name was picked.

The Winner from my Facebook drawing is John Hill. Again, it was a random draw out of the hat.

Both winners happen to be Terrier owners.   All they need to do to claim their prize of 6 holiday cards is send me an e-mail to collins @artpaw.com with their address and I will slip the cards in the mail next week.

Thanks to everyone that left such great comments here at the blog and over at facebook. I will probably have a few more blog drawings within the next few weeks. So check back.

Last chance to enter Big Tommy Card Drawing

Last Chance to Enter the Drawing for a set of 6 Big Tommy Holiday Cards!  Just leave a comment on this post and I will enter your name in the drawing. I would love it if you would tell me how your pet brings you joy. I will announce the winner tomorrow here on the blog.  The drawing is for a set of 6 of the Scottie cards shown above.


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Golden Flakes

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here! Today I am working on custom holiday cards for a couple of repeat clients and one holiday themed pet portrait. I am currently not accepting any additional requests for designing custom holiday cards. Every year I get  a small handful of requests from folks for this type of design service and I wish I could accept more projects like this, however I really do not make much money on this type of work once I sit down and calculate the time it takes.  I do have a handful of terrific Christmas cards  for sale in my Cafe Press shop with lots of different breeds and types of pets represented.  Click Here to check out some of my snowflake designs.

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"Rascal"

Rascal is a cutie pie and I am working on updates to his artwork later today.