Frankie's fizzy blurb

about character design + illustration + animation

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Talking of T-shirts

Talking of T-shirts, thanks to Walid at Trusted Places for sending me a free one. Slogan "love all trust a few" nice. Logo reminds me of Ghost Busters (I think it works, association with a friendly bunch in a city).

I've written 4 reviews on there now! It's fun and addictive and you can save up reward points for a special card that can let you take your mates out for a half price meal! I think this website's going to be a big hit. I wonder if I can buy shares? Maybe if I save up enough reward points?

Labels: logo, reward points, slogan, t-shirt, trusted places

# posted by Frankie Sinclair : 10:43 PM 0 comments links to this post

The Washing Machine of Life

I just created a birthday e-card.

I started it last year, playing around with the Twirl Tool in Illustrator. I thought I could make the rainbow letters just swirl into shape. So I exported various stages of 'twirls' as swf files from Illustrator and then into Flash. It turned out ok but not that exciting... I liked the abstract shape created when all the letters were totally lost. After a long time I went back through the files and I found an unfinished one that went quite fast. It had this mesmerising washing machine spinning effect. So I played about a bit with it a little bit more and it turned out like this! The Washing Machine of Life.

I've decided to show characters and designs that I do, as I go along on here and put the t-shirt link on too. So here you go:

Labels: animation, birthday, e-card, Flash, Illustrator, swirl, t-shirt, tee, tool, tshirt, twirl, washing machine

# posted by Frankie Sinclair : 8:35 PM 0 comments links to this post

Monday, March 19, 2007

Cartoon drawing group

Well, I now have 6 members of the group as well as myself. Nearly half way to the max of 20!

Plus I just checked out a couple of venues: Dragon Hall (!!) near Covent Garden and Conway Hall near Holborn. Conway hall is good, I've been there for an experimental music night before.

Could be really good. We could draw clowns and acrobats and musclemen!

Labels: cartoon, figure drawing group

# posted by Frankie Sinclair : 8:34 PM 0 comments links to this post

Sunday, March 18, 2007

I LOVE GLITTER!

I'm spending too much time writing this blog and not enough time DRAWING. Bad bad bad.

An email just popped into my inbox! First person has just signed up to join my cartoon + animation + character figure drawing group yay!

Labels: animation, cartoon, character design, figure drawing group, glitter, gold

# posted by Frankie Sinclair : 9:25 PM 0 comments links to this post

Poetry Café

Went to the Poetry Café in Betterton Street Covent Garden this week to the African Writers Evening run by Nii Ayikwei Parkes

The Poetry Café is a special place. Before my first time there, I didn't expect much. Thought it would be a kind of dry and stuffy. It's only 10% dry and serious and 90% risk taking, gut wrenching, hilarious and entrancing. Ok and maybe 3% 'I want to cringe with embarrassment' (it's character building!).

On the ground floor is a small cafe and bar where people chat before the events start. Downstairs in the basement there are a few rows of seats and some sofas and a mike and this is where it all happens. You're right up close to some of the greatest voices in London (and the world). Imagine if John Lennon was doing a private gig and you were invited. That's what it's like.

African Writers Evening is a platform for established and emerging poets from Africa or with family or strong connections in Africa. I learnt what the word 'diaspora' meant. I like going to things where I leave a little less ignorant than I arrived. It's good to meet Ghanaian and Sierra Leonean and Nigerian writers, hear them speak and find real meaning and a connection with a continent that to me is normally far away (I don't mean only in miles).

Another good night is the Cellar on Saturdays hosted by Niall O’Sullivan - a funny and charming presenter (charming when he's not pissed off with the audience for not clapping enough). Mixture of established and aspiring, nuts and sane.

One night, I sketched some of the poets from memory...

Inua 'phaze' Ellams (ok it probly looks nothing like him)
you can hear him here:
http://www.myspace.com/phaze05

Labels: african poets, cafe, covent garden, inua ellams, london, mike, niall osullivan, nii ayikwei parkes, phaze, poetry, poets, risk, sketch, the cellar

# posted by Frankie Sinclair : 8:19 PM

Saturday, March 17, 2007

London Cartoon, animation + character figure drawing group

I've set up the group! I'm now the organiser of the London Cartoon, animation + character figure drawing group on Meetup.com

Now I only need to find a venue and a model and members!

Are you just longing for a chance to draw or photograph a model pretending to be flying through the air or hiding behind a lampost? Could be for you...

Who?
For cartoonists, animators, charicaturists and character designers.

What?
Opportunity to draw or photograph (with model's permission) a model in action and in character poses. Quick poses and poses to request. eg model expresses anger or model flies through the air (ha ha ok, balances on a box?).
Clothed / costumes / nude?

The session won't be a class although we can share tips on technique.

Option to go for a drink after the session.

Benefits of group

More dynamic than the usual figure sitting on a box draped in sheets setup
Useful if you're rusty on drawing and want to get back into it.
Useful if you have a specific project on the go and need reference sketches.
Ever just got totally stuck on hands?!
Good to meet other like minded people and exchange ideas or discuss solutions to common problems

Location
Central London
A room / studio with comfortable chairs and preferably decent light.
Possibly with easels, but that isn't essential at the start.
Currently looking for a venue - if you can help, please mail me.

When
Monthly at first but aiming for weekly if there's a good turn out. First meetup currently scheduled for Monday April 16th.

Duration
2 hours, 6.30pm - 8.30pm?

The Future

Plan an exhibition of our work?
Go to events such as the Pictoplasma conference in Berlin

Please go to the group and RSVP 'yes' if you would like to come.

Labels: action, animation, animator, cartoonist, character design, charicature, charicaturist, drawing group, figure drawing, meetup.com, photography, pictoplasma, pose

# posted by Frankie Sinclair : 11:37 PM

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Template

God it's been a long day. I'm on a roll! Having loads of energy at the moment, so packing in as much as I can.
I've just altered the template on the blog to match my site. It's still looking a bit messy but I'm gonna call it a day otherwise I'll never get to sleep. Really heavy eyelids. I just saw a rude site where the Simpsons and Scooby Doo people were having se*. Funny ha ha, and strange. Drawings were cool. Hmmm they'd sort of made a half hearted attempt to make the characters look grown up but not very convincingly which was a bit creepy. Not sure if writing the p word or linking to the site will mean that my blog won't come up with safe search on?

# posted by Frankie Sinclair : 10:27 PM 0 comments links to this post

Monday, March 12, 2007

Ha ha!

Ha ha, that's funny I just read what I wrote in my profile 'half extrovert half introvert'. Gotta draw that up!

It'll probably be some kind of snail.

Labels: extrovert, funny, ha ha, introvert, snail

# posted by Frankie Sinclair : 12:08 AM 0 comments links to this post

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Aims

Right. Aim to do more drawing. Plan to set up a Meetup group for figure drawing for cartoonists. This could run weekly, then I'd get more drawing done! Need to find a venue.

Aim to add one character onto my site per month, so that I have 12 by the end of the year. Doesn't sound like much, but I am working full-time and it's good to have achievable goals. Might add them whatever state they are in. I can always edit and improve them and then upload updated versions of them. I think it's really interesting to see the progression of characters.

Aim to market my site. At the moment no-one knows it's there unless they stumble across on their way to something totally different when they're searching google images.

Labels: achievable, aims, cartoonist, drawing, figure, goal, google images, marketing, meetup

# posted by Frankie Sinclair : 6:33 PM 0 comments links to this post

Thoughts about Mojizu

I like Mojizu. Obviously I spose, as it's crammed full of characters!
I mean I like using it as well as looking at the character gallery. It's interesting to see how many points one character gets compared to another (of your own and of other people's). The ones I thought would be most popular weren't!

My most popular characters are: Candy Floss Rabbit and Rainbow Capricorn. However, they're not that popular compared to the top rated characters on the site. There's alot of competition, including from well known illustrators. Not sure if people rally around their friends to vote too? Another factor: my taste isn't necessarily a match to the taste of the majority of users on there because my favourite mojizu artists don't always get the highest ratings.

Good site to use, with a useful blog about the world of character design and a nice community feel.

Labels: blog, candy floss rabbit, character, characters, community, design, mojizu, points, popular, rainbow capricorn, rating

# posted by Frankie Sinclair : 6:05 PM 1 comments links to this post

Which is best, Cafepress or Zazzle?

I like Cafepress best.
Reasons:
More control over changes
Ability to delete items
Ability to make multiple changes all at once
You can add in your own html to customise pages with your logo and so on
More site traffic
You can set your own markup and order cost price items for yourself (as many as you want!).

Zazzle really annoyed me because I needed some of my items to be deleted but you can't delete your own items. You have to make a request for the items to be deleted and when I did, they just didn't get round to it, even though I emailed them a couple of times and they replied apologising.
Zazzle is nice for photos though. Apparently the quality of the prints on their T-shirts suits photos better (haven't tested it though). Plus, they have nice frames.
They have a rather nice flash slideshow that you can put onto your own website. However, I think I'd rather have gifs on webpages that people can scroll through. I find I'm getting hits to my website from google.images. If I used the flash slideshow it wouldn't help people find my site in the first place.

I just found a very useful article comparing the two and suggesting Printfection.com as a very good alternative. www.squidoo.com/cafepress_alternative/

and this, where you can vote on an Ebay matchup!
Made me remember that these sites are not just for artists wanting to sell their designs, they're also for people wanting to knock up their own personal one-off stuff like 'happy 101st birthday gran'. Maybe Zazzle is better for this.

Labels: cafepress, ebay, functionality, matchup, print, print-on-demad, printfection, zazzle

# posted by Frankie Sinclair : 5:52 PM 0 comments links to this post

Minicamp

Minicamp on Meetup
Beginning of March I went to the check out Minicamp which is a networking event for people interested in or involved with online business, especially startups. There were a couple of presentations, most memorable of which were Sellaband and Trusted Places.

Sellaband.com
Lets bands / musicians promote themselves and lets fans invest directly in their favourites. Fans can put a deposit down on a CD by their favourite band. When the band gets enough deposits the CD gets published. The fan or 'believer' gets a copy of the CD and a share of profits from the CD and advertising on the site. They can put as many deposits down as they like and get rewarded pro-rata. You can pull out your deposit before the goal is reached if you change your mind. I think it's a brilliant idea and I've registered. www.sellaband.com/believer/frankiesinclair/

TrustedPlaces.com
Uses Google maps and lets users rate venues and give reviews. You can save your favourite places. Good because you get many opinions in one.

Labels: bands, business, entrepreneur, internet, meetup, minibar, minicamp, music, network, networking, online, reviews, sellaband, social, startup, trustedplaces, venues

# posted by Frankie Sinclair : 5:04 PM 1 comments links to this post

Poor wee blog

Oh my poor little blog! Covered in dust and neglected for nearly six months! But now it's SPRING yahay. I'm going to give it a good dusting and set it out in the sun to shine.

Basically I started temping full time in August, then got taken on as permanent in November. I worked every evening at home on my own stuff for 2 months, but couldn't keep it up : (
Day job is very full on, plus I like to have a social life and keep fit too.

One issue is that it gets a bit much staring at a screen for more than 8 hours a day. Solution: do more sketching and then do the screen bit one day at the weekend!

Labels: full-time, part-time, time management, work

# posted by Frankie Sinclair : 4:30 PM 0 comments links to this post

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