Makin' a Stink with Some Ink

    This past December, I borrowed my partners linocut tools for a little side project and found I very much enjoyed the process!

    I started with this knight Snoopy idea that I had in mind for a friend's Christmas present. Sketched it out using a few references, and traced it onto some transfer paper.

 

     I used one of the more rubbery styles of block to carve into and I found it to be pretty easy to work with as a beginner. The only issues I ran into were not carving out enough material in some spots or not cleaning off loose rubber threads from the cuts (which you will probably see in the first few prints I made). My other issue with this particular print was not thinning out my ink enough on the roller which made my prints look a little too messy for my liking, especially on the cracks in the stonework border around Snoopy. I wasn't 100% happy with my end result on this, but I think coming back to this with less ink on my roller will improve things considerably.

 

 

    My foray into linocut also happened around the time I was thinking about staring this blog, so for a bonus project I sketched out some ideas for logos I could use. 

 

    This time around, I found some carving blades that were a bit deeper which helped with my messy printing. I also tried a thinner amount of ink and came out with a result I liked a lot more than the initial Snoopy prints.

 

 

    I wanted a little more depth in the final result, so I experimented with adding texture after the initial print.

 

 

    I pressed a kneaded eraser into surfaces I wanted to copy, lightly pressed the imprinted eraser onto an ink pad, and then transferred the ink onto the paper carefully.  

 

    

    I am very pleased with how this came out and happy I got to try out a new hobby. I found it super meditative working with the gouges to cut the material, and I could see myself experimenting a lot more with different texturing styles. I'll definitely be revisiting linocut and printmaking in the future!

Proxémon: A First Foray into Proxies

     When I was 7 or 8, I had a friend who tried to show me how to play the Pokémon TCG. I kind of zoned out when he was explaining the rules to me, and I never really picked them up well enough to actually play. But what I really loved was the art on the cards! I got a lot of hand-me-down cards from cousins or friends as a kid that I would shuffle through every once in a while to ogle at the little pictures(See some childhood favorites below).

 

     Fast forward 20 years later. My co-workers and I started talking about the Pokémon TCG and we decided to try putting together some Base Set decks and learn the game. After finding out how much cards actually cost, I decided it was time to give proxying a try. I've loved seeing all the MTG proxies that have been popping up the past few years and, this seemed like a perfect opportunity to give it a try.

 

    I started out with a physical rework of the original card back using cardboard, construction paper, paint markers, tin foil, and a beat up card from my collection. Also made sure to pay respect to the coolest proxy community in the game: Crimes in Cardboard. Had a ton of fun putting it together and was probably my favorite of my fist attempts. I liked it so much, that I made the horrible decision to print 60 copies of it to make my own janky card sleeves with these and some penny sleeves. It was way too much work and I ended up slicing off my finger tip in the process. I've recently ordered some professionally printed sleeves with the same design for my next deck. 

 

 

 

 

    After my card back, I jumped into GIMP for some digital proxying. My biggest challenge with these was just finding a style I liked. I already love the art from the original series of cards so much that it took some serious thinking to come up with something that felt right. My Machamp came out pretty goofy looking which is exactly what I was going for. This card's stylization was heavily influenced by bigboygametime's work. 

 

 

    

 

    Finally, I had a few trainer cards to make. I ended up working a lot more loosely with these than the Machamp, more trying to learn the flow of GIMP than to get any specific results, and I think they turned out pretty good. They all came out with more of a digital collage style.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    The rest of my deck I either just had from my childhood collection or printed the original cards. My coworker and I have had fun with the Base Set format, and we're already working on Fossil decks!

 

 

    Working on these and actually learning how to play the Pokémon TCG has really opened me up to the world of trading card games in general. I've been dabbling in MTG here and there the past few months trying to learn it slowly and have made a handful of proxies for that as well. I'll plan to post about those sometime soon, as well.

 

HAIL THE HANDMADE!

    Hello! My name is Brian, going by @surpriseyoufoundme on Instagram and Discord, and I'm a miniaturist. I've decided to start up this blog as a way to archive my creative projects and as a celebration of all things handmade. 

 

    For a while now I've used Instagram as a way to archive my work; but I, like many people I know, have been very disillusioned with the state of social media as it currently exists for artists. I probably don't need to explain this feeling to anyone reading this, but it feels hostile and antithetical to the type of creative expression I like to see. So I'm exploring other options to try and cope with those feelings, with blogging being one of those options!

 

    So what can we expect from this? Well, I'll be focusing on whatever creative interests/projects I have at time of writing. That will probably be mostly miniature painting and kitbashing related, but anything is fair game, really. I will also be attempting to post regularly, ideally once a month, but can't promise complete consistency. I say that more to give myself grace than to dampen any external expectations.

 

     With that, I'm excited to begin! I'm not really sure how to close this out, but If you're reading this, thanks for checking my stuff out!

 

    -Brian