As you all know (those of you who know me and those of you who actually care I sell my art as prints at various sites. I’ve spoken about Imagekind in the past as a great site to go and get nice prints framed or otherwise. You can check out my previous post about my buying my own print framed. It was a good experience.

So… check out the sale. Thanks!

Free Shipping till July 23rd!

For Doc Marten Contest

This is one of my entries (the best one actually) for the Doc Marten boot contest. I found out by accident about this when someone was nice enough to compliment me at Zazzle about something I recently added to my shop there. She had a link to her own boot design so I gave it a go. If you could all vote for me, I’d appreciate it.

I’m also waiting for news about where and when my piece of art I contributed to There is going to be on display. I haven’t heard much since they told me I won. I’ve already begun spending the money on my avvie. LOL She hasn’t had anything new in a while I think. She has more stuff than I do. ;P

If you hear of any good contests, let me know. I’m always up to for a new place to showplace my art.

Thanks for reading!

~L~

I was checking my email today and received this:

Congratulations!

You have won for best RL Medium image in the Summer Art Fair Contest! You will recieve your prize soon, and we will submit your work of art as a developer item free of charge! We will contact you soon to let you know when your item will be available.

Way to go!

The There Community Team

So I was a winner and my artwork will be displayed in the game. The problem is… I’m trying to recall what I sent in. LOL I think it was my Bird Girl aka Girl of Cranes geisha print. Geesh, you’d think I’d remember what I sent in. I might check my sent msgs as I usually send a copy of contests and important stuff back to me.

When I get a screenie of the art, I’ll show it here.

~L~

PS, just checked my sent mail… it was my Geisha Year of the Rat image that won.

WHEEE for me!

Speaking of artistry, they may be simple flash animations (maybe just ordinary gifs) but I really like the holiday and seasonal related logo animations Yahoo has been putting out.

For Earthday they had the Yahoo Logo turn green and when you put your cursor across the logo, the O’s in Yahoo changed to recycling symbols turning around.

For Cinco de Mayo they did this cute animation of a girl dancing with mariachis. When you first loaded the page it was only one girl and the band… then she went off the screen. Then if you put your cursor over YAHOO after the initial play, the band started up and the girl brought her folklorico girlfriends to dance with the band. All of these are silent but I added music to and repeated the animation to make the Cinco de Mayo one more interesting. I’m am a native Texan and Hispanic so I see this animation and immediately think of my great uncles who used to play. It’s a bit pixelated since I did it with Movie Maker and a screen copying program but it still works out pretty good.

Keep an eye out for more animations. I am trying to copy and keep them as much as I can since I find them cute and historic.

~L~

I don’t think this qualifies as a real art contest, I think it’s more of a promotional site that pays for quality artworks.

Comozo Art Contest asks for illustrators and artists to send in their designs. Once received they judge either through the site (or other means) how popular a piece is and then award the chosen a limited print edition contract (200 in the edition) to print said artwork as a high quality canvas giclée prints. Chosen artist receives a set of 200 “certificates of authenticity” to sign and return for said artwork.

Sounds like a pretty good deal in my opinion and they seem to pay pretty well up to US  $4600 or $3000 Euros. It’s a European site, I think french from the sound of it, and seems to be all and all legit. Heck who wouldn’t mind making up to that kind of cash from a sale of 200 limited edition prints?!? I know I wouldn’t mind much.

~L~

Here’s a good link to what this seems to be about: Orphan Works.

It seems this is about your works being stolen should someone try to contact you, can’t and after waiting a reasonable amount of time can claim your work and use it how they wish. Seems unfair to me if this is a new way for people to screw you out of your artworks or other creations. Lucky for me… I haven’t NOT gotten rid of any of my original emails so if someone is honestly trying to contact me about an art work I have listed, they should reasonably be able to get in contact with me. I check all my original and new email accounts atleast once a week or more.

So … fyi!

~L~

Check this out: Schmaps Guide Online.

Someone contacted me through Flickr that they liked my photo so I checked out the site. Looks legit enough so I went ahead and let them use it.

I’m also tempted to try another site I found that sends books to children in countries who are trying to learn English. All illustrations are contributed freely and there is no profit made. All non-profit. I think I could do it but I have to see what they have available.

Other than that… nothing much new on the art scene. I’ve been adding a few new things to sites here and there.

~L~

Unfortunately I received an email from Prickie.com today saying they were going to shut down shop for a bit. They’re low on funding, so for now Prickie will become a gallery of badge art. They will not be selling any button badges while they figure out what’s going to happen. I’m hoping they will be able to get funding and come back up as a shop. I guess for now I will have to sell buttons from my zazzle and cafepress shops. *shrugs*

I do still have some buttons from Prickie I bought a while back when I made some cash off Ebay. Spent my earnings on buttons thinking I’d sell them then never had a chance to. I think I’ve managed to sell two when I used to go to the local Graphic Designer Meetups. Too bad all the local meetups seem to become either inconvenient for me to get to or they end up closing up and disappearing. Just a bad market here in my area for clubs and such that don’t involve something like dogs, cats, divorcee’s or something really bizarre like pagan worship. That’s how it is in a small big city (yes I meant to say that… we’re a big city with a small city mind set.)

~L~

Here is a pretty good example of what I can do when I’m bored enough and play with photoshop:

This was prepped by me removing the background by hand. I really need to find how to use more shortcuts and such. At this point the image is ready to be manipulated but only the bare minimum has been done by removing the background.

After some work and probably a good hour or so of work, this is the end result. It’s nowhere near perfect but it’s 100% better than what I had and much brighter colorwise. I even added the background as if she were outside along with some layered shadows. Makes me think of a shadowbox or something.

This item is for sale as the final product at my Deviantart and Zazzle shops.

~L~

Maybe that’s a little harsh but this is why I’ve chosen this title for my blog today:

Fotolia has always been a pretty good site and I had no major issues with it over all. I’ve only been a member since 2006, but it was fun to get an idea what people liked out of my illustrations. The pay wasn’t too great with them selling stuff for a Buck and me getting .33 cents a sale. I’m lucky I made anything at all from the site (less than a 100 bucks in the almost 3 yrs I’ve been there.)

Well today I thought I’d transfer over what little meager funds I had in the Fotolia account to my Paypal. I hit the convert credits to dollars button and got this: “All contributers must upload an image of your govt issues id or passport to process funds.” I was like “WTF!!!???” Cause up till now I hadn’t heard a damn thing about this. When did this happen?!? I know they’re based in Europe but this was news to me. I also noticed somehow my account is set up to NOT get the newsletters and I know I was getting them in the past. I never changed that option so I find that odd.

So I wrote them through support and they sent me the email for their “U.S.” liason. I wrote him and he tells me “oh yeah that’s our new policy so that we can fight theft, fraud and just get to know you a little better.” Mind you… they already have my social because every site just about now requires that if you want to sell anything. I just think that it’s ludicrous to require more than that. Giving out your social is risky at best unless you know the site is safe and I knew they were safe but this whole “govt id / passport” requirement has got me up in arms and angry. Plus I just want my $15 bucks or a good portion of it and I’ll just leave. I earned it fair and square. I’ve already deleted all my files. I don’t want them using my stuff w/o my permission if I’m quitting… and I am.

So that is why I chose my title. I think it fits just right especially after what a friend of mine who used to work for the U.S. govt told me. I won’t go into details but it fits the situation.

Anyhow… I guess I just have to wait and see what they say. They, of all the sites I sell at, are somehow lacking in a “delete my account” option. Didn’t they think someone “may” just want to leave? Seems strange…

~L~