Is that a paper wasp?
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It’s a bee.
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So, instead of a bee in your bonnet, you have a bee on your bonnet?
Very nice. 
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Yeah! I did not originally intend to have the bee on there, but it happened to be on the paper bag I grabbed. It works nicely as a graphic, and the bees need all the help they can get.
I wore it to the bank, and the teller rolled up her sleeve and showed me the exact same bee in ink on her arm!
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I really should keep up on these threads better. I miss a lot of neat stuff.
So David Hitchcock is an indie comic artist out of the UK. I think he is CRIMINALLY underrated and needs mainstream comic work in the US, especially since every other book has alternate covers. He finally has one cover for Frankenstein: New World #2. He would be perfect on Hellboy or Swamp Thing or like an Elseworlds Batman.
Anyway, I had him do a commission for me several years ago, and we now have a friendly relationship.
He posted at one point this colorized image of a commission he did awhile ago. I loved it and wanted to use it in this pulp fanzine I am working on. But, unfortunately, it was low res and we couldn’t use it. But David sent me a high res scan of the art so I could work on it someday.
I have been wanting to learn to colorize images in Photoshop, and have done so with a couple other covers, but using flat colors like you would see in older comics. I wanted to make these colors look more organic and watercolor looking. So I went and found some new water color brushes for Photoshop. Adobe has them on their site, not sure why they don’t just include them standard. I had a bit of a “well, now there are TOO many choices” , and picked a dozen or so brush and blend tools.
It took me way too long. I should have used masking layers instead of cleaning up and erasing edges. I obsessed over details too small to see in print, but I am pretty happy with how this came out.
Some notes:
Something you can only see zooming way in, I wanted to try to make the ring like a real fire opal, which means instead of just being red, it has glints of other colors dancing in it, as well as adding a white glean. Bit silly, I know, but I wanted to try it.
For the Chicago poster, I used these two postage stamps as inspiration for the colors. I imagined it was a single color silk screen print.
Finally, I did do the colors for the two posters in a "normal’ color, actually looking up the colors used in Seagram’s Gin in the 30s (at least on the bottles) Same with the Phillies cigar band (originally I had orange on green, but then I saw they had a red and gold band, so changed it to red).
The colors get covered up due to the spot light and shadow - but I think it looks more natural than if I tried to color it as I would imagined shadows and highlights would look. Make them the “real” colors, and then let the spotlight and shadow layers change the colors.
Anyway, I rarely do creative stuff and thought I would share.
David Hitchcock Original
My colors.
Fire Opal
Ring Detail
Color that inspired the Chicago poster
Posters pre-spotlight and shadow
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The missus has begun making bags of various sizes. Posted with permission
Weekender bag, small gym bag with pleather detail, and a large purse.
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Nice! They look really well made. And the lavender/floral print combo comes across especially nicely in photos.
That sewing room remod you did is paying off! Bet you can’t wait to rock your new gym bag 
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Those are lovely! Tell her she’s kicking ass!
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She hasn’t made mine yet. I have a few yards of a fabric with a Depeche Mode print I bought ~20 years ago that will be used for mine.
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Neat! Post pictures whenever she gets it made!
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Nothing fancy, and already posted on the outdoor rec thread, but thought they fit here, too. The last few years I’ve been really into bringing host/hostess gifts when I visit someone, and so made a bunch of fire starters for friends I’m visiting in the coming weeks. Since we generally hang out around campfires a fair amount.
Toilet paper tubes stuffed with dryer lint and a paper wick, then drizzled with wax
But then to make them pretty, wrapped in tissue paper
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That we need to see when it’s done.
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So first pic, Firestarters, second pic Twisted Firestarters?
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they look like little christmas crackers!
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I’ve been revisiting an old art project toying around with the idea of making a series of wood blocks for kids (or collectors). I have about 100 of these little modular square designs but I’m not sure about the form factor since the finger cuts are kind of distracting. Maybe I’ll try again with thinner plywood so the edges aren’t as thick.
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Not exactly crafting or making, but this is keeping me from those projects I’d rather be working on:
And just because:
ICYMI, might very well be my last one.
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Could your laser cutter just burn the images into the sides of solid wood cubes instead? You’d have to cut some cubes with a saw rather than laser but that’s not too hard to do.
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Yeah I may just do that. I happened to have a bunch of thin plywood left over from a project so I was playing with that first.
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Are the edges of the finger cuts just superficially burned from the laser cut? Could you just sand them before snapping them together?
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