365 Monsters: Reset and Bonus!

May 6, 2012 in 365

I’m a cheater. For the past 50 or so monsters, I’ve been really bad about doing one a day, which has meant that Saturday night and Sunday morning have been a scramble to get all 7 made- and it’s shown in the quality and creativity of the monsters. Yeah, I’ve been ultra busy these days, but since when is that new? So I’ve decided to to a quick reset.

Hopefully this week I will really and truly get back into one monster per day, but I didn’t want to force it this weekend. Perhaps this week or next week or sometime soon I’ll play catch-up and do two per day for a whole week so I get caught up on this missed week. Not making promises, just speculating.

But in the mean time, here’s a monster that came to me through true creative angst and vision. I was having a truly horrible and crummy and miserable day at work, and then upon going for a short walk to do some puppeting, I was attacked by a wasp! Turns out I’m not allergic (Hallelujah!), but that was highly unpleasant. I went back home and Chu found a lovely remedy of baking soda and water, turned it into a paste, and slapped it on my arm. 10 minutes later, just about all of the redness was gone and the baking soda had turned itself into a monster:

It’s an arm grub!
Don’t quite see it? Hrm… Let’s take a closer look…

There we go! Much better!

Stay tuned- next Sunday should be back to normal!

Not sure what’s going on? Check out my 365 Monsters Intro as well as the Make Something 365 Blog for more information and inspiration of your own!

365 Monsters Days 94 – 100

April 29, 2012 in 365

Day 94 – 4/22/12 – Nothing Rhymes with Orange

Day 95 – 4/23/12 – Ask a Stranger

Day 96 – 4/24/12 – Work in Front of a Mirror

Day 97 – 4/25/12 – Make an Invitation

Day 98 – 4/26/12 – Work with Time

Day 99 – 4/27/12 – Insects

Day 100

Not sure what’s going on? Check out my 365 Monsters Intro as well as the Make Something 365 Blog for more information and inspiration of your own!

365 Monsters Days 87-93

April 22, 2012 in 365, Crafts, Drawing/Painting

Day 87 – 4/15/12 – Woodburned Angel

woodburning

I used my weeping angel stamp on my woodblock and then traced the lines with the wood burner pen. Granted, the ink and the burnt wood were about the same color so it’s hard to tell, but it was fun!

Day 88 – 4/16/12 – Evil Flan

Pencil

Chu’s request: an evil flan.

Day 89 – 4/17/12 – Thom Monster

Pencil

 

This monster is inspired by the works of the elusive Thom May. I miss Pihakwa.

Day 90 – 4/18/12 – Pinata Plan Monster

Pencil

Day 90 said to make a pinata, and I very much want to take part in this task… But current housing situation is not ideal for papier mache and baseball bats. So I took a cue from Viva Pinata and made a confused… bird… thing.

Day 91 – 4/19/12 – Croissant Dough Monster

Croissant Dough

As I was fretting about what monster to make next, Chu called me into the kitchen where he was kneading a massive batch of croissant dough. A few strategically placed punches, and a mushed up face appears!

Day 92 – 4/20/12 – Time Monster

Pencil

The prompt for day 92 suggested writing a letter to yourself, past or future, but I decided to make a monster out of time. Stepping away from Dr. Who though, I aimed for a monster emerging from a clock.

Day 93 – 4/21/12 – Nuts and Bolts

I raided the toolbox for loose hardware for this guy. How prickly!

Not sure what’s going on? Check out my 365 Monsters Intro as well as the Make Something 365 Blog for more information and inspiration of your own!

365 Monsters Days 80 – 86

April 15, 2012 in 365, Crafts

Kind of – sort of the week of Yoshi:

      

Not sure what’s going on? Check out my 365 Monsters Intro as well as the Make Something 365 Blog for more information and inspiration of your own!

365 Monsters Days 73 – 79

April 8, 2012 in 365, Crafts

Starting to get my mojo back! Next week I think I’ll be back to doing these daily instead of scrambling for doing 7 in one day!

Day 73 – 04/01/12 – Post-it Skull Monster

Pen & Post-it

In honor of Noah Scalin featuring me on his blog!

Days 74 & 75 – 04/02/12 – 04/03/12 – Cutout Final Fantasy Monsters

Construction paper

 

I got a brand new exacto knife (one that actually has a cap!) and promptly took it to construction paper to carve out these guys. They’re both from the  Final Fantasy games: a Tonberry and Courrier Carrie.

Day 76 – 04-04-12 – Potato-Ness

Potato.

Yay for potato stamps!

Days 77 – 79 – 04/05/12 – 04/07/12 – Rubber Stamp Monsters

A quick trip to the craft store and I came back with some stamp-making supplies! My first real stamps include Angry Monster Face, another Exo-Urchin, and a Weeping Angel from Doctor Who.

Not sure what’s going on? Check out my 365 Monsters Intro as well as the Make Something 365 Blog for more information and inspiration of your own!

365 Monsters Days 66 – 72

April 1, 2012 in 365, Crafts

Oof, this week was another mushy brain week, so here are some plain old 2D monsters totally not done every day like they were supposed to be. Next week I promise I swear I’ll be a good little monster maker and make something super exciting! Oh, and earlier this week I was featured on the Make Something 365 Blog, so go over there and see who else has been featured, because there are lots of cool people doing this sort of thing. Yay!

Days 66 – 72 – 3/25/12 – 3/31/12

       

Not sure what’s going on? Check out my 365 Monsters Intro as well as the Make Something 365 Blog for more information and inspiration of your own!

365 Monsters Days 59-65

March 25, 2012 in 365, Crafts

Sooo super cheater week ahead! I started getting sick around the 16th, felt like utter poop during the beginning of last week, and at this point I’m mostly better. So these monsters were not made on a daily basis, oh no. The clay monsters were made on Tuesday, and the drawings were done last night. I was going to do a pile of clay monsters yesterday and have a whole weeks worth of claybeasts despite my slackerness this week, but then I inherited my sister’s old Wacom Intuos3 and desperately needed to play with it.

And without further ado, here are this week’s 7 monsters in 2 days:

Days 59, 60, 61 – 3/18/12 – 3/20/12 – The Toothless Maw, the Truffle, and the Parakeet.

Polymer Clay (Sculpey)


 

 

Days 62, 63, 64, 65 – 3/21/12 – 3/24/12

the Gimp

Day 63 said to make a mask, so I made a masked monster. Day 64 said to incorporate yourself into the project, so I turned myself into a monster. Day 65 said to use Tangram shapes, so I made an army of evil triangles and went to bed.

Next week, back to normal. None of this sickness getting in the way of important things like monsters!

Not sure what’s going on? Check out my 365 Monsters Intro as well as the Make Something 365 Blog for more information and inspiration of your own!

365 Monsters Days 52 – 58

March 18, 2012 in 365, Crafts

Day 52 – 03/11/12 – Akrillicus

Yarn

Hastily thrown together, this monster came from a long scrap of yarn I was using as a lifeline in my Catkin project. It became evident that the yarn was too thick to be used  with such small needles, and was discarded until it could reach monsterdom (which is the result of many yarn scraps, whether I’m trying or not!)

Day 53 – 03/12/12 – Jettison

Polymer Clay (Sculpey)

This is another example of mixing the hard-as-rock green Sculpey with the mushy-and-sticky translucent Sculpey. I haven’t quite figured out if this beast belongs in the air or in the sea… or both?

Day 54 – 03/13/12 – Burst

Pointillism (Crayon)

Back in high school I got a 100 pack of Crayola crayons to use in my art class. The project: a huge pointillism of Thor [link], one of the aliens from Stargate SG-1. It was pretty amazing. With the book suggesting to use dots on Day 54, I thought why not try it without a photo and make a pointillism monster from my own brain? The result is pretty cool, though much less striking because I still do not have a great grasp on color and depth. I’m still pretty pleased with it though!

On a side note, if anyone wants to get me a nice big flatbed scanner, I would love to stop photographing the stuff that doesn’t fit on my printer-scanner. Even after tweaking, the colors still aren’t quite as strong as they are in person.

Day 55 – 03/14/12 – Loche

Polymer Clay (Sculpey)

More experimenting with color mixing: before I even decided what shape I was going to make, I mixed a bit of the bright blue with the slightly sparkly medium tan from some of the earlier monsters, and it made a beautiful calm blue. I was impressed, and combined it with the almost-black Chocolate color to make a swimming water monster.

Day 56 – 03/15/12 – The TakeOut

Pen on Recycling

These to-go boxes always seem to have faces, so I decided to flesh one out for this box.

Day 57 – 03/16/12 – Woolly Featherweight

Pencil & Paper

The book’s prompt for Day 56 was to make something heavy seem light, which reminded me of another (personal) high school project where I drew pages of tiny animals with wings. That sketchbook couldn’t be found on short notice, but when I do find it, I promise I’ll share. This creature looks nothing like them, by the way.

Day 58 – 03/17/12 – Warpaint

Pen & Junk Mail

The colors on the newsletter that came with my energy bill seemed a bit violent, so I turned it into a war-painted monster. I had a lot of fun with this one, though I wish I had positioned it a bit better so the E was a little less recognizable.

Not sure what’s going on? Check out my 365 Monsters Intro as well as the Make Something 365 Blog for more information and inspiration of your own!

365 Monsters Days 45 – 51

March 11, 2012 in 365, Crafts

Day 45 – 03/04/12 – Mintalope

Cardboard

Girl Scout cookies are unavoidable. Earlier this month, Chu and I were accosted by a troupe that had set up a stand right in the entry way of our local grocery store. As we continued to do our shopping, we became aware that their repetitive chant imploring folks to buy their delicious wares started sounding more and more like demonic robots, or like something resembling Chucky.

But I digress. My favorite cookies are Thin Mints, and when I was done with the box, I cut out shapes, mostly on predetermined “lines” on the photo of the excited zip-lining girl (JEALOUS, by the way. I’m pretty sure the packaging hasn’t changed in the past 15 years, but I sure never got to go zip-lining in Girl Scouts!) and, well, made a Mintalope.

Day 46 – 03/05/12 – The Winter Games Puppet

Assembly

Day 46 in the book suggests using a face. Well, most of my monsters have faces, but none where the eyes are made from parts of a game controller! Featured here are key parts of my winter wardrobe: the orange cowl (thanks to my mother-in-law for the great Christmas gift!), and the green hat (one of my first completed knits)… and an XBox 360 controller for eyes. I must have been channeling my inner puppeteer.

Day 47 – 03/06/12 – Pizza & Cheesy … Exo-Urchin?

Pizza

I can’t help playing with my food, so my pizza turned itself into a greasy version of Day 3′s Exo-Urchins.

Day 48 – 03/07/12 – Flow-rar!

Paper plate

A day late, day 47 suggests using flowers, so I made a flower- a hungry flower!

Day 49 – 03/08/12 – Pushme

Push pins on cork board

The book suggests using a lot of something. I have a lot of push pins, in a lot of colors. This certainly isn’t all of them, but I didn’t want to completely mutilate my new cork board all at once.

Day 50 - 03/09/12 – Origami Monster

Paper

Day 50: Mimimalist. Origami. Youtube instructions: here.

Day 51 – 03/10/12 – Arachyute

Polymer Clay (Sculpey)

Day 50′s task was to make something cute from something that’s normally not cute. So I took the most not-cute subject matter I could find (spider) and make it at least not terrifying. Today I wanted to try out some translucent clay that I got last time I was out clay shopping. So after making a test piece, i decided that it definitely wouldn’t be clear eyeballs for my spider, but I realized pretty quickly that it would be a way of making the green (which is ridiculously hard to work with) much more malleable. And when put beside the slug from the last time I used this color, it gives off a nice neon sheen.

Not sure what’s going on? Check out my 365 Monsters Intro as well as the Make Something 365 Blog for more information and inspiration of your own!

365 Monsters Days 38 – 44

March 4, 2012 in 365, Crafts, Crochet

Day 38 – 02/26/12 – Comic Book Worm

Pen & Paper

I decided for something cute, but didn’t have a whole lot of time, and thus the comic book worm is born. Such a happy little worm…

Day 39 – 02/27/12 – Eyesenhower

Prismacolor Pencils

It has been a long time since I’ve gotten out my Prismacolors, and I was excited to use them again. I was a little less excited though when the leads of all of the colors I wanted to use kept breaking. Hardly a surprise though, this box of colored pencils has travelled with me through probably 8 different moves, if not more. I also need a better pencil sharpener.

But the monster was still fun to make!

Day 40 – 02/28/12 – Monster Totem

Crochet

Day 40 in the book said to work with yarn. And as I’ve been knitting up a storm on my Catkin project, I decided to break out my crochet hook and some scrap yarn and start hooking! I started working in a circle while watching Castle, and worked increases and decreases evenly around until it looked roughly like this. Completely freehand. Largest non-temporary monster yet!

Day 41 – 02/29/12 – Terrorist

Pen & Paper

Day 41 said to make something larger than it normally would be, and as I was once again strapped for time, I scribbled out an ant-esque beast terrorizing a city.

Day 42 – 03/01/12 – Domo Bracelet

“Friendship Thread”

Okay, so this was a really big cheater move here. First, I apparently can’t read, because I was trying to emulate day 43′s prompt (Learn something new). Also, I totally made this piece of bracelet a few days earlier. And, it’s not a finished piece. In fact, on Saturday I completely undid all the knots because I wanted to start over and make the knots tighter and more uniform, etc. etc.

BUT I did see the unfinished piece laying on my desk and go “Ooh, that would make a good monster!” despite all of the evidence against it!

Day 43 – 03/02/12 – Sir Mix-A-Lot

Found

This mixer has been tucked away in a corner for a while. Chu wanted to use it to improve on his croissant-making endeavors (more on that later), but this beast needs a bit of TLC before it’ll work quite right. No mater though. It can be a temporary gentlemanly monster hat stand for a while.

Day 44 – 03/03/12 – Eeevil Pilot Fish

Pen & Junk Mail

Day 42′s real prompt was to use junk mail, and day 44′s prompt was to make something that light’s up. I didn’t realize that I had accomplished both until after the monster was done. Go Go Fish Monster! (Monster’s name is a nod to the great Eddie Izzard. Go look it up)

Not sure what’s going on? Check out my 365 Monsters Intro as well as the Make Something 365 Blog for more information and inspiration of your own!