Red 5, standing by...

Hey people! I trust everyone had a Joyous Yuletide.

First of all, DAMN you Santa only working one day a year, when just three days after your shift, these sweet babies wander into my life:

I think I just came.

x

Christmas Greetings, Take The Power Back

So we, the people, have done it. Rage Against The Machine are UK Christmas number 1 with Killing in the Name!

To be honest, my involvement in it had very little do do with sticking a finger to Simon Cowell, I just kind of thought it would be cool. Almost 20 years of hard work (yeah, the album 'Rage Against the Machine' was 1992) has paid off.

But when I heard that the campaign was raising money for Shelter, I definitely wanted to be a part of it. Rage have said that a large amount of the proceeds they receive will go to Shelter, which is great, but the campaign has raised an incredible £70,000.

Talk about people power, right?

Millions of people tuned in to vote Joe McElderry the winner of X Factor, and thousands made Rage number one. I'm so proud of our little island for this. Shows that we're not all pricks.

So if anyone has any spare pennies, head over to http://www.justgiving.com/ratm4xmas/ and drop them a couple of quid if you can.

Merry Christmas, guys.

Chris xxx

Almost forgot...

Oh, yeah, and

Happy 1st December, people!

X

Sustainable: Me?

So here's some work I did for my personal project. Any comments/critiques would be greatly appreciated. I know there's things I could have done, things I should have done, but I must admit I was kinda slack on this one.

I was just so fed up of it! Images are kinda small, I'll get some hi-res ones up soon.

Peace!

Chris x

'Sustainability'

Maaaan, there's been so much work on in uni.

I'm so fed up of Sustainability, I just don't care about the environment anymore! That's obviously not necessarily true, of course, but this project has really taken it out of me.

Ah well, two weeks left before Christmas break!

Still, we've got an essay and two book cover designs to do for the last day.

I've also been given a job with a friend's uni course, which is going to be a lot of work - but it's paid work, and I'm really excited about the work load!

Speaking of which, I'm still open for commissions, and I'm going to be doing postcard sized one-offs for sale, also.

So if you want some personalised Christmas gifts or anything, hit me up at

chrisstringer[dot]des[at]googlemail[dot][com]

Peace!

Chris

Nov 11, 2009.

Happy Remembrance day, people. I suppose there's not much happy about it though.

I made this.

Take it easy.

Chris

Shit for sale!?

Yo peeps, just saying I've made a canvas, it's for sale. It's only little, A5 or so. It can be yours for the very affordable £10! It's a one off! Never to be produced again!

Anyone's interested, hit me up at:

chrisstringer[dot]des[at]googlemail[dot][com]

Peace!

Chris x

Uni news and t shirt design

So the latest project in uni is right up my street. My group is doing a calendar based on sustainable design, and for the 'image' of each month on the calendar, there's going to be a papercraft net for the user to cut out and keep - giving the otherwise waste-able paper shelf-life.

I think it's a really cool idea, and I've sort-of-but-not-really become the main papercraft designer; basically because I do it in my spare time anyway. But it's a lot of fun! First one so far has been this little robot guy; who is just a simple idea - kind of a 3d sketch. We're redesigning him, probably gonna get some colour in there too. Exciting! In other news, I created a new tee design, cause I only had a boring plain red tee to wear out the other evening, so I just made a design. Like you do. Pics are as follows...

peace!

Chris x

Pledge...

So guys, I know this sucks but... Does anyone who reads this need a commission? I hate asking that. I'm just having a rough time (aren't we all?) at the moment, and truthfully - I'd love to do some work for someone. I can do cards, books, paintings, designs, illustrations.. If you have a little look around on here or at my DeviantArt page, hell, even my old DevArt you can see the sort of stuff I do. If you've got any friends or whatever who you think might be into any of it, please, hook me up! I'm not some 'big artiste' who's gonna charge a bomb, timesheets and all. Any cost would be carefully calculated!

So, there's my little pledge to you lovely people.

Either comment on here, DeviantArt or hit me up at chrisstringer[dot]des[at]googlemail[dot]com

Thanks!

Peace. X

Book and painting

Hola!
Did some things to send off for this thingy, kinda like a secret santa (but its not Christmas), that we do on the Unified Scene, which is the Hold Steady forum.

So I made a book for this guy, and the little slip thingy that goes over it has the Stay Positive logo on it. I also did a Dylan painting for him. I got a picture of Dylan, played with the levels and threshold in Photoshop, and then imported it into Illustrator, live traced it, then physically traced it - off the screen of my laptop, no less - and painted it.

Chuffed how it came out, actually!

Peace x

Chris

Sharks rock.

Hey guys.. Just a little something I threw together the other day, because sharks are so cool.

It's not showing up on here so I'm gonna have to just send you on over to my DeviantArt page.

If you are gonna download it, please drop a comment either there or here (if you have an account), or send an email down to chrisstringer[dot]des[at]googlemail[dot][com]. Thanks :)

Cheers

Chris

Zombies! Dinosaurs! Zombie Dinosaurs!

Guys, I love zombies. It's no secret. Another thing I openly, and all too regularly, declare my love for is dinosaurs. They both rule hard.

So, I present to you...

The Zombiraptor!

It's a work in progess, but I'm excited to finish it!

Peace!

x

New DeviantArt Page.

Hello people. Just a little note to say I have a new DeviantArt page, hit it up if you get a chance. There's not much on there at the moment, but bear with me. 

In other news, finished my first year of uni, got a letter saying I passed - yay! Kind of knew I would, sort of, but then again one can only be so sure. Currently reading Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist - freaking awesome. Can't wait to watch the film, but have to finish the book first!! 

Also, plenty of planning ahead this summer; which I don't usually do, I don't like planning ahead too often because I feel it ruins surprises and the enjoyment of madness. But I'm planning to do quite a lot. I've actually got a commission too at the moment (which I haven't actually started yet), so that will be fun, drawing a DJ for this guy in work. My father also said he'll commission me to do a corporate identity for his contracting service  - I don't have a super close relationship with him, so it'll be less like my father and more like a real client, which is kinda cool in a sort of depressing way! But that's IF he even emails me, which he hasn't yet.

I'm also going to start work on a comic I want to make. Nothing more on that yet, but it's called Fliers. Kind of a gigantic mixture of loads of awesome stuff. 

Anyway that's all for now, I'm going to leave you with the awesome works of Jon Sommariva, A.K.A  Red-J on DeviantArt. He's an awesome artist and has been working with the legend that is Jay Faerber on a comic called Gemini for Image Comics. It's been aaaaaaages since number 3 was out, and I've heard issue 4 is coming mid-July sometime. I can't WAIT.  

Take it easy

x

Take back the streets.

Hello!

So I've really gotten into stickers, as I said. And I was really inspired by Karl Toon and his character, and thought about doing something sort of similar; but with a bit more to it. So I was thinking, and there's this character I've been playing with for ages, (another rabbit - go figure) called Harvey. And he's y'know, kind of the main character in a graphic novel I will never write - I'm sure somebody else knows how that is! And I was thinking - the reason I won't write it is because I'm not really talented - or patient - enough to do backgrounds and inbetween frames and stuff. So then I thought - what if the street (how gangster does that sound?) was the background? So I'll just print the characters and maybe props, and stick or post them on walls and stuff? I think this could be quite cool. Anyway, today I sketched a little thing of 'Harvey' running up behind a guard (oh Hell yeah there's archetypal bad guys). I'm currently working on the guard in Illustrator (will update when finished), and I've already done Harvey.

Hope you liketh!

Peace!

x

Wild Wild West.. and a Demon.

So yeah. I really should go to sleep, but I find myself staying up for no reason, and when I have nothing left to do, I actually find something to do. 

Anyway, here's an Illustrator-ed version of the Wild West Bunny, and a weird Demon thing I drew on a tiny tiny post-it. 

Peace x

Easter!?

So, I've finished uni for Easter, and I really enjoyed this term. It seems that the course is getting better (in my opinion), and the briefs and projects are getting more interesting as we get more talented. I like. So, now I'm off for a month and don't know what to do with myself. I went to the Library yesterday to find a book on the Queen (it is harder than you'd think to get a good, hi res image of the Queen like the one Jamie Reid used for the Se Pistols), and found this book called "Sticker City" about sticker-graffiti. It's something I've been interested in for a while, and this book seems to have a lot of information on how people work, etc, which is the kind of book I like - rather than just "this is so and so, he is good", it's more like here are artists, here is their work, and here's how they work. There's also a short section on methods, about artists making their own screens (for screen printing). So yeah that's good. Anyway, in between Scrabble and Jean Claude Van Damme movies, I've been sketching and looking to buy a4 sicker sheets, 'cause I really want to create some stickers of my own. Also, if you're on DeviantArt, check out some of the sticker work on there go through Traditional Art>Street Art>Stickers (or just go here)- ultimately inspiring.

In the meantime, here's this bunny character I've been working on. I should put more of my sketches up here, because it's weird how characters quite often become rabbits. Must be my undying love for Bucky O'Hare. If you had to hit the link to find out what that was, I am disappointed.

Peace! x

Just a quick one...

Guys. Guys. Guys.

I saw the trailer for Spike Jonze's 'Where The Wild Things Are' today. 

I am so excited. You can see it here, and if you guys haven't read the book, I seriously recommend it.

Cheers! 

x

I Like Birthdays.

I really enjoy making little things for people. It was my friend's birthday a short while back, and I made one of those Shin Tanaka paper dolls for her. I didn't design this one myself, it was a pre-made one, because I was planning on sending it to her for her birthday. Unfortunately I didn't know her address until last week, and she's coming down this week so I thought I may as well just give it to her in person.

Anyway, I had some spare foamboard left over from a uni project, so I decided to make a box for the doll, to make it a bit more personalised considering the doll wasn't my design.

So, yeah, here's some pictures! And as always, I made a card.

I really should come up with something to put at the back of cards, instead of making something up each time, should I make more of them. I went with the interrobang because it exudes "wtf", and it's an awesome word.

Peace!

x

Evolve 1

So this is the first piece of work playing on the 'evolve' theme (as used in the url for the blog), which is just one of a few themes I've had ideas about. It's for the next issue of Designer Violence zine I previously posted, which is out in March. The deadline for submissions is Sunday 22nd Feb, so try and get something in if you fancy! The 'brief' (if that) was simply "Animal", and you were to respond however you wanted. I felt that it'd be a good reason to push myself to doing an Evolve piece. Their email is designerviolence@yahoo.com if you plan on sending a submission. 

Peace!

Heads up

Just a quick note, if you're wandering past my house today please wear a hard hat, because I may throw my printer out the window.

I have a problem.

So yesterday, I came home, I said to myself: "right, have a tidy up, then get on with your uni work." Sounds easy enough. 

Then I sat down, had a better idea and made this instead.

Magnet Man

Yo yo yo.

Here's a picture of my Magnet Man re-hash so far. Stopped for a while now, though, too much work to do.

I found a couple of awesome things, there's this little manifesto/zine thing for designers, based in Cardiff, called Designer Violence, that's not an official site or anything, but its got a cool .gif showing all the pages of the current issue.

Then there's Shin Tanaka. This guy's a freaking legend. The things he can do with paper is inspiring, I mean, I managed to make a penguin and a t shirt out of paper in work, but seriously, check it out. I'm making a couple of the thingies on there, you can download the templates. I'll put pictures up soon.

Take it easy!

Old School

So, I've been playing Mega Man III for the NES, and damn, I forgot how much I love that game. Never completed a single level. But a while back I decided to draw Mega Man, then decided to do the Robot Masters in my own style and adapt them.

Birthday Cards

Hola! So, in the current state of having  no money, and people's birthdays around, I thought it'd be a nice idea to make cards for a change. It's been a pretty nice little thing to do, as well - they turned out nicely.

First one is for my sister; she's going to New York soon, so I put a nice Big Apple as well as a New York skyline (which I later went over in a silvery glitter pen), and the second is for my Grandad's 70th, and it's based on this thing he said once.

Peace.

Who Watches The Watchmen?

Hello! Happy New Year! Was a pretty quiet one this year, wasn't it? Or so it seems from most people I've spoken to. Nobody can be bothered anymore!

I've been reading the Watchmen graphic novel, in preparation for the Watchmen movie Zack Snyder (300) is doing for this year, and I gotta say... It's freaking awesome. Definitely lives up to the hype that it's received over the years - I can't believe it's taken me until now to read it!!

Anyway, I've been really thinking about the character Rorschach, and how much I really like the design of him, so, naturally... I thought I'd try my hand at drawing him.

Hopefully I won't get fired for doing this at work :P  

Let me know what you think!

Cheers

Chris x