Mitama Matsuri (Lantern Festival)

Over the 3 day weekend (thanks to Marine Day) I was able to travel up to Tokyo and explore Yasukuni Shrine for the first time. It's out near Akiba in the Chuo Ward so it took me quite a while to get up to the East side of Tokyo. The following photos were shot on my D40X.

Instagram Sketches

Oh hey. I got an instagram account. I'm honestly surprised my terrible AU android can handle it. Here are some doodles from this past month from my journal taken with instagram. My name on there is wastedwings. Follow me?

Skyrim Hoodie Pictures

Varg (who originally commissioned me) finally got his Skyrim hoodie in the mail. These are his photos. You can view his blog here: http://deadandaway.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/hedengangen.html

Sketches/ T-shirt Contest

Some stuff I've done in the past couple of days. I whipped up some quick t-shirt vectors for a contest held by the fashion blogger La Carmina. You can check out her blog here: http://www.lacarmina.com/ She's pretty awesome!

I also did some sketches while I was at school. I was invited to watch the art class. Had to get some sketching in myself. Couldn't let the kids have all the fun.

Hanami/ Cherry Blossom Viewing

I haven't uploaded any of my photography in ages on this blog. Once a year (for about 2 weeks) a major event happens in Japan; cherry blossoms are in bloom! This year I travelled to Shinjuku and Ueno to celebrate. The following photos were taken w/ my Nikon D40X.

T-Shirts for Sale/ Competition

Awesome photos of my 99 Red Balloons shirt and Alice In Wonderland shirt sent in by Royce and Caryn. You can follow Royce on twitter here. If you would like to buy either of these shirts, I have them on sale over on my Red Bubble page here: http://www.redbubble.com/people/wastedwings

Also, I am still competing in the Daily Shirt competition over on Design By Humans. Please go vote for my shirt! Registration takes less than 30 seconds. You can vote for that here: http://www.designbyhumans.com/vote/detail/97575

Alice In Wonderland Shirt Design

Another shirt to add to the collection! This one will be going up on Redbubble alongside my 99 Red Balloons shirt! This was vectored in Adobe Illustrator and sketched and mocked-up in Adobe Photoshop (model photo by Threadless). I've always been in love with Alice (see: buttons) and now that I've gotten into making shirts, it's only fitting I honor my Lolita idol once more.

PS- PLEASE go vote on my 99 Red Balloons shirt on Designbyhumans. Link is here: http://www.designbyhumans.com/vote/detail/97575/

99 Red Balloons Shirt Design

Everything vectored in Illustrator. Mock-up done in Photoshop. The model photo belongs to Threadless and is shown on "Black". I had a lot of fun with this shirt because I've never really touched the artist's brushes in Illustrator. Because I was playing with the brushes, this shirt took me a lot longer than I expected. This shirt was inspired by the song 99 Red Balloons by Nena.

"Ninety-nine dreams I have had

Every one a red balloon

Now it's all over and I'm standin' pretty

In this dust that was a city

If I could find a souvenir

Just to prove the world was here

And here is a red balloon

I think of you and let it go"

Rooted Dinosaurs Shirt Design

Roots done in Photoshop. Dinos vectored in Illustrator. Mock-up done in Photoshop. The model and t-shirt photos belong to Threadless and are shown on "Cigar Brown". I don't normally wear brown, but dang I want this shirt.


Here's the process. :/

Photo Restoration

So this week I took on a big challenge, I decided to restore an old family photo from 1933 of my great grandparents (on my dad's side). The original size of the image (barrel and all) is about 4" x 3". The image itself is about 2.5" x 1.75". My family is pretty sure they are at the World's Fair on Lake Michigan. The first image is the unrestored image and the latter is my restoration work.

Thesis Show

These are the photos from my senior show. You can see everything came together. The dress, the character portraits, etc. My environments and turn-arounds were in the book on the table along with my artist statement and business cards. The show went great and I saw a lot of old friends! This is my goodbye to Ringling.

Photography Final

This is final portfolio for my photography class. The entire class had 2 1/2 weeks to get together an advertising campaign of sorts from start to finish. This includes the concept, finding models, purchasing items, and printing the 5-6 finished pieces. I chose to do a lifestyle campaign on lolita; primarily because I own quite a few dresses and I have little money in my bank account.

If you modeled for me and don't see yourself up here it isn't because the pictures were terrible or you were a bad model; it was because the images weren't creating a cohesive body of work. I have to say a HUGE thank you to Amanda, Aless, Lindsay, Vicki, Monica, and Alex for modeling for me. They put aside their busy schedules to help me pass my photo class. Thank you for saving my ass! <3

Purikura and Japan

Picture frames I decorated from when I was in Japan. I was feeling rather nostalgic and decided to upload them. The first one is from the summer of 2006 and the second one is from the summer of 2009. I really miss all of the friends I made while I was in Japan (especially the Nakagawa family that took care of me and my friend Allison for 3 weeks).

I know this is more of my art blog, but Japan is very dear to me and I wanted to share these with you all. I love the purikura around the edges. They are so cute and funny!

Jeans

Catalogue and advertisement for DKNY jeans. Thanks to Lindsay for being a great model!

Toys and a Dress

These are the toys I made last year finally shot in the studio. I've had them sitting in my room and I finally made time to go shoot them! This weekend was all about photo shoots. I helped my friend Nicole shoot some toys and afterwards, my other friend Nicole came and modeled my dress for thesis. Does this dress look familiar? It is the dress the main character in my comic, "Atelier," wears. Link to the reference sheet I used to sew this dress can be found here: http://kfitzpat.blogspot.com/2009/11/thesis-turn-around.html A big thank you to my mother for helping me construct this dress. She spent hours gathering the fabric for the ruffles and I truly appreciate that.

Perfume Photography

Advertisement and Still Life shots for perfume campaign. The perfume is Paris Hilton's "Can- Can". REALLY big thanks to Vicki for not only modeling for me, but providing the perfume. No thanks to Walmart for sucking when I had to pick up the fabrics and flowers for this shoot.

Watch Ad

This was the current photo assignment for my Still Life/ Advertisement class. My second time shooting in the studio and I feel like I'm learning a ton. Thanks to Amanda who was my model!

Shoes! OMG!