NCT - The Design

After a week of being sick and, quite frankly, not wanting to do anything other than eat really bad food and lay on the couch, I finally managed to finish the Nervously Changing Turtle design. This design changed quite a bit. Originally I was going to do something along the lines of a turtle without its shell, which was covering itself and blushing as a girl turtle (indicated by a bow) had a good laugh. But to me, that seemed more like an embarrassed, changing turtle, so I scrapped it (Photoshop helped by crashing and making something like 2 hours of work just go away).

The design you seen now was drawn in pencil first. This is different from the last three designs because they were done completely on my Wacom Graphire 3 using Photoshop. This time I thought it might be better to actually draw the design, then ink it, then scan it in, and then color it in Photoshop, which is what I did. I'm fairly happy with how it turned out except for one thing. The tail.

Originally I had been shooting for a fish tail, but once I scanned the image, I realized I had done something more like a dolphin tail (and by "more like" I mean "exactly like") and it was late and I didn't want to go back and redo it. But the more I look at it, the better I think it would like with a rainbow trout tail. The Wifelette thinks so, too. I might go back and change it, just to see how it looks, but for now, you get dolphin tail.

Voting for the next design is still open at the Facebook Page, so if you haven't voted (and let's face it, only five people have voted, and I was one of them), then head over to the page and vote for the design you want to see next.

-Rob Signed Off

Waiting for Monday

I'm actually glad that Photoshop took a nose dive on me the other day. Weird, right? Well I've actually come up with a better design idea for Nervously Changing Turtle, we just have to see if I can pull it off. The original design was going to be something along the lines of a turtle without its shell being laughed at by other turtles...but I think that was more of an embarrassing situation than a nerve inducing one. The new design will...WAIT...but you thought I was going to give it away. You'll have to wait for Monday and see if I was able to actually finish the design.

Check out the Facebook page to vote for next Wednesday's design. I'm serious about this. Go do it. Do it now. (This is where I should say "Get to the chopper!" but I'm just going to let it go.)

-Rob Signed Off

P.S. While you're at the Facebook page (seriously, you aren't there yet?) make sure to like it. I promise the update schedule, and the work, will be better in the future.

The Lurgy

I am officially declaring this week a bust for Three Random Words designs. Because of the malady that has plagued me all week, I've been in a state best described as zombified and worst described as "the lurgy" (for an explanation, watch the linked video at around minute 3).

I did put together most of the design for Nervously Changing Turtle only to have Photoshop decide that now was a good time to lecture me on the importance of saving by crashing to desktop and erasing two hours of work. Lesson learned, Photoshop, lesson learned.

So, with any luck, I"ll be back in complete health by the weekend, and you lot will have a new design come Monday. Also, don't forget to vote for Wednesday's design. Experimentally Troubled Void is still out in front, but there are 4 or 5 days between now and when I sit down to do the design, so if you'd rather see Momentarily Layered Doe or Needlessly Split Salt, get over to the Three Random Words page and vote.

Sickly Excuses

Ugh...I managed to catch a cold over the weekend and so I still was not able to finish the design for today. For taking this long, it better be the best design ever (though it probably won't be). 

If you haven't liked Three Random Words on Facebook yet I encourage you to hop on over there and do so, while you're there don't miss out on the opportunity to vote for the next design (assuming I ever get this one finished). Voting will go right up until the point I sit down to do the design. Right now, Experimentally Troubled Void is leading with two votes. If you'd rather see Momentarily Layered Doe or Needlessly Split Salt make sure to check out the Three Random Words (http://www.facebook.com/ThreeRandomWordsDesigns) page and vote for the design you want.


-Rob Signed Off

Half Finished Turtle

I'll have to apologize for missing my own self imposed deadline of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday only two weeks into working on this design project. Mother's Day weekend was a bit more jam packed than I originally thought it would be and I wasn't able to put together the whole design for Nervously Changing Turtle. This is the part where comic artists like Jeph Jacques would insert something witty that makes you go "aww, it's alright, we still love you." Hopefully I can get it done tonight and post it before midnight and still claim that I kept to the schedule. Until that time, here is a picture of a badly drawn turtle shell.

-Rob Signed Off

Update!

I think I'm going to go with a Monday, Wednesday, Friday design schedule, unless that turns out to be too much for me to handle or if the Wifelette drags me to bed early or something, though, she likes this idea, so she probably won't begrudge me the opportunity to work on my skills and post these funny little images.

I've found the next random set of words: Vigorously Programmed End.

Check back in tomorrow for the design.

-Rob Signed Off

Three Random Words: Begin Generating!

A few months back I stumbled across a YouTube series called Cute Win Fail that stars Toby "Tobuscus" Turner. At first, as with most things, I thought he was a bit annoying, but the content was funny and the longer I watched the more his style seemed to mesh with the show.  So I decided to check out some of his other work and before long I found myself keeping up with Tobuscus on a regular basis.

I think I enjoy his work because I find his motor mouth, say-whatever-comes-to-you style to be refreshing, not because it isn't present on the Internet, but because it inspires me to take something of the same tact with my own work, which has been horribly lacking as of late. Most of the time, I have an idea (good or not) and I just hold onto it, wondering why I should ever actually act on it, because it is likely that nobody will see it, nobody will like it, or everyone will chastise me for trying it.  Mr. Turner has changed my mind on this.

So, I am now introducing this blog (feeble as it may be right now): Three Random Words. Here I will take, you guessed it, three random words from whatever word generator I find online and I will make a design or illustration out of the phrase or object that those words create. In order to make sure this works out as smoothly as possible, I'm going to stick with finding one random adverb, verb, and noun, because, I can't really do anything with three random adjectives or three random verbs.

The next post will feature the very first of these designs.  So, thank you for reading and please feel free to comment.

A special thanks to Tobuscus, if he ever reads this.

-Rob Signed Off