Blog

As Halloween draws near, I am constantly brainstorming for this year’s personal display for the local trick-or-treaters. A few days ago, I overheard some neighborhood children talking about my display and how scary it was. They loved it! I’ll be doing roughly the same thing this year, but with some tweaks and improvements.

One of my main focuses will be on the treats. Instead of candy, I’ve been thinking of giving out small, punch-out papercrafts that the kids can assemble at home. Candy is fine, but it eventually runs out, and all you’re left with is a fading memory of that night.

The papercrafts that I’ve been thinking of are small trinket boxes in the shapes of coffins, tombstones, etcetera. They’re just something simple, something fun, and something that serves some purpose. With around 6 different designs to collect, they can be given out for 2-3 years before designing others.

Nava Designs is now officially up and running! There are a few last-minute things to include, but certainly nothing that would hinder the use of the website.

New to the site is Paper Engineering: Designing a Paper Model. The new section explains what I go through to design a paper model for the masses. It’s still a work-in-progress as I continue to work on the current paper model with the most current techniques. I hope it answers a lot of queries that I’ve gotten over the years. If there are any unanswered questions that anyone has, feel free to contact me.

Speaking of contact, I do have a brand-new email address. If you have the old one in your address book somewhere, toss it out.

Now I need new business cards, stationary, customer invoices . . .

Well, here it is . . . the movie that started my artistic career. In fact, my very first drawing as a serious artist was Jessica Rabbit from the slip cover of the VHS, which I still own.

I have many interests. I have an interest in pirates. I have an interest in board games. I have an interest in bookmaking. I have an interest in coins. I have an interest in antiques. I have an interest in old-world charm. I have many interests.

Last year, I created a set of fake Hawaiian Airline tickets based on an image that I found on the Internet. Everything was done from scratch, and it took a while, but it was fun, and well worth the time.

This past Saturday, I was dragged to an unofficial family reunion. Okay, I admit that I went freely. I love family gatherings; there’s always plenty of food, family, and love. Since I had not seen so many relatives since I was a kid, I decided to bring along two of my portfolios (one for artwork, and one for paper craft), and all of my business cards. I assumed that my portfolios would get a few glances, and only a few cards would be taken. Boy, was I wrong!

My portfolios were passed around like crazy with promotional help from a couple of my aunts. I received a lot of complements, and was referred to as the “famous artist.” The things that people couldn’t wrap their minds around were the paper models.

“What are these?”
“Paper models.”
“What are they made of?”
“Paper.”

It’s such a simple explanation, but they still were not quite sure what to make of them. Paper doesn’t have to be flat.

With yet more promotion by my aunts, my cards started flying out of the boxes. Most people took two or more cards, especially my brand-new cards from Moo, which have different art samples on one side of each card.

Me oh my, what a fruitful day.

I also want to give a shout-out to my Aunt Nellie, who attended her first Grammy Awards. Although she didn’t win anything that night, the Polka Family Band has been nominated for a Grammy on several occasions. I recorded the show just to try to find both her and my cousin Greg in the audience (fifth row from the front, I later discovered). We’re all very proud!

Well, it seems that I won’t be guest-Blogging on TOR.com. I’ve sent several emails, including to the site administrators, and I’m getting no response at all. Well, too bad for them. I can’t wait forever, and I have to move on to other paying clients.

I know the site is still in Beta mode, and I know the folks there are very busy, but things were promised, and I haven’t received them. If there was some kind of hold-up or problem, I’d at least like a quick email saying that things will have to be postponed for a while. At least that way, I could have moved on to other things.

Of course, for all I know, there could be an email snafu that’s affecting everyone there. I don’t know. I just know I have to move on for the time being. Hopefully, I’ll hear form them again, as I was REALLY looking forward to working with them.