Happy St Andrews Day 2013!

Happy St Andrews Day! Here is my annual stupid animation that I make for my boyfriend every year! (I'm starting to run out of famous Andrews to put in these now)!

St Andrews Day 2013 from Nafftastic on Vimeo.

The Making of Star Trek Christmas Cards

You've seen the final product, now here are some of the preliminary sketches I did before making the final cards!
First I tried drawing the characters realistically, just to get into the mood:0


I then played around with a few different styles...



But in the end I decided to go with the usual Claire-y style...



So I drew the whole cast in this style, scanned my piccy wics into Illustrator and made them up into the cards you see today! Wahoo!



So there we go! You can now buy the cards from my little old Etsy shop - just in time for Christmas!
Nafftastic Shop

Star Trek Christmas Cards

Wa-hey! A few weeks ago I finally finished designing my Star Trek themed Christmas cards for this year! I'm really chuffed with how they've turned out!

I decided a few months back that I wanted to make some Star Trek inspired Crimbo cards, as it was then that I started to watch the original series for the first time and just fell in love with it!
So as you can see I've created a card for each original series character, and each one has their own unique greeting (receiving some help from my boyfriend in this department)!

Kirk: "To boldly go where no Christmas has gone before!"
Spock: "Have a Logical Christmas"
McCoy: "Dammit Jim, I'm a Doctor, not Santa Claus!"
Scotty: "I just cannae drink any more whiskey, Captain!"
Sulu: "Approaching Christmas at Warp Factor 10, Captain!"
Chekhov: "Have a wery Merry Christmas"
Uhura: "We wish you a Merry Christmas!" (But written in Klingon - I'm aware she doesn't speak Klingon in the original series, but she does in the new movies, so thats my loophole and I'm sticking to it)!

So there we go! They were really fun to make - I've probably never been so bold with backgrounds colours before!
I got them printed at the wonderful Ripe Digital, who did a top notch job on them, they do a great quality digital print and I whole heartedly recommend them to anyone who wants anything printed digital!

But aha! These cards aren't just for my pleasure, I'm bringing them out to the world! I have just opened an Etsy shop, and you can buy yourself a pack of 7 cards (with envelopes) from there for £5! So if you have any Star Trek fan friends then you should get buyin'! As I think they'll love them!
Nafftastic Shop
(There are also a few copies of my Japan Bonanza Express Book for sale there too)!

Welsh Walk Illustrations

I made a long watercolour illustration to accompany a walk route map a month or so ago...

It was quite fun to try out a different style! I think I'm going to try and start doing little photo walkthroughs of how I do some of my work soon - just to show you my silly process of doing things! (I'm thinking of using this style to document some girly shoe idea I've had for a while...)

Kawaii! Japan's Culture of Cute

A book called out to me in Waterstones a few months ago, and I knew it had to be mine. It is 'Kawaii! Japan's Culture of Cute'.

Its this awesome reference book of all things celebrated as 'kawaii' or 'cute' in Japan, which is a lot of stuff! This book looks at the beginnings of the 'kawaii' phenomenon and how its evolved over the years. Its stuffed full of interviews with various designers and illustrators who have shaped/are shaping how kawaii is perceived in Japan today.

Now I'll just let the pictures do the talking...