#my style and gg style do not go well together so i have to sketch a character like 3 or 4 times until i get a look im fine with

[laugtherhyena]

Jack-o posting continues in this fine monday

[gloriaglamont]

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a planner. I plan weekly menus before I go to the grocery store. I map out an entire two-week road trip months in advance ensuring that all hotels are booked for the right days and I know the precise driving time between stops. I write outlines for everything I write, and writing is what I do in my other life (in this one, too, you might well respond �� I don’t outline blog posts, though, which is probably obvious!).

To be clear, when I started my writing career many years ago, I learned very quickly that to sell a non-fiction book to a publisher, I’d need to learn to write a book proposal which is nothing short of a complete outline among a lot of other stuff. So, I learned the process of book proposal writing well enough to sell seven or eight books that way. So, when it comes to my sewing and design life, I pretty much take that same approach.

Remember my cruise collection? That started with an actual inspiration board, moved on to sketches, then I created original patterns, chose fabrics planned for specific projects (no fabric hoarding here). My Little Black Dress project? It progressed the same way as did my three Little French Jackets. So, I have no reason to think that much of my work will be on the fly. Well, you know what they say: “The best laid plans…” Let me back up a bit.

When I returned to fashion design and sewing a few years ago, much had changed in that world. For years my sewing machine collected dust between jean hemming and costume sewing projects. (I’m happy to say that the costume sewing for children’s theatre actually resulted in a child who grew up to be successful in the performing arts.) Then, the muse struck and I finally had the time to devote to a return to something I had loved as a young adult. But, as I mentioned, there were many new things.

This is the one I have. I use it infrequently. 

First there was the rotary cutter. When I first saw one, I thought, Doesn’t anyone use shears anymore? I soon learned that, yes, shears are the way to go on most projects for me. I use a rotary cutter mostly for interfacing and muslin cutting. Otherwise, they’re not my thing – dreadful on silk, wool, bouclé etc. Then there were the patterns.

I had never before heard that McCall’s, Vogue, Butterick and Simplicity were now referred to as “the big four” and not in a good way. What was that all about, I thought? This led me to learn about the new “indie” pattern companies. That sounds very democratic, doesn’t it? What I found was an avalanche of half-baked patterns, generally for tent-like bags that would fit everyone and no one – I’ll leave the rest of that rant for another day to equalize out all those rants from sewers who seem to dislike the “big four” with a passion. I happen to think they do very good work. But that’s for another day. Anyway, I finally found a legitimate one or two whose patterns interested me. Style Arc was one.

An Australian company, Style Arc’s sketches were what really drew me in. And I loved the fact that not all of their patterns are for knits which means that they really do have to know how to create something that fits. That being said, I decided to try one that was for a knit first.

What’s not to love about this sketch? Well, I should have look more closely at the version on the right. 

The other thing that had changed was that not all patterns came in little envelopes anymore. Some of them were pdf downloads. Who knew? Well, just about everyone but me! Everyone has to have a first time, though, don’t they?

Style Arc produces both hard copy patterns and pdf’s. I decided to try my first pdf and my first indie pattern all in one fell swoop.

I used to have a cardigan sweater I loved so much it was actually worn out by the time I finished with it. t hadn’t been expensive, either, but was black (a must for a sweater that will serve me over the long term) and instead of buttons, it had a half-waist tie. It looked terrific with collared shirts, T-shirts, just everything.  It had a lot more style than the average cardigan. So, when I saw Style Arc’s Terry Tie Cardigan pattern, I was in.

I downloaded it and printed it out. Then, of course, I proceeded to tape it all together, as one must. Interesting. I cut out the pattern pieces and looked for some fabric.

Wouldn’t you think that something called “sweater knit” would be great? I did. But…well, stay with me.

There were just so many things wrong with the pattern in my view. It has these shoulder tucks—too many of them and way too small for the fabric I’d chosen. When I went back to Pattern Review to look at other people’s versions, they were all in flimsy jersey, so the tucks worked – but they were hideous. They were shapeless columns of jersey even with the belt tied. If I had looked at them first (lesson learned) I would never have chosen the pattern. But onward…

Okay, the first problem was the tucks, as I mentioned. Then, there was too much overlap at the front – and neither the centre front nor the waistline was marked by the way, a real problem with trying to get it to fit properly. The ties were too close to the centre front resulting in an odd look which was very evident on the ones done by others as I found out. Oh, and the seam allowances: you have to be very careful not to assume that they are standard 5/8 inch. They are not. The sleeves were too long (of course, this is an easy fix, but do women really look like orangutans?), leading me to think the sketch is quite misleading. So, what to do?

  Back to the drawing board I go to try to rescue the project.

First, redraw those shoulders without the tucks.

Then, move the belt so that it is farther away from the centre front (which I had to find).

Then, as I went to sew it, I realized that the belt was going to be butt ugly so I ditched it.

Ditched the belt and took in the waist darts, extending them to the hem for a better fit.

Put it on Gloria junior, and began to redesign it on the fly.

Actually, I really enjoyed the “semi-draping” process. I redrew the pattern and it no longer resembles the original in any way.

It’s not at all what I had originally envisioned, but I’ll love it on cold days next winter. I left all the edges serged only. 

What I learned about myself is that designing on the fly might not be such a bad approach, and that I think I would enjoy learning draping as a design process.

I love it when I learn something from every project!

Designing on the fly…or how the first pdf pattern I ever used morphed into a GG Collection original #amsewing #indiepatterns #StyleArc #diystyle Anyone who knows me knows that I am a planner. I plan weekly menus before I go to the grocery store.

[captainquestionart]

hey my man, amazin work on act omega- the team behind it is wonderful!! im lookin to make a fanventure myself, could you give any tips as to pixelling in gg and how to edit images? you know like basically any recoloured, edited clusterfuck of an image in homestuck that hussie does (planets, for example) + how you tilt to have them at different angles? sorry if this sounds like a loooot and you can completely ignore this ask(!), but im just clueless and motivated, my guy

Thank you for asking! I never get asks and I’m always glad to help with any questions like these.

…Anyway, the team behind Act Omega is definitely wonderful, take it from me. My job is typically to do all sorts of sprites/ sprite edits (like the ones in the [S] Resume animation) and I draw the characters and/or backgrounds for panels often enough, so I can definitely give you some tips on those things.

Most editing effects like the ones you asked about aren’t really my domain - a lot of them are done in Photoshop by (among others) our amazing art director @joyfulldreams (she’s seriously great go follow her please), so I asked her for some additional tips.

(This is probably going to turn out long enough to be annoying to scroll past, so I’m putting it all under a read more.)

First off, I have to clear up that when it comes to editing the typical Homestuck sprites (like the ones in [S]:Resume), GraphicsGale hasn’t been my main tool.

The first thing I did for Act Omega was drawing some talksprites (for Tumblr asks, mine were never actually used). I used to do that in Gale, but as soon as I tried it using Paint Tool SAI’s aliased brush (Legacy Pen) instead, I decided that was more comfortable. Most of my work for Resume, redrawing sprites from Collide we couldn’t find elsewhere, was done that way too.Pros of using SAI (and probably Photoshop too? Not 100% sure) for sprites compared to Gale include:

The layers are much, much easier and more intuitive to use than Gale’s. To me Gale’s layers kinda suck and using them is always a pain.

Using a sketch is easier too, and you can make it semi-transparent

Gale doesn’t really do pen pressure, which is most important in talksprites but still can be helpful for the regular sprites too.

That said, when I had to make entirely new animations (like the one above), I had to use GraphicsGale, with its handy preview feature, and it is perfectly possible to use only Gale for everything. Rotating things also had to be done in Gale and then manually cleaned up a little, since SAI will turn anything you try to transform into an ugly anti-aliased mess.

So, bottom line is, I personally prefer to use Gale and SAI in combination, but that’s not strictly necessary. If you’re going full-on Gale (and now I’m gonna assume you haven’t used it too much before), here’s

A few quick practical tips on using Gale I wish I had figured out earlier:

The default settings of Gale include a 1 pixel brush and a 3 pixel brush, but no 2 pixel brush. Since pen pressure won’t save you here, that’s inconvenient. The less you need to go back and painstakingly correct your lines to be the right size, the better. You’ll want to make that brush yourself by opening a new file in Gale, 32x32 pixels, and 1 bit (2 colours). Make it look like this and save it as a bitmap (BMP) image: 

And then find this option:

and put your bitmap in there. Gale will recognize that as a custom 2px brush.

If you want to make your images have a transparent background, make sure you tick that box in the options of the frame, not the layer (the little ellipsis button next to each Frame thumbnail -see below). Gale still has no way of telling if your BG is transparent or just white, so I recommend always working with a different color as a background. That way you can tell from the animation preview - if the BG looks white there, it’s transparent. Also make sure these settings apply to every frame by changing “current frame” to “all frames”.

If you want to change the opacity of something (like, say, god tier wings on a troll), you need to save the image as a .png first and tick the box “With Alpha Channel” underneath…

     …then open the image again. Only then will the transparency slider above the palette sliders actually work. You can also use the thick blue pencil button:

    …to set your pencil tool to opacity mode, which will make anything you draw over into the opacity set by the slider.

Now for some more Homestuck-specific tips:

You’re probably better off making sprites in separate parts (a layer for the head, one for the body, one for the arm(s)… from the start. It’ll save you a lot of trouble when you need to animate them. In fact, it might not be a bad idea to also put all of those parts into a neat spritesheet so you don’t have to look too far when you need to reuse something.

(I didn’t see this one all the way through because there was too much to do but you get the idea)

If you don’t already, make sure you have a big folder of references from Homestuck, both panels and sprites, just so you know how The Huss would have done it. That might be more important for Act Omega since we’re trying so very hard to be as close to canon as humanly possible, but it’ll be very handy regardless.

What else is there… well, I could say some more stuff about the art style itself but I figure if you want to start a fanventure you’ll probably have the basics of that stuff down already.

Now, for what Joy had to say about editing images:“Say you need for example a scene on Prospit or Derse, then the process goes like this:1. Find an image (or images) on google that are generally of italian cities and cathedrals. A lot of iconic “Derse and Prospit” images actually come from pictures of the roof of the Milan cathedral, but generally you should get the gist with the Florence skyline and by cobbling together a bunch of cathedral images. 2. You want to use Photoshop tools like the magic wand or selection tool to cut out the sky and anything else that isn’t the actual building. Usually anyway depending on the image. If you have a picture with a bunch of tourists you could just crop them out or use the clone stamp tool to make them disappear oooooo.3. Turn the entire image grayscale, and (optional at this point but you might want to do it eventually) bump up the brightness and contrast. 4. Then you want to eye-drop pick from a canon Derse or Prospit image the light and dark Derse/Prospit colors. For prospit its like a bright saturated yellow and a more dark orange color? You can actually play around with the two colors you use to vary contrast and stuff if you’re putting together a bit scene. 5. Copy the cathedral layer and lock the opacity, put it above the original layer, and fill it with the solid light color. Set the layer mode to overlay.6. Do this again but with the darker color, and put it below the original layer.7. Lower the opacity of the original layer. It should start to look how hussie makes it look.8. Sometimes to give it an additional rough pixellated look, I’ll go to image>adjustments>posturize and play around with it. It gives the image some of that gif-ified look.But basically when it comes to hussie-fying images these are some of the basic main principles you want to keep in mind. The posturize effect, using overlay layers, and finding images and mashing them together creatively.

Also another key thing to note is that when you resize or transform things, there are different transformation MODES. In order to transform pixellated stuff, you want to use Nearest Neighbor. That will preserve sharp edges, but sometimes it can distort things and make it look weird. In situations like that Hussie often uses Bilinear instead, and then sharpens the transformed part. He usually ONLY does this when he is making things smaller or rotating them, not to enlarge anything, because then the blurred/sharpened-ness of it becomes way more obvious.This is honestly the best advice I can give. A lot of it is kind of fucking around with blending modes and layers until you get the right LOOK lol.”

(-Joyfulldreams 2017, give her a round of applause)

…So that’s pretty much some general technique pointers. I’ll post them publicly in case anyone else would like to know.I hope I haven’t just been stating the obvious here, wasn’t entirely sure what I could say that would really directly be helpful, but in any case, if you have any more specific questions you think I might be able to help with, please feel free to send me a PM.

[promomagazine]

Who is the man behind GucciGhost?

By: Kyle Johnson

After a successful stint as a professional Olympic snowboarder for Burton Snowboards, the elusive man known as Brooklyn’s GucciGhost (aka Andrew Trouble) has gained international notoriety thanks to his graffiti-style artwork. From re-creating Gucci’s iconic GG logo to developing a “Real Love” logo of his own, his street-style tagging brought him front and center with Gucci and high-street fashion. And, as evidenced in his collaborations with his wife Santigold, Diplo and now Gucci, he is a lover of music and art serving as a reminder that, what was once all a dream is now “Gucci.”

In this exclusive interview, which first appeared in the pages of the 12th issue of ODDA Magazine, Trouble talks about his life before “Ghost”, how skateboarding help him become more creative and what it is like working with Gucci’s creative director Alessandro Michele.

Q: To start, take us back to the pre-GucciGhost era and describe what life was like for you leading up to, and including the moment when the moniker and persona of the “ghost” came to life. Tell us about your time in Canada, your former career as a professional snowboarder and how you got to where you are today, including the Halloween of 2012.

A: My life has always been about just creating and making stuff since I was a kid. I was never really into sports, I was into drawing… my mum gave me paper (and I would draw pictures of Superman and wrestlers all day). Besides drawing, skateboarding has always attracted me and somehow it’s been the entry to the artistic world. Becoming a pro-snowboarder was the beginning of we getting to travel the world and understand the process of creating my own signature products for brands that sponsored me (snowboards, outerwear, goggles, sunglasses etc.) I think skateboarding gave me a whole different way of thinking, a wider perspective, and DIY attitude. A lot of what I was discovering at a young age was through skate and snowboard videos my older friends exposed me to. That’s been such an important time in my life. The process of making my own products for brands and all that, getting involved in every single phase of the process, bringing ideas into reality, creating ads and filming videos… just another extension of the creation that brought me around the world. Being a skater & snowboarder to me was more of a martial art than only ‘a sport,’ I love that there is such creative side to it; it’s all about individuality.

Once the GucciGhost project started, the collection came together so fast. It was super fun and easy working with Gucci because they have the best materials and creative team in the world. Alessandro made it super easy for me because he did not give me any rules or guidelines to follow, he basically told me he loved what I was doing and gave me free reins to create whatever I felt. He gave me a studio to work at the Gucci headquarters, I basically transformed it to feel like my studio space in Brooklyn and just vibes out, played music and painted. He would come in with bags, jackets, and materials for me to paint on and once I was done he would take what I completed up to his office and build on them more.

Alessandro took everything to another level whenever he touched it, it was amazing to see him take some of the pieces that I had hanging on my walls for years before Gucci discovered my work and make them feel brand new again. I brought two suitcases full of GucciGhost samples I had created over the years (jackets, prints, bags sketches, etc.) When I started drawing the GucciGhost it opened my mind to a lot of things. I wondered how far could it go and was intrigued by how people reacted to it. It was fun to strip things down and create a less perfect image of a symbol that to a lot of people stands for perfection.

The logo itself affects people in such a strong way, and for me it was fun to play with the GG logo and Gucci word mark, using slogans like “Life is Gucci” to highlight the fact that the brand has transcended fashion and become a part of English slang to describe something as good or great (Life is ‘Gucci’=Life is Great). I added the ‘ghost’ part of the name because I felt no one could see me and not a lot of people believed in what I was doing so I thought it made sense to create a kind of ‘ghost brand’ that would haunt the real brand until someone noticed or believed in me.

People started to think I was crazy for what I was doing. So many people including friends, business associates and family told me ‘Gucci will never going to talk to you,’ ‘What are you doing? If anything they are just going to sue you!’ I kept transforming all of my surroundings, my whole wardrobe, studio, walls and trash cans anything I could find that seemed undervalued or overlooked I would add value to it by making it Gucci. It felt positive, I was salvaging things that were thrown away and turning trash to treasure as well as projecting the idea of believing in an idea so much that it could become real. For a while every post on social media, all my music projects and video I was incorporating this idea and somehow promoting the GucciGhost idea as a brand. It became sort of an obsession, I said literally ‘I am going to do this until Gucci sues me or hires me.’

Q: Alessandro Michelle, Gucci’s creative director, said of your work, ‘I saw the way Trevor was using the symbol of the company and I thought it was quite genius. It’s completely different than the idea of copying. It’s the idea that you try to [take to] the street, through language like graffiti, the symbols of the company.’ For our reader, explain the creative process behind using the Gucci logo in your work and describe what personal connection it has for you. Then, if you don’t mind, illustrate how the collaboration of your street driven messages and imagery came about with the high-end fashion retailer.

A: It was very surreal when Gucci contacted me. I always felt it would just take the right person at the brand to understand what I was doing and how it would apply and Alessandro was that right person. From then I just went straight to Milan and brought two suitcases full of canvases, jackets, hard drives… all that kind of ideas. When Alessandro and I met we went out for lunch to get to know each other a little bit, then got back to the office and opened the suitcases. I wanted to know how he and the team were reacting to all the stuff… it was so exciting for me and also gave me direction just based off the reaction I got from each piece.

A beautiful part of working with Alessandro was he’s so free, he put no limitations on what we were creating, and that’s why I think it’s been as successful as it has. You have to take risks if you want great results; Alessandro is fearless and works with his heart. You have to have the strength to believe in your vision and love what you’re doing; we both had that in common from the start. Besides, the three years I had been doing the GucciGhost project on a street DIY level.

Once I was at Gucci everything happened so fast! We built the first GucciGhost pieces in two weeks, leading up to the Women’s Fall/Winter show in Milan last Feb. was a very proud and surreal feeling to watch the show and see how the pieces were brought to life. From Women’s Fall/Winter collection, our relationship has kept growing organically. We made some GucciGhost pieces for the Cruise Collection as well the Men’s summer with the jewellery line. From there we did a worldwide tour launching the GG collection at Gucci retail shops around the world.

We built out installations in the shops and threw parties celebrating the collaboration: NYC, Barcelona, Berlin, Rome, Tokyo, Dover Street Market installation, Chicago, Chengdu. Street-driven messages happen I guess because that’s been my surroundings and a major part of my life. I’ve spent a lot of my life skating around in the street, playing in punk bands and listening to rap. I’ve always been attracted to things that challenge ‘the norm.’ Alessandro discovered what I was doing and understood it. Whatever medium I’m working with I always make it feel raw and honest…a new fresh feeling to it.

Q: Spearheaded by a Fashion Week party held at Gucci’s Fifth Avenue flagship store on Sept. 14, your first collection hit the racks this past fall. Tell us about the collection. What was it like working with Gucci and Michelle? Was it what you thought it would be? What are three things you cherished most from the experience?

A: I like that people don’t think I’m crazy anymore. It’s a great feeling to see people’s excitement and curiosity about GucciGhost. It’s amazing how this all came to life! I really enjoyed the process once I was at Gucci but I also really enjoyed the chase. Sometimes the chase is even greater than the glory but, in this case, I value both experiences equally.

Q: Now that you’ve had your artwork and fashion designs worn by celebrities like Rihanna and Elton John, what social responsibility do you feel you have as an artist? What is your message?

A: I think GucciGhost is all about believing in something and making it real even when others tell your ghosts are not real. It’s all about love and creating your own value and ownership. I’m just projecting what I’m feeling and what I want in return. ‘Life is Gucci, Life is Great!’ I totally don’t listen to negativity. A big part of me starting the GucciGhost project was to prove that anything is possible with love and the ability to truly believe and take risks.

Q: When speaking of artists having a deep connection to New York, Michelle made note of Keith Haring and his work. He then went on to mention that you were ‘one of his [Haring’s] sons.’ How does this make you feel?

A: That is the hugest compliment ever; it made me cry when I read that quote from Alessandro.

Q: In addition to your GucciGhost creations, you directed the music video ‘Bitch’ for Zoe Kravitz and her band, Lolawolf. You’ve also released two albums under the alias, ‘Trouble Andrew,’ called ‘T.U.P.A’ and ‘GucciGhost EP.’ In regards to Lolawolf and directing, how did your relationship begin? Were you always into directing videos? Where do you see your directing career in the future? Then, in regards to your band, how did it get its start? What are its creative influences and how would you describe your music?

 A: Zoe reached out when her bandmates from Lolawolf saw some of the videos I had been creating for my record & GucciGhost propaganda posts. So we got together and clicked so I started making all of these music videos. I’ve always made my own videos as a kid skating and snowboarding in 90s so I just applied the same lo-fi raw formula. I keep it very simple and real.The Bitch video with Miley I shot when we were all at South by Southwest (SXSW®) festival in Texas. I went to the dollar store and bought some Miley Cyrus [Hannah Montana] playing cards and just had them hang out in our hotel room partying having fun together… In general, making music, videos, clothing or painting I try to keep it simple and honest. I’ve never been classically trained in any of these fields or went to school for art or music or fashion, I have just taught myself. It’s fun to find my own way of expressing myself. I think not being trained to do things ‘correctly’ has helped me developed my own style. Regarding influences, skateboarding is where it all started for me. It was my entry to art, music, fashion and a way of thinking. Skateboarding is also how I discovered snowboarding and that is what got me around the world at a young age. This exposed me to so much and expanded my mind because I got a chance to experience first hand how other people live their lives. Traveling is the greatest influence to me, it’s played such a major roll in who I have become. Music is everything to me. It has always driven me to create and inspired me to push myself. The power of music is magic, it’s amazing how it can change your emotions, that’s why it’s kind of godly. When I came to discovering creating music it kind of happened by accident, although I always felt the desire to try just never seemed to find time because by that time I was snowboarding as a profession. I had gotten knee surgery because of a snowboarding injury that had me out of commission for about 9 months so I could not really do much but stay in at home.

My wife Santi and I had just moved in together and she had some instruments around the house. I would just mess around playing little punk riffs and she would come in the room and sing over what I was playing.I ended up writing on 6 songs for her ‘Stiffed’ project at the time. Doing that really opened my mind to the fact that, even If I was not trained to play well I could play enough to make a song and express my emotions and even if it was in the most simple way it could still be powerful.

I have worked with Santi a lot of the years. I was featured on I’m a Lady from the first Santigold LP and most recently directed her video Who Be Lovin’ Me feat I Love Makonnen and some others. We always collaborate since we are partners, we share ideas and encourage one another but we definitely give each other a lot of independence when it comes to creating as well. Also, we are parents, that’s the best collaboration ever! I have major A.D.D, I usually jump from project to project, one minute I’m painting, the next I’m filming or designing then back to recording music and so on. I think it helps me not get bored of one thing and keep staying productive. I will drop some new music in March as well as some other special visual projects on Guccighost.com

Q: You’re married to Santi White, the American singer and producer who goes by the name, Santigold. How did you guys meet?

A: We met in NY through mutual friends and immediately clicked. We fall in love, and then moved to NY together.

Q: Having given up a career as an Olympic snowboarder to delve deeper into your obsession with art and music, how do you see your creative work influencing the snowboard culture? Are there any similarities between the two? 

A: I think there are similarities between skate, snow, music, fashion and art. Skating and snowboarding taught me about commitment and originality. I discovered a lot of the music I love and developed my sense of style through that scene. Art, music and fashion play a major role in the culture and vice versa.

Q: Give three words to describe each of the following events:

– Leaving Canada for New York

Whole world, one city …

– Meeting your wife, Santigold

Meant-to-be

– Receiving a phone call from Alessandro Michelle

at Gucci

Surreal, perfect-timing

Q: Your YouTube page says that you’re ‘a Nova Scotia born, Brooklyn artist whose genre bending style permeates his music and designs.’ With our 12th issue paying homage to ‘unexpected perceptions,’ describe your genre-bending style’s influence on modern culture. What misconceptions did you have about fashion before working with Gucci?

A: Regarding misconceptions about fashion, hmmm… I think that people in the business are having more fun than people might think. Traditionally I think it may have been more rigid but me being there just proves that something is changing, roles are changing… we are bringing in new vibes.

Q: Finally, in terms of success, describe what it means to you. What are your goals and future plans?

A: Success for me is to be able to keep creating, exploring and expanding my mind and spirit. Just dream and make those dreams my reality. Making something out of nothing, that’s success.