Many of you have no doubt heard about the Deep Water Horizon Gulf Oil Spill that occurred recently. This left many feeling helpless as to how to help. Well illustrator Kelly Light has created the Ripple Project for artists the world wide. Artists can now donate gulf wildlife themed artist cards to the Ripple Project to help benefit the wildlife victims of the oil spill. Each card is sold for $10 and 100% of the proceeds go to The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies and The International Bird Rescue Research Center.

Please visit The Ripple Project and donate today! I have donated 11 cards so far (most of which sold in only a few hours) So if you would like a card by me you’d better flock over to The Ripple Project.

Edited: 7/19/2010 12:02pm My cards sold out in a matter of hours again so I will try to create and donate some more. In the mean time please look at the lots of other cards available and please donate to the cause if you can!

A little More About the Art
10 out of 11 of the pieces I donated are the first 100% digital paintings I have ever made, both drawn and painted on the computer. Using Painter’s excellent brush software I created a pencil that had the look and feel of the blue lead I draw with normally outside the computer. It’s nice when artistic experiments can benefit animals. You could say I’m saving two birds with one hand.

What people are saying about Kat’s work for the Ripple Project:

“Wow! Your cards are beautiful!!!!”

“Just amazing–I only knew your fantasy work (which is amazing, too) but these are fantastic!”

Fanime was awesome thing year! Thanks to everyone who came by to see us. The Fanime Staff did a fantastic job and we can’t wait till next year!

Deviant Art Meet-up

Thanks to everyone who came to the first ever meet up on Sunday night. It was nice to meet so many deviants in real life. We took all your suggestions and will make next year’s meet-up even better! We will be starting a DA group just for Fanime Artists where you can submit works to be used in a slide show we will be running next year while the meet is happening. This way we can spent more time actually socializing amongst each other. If you have any other suggestions please feel free to comment or note us.

Cosplayers

Cosplayers we met at Fanime your pictures are up on the KatGirl Studio Facebook page so feel free to get your photos and tag yourselves!

Shirts

We nearly sold out of our brand new Nom Nom shirts (we currently only have 3 left).If we sold out of your size before you got there don’t worry shirts will be available again in the KatGirl Studio shop in about 3 weeks.

Lastly if you were low on funds and missed out on one of our cool offerings don’t fear, the KatGirl Studio shop carries them all year long.

I will also be hosting the first ever Deviant Art Meet-Up at Fanime which will be held in Panel room 1 Mariott Salons I & II on Sunday May 30th at 10pm.

This event is open to all attendees of the convention. There is no need to RSVP so just show up and have fun. The meet-up will be a great place to meet other deviants, share portfolios and network. So bring your portfolio, business cards or some snacks to share.

Deviants of all ages are welcome!

San Jose Convention Center
San Jose CA
May 28-31
Table # T205 & T206
Panel: Deviant Art Meet Up
Panels 1 Marriott Salons I & II
Sunday May 30th at 10pm

Do you ever get to that point in an illustration where it just looks ugly to you and you can’t bear to look at it. And most of the time everyone else things it looks great? We have all been there and today my current WIP is wallowing in the phase for me.

Articles for Writers

How manuscripts should be formatted

Articles for Illustrators

Marketing – The Snowball Effect

Brand Yourself as an Artist on Twitter

101 Projects for Artists and Illustrators

Marketing for Illustrators: Your Avatar

Mail Me Art

First you will need to create and save all your required pages in whatever image format you like. Make sure that these saved files are all in the same convenient folder.

Next return to Photoshop and select the File -> Automate – >PDF Presentation from the top menu. You will now be shown a screen similar to the below, click the browse button and select all of your previously saved image files (You can hold down the SHIFT/CTRL keys to select more than one file) then click “Open”.

The pages will be in the source files order so make sure to name files accordingly. The final steps are to make sure that the Save as “Multi-page Presentation” button is on and click “Save”.  You will then be asked to name your new PDF presentation, and your done.

Be sure to look through our blog for other useful how to’s!

The favicon is the little logo in the address bar next to your url. Take a look at the ones on Google, Facebook and Twitter for example  It’s a great way to help your site stand out amongst many bookmarks. When you have a favicon installed, your visitors will see your favicon icon instead of the current black page graphic.

If you bookmark KatGirl Studio you will notice the favicon looks like this

How to make your own favicon?

• To make your own favicon, first open a graphics software like Photoshop, illustrator etc. Created a new file that 16×16 pixels in size and 72dpi.
• When saving your file use save for web & devices located under file. Save you graphic as a BMP, GIF or PNG with no more than 16 colors.
• Next download Infranview if you don’t already have it.
• Open your graphic in Infranview and save it as a ICO and name it favicon
• Next download the FileZilla Client or use another piece of FTP software (what you use to upload files to your website). Log on and drag/upload these two files favicon.gif (or whatever file format you created) and favicon.ico onto your website.
• Lastly you need to add the following code to the <head> tag of your html : <link rel=”SHORTCUT ICON” href=”http://www.yoursite.com/favicon.ico”>
• If you are using WordPress log in to you WP Admin go to your Theme Options > Integration and add the above code to the <head> section. And hit save at the bottom.
• You are now finished. Your favicon is now viewable to everyone who isn’t using a really old browser. It should be visible to you the next time you open a browser.

The Phoenix and the Water Nymph WIP 2

A few years ago I started work a Graphic Novel which resulted in this project here. More recently I came back to this project and revamped this image here for a client. I’m now revamping the whole project for future release as a Picture Book/ Graphic Novel. This story is a fairy tale about the love between a phoenix spirit and a water nymph told in lyrical verse.

This image is the current work in progress (WIP) for one of the illustrations of the book.

Materials

For most of my artwork I draw with blue lead in a mechanical pencil on Canson Vellum. I then paint them in Corel Painter X with a Wacom Intuos 3.

Articles for Writers

NaPiBoWriWee 2010

Starting A Novel In The Wrong Place

Articles for Illustrators

New Picture Book Critique Service from Brenda Reeves Sturgis

KatGirl Studio Now Offering Character Commissions

Do you have a character you’ve created that you would love brought to life?

KatGirl Studio is now taking private character commissions. So if you’d like a Super Cute vector creature like Kiki or a a highly detailed character render like Captain Greyfur or the Wolpertinger Maiden then head over to the new Character Commission page and commission your furry friend or avatar.

New Site Shop

KatGirl Studio has a brand new site shop!

If you missed us at an event or just wanted some awesome KatGirl Studio creations you can now get Fine Art Prints, Giclées, Matted Prints, Greeting Cards and Shirts at the KatGirl Studio shop.

Nom Nom Shirt Pre-order

My chew toy has a first name, it’s Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom.

There is still a few more days to pre-order your very own nom shirt!

The graphic will be hand screen printed on shirts from Royal Apparel. Pre-orders get to pick what color shirt they would like from the 6 options. Pre-orders will close Sunday April 25, 2010. All pre-ordered shirts will shipped before they are available to the public so be the first to own a Nom Nom shirt!

To pre-order yours today please visit

Free Comic Book Day

KatGirl Studio will at Free Comic Book Day 2010 May 1!
So come by and say hi get some free comics and other goodies!

Illusive Comics and Games
2725 El Camino Real, Suite 105
Santa Clara, California 95051

Happy Earth Day!

We at KatGirl Studio would like to let you know that we run a green studio. Our equipment is Energy Star. We use energy saving lights and recycle all studio waste. Many of our products are made from cotton fibers, sustainable forests or recycled materials . We also reuse and conserve whenever we can. Just doing our part to make the world a little greener.

Have a purrfect day!

And that’s all for now,
Kiki Kitty

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If you would like to Join KatGirl Studio’s Mailing list and receive the Purr Post via email just email us

This event is open to all attendees of the convention. There is no need to RSVP so just show up and have fun. The meet-up will be a great place to meet other deviants, share portfolios and network. So bring your portfolio, business cards or some snacks to share.

Deviants of all ages are welcome!

Details:

Fanime 2010
San Jose Convention Center
May 28-31
Panel: Deviant Art Meet Up
Location: Panels 1 Mariott Salons I & II
Date/Time: Sunday May 30th at 10pm