DigiStamp Sale Ends May 19th!

All my DigiStamps are on sale starting today for one week! 

15% off!

Get em while they're stampy!

Go! 

Starts: 05/12/2012

Expires: 05/19/2012

Free Digi - New shop

Hello,
I have a new shop stamp up! It's a little Partridge in a pear tree...pile of leaves. LOL. Here is what the stamp looks like:

Available in my shop!

And here I've coloured one up myself, just for fun. It's in my shop now, please go check it out.

I very much appreciate those of you that support my blog, by commenting on my posts and tutorials (not just my freebees!) and purchasing my stamps from my shop. I'm trying very hard to have being a comic artist as my main income, not my secondary income, so all your purchases help us towards achieving our dream! The stronger my shop is the stronger I am! Thank you!

So here's a little free bee too:
It's a fruitcake.

Click for full size.

FreeBee - new shop items

Hey!
Thanks everyone for enjoying my free bees :D I'm really glad you guys are enjoying them. I'd love to see someone using them in projects :)  Some of them have now moved to my DigiStamp shop for purchase.

I've got a new item in my shop today: 

$2.50 in my shop!

I hope you like it, and some people will use it and enjoy it!
Here I also have a freebee for you as well.

Credit for use, click to get full size.

I'm working on a couple other things, including a tutorial, and some art work. Might post some of it here, who knows.
Anyway, Enjoy!

Free Bee - poppy

November 11th is Remembrance day for us in Canada, so I thought I could make today's free bee a Poppy, for that day. This Digital stamp is free for you to use in your paper crafting projects, or just to colour for practice.

Please respect my terms - Give credit

Please link to me in the comments any projects you make with this stamp, I'd love to see it :)
Enjoy!
<3

Free Bee - Snuggie

Happy Halloween!


New: Check out my new Critiques offer!

It's snuggie season, and so I thought a nice Warm, Cozy snuggie DigiStamp free bee would be a good choice.  This image is free to use on your paper crafting projects or just to colour, so long as you give proper Credit.

I hope you Enjoy it. I spend the majority of my day in my snuggie. Its a comic artists best friend, HA!
As always, please link me your projects so I can see what you do with them :

Moved to my shop 

New Digi stamps in my shop

Hey,
Just a heads up that I added a few more of my digital stamps to my shop. Some of you know this, but our shop actually had a fatal error not to long ago and we lost everything and had to install a new shop, so I'm adding all the products in one by one. Our comics (main job) were top priority once we got it going, but I'm slowly adding in all the old digital stamps.

If while you're browsing my blog, you see a stamp that's listed as for sale, and its not yet back up in my shop, comment on the post then I'll get it into the shop as soon as I can. you could also email me - markerguru@gurukitty.com

Thanks for all the comments! Phew, the traffic on here has been crazzzzzyyyy the last 2 days! Whats up with that? LOL

FreeBee + Tips and tricks for colouring (advanced)

So, I've done it, I'm now Intermediate Copic Certified. I was a little bit dissapointed because I was hoping it would be a bit more advanced than what it was. It's very much geared towards Papercrafters. I guess it's something I am just going to have to accept, as there is nothing out there for illustrators of this nature.
Anyway, I got my pin. LOL. I also wanted to show off some of the colouring I did in the class.

I was actually amazed at how timid people are with their copic markers! These people can survive cancer, raise kids, and have endured 60+ years of this life, but they won't freehand a cast shadow. Everything else in life is much scarier than drawing a leaf shape free hand!
I challenge all you Copic artists to stop worrying about  "ruining" a image by being bold with your colouring! If you're working with stamped images, just stamp it multiple times on one sheet, then use the best one in your card, or project. Being bold in your colour uses will make you stand out in this crazy sea of Crafters on the internet. In the end, its only paper - you can grab a new sheet, you can restamp that image, and you can always start again.
I'm working on one of a kind line arts in drawing by HAND and I take tons of risks with my colouring.
We also must not forget one of the benefits of Copic Markers; They're somewhat erasable! if you don't like the colour you laid down, you can take that colourless blender and clear it right up.

Well, enough of that, I'm now going to show off my cute arts.
All the images below are from the copic certification course, so I believe they were all drawn by Marianne Walker, who is the product specialist for Copic.

First Up, Santa!

Art by Marianne Walker, Coloured by Marker Guru

The Santa was brought out in a section about colouring with redshift.  Apparently people have issues with the reds. I personally, while I noticed they don't clean up very nice, I was always just more careful with them. I never really had a problem with them in general. Then of course when I'm colouring the santa, I got a lot of bleeding in thee cuff of his jacket, HAHA!
So this Santa was coloured with these colours.
R20, R24 and R59.
 Ordinarily when I colour with redshift and I want dark shadows I jump to the RV69 colour because it cools a little bit, and it's really ultra dark. (Maybe you've noticed, I'm not timid about shadows at all!) Unfortunately the R59 was the darkest available.
I left a bit of rim lighting on some areas because areas of high contrast and( a dark, next to a light) create an interesting Focal point. so wherever 2 darks are touching I like to leave a light edge to make it a more interesting area, and to not have areas blend together too much.
For his Cuffs and the white fluff on his suit, I added some W1 and W2 in there along with a little bit of Y11. Then I tool the clear blender and poked with the brush nib to give the texture to the fluff. I did the same with his beard.
His skin was BV31 and (this is my most favourite skin shading colour) E00. I added a little bit of R20 for some rosy cheek action and some shading. I also shaded the white gloves with BV31 and a little bit of W1.
The dog was E43 E44 and W8 are( for lack of a darker brown).
 I used E70 and E71 in the bg to enhance the lighting of it in this. it gives a clearer impression of the light source in this image.

Lets move onto the Lilacs.
When considering light and shadow for an image, it can sometimes be a little daunting even for an advanced artists. Shapes can become so complextion it can quickly become a cluttered confusing mess.
Take for example these lilacs.

Articles By marianne Walker, coloured by Marker Guru

The leaves overlapping create a great deal of cast shadows and a very exciting interplay of light and shadow. Without going too in depth, and I'll just give you some of the colours in used: YG01 and is the base colour, YG05 and, in YG03 and then I used a variety of cooler greens and blues like YG67 and and YG61. Honestly I can't recall all the colours I used, I don't really keep track.
Everyone was really interested in the colours I used in the blossoms, and its really not that exciting, LOL.
I used B23, B45, and B93, then afterwards I wanted it to be more Lilac coloured, but also wanted the lighting to match the intensity of the leaves. so where the blossoms are pinkest, I left the blue colour very light, where the light would hit them, then after I had it all coloured up I just went over the whole blossum bundle with R11. That's it. It was that simple. Made the light source really unified.

Now, the point of showing the Lilacs was actually to give you a bit of insight on an artists technique for really making a scene dynamic in contrast, and that is the work the lighting and shadows out in Grey scale first. I often do this with my art work. Alternatively you can test if your image is dymanic enough by converting it to grey scale in your camera or Photoshop. If the shading is as clear in grey as it is in colour, I'd call that successful, if the image has sortta of a unified tone to it, its time to punch up your shadows. You can also do this with a piece of Red Acetate held over your image.

Articles by Marianne Walker, Coloured by Marker Guru

Here is an example of the lilacs coloured in grey tones using the warm greys. I think it also looks pretty Swanky. Side note, I used a little Opaque white on there for leaf shines, and a bit of cool grey on the back leaves in this image.

So there you go, hopefully some good tips and tricks for you.

As a thank you for reading my entire blog post, Here is a free Snow man Digital stamp. I only ask that you give me credit for the art in your blog posts and when promoting your work using this image.

Moved to my shop

Colour him up and share what you've done in the comments on this blog! I'll feature my favourites in my next post!
Thanks you for your support! Unusually high traffic today, HAHA!
Thanks! <3
By the way, this is my 100th Post!

Monday Free Bee

Cuddly little birds for valentines day!
January is going to continue to be hectic for me. Everything seems to be happening this month. I have a convention next weekend to deal with as well as getting ready for the copic class.
SO enjoy the freebee! :D

Mondays Free Bee! - penguintower

PLEASE NOTE: this post is 2010! This is not free anymore, it's moved to my shop. 
Here's my new free bee this week! Penguins pretending to be a snowman :)

Respect my terms! this stamp is now in my shop

and here is happy Crafters sample of last weeks hamsters

Cutie hams :)
anyway, there they are. Last one before Christmas. Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

Don't forget: My classes will be opening enrolment in January! Get on my newsletter to get emailed about it when Enrolment starts, or Go here for more information about the first class!!

Monday Free Bee - GoldFish

This is my only day off this week, so I was panicking about getting a free bee up, as I've been SO busy I basically fall asleep as soon as I get home, have dinner, go back to sleep. Still can't seem to get enough sleep. I've also been moving furniture, shelving, boxes, and skids for 8 days straight between moving my mum and store renovations, and a huge frame sale.
Right now I'm trying not to freeze to death! Its -4 degrees out there.

Anyway, last weeks freebee was a little Dolphin and my fab designer, Happy crafter, did an awesome card with it!
I really like the colours of this one! the glitter pen adds a nice shine to him :) Very nice!





Well, so there you have it, you can always swing by and get past free Bees from the Free Bee's page linked on the top of my blog!
This week's freebee is a little goldfish

Now Available in the shop. If you have a problem finding it, please email me, or comment. I'll get it to you. Shop crashed and burned a while back, and I've not re added them all up yet!

I love goldfish! I'm going to post art work later perhaps! woo!

Monday Free Bee - whales

Hello!
This is Happycrafters card made from last weeks pine marten stamp! Isn't it great?  I especially love the sparkly snow! Isn't it great!?the BG looks just awesome!
Heres the colours:
B21

R05

R37

E08

BG96

Y26

E31

E33

E35

E25

E37

And now this weeks new freebee! This one comes from the great blue sea! The friendliest mammal you will ever know!

A dolphin :D

Now Available in the shop. If you have a problem finding it, please email me, or comment. I'll get it to you. Shop crashed and burned a while back, and I've not re added them all up yet!

Oh ain't he swell! He's so happy to see you! I deliberately made him somewhat generic in features like his beak isn't so long it could only be a bottle nose, but it's not too short that it cant be. There is a million dolphins out there, and some of them are pretty neat!

I'd love to see how many people would colour him in different ways, and see how many dolphin types he can be!

okay, back to colouring my picture!

Also I'm helping my mum move this weekend so I'll be away every day.

Party Girl Digi stamp sale

Follow my terms!

Hello, I just posted a new Digi Stamp to the shop! Party Girl I think is a nice party invitation, or girls night type of image. I could see many uses for party girl, and I would like to!
From now until November 30th 2010 Party girl is on sale from $2.50 to $1.75


All of my digistamps are had drawn one of a kind creations. Party Girl was sketched on sketchbook paper then inked on bristol.

Don't forget to check out the other stamps in my shop :)

Monday Free-Bee - New designer

Well, remember I was looking for a designer to colour my weekly free bee before? Well I've decided who!
First of all, thank you to everyone who applied! I appreciate the interest in my drawings!
The person I've chosen from the applicants is Happy Crafter!
We actually attended the Copic certification course together earlier this year and Kristina has some of the best colour choices, design skills and colouring skills of anyone I've seen, so I was extremely happy she applied to be my designer.
So from now on my free bees will be accompanied with a completed coloured image or card/project from the previous weeks freebie! Now I'm proving to you that random can be useful, and a Yeti and a Puma can be good friends ;)

I coloured my Yeti one from last Monday: My little friends were coloured with Copics obviously, The puma was coloured with a variety of E35, E34, E27, and stuff like that, while the Yeti was coloured with E11, E13, E15 and E21. Their eyes were ....colours I forgot :B oops. LOL
Probably YR04 and B39/B45.

 my printer put all these stupid lines across them and I forgot to fix them with my pens *facepalm*. Too much to do right now to go back to fix, and rescan, LOL.

So here is this weeks freebie! A wee little pine marten bringing some little birds a spot of mistletoe!
Just click on the image for a larger version to print out. Don't forget to check out my Terms of use, which is linked just below my header always so you have no excuse for avoiding.

Now Available in the shop. If you have a problem finding it, please email me, or comment. I'll get it to you. Shop crashed and burned a while back, and I've not re added them all up yet!

Okay, so I have some badges to make :D

Monday Free-Bee

Welcome to Random: Here is This weeks Free Digi Stamp!

Now Available in the shop. If you have a problem finding it, please email me, or comment. I'll get it to you. Shop crashed and burned a while back, and I've not re added them all up yet!

 Well, sometimes I think my Digi's are TOO random.. a yeti with a Puma on it's head is a bit strange but it could be any number of card making events: Best friends cards, Boyish just for fun cards, book marks... you could make them winter cards and make the cat a snow leopard and an abominable Snow man.
I'm still looking for applications for a designer. You have until November 8th to apply. I've got a couple of applications so far.

For those of you in the vancouver area, We're going to be at Vancouver Comicon on Sunday Nov 14th 11am-5pm with our table there.

Blogger is a real pain in the ass in firefox. I don't know why I switched to firefox from Chrome, but I am going to switch back to Chrome because this is ridiculous.

Call for a designer or 2

Hello,
I was thinking, I need someone to be producing cute stuff from my free-bee's to promote my Digi's, but I don't need a full design team just yet I don't think.
So I'm looking for 1 or 2 people to do a project every week (or once every 2 weeks if it's 2 people) to use my weekly Free-Bee in a project.
The amount of work involved would depend on if I take on 1 or 2 people.
I am looking for someone with the time to do a project once a week (or once every 2 weeks if I take on 2) using my Digistamps. This person would have to have a good proficiency in Copic Markers, and possibly even be Copic certified. A good knowledge of blogging, and the internet in general is a great asset, as well as a good design sense. This is a low demand position so don't feel pressure!

What you'd need to do as a designer

• Use my Weekly Free-bee to create a project coloured with copic markers.
• The image would be reposted on my blog along with the following weeks free-bee. so I release the Free-bee on Monday, I'd need your completed project by Saturday to schedule my blog post.
• Post that project on your blog, then email me the link to it on a deadline (6 days).
• In your post you must link to my blog, as well as describe the Copic techniques and colours you used. Using my Tutorials and linking to those is extra special!
• Grant me permission to repost that image on my blog. (of course, LOL)
• Link to my blog on a journal widget with a badge (I'll make) stating you're my designer.

The Rewards

As my designer you would get the following rewards for the duration of time you'd be designing for me (if applicable)

• a pack of 25 custom buttons of your own design mailed to you (see information here - this is a great promotional tool for you as you can put your logo on them and give them away) As well as some prints, and trinkets we make for our shop. Call it a gift pack ;)
• A free Digistamp for each project you create (aside from my Free-Bee - you would be able to choose from my shop every week you post - more information on that once I choose the people/person.)
• You will be promoted on my blog widget as my designer which in hand promotes via all my social networks - Twitter, facebook, CDAC, tumblr, deviantART and ...a myriad of groups, LOL.

I am trying to think of more rewards - the application will have a survey portion to suggest more rewards if you think this isn't enough. Please keep in mind, I don't run a retail store (just my online shop) so actual product from a store is not something I have access to at cost or anything... so ya... I cant like... provide Copic markers or anything like that, unfortunately.

I don't have a deadline for how long you'd be on my design team...Yet.

How to apply

To apply, simply fill out this cute little form I made! Lets be honest - this is the first time I've had a call for designers so I don't know how long I'd take to choose an applicant. But I'd like to do this fairly quickly so I'll be accepting applications until November 8th. Then I will just say I'll pick an applicant as soon as I can from that date.
It won't hurt your chances if you join my group on CDAC and follow my blog as well! LOL

Monday Free-Bee Give Away -Raven

Now Available in the shop. If you have a problem finding it, please email me, or comment. I'll get it to you. Shop crashed and burned a while back, and I've not re added them all up yet!

Here is your monday freebee! a nice puffy raven for your last minute Halloween crafts!

Just click on the image for the larger size and take it.

Please be mindful of my Terms and please consider adding my badge to your blog if you use my freebees, and don't forget to post it on the freebees page!

I've got an article to write today but if I get it done fast enough I'll see if  I can get another tutorial up today as well!

So when talking to the owner of a craft store yesterday he made comment that most Crafters don't refill their copic markers! Is this TRUE?!

If so, you are wasting extraordinary amounts of money and adding so much to the landfills that could be diverted.

Copic markers are designed to last your life time! Refill! It's easier than going to the store to buy another new marker and one refill bottle equals 10 markers or more! Please refill! Think of our planet!

In case you think that refilling is intimidating, it is easy as squeezing water in a pen tube!

Heres a video demo I made of it.

Monday Free-Bee Give Away

I've decided that I need to post with some regularity on this blog; not just this willy nilly I've been doing.
So starting NOW I'll be posting one free-bee digi stamp a week! They'll all be on my Free Digi stamp listing for all time. Without Further Adoo! here is a happy fat budgie! He is free to use in your paper craft projects provided you comply with my terms of use.

Now Available in the shop. If you have a problem finding it, please email me, or comment. I'll get it to you. Shop crashed and burned a while back, and I've not re added them all up yet!

So Enjoy the little freak. He wants you to colour him with rosy cheeks and gusto. Just click on the image to get a larger version and save him. Nothing fancy here.

I've also been hoping to post tutorials with some regularity but my to do list in that regard is rather lacking. I'm anxious for suggestions! 

Okay, so there you have it. The big day here for me is Mondays, as it's the one day I'm home all day so it's easiest for me to plan things on Mondays. So please follow or subscribe to my blog for a weekly freebee! If you're really cool you'll snag a linking badge for your blog too :)

Zombie!

I drew a Zombie!

He's cute!

he's for the iCopic Colour Challenge. I also put the line art of this as a stamp in my shop. just click on him to go to the image in the shop.

Colouring challenges are a great way to enhance your copic skills.

Colours used: yr04, yr09, bv00, bv01, bv04, e70, e71, 100, a few others :P

Okay, I'm getting a lamp for my desk here so I can go back to doing proper tutorials! gosh, I've had such a hard time photographing and making videos from the poor lighting in my apartment. then I'll do more tutorials, and illustrations!

not sure what my next tutorial should be that's worthy of a video. I really want to redo my other ones, so I might just do that to get me going.

Also, I made an oak fairy

Click on the image to go to her place in the shop.

 this ones has 3 versions, one like the preview, one with no leaves, and one with just the leaves.

Well, I hope everyone's enjoying my blog - I know I've had a few people un-follow me. If there is something you'd like me to do, just give a comment and let me know! I would really like to make everyone happy!

stay tuned for tutorials! I promise some new ones soon now that I'll have a lamp!

By the way, I might be slow on getting anything up for a while, I've got the most severe wrist pain I've ever had. I've been drawing too much clearly.

Anyway... night night!

The boy and the jelly fish

2 More new Digi stamps. I am quite fond of these 2.
The jelly fish might be an odd challenge for some people, it has grey line art in it. Hopefully someone will be inspired by it. It would have been really visually confusing if I didn't do it, but I think it adds a nice dynamic.
The boy is pretty cute also if I don't say so myself.

They're Both in the shop, and both $2 each.

Hope you enjoy them :)

2 new Digis

Just a quick Hidey-hello to let you guys know, I am planning on starting challenges here in the near future (I hope). I think I'll need to at least have 50 followers before I can run something and hope for some entries... Anyway, Theres my thoughts. When I have challenges then I'll try to get a design team together! 

Well, I'll get to the point here; I have 2 new Digi's I've just posted to my shop. Check them out!

Also as a side note, When you purchase stamps on my shop, make sure to create a customer profile and always log in when you shop! Then you'll be able to get the download links for your files by logging in, or in an email invoice. Magento is funny that way!