cherry on top

I was totally going to start doing these sparkle foods weekly. I think I maybe even promised that on this very blog? Okay yes I just went back and looked and I did indeed bandy about the word "weekly". The problem appears to be that I have a hard time keeping up with ongoing personal projects because I get VERY EXCITED about other person projects/paying jobs. 

Anyway, I'm now saying that sparkle foods will be a semi-regular series. And here's the latest edition! This started as a photo:

And then some super cool buddies of mine suggested I turn it into a sparkly gif! Challenge ACCEPTED of course, and then I realized that I would have to figure out how to make the food move - all the other ones have some sort of moving part besides the sparkle. Eventually I called to mind our old place in St. Paul, where a tree right outside our windows would make these suuuuper dreamy leaf shadows that quietly swayed back and forth.

It took me... awhile... to figure out how to actually make that work in animated form. Have I mentioned before that I only took ONE animation class and that was all the way back in like 2006? I'm not a very good animator you guys.

For reference, here is my insane-o work screen. I wish I would have taken screenshots of my process so you could see the whole thing, but this should sum up the craziness. Does anyone else like seeing how people lay out their Photoshop? I am VERY interested in it, in a weird voyeuristic way. #showmeyourphotoshop 

yeah yeah I hardly ever name my layers, yell at me now.

game on (part 2)

my favorite alphabear so far: Easy Bear!

It's been awhile since I did a little roundup of all the games I'm playing, so here's another list! Even though I'm not in school anymore I still get a little thrill when I get some summer leisure time... and that includes reading tons of books and playing tons of video games. This summer seems like it's been particularly good to me, so thanks to the video game gods.

Alphabear (iOS) | Spry Fox is the studio behind my #1 time-waster, Triple Town, and when they announced that their new game was available yesterday I hopped RIGHT on that. The graphics are gorgeous, the bears are cute, and it's a word game (my sometimes weakness). 

Diablo 3 (PS4) | This is not a new game to me or the world in general, but after a long hiatus Bryan and I finally picked up a copy so we could do some more couch co-op. I still think it's a tragedy that there aren't more games that you can play with someone in the same room. Diablo manages to be consistently fun and exciting without being too hard. Also my character has some totally rockin' armor right now.

Dragon Age Inquisition (PS4) | Will I ever finish this game? Will my character ever stop looking both awesome and silly because she is so tall? Will Josephine ever not be my gorgeous girlfriend? These questions are timeless. But seriously, I've been playing this game for AGES and I think I still have a lot of work left to do. It's awesome and fun and complicated and you should totes play it.

Lifeline (iOS) | Oh man, this was the PERFECT game to follow up me finishing a book about being stranded on Mars (The Martian by Andy Weird, if you wanna check it out). The game is a sort of choose your own adventure style interactive story about another astronaut stranded on a strange planet. I can't say too much without spoiling it, but if you want a game that doesn't require much time input and actually FORCES you to take breaks, then this is it. Be ready to be creeped out.

p.s. speaking of creepy video games... the very first video game I worked on is available on the iTunes store now! At Night: The Dead was designed and programmed by Gregor Holtz, written by Lisa and features backgrounds by me. Will you survive the night? 

drink up

This post is dedicated to all you folks out there who have this Friday off work. Go ahead, kick back! Watch too much TV, read a book, talk a long walk to that place with the iced lattes you like... and bring me back one! I'm a sucker for an iced latte.

I'm also a sucker for a tasty cocktail (duh). Last weekend I got some ingredients together for a greyhound slushie to make with my ladies and came home with plenty of extra supplies! That's when I realized I also had various fruit seltzers, and thus this modified greyhound was born.

This isn't exactly a breakthrough in cocktail science or anything, I just took a greyhound (grapefruit juice + vodka) and added some fruity seltzer, but hey! It was an excuse to draw more cocktail ingredients, which I'm still obsessed with. If there's a publisher out there looking for an illustrated book of cocktails LEMME KNOW. I would be so down for that.

What are your plans for the 4th? Mine involve an American flag vest and probably tater tot hot dish - it was a hit at the last BBQ I went to, probably because nobody in Los Angeles has ever heard of it!

p.s. Here's a preview of a fun 4th of July piece I made for Bright's newest campaign. Check out the whole thing here!