First iPhone Case Sales!

Tonight I sold my first iPhone cases on Redbubble!!!  I was excited when I saw first one sale, then the other, because it's been awhile since I sold anything there (well, not that long - it was back in December).  And then I was even more excited when I realized they were phone cases!  Both sales are cases with "Out for a Ski!" on them.  Thanks to whoever bought them. :D

Phone Cases!

As I mentioned on August 3rd, some of my pictures on Redbubble look awesome as phone cases.  So to show that off, I created a new collection featuring all of those pictures!

The collection is a fun mish-mash of my photos.  There are Lego pictures (which make some very fun cases!), flower pictures (which make for some very pretty cases), animal pictures, and even some landscapes (like this fun picture of Duluth, Minnesota's Aerial Lift Bridge).  But not everything I have available on Redbubble is available as a case - some pictures just didn't look good, so they didn't make the cut.  And one picture, "The Crystal King's Closeup," looks fine as an iPhone case, but terrible as a Samsung case (so it's only available for iPhones). 

After making the new collection, I ended up removing my old Animals collection, combining it with the Miscellaneous one.  I like that there are only five collections on my profile page so it doesn't look too busy.  The new collection is now at the top of the page, giving it center stage to the other collections. 

Z is for...

Z is for..., a photo by s.kosoris on Flickr.

And here it is: the end of my Minifigure Alphabet series! I feel like I cheated a little bit, because I used the undead for U and zombies are clearly a member of the undead. But I couldn't come up with any other minifigure that I have for Z, so I guess the undead ended up with two spots.

Y is for...

Y is for..., a photo by s.kosoris on Flickr.

Here we are, at the second last letter for the Minifigure Alphabet. I had Y narrowed down to two different minifigures early on, Yoda and the Yeti. But it took me a long time to decide between the two. The Yeti would have been fun because there's still a lot of snow on the ground. But it's also been really cold outside, making a picture outside not really ideal. Yoda was a good choice because I could shoot him anywhere. I think I actually decided to use him for Y when I remembered that I have his house (and have never taken a picture of him near it).

I have a newer Yoda that I could have used (I think he's from the Clone Wars), but instead opted for the old one. While his eyes are all the same colour (unlike the Clone Wars Yoda), there's something about this Yoda's face which just seems more fitting; his face denotes wisdom and peace in a way the Clone Wars Yoda's does not.

So stay tuned tomorrow for the end of my month-long minifigure project!

X is for...

X is for..., a photo by s.kosoris on Flickr.

Today's letter was one of the harder ones. Pretty much the only minifigure I could think of was an X-Wing Pilot. And really, that's kind of pushing things - he's technically a pilot, which would be good for P. But it was all I could come up with. Luckily I was telling a friend about this project before it began, and he suggested that I have the X-Wing pilot having an X-Ray taken, covering a couple of X words (even if neither word is technically a minifigure).

The frame was made with paper, glue, and toothpicks to hold it up; it's taped to a base made up of the black bricks you get with the Collectible Minifigures.

W is for...

W is for..., a photo by s.kosoris on Flickr.

...Witch! Today's a rather busy day, so I wanted to get today's shot taken and posted early.

This witch has the body of Willa the Witch (from the Fright Knights), and the head of the Fantasy Era witch. I got a hat for her, but I like the hair on her a lot better. :)

V is for...

V is for..., a photo by s.kosoris on Flickr.

Today was the fifth last letter of the alphabet, V. And what better minifigure than the Viking to signify V?

Today's picture involved the towels from D, F, and M, but rather than using water, I just used the same background of P (which happens to be another one of my pictures, "Powder Rock," which I printed out a long time ago for use as backgrounds).  I'm quite happy with the result.  :)

So now there are just four letters left to go!

Minifigure Alphabet Returns!

P is for..., a photo by s.kosoris on Flickr.

Today I once again returned to the Minifigure Alphabet, this time with pirates for the letter P. So that means there are only 10 letters and 10 days left to finish the alphabet in February. Having used up both of my possible break days, it's now going to be non-stop daily pictures for the remainder of the month!

500!

500!, a photo by s.kosoris on Flickr.

Today I posted my 500th Lego picture on Flickr! My original plan was to set up 500 minifigures like this, but I don't think I have quite enough (and even if I do, I decided I didn't want to set up 500 minifigures - these 115 were bad enough because they kept falling over like dominos!)

I attempted to put a representative sample of the minifigures I have photographed in this picture. The 5 is composed of Castle-themed minifigures, including Dragon Masters, Wolfpack, Forestmen, Kingdoms, and some custom minifigures I'm hoping to eventually tell a photo story with. The first 0 is all Star Wars figures (with one custom from Arealight). The final 0 is the biggest mish-mash of figs, consisting of Atlantis, Power Miners, Space Police, Super Heroes, Pirates of the Caribbean and Collectible Minifigures. I also added the Crystal King, Eruptor, and T-Rex for good measure. :)

Minifigure Alphabet

For the month of February, I decided to take a picture a day of Lego Minifigures, corresponding to the letters of the alphabet.  I had this idea several years ago, but forgot about it until I stumbled on a list I had written in a notebook with ideas of minifigures I can use for each letter of the alphabet.  February has 28 days, so I thought it would be a great month to dedicate to the alphabet (and I even get two extra days in case something comes up and I don't have time for taking a picture). 

This month-long project seemed like a great idea, letting me try out the picture-a-day format without a long time commitment. I'm currently over half way through the alphabet with today's "O is for..." picture.  I am one day behind (I didn't take a picture on February 13th, but resumed again on the 14th). 

You can find the entire Minifigure Alphabet set here.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day, Flickr!, a photo by s.kosoris on Flickr.

-Love Shauna

Final GDC Online

So I'm back from my trip to Austin for the final GDC Online.  I took some pictures, which are all on my Flickr page here.  Apparently I am terrible at taking people pictures; almost everything in that set is either a Lego minifig or a hotel room. 

The trip itself was a lot of fun.  I was unfortunately sick for all of it, but I made the best of things and still had an excellent time. I met many great people, and reconnected with others whom I've met before.  All in all it was a fantastic trip and I will miss Austin (although I am excited for San Francisco...)

Thanks!!!!

And yet another thank you must go out, this time to whomever bought a print of "Climbing."  Thank you so much for your support!

Thank You!

Thanks to whomever just bought a print of "Darth Maul;" you really made my night!  :)

Thanks :)

Just wanted to say thank you to whomever bought a copy of "Look at All the Books."  Your support is greatly appreciated!

A Few More Thank You's

Wow, yet a few more thank you's to dole out.  A few more people bought some prints from my Red Bubble site.  Thanks so much for your support!

A Late Thank You

I just wanted to give a quick shout-out to the people who bought some greeting cards from my Red Bubble site over the last week.  Thank you so much for your support!

Red Bubble All Cleaned Up

I've been pretty busy over the last few weeks and forgot to delete all of those pictures I mentioned in my last post. But today I stopped putting it off and actually cleaned up my Red Bubble site. In addition to deleting almost everything on the list from my last post, I decided to get rid of the Lego pictures "Rapping My Heart Out," "Squidtron," and the black and white "Lake Lenore in Black and White." The only picture on my list that didn't get deleted was "Orange Gerber Daisy Close Up;" I decided that one should stay. In total, I deleted 54 images from my Red Bubble site.

After deleting everything, I reorganized my collections as well. I decided to get rid of the Black and White collection because all of the black and white pictures I have on Red Bubble are scenics. I also decided to keep the Miscellaneous collection as that will give me a good place to showcase any pictures that don't quite fit into the other collections.

As I mentioned in my last post, all of these photos still appear on my Flickr photostream.

Cleaning Up my Red Bubble

I've been thinking about cleaning up my Red Bubble site for a while now. And now that it's spring, there's no time like the present! I like all of the pictures that I have featured on Red Bubble, but I have an awful lot of them, especially Lego pics. I remember reading that it's a good idea to cycle out your old pictures on Red Bubble to keep your portfolio fresh. So that's what I'm going to do this month, cycling out some of my least popular pieces to make room for future new ones. Rather than just deleting them all, I am going to lower my markup on them until the end of the month so they are all on sale! Red Bubble has their prices set for manufacturing the prints, so I cannot lower that cost. But I set the markup on all of my pictures. So for the next ten days, I am putting these pictures on sale, after which they will be deleted from Red Bubble (but don't worry, they'll still be visible on Flickr) Lego:

• The Last Thing You See (a Lego Boba Fett shot)
• Noob Combo! (Lego Halo)
• The Royal Knight's King (Lego Castle)
• Cyborg Villain - A Closeup (Collectible Minifigs - Series 3)
• All in Green - Toy Story Army Men (Lego Toy Story)
• I Guess He Does Have an Army Truck (Lego Toy Story/Boba Fett)
• Miss Swann (Lego Pirates of the Caribbean)
• The Foreman (Lego Construction worker)
• The Blacksmith (Lego Castle)
• Anubis (Lego Pharaoh's Quest)
• Hey, Wanna Race? (Collectible Minifigs - Series 2 and 3)
• Elf in the Snow (Collectible Minifigs - Series 3)
• The Troll Queen (Lego Castle)
• Grab that Scorpion! (Collectible Minifigs - Series 3)
• The Dragon Masters in the Snow (Lego Castle)
• Tokkat (Lego Star Wars - an Ewok)
• Underwater Atlantis Adventurer! (Lego Atlantis)
• Dengar (Lego Star Wars)

Flowers:

• A Pretty Purple Flower
• Purple "Wild" Iris
• Pretty in Orange
• Oh So Pink!
• Pretty Purple Blooms
• A Random Day in Fall - Gerber Daisy
• Pretty in Yellow
• A Final Black Eyed Susan
• Orange Gerber Daisy Closeup
• Gerber Daisy - Water and Shadows
• From Seed to Flower

Animals:

• Two Bucks - Mission Island
• Another Buck - Mission Island
• Dragonfly in the Leaves
• Blurry Sasha

Black and Whites/Scenics

• Black and White Frozen High Falls - Pigeon River
• Dad by a Side Road
• Silhoutte Sunset at Lake Lenore
• View of Lake Superior - Tettegouche, MN
• Fall Colours
• Middle Falls
• Above Middle Falls
• A Single Cloud
• Contrails in the Afterglow Over Fork Lake
• The Walking Bridge- Temperance River
• Dramatic Sky While Out Fishing

Miscellaneous (temporarily created for these pictures):

• Warhammer Elder Guardians
• Jelly Fish Food Colouring Abstract
• Blue and Yellow Food Colouring Abstract
• Green Dragon Food Colouring Abstract
• Food Colouring Abstracts!
• Snowy Neighbourhood at Night
• Snowflakes by Our Evergreen

Death Star Throne Room

Death Star Throne Room, a photo by s.kosoris on Flickr.

I found this picture quite awhile ago and absolutely loved it. I also love the Emperor minifig, so I've been toying with attempting to recreate it with Lego for quite some time now. I acquired the pieces to build the Emperor's chair from Final Duel 1. Once all the pieces were here, I realized I only really needed the window for this but that's okay (now the Emperor has his chair).
I finally sat down yesterday and made the backdrop. I think it turned out reasonably well. I decided to use blue legos to kind of mimic the lighting behind the stairs. I originally wanted to use gray but I didn't have nearly enough bricks so blue it was. To get the stars in the window, I used a friend's suggestion: I took a black piece of construction paper and poked a bunch of holes into it. I then placed my flashlight behind the paper to light the holes up.
Lighting the actual picture was pretty tricky, especially now that I was using my normal flashlight for the stars. I tried a second flashlight, but the light it threw wasn't right. I then switched to a book light which I covered with a kleenex. The result was this subdued lighting, which I thought was perfect.
Of course, now that the set up was finished, I then had to experiment with where to cast the light. I ended up taking over 40 pictures before being able to decide on a couple I really liked. I ended up posting this one because everything just seemed to work: the window was clear, the lighting was good, and you can see the backdrop reasonably well. I really liked three of the others as well but none of them worked the way this version did.
If you know who the artist is for the original picture, please let me know so I can give proper credit!