Miki's Fashion House

Intermission: Some interesting Designs

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Was on my facebook and one of the people I follow, Danny Choo had put up some very interesting design items.

Lamp Shades - http://www.monomania.jp/item/onoff-613-8746/index.html

Chairs - http://www.todayandtomorrow.net/2009/05/26/eric-ku/

In Class Task

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

This was an in class task we had to do to make a spray effect. I am still not very satisfied with the overall effect as it's a mix of dissolve and normal. Maybe I should've flattened the layers and added some soft light and overlay filters...

Splatter brushes are from brusheezy.com

Week 11: Photoshop Tutorials

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Found some nice colouring tutorials on deviantart if anyone is interested in having a look.

1. How to draw 10 head fashion figure

2. Watercolour in Photoshop

3. CG shading

4. Soft cell shading in photoshop
5. Inking in Photoshop

6. Basic Brush Tutorial
7. Copic Marker Tutorial

And just for fun...

Realism in Photoshop

Week 10: Concept Boards

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

So I ended up choosing this for my concept board for thinking fashion. The class said it had a carnival/circus feeling to it which gave me an idea for my theme: Carnival - focussing on the night light of tokyo. Therefore I'll be looking a lot at the lighting and structure and silhouettes of it at night. Will be fun.

Intermission: World's First Designer QR Code

Featured above is the world's first designer QR Code by LV and Takashi Murakami (who designs for LV. If I am not mistaken, he designed the casing for LV building in Tokyo and also LV's colour monogram collection, the one with the happy sunflowers on them..).

In Japan QR codes are used everyday as a fast way of sending and receiving messages. All you have to do is take a photo of it with your mobile phone and let it scan, then the message conveyed in the code will come up (a lot of websites use them as mobile links or for special promotional offers). This designer code surprisingly works!! So I heard, haven't put it to the test yet.

Source: http://www.takashimurakami.net/index.php?/site/comments/takashi-murakami-and-lv-make-first-designer-qr-code/

Week 4: The things we do in photoshop

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Never thought there would be a day which I would be doing fashion illustrations and such on photoshop. They always look greak on Drawing(oekaki) boards and deviantart. I'm not very good with this as this is my first time doing it so here goes....

I had problems making the skirt fit on the model properly.. I should probably research on how to do that...

And then we have...

As the model was on an angle, I tried to give the dress a 3D and in motion look but kind of failed..

Intermission: Animania Festival March 28th,2009

Saturday, March 21, 2009

There is a secret about Miki that not many people know of. I am a nerd. Well, not a nerd as in book smarts or anything, but an Anime nerd. Sounds dorky??

It may, however, that is where I get a lot of my inspiration from. I took drawing lessons for 5 years, I self taught myself how to sew and construct/alter patterns at the age of 14 because of it.

When I was 15, I started to attend this Japanese Pop Culture Festival called Animania. What started out as a geek convention for me has now become part of my life. I not only have fun participating in its events, but also being able to meet new people and gain inspiration from them.

Possibly one of the biggest attractions known to be at Animania is Cosplay. Cosplay stands for costume play which pretty much in english terms, it means dressing up. While at a Animania, cosplay is generally reserved for Anime, game and Manga characters, over the years it has developed to Japanese subcultures and street fashion such as Fruits, Lolita, Visual Kei and Gyaru/Ganguro(below).

Most cosplayers are extremely nice to chat with and will allow you to take photos of them. You can even interview them for research purposes!! A fascinating thing about them is that 90% of them make their own costumes and outfits and all their sewing and prop making experiences are self taught.

Of course cosplay is not the only thing to look for inspiration at Animania. There are quite a few artist stands there whose drawings really amaze and inspire me and also the Yukata workshop is a great learning experience! (Unfortunately pre-reg. is require for Yukata workshop which is already closed but will be available again for the September event).

A new feature at Animania is also the display of Asian Ball Joint Dolls(above). They are actually one of the biggest trends of Asia and are absolutely beautiful to look at. There is also a mini origami class for those interested as well as some fun activities and games to play and my absolute favourite...karaoke!!

If you have nothing better to do on a Saturday, please bring a camera and come down to the citigate (which is right behind building 6, btw) and might as well dress up and try to find things that inspire you.

For more information check out http://www.animania.net.au/2009/sydney-march/venue-info-and-times