The Crafty Geek

Comic Basket: Speedball #1

jvibe01 — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:15:05 +0000

Over the summer when we had our garage sale (where I debuted the first comic basket), I was digging through my comic boxes looking for some stuff for a kid who wanted some Silver Surfer comics and I found Speedball #1. I wouldn’t say it was a great issue (even with the Steve Ditko art) and I wouldn’t say Speedball was a great character (although I dug him back in the day in The New Warriors), but I snatched this one up with the intention of making a basket for the guys who produce the Comic Geek Speak podcast. I started listening to their show somewhere around the teens, when it was really easy to catch up and little to old episodes, and they are now well over the 700′s in terms of number of episodes. They are one of the reasons my hour long train ride (both ways) is a lot more bearable. The garage sale was around the time they moved into a new studio and figured I could make a cool basket they could use in the studio. In the early days they used to have a little bit of fun with Speedball, so I thought this would be a good choice. So by the time, I post this one to the blog, hopefully the guys are enjoying their Speedball # 1 basket while they are recording their latest episode.

And pay special attention to the bottom of the basket. CGS fans, I think might appreciate it a bit.

Speedball #1 Basket

Let me know what you think.

Two More Cards and a Card

jvibe01 — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:48:23 +0000

This update has been a little delayed since I was having some computer issues at home and I have been spending my time dealing with that instead of creating blog posts. In spite of that I did manage to finish up a few things, some of which you will see today and another thing I’ll probably post in a week or so.

First off, here are two more attempts at Artist Trading Cards.

Superman and Hulk ATC

While I was straightening up crafty gear on the kitchen table I found that Superman image I cut out a while back to make into a card. The Hulk image came from the leftovers of the Avengers table. I picked up the sky paper for another Superman thing I had planned and decided that would be a nice back ground. I tried something new with the Hulk card and used these square sticky blocks to make the image appear to leap off the page. I increased the number of blocks used as I got closer to the Hulks head. The effect turned out really well.

This Avengers card was made out of more of the Avenger table leftovers.

Avengers Card Top

Avengers Card Inside

Originally, I was just going to do something with the Thor image that appears inside the card, but it ended up being too small to be on its own. I think it works well in the interior of the card. The front of the card comes from 2 different pages of the Avengers #2. I liked the contrast of the rain picture with the images of Giant-Man and Wasp on the bottom half.

Alas, I no longer have any of these items. One when to someone who helped me out on that other project I finished this week, and the rest went to a guy who has been a bit under the weather lately and I thought could use the pick me up.

Comic Blocks: Justice League of America #10

jvibe01 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:26:40 +0000

I have actually been working on this since about some time in September and finally got around to do the finishing touches the other night. Here is it,

A Pile of comic Blocks

That is right its a pile of blocks, but if you rearrange them in a certain way they can look like this,

Side #1

or this,

Side #2

or this,

Side #3

or this,

Side #4

or this,

Side #5

or finally this,

Side #6

One day while I was looking at different types of unfinished wood products, I stumbled upon some unfinished wood blocks. I thought it would be fun idea to put an image on a couple of blocks so I could stack them and put them on my desk or something. I picked up 50 unfinished 1” square blocks online and went to work. Over the summer, I grabbed a copy of Justice League of America #10 out of quarter box and thought I could find couple cool images I could use. I ended up using one whole page and part of another. Next I laid the blocks out in the shape that I needed and then glued the page to the blocks using (of course) Modge Podge. Once the one side was attached and relatively dry, I flipped it over and pasted an image on the opposite side. Then using an Exacto knife, I cut each block free from the bigger picture. I repeated this process for the other four images. Cutting the blocks free after I had done a couple of sides was not always easy. You can see there a few places where the paper tore or the cut was not exact. Finally, there was the tedious task of putting a couple coats of Modge Podge on to seal it. That was the part that I kept dragging out. I think it was worth the effort.

While my intention was find a cool way to display some comic panels on my desk, it turns out everyone I have shown these to has had more fun trying to put the pictures together. And when you have one side put together, you have the opposite side together too.

I am competing in a fantasy hockey league with some folks at Comic Geek Speak forums. I said I would contribute a prize to the winner of the league, so I think this will be it.

My Avengers Table!

jvibe01 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:36:00 +0000

So I made this,

Avengers Table

Avengers Table Close up

Avengers Table Closer Close up

A few weeks ago I picked up this round end table at the rummage sale benefiting the local girls softball team (I think). It was for a good cause and I thought I could do something fun with it. I picked up some dark stain and gave it a good coat. After it dried, I cut up the copy of Avengers Classic #2, reprinting Avengers #2 with very nice Art Adams cover, and begin gluing it to the table top. As per usual, my glue of choice was Modge Podge. I decided to feature the new cover, the classic cover, and the opening splash page across the center of the table and fill in the gaps with panels throughout the rest of the book. It was kind of tough deciding with Jack Kirby panels to use, but I think I did a pretty good job selecting the right ones. Once the glue was dry, I applied 3 coats of Modge Podge and another coat of acrylic sealer to finish it off.

This would look pretty sweet next to your favorite comic reading chair, don’t you think?

I think it might be hard to follow this one….

A Couple More Cards and a Card

jvibe01 — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:12:09 +0000

Today we have a bit of a round-up of a few things I have done lately.

First we have the birthday card I made for Aimee.

Liberty Meadows Birthday Card

Aimee is big fan of Liberty Meadows and Frank Cho. I picked up a cheap copy of Liberty Meadows #4 and used the cover to make the card. I also took a panel from one the strips in the book and put it in the inside of the card. She really liked it.

Next we have a few Peanuts Christmas cards,

Peanuts Christmas Cards

During one of my many excursions to Hobby Lobby, they were having a sale on rubber stamps and ink pads. I saw this stamp and thought it was pretty cool. The other day I finally got around to giving it a run through. This went much easier than the one other time I tried stamping and picture looked really nice on the blank card. All that was left was for me to flex my coloring in the lines skill from way back and color in the stamp with some colored pencils. These turned out pretty nice. I would image a fair number of people will be receiving one of these cards during the holiday season. Oh, and can you guess which cards I used the white colored pencil and which i did not?

And finally, we have my first attempt at an artist trading card,

Flash ATC

I used the Flash comic I cut up previously for the Corner Art Collage I put up last week. Basically, I glued a bit of the comic page to the trading card as the background and then glued the Flash on top of that background. Because I was not paying attention to what I was doing, I ended up with Flash on top of two layers of cardstock. It ended up being a pretty nice effect. I am still not sure what I think of this card yet. I go back and forth on whether I like or not, but I submit it for your approval none the less.

And last but not least, I wanted to get the hype machine going on what will Monday’s blog post. It is awesome and quite possibly the coolest thing I have done so far. You will look upon Monday’s update and be lost in the awesomeness of my creation, or at least I hope you will like it.

I am not kidding, it is really freaking cool.

Anyway, let me know what you think. I’ll take the good with the bad, but hopefully there is more good than bad.

Even More Greeting Cards

jvibe01 — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:22:05 +0000

Here are a couple of greeting cards I made a while back, but never got around to putting on the blog.

The Superman card came from a George Perez issue of Action Comics and the Teen Titans card once again came from Wednesday Comics #1. Although, it is hard to tell I used those little square things so that the Superman and the Titans circle sit slightly above the background. I am really liking that effect.

Let me know what you think

Batman #497

jvibe01 — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:49:49 +0000

Ha! Two Post in as many days, I’m on fire over here.

I picked this one up over the summer at the Chicago Comicon. At first, I thought this one would make a good basket. I mean, how cool would a basket with Batman getting his back broken? But as I was cutting stuff for the piece I posted the other day, I stumbled upon this issue and thought it would a cool picture.

Batman #497

What I did was cut out some panels of the book and adhere them to the canvas to make the background. Next I cut out the Knightfall banner, the title and the picture of Bane breaking Batman’s back. After the background dried, I adhered the cut outs to the background. Again, all this was done using Modge Podge. This probably would have worked better using a bigger canvas, the cover image is so big it makes it hard to see the background.

Let me know what you think.

Don’t Call it a Comeback

jvibe01 — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:12:45 +0000

Yes, I have finally updated the blog with a new craft.

Things have been a little hectic over the past month or so and I have let the blog slide down on my list of priorities. Since most people who look at this blog actually know me, I won’t explain all the goings ons.

While I haven’t been updating the blog, I have actually started a few things and actually completed a couple of them. Updates should be coming a bit more regularly now, as I am making more of an effort to actually finish things.

So on to the craft.

I figured I should come back strong with something that I think is extra special. Take a look.

Corner Art Canvas

I picked up a couple of 8”x10” pieces of canvas from Hobby Lobby over the weekend with the idea of creating a sort of comic art collage. Growing up, I was always I big fan of the little icons Marvel put in the corner of their books, so I thought that would be a cool thing to see on a piece of canvas. I cut up a bunch of covers and used Modge Podge to adhere the cut outs to the canvas and put a coat on top to seal the deal.

Let me know what you think.

Oh and I have one more of these in the pipeline…..

Some More Greeting Cards and a note

jvibe01 — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:54:21 +0000

Even though it has been a bit since I have last posted it does not mean that I haven’t been working on anything. It just means I have yet to finish anything. With any luck, I’ll be able to get enough items finished that I might possibly be able to break my own personal records of two updates in a week.

Enough of that, I had to make a couple cards to actually send out to actual people last night, so I went ahead and made a couple more with things I hade cut out last week. Here they are,

Tiny Titans Cards

Teen Titans Cards

On the advice of the guy at the scrapbook store I used a glue stick as oppose to the Paper Modge Podge. Also, on the top Tiny Titans card I used a couple foam squares on the flying StarFire so she pops out a bit from the card. I do not know how much of that you can tell from the pictures though.

The art from the Tiny Titans cards come from Tiny Titans # 1 and the the art from the Teen Titans cards come from Wednesday Comics #1

More Greeting Cards

jvibe01 — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:09:08 +0000

Two post in two days, I am on fire!!

After getting off the train last night, I really had no desire to go pick up paint so I decided to put it off another day and just head home. Feeling a little guilty about that decision, I decided to make a few more greeting cards since I still had 22 blanks that needed filling. Here are the three I made last night.

Adam Strange, Teen Titans, and Iron Man cards

The art from the Teen Titans and Adam Strange come from Wednesday Comics #1 (I might have to pick up more of these, you think). The Iron Man art comes from Iron Man #215. The Iron Man card looks really good, but I think he Adam Strange one might be my favorite of the batch. I like the way the shape of the art matches with the shape of the colored paper on the card. I think it adds to the effect that Adam Strange is taking off.

Let me know what you think.