Watercolor Number Brushes

You like them, I like them…it’s inevitable. I WAS GOING TO MAKE MORE ;)
These are all high resolution watercolor number brushes. Oh heck I threw in some random words too but it’s pretty much all numbers. These were so much fun to make and I hope you enjoy using them. There are about 3-4 more brush sets that will be released in the next few weeks so this is not the end!

( find them here )

Posted by Jessica · Coding Q&A · Tags: updates · brushes
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Blast from the past of the webscene

This blog is jam packed full of NOSTALGIA.
Saera emailed me about getting some brushes from some old ‘vintage’ sites….that’s when I was re-introduced to archive.org.

I went back in time to view some old websites I used to admire, and then I stumbled upon my own. I realized that the site has changed dramatically, and maybe I’m not so proud of it anymore. Things don’t feel the same like they used too. Sure everyone gets older and drifts away from things – most of the websites I used to visit are now closed, it’s sad, yeah. But I’m still here. The lone star survivor, haha.

The thing that really got to me is when I read one of the blogs I had posted October 15th, 2007, where I listed random facts about myself. One of the items on the list caught my eye:

“11. I giggle at some websites that try to make their website more ‘professional’ looking. WHATS THE FUN IN THAT?”

I think that maybe I lost myself in all of this professionalism website CRAP. I feel like I sold myself out in a way, but it wasn’t because I wanted to change, more so because I felt like it was necessary. I’m going back to my roots, yup, next layout will be totally ME. :) I hope!

Graphic design wasn’t about this when I was younger. When people actually used to be apart of the webscene just to post brushes and have a blog. Now people have sites just to make money and offer crappy myspace layouts. Maybe I’m just lost in this internet world and there is like a secret community I don’t know about, hahaha.

I wanted to show you guys some websites I basically grew up with…that were my inspirations and had visited daily. This was the webscene when I was growing up.

Devilinthedetails.net was a site run by Dane. He was an amazing designer, I loved the handdrawn feel to all his layouts.

Douxx.com by Scott. I was actually a personal friend of Scott, so this website brings back lots of memories. He was really great and non-judgmental in the times where people thought I was a snot. Hey, that rhymes!

Funeralmonster.net by Henri was not up for that long, but was very popular in terms of resources and Henri himself. He is great with using stock and his resources and brushes were AMAZING. I still have his brushes to date!

JuvenileCasualty.net by Eshita was always nicely designed. Eshita knew how to use images and colors very well. Her brushes were notably amazing as well. I still use some of them even today.

Kenekila.net by Kendra was one of the older sites I used to go to when I was back on neopets. She made the ever so popular ‘abstract backgrounds’ with lots of dither and color hueing. Of course at the time I thought she was AMAZING at design, but looking back, that’s not quite the case :P

Remixx.net by Scott was another example of ‘OMG I THOUGHT HE WAS SO AMAZING WHEN I WAS 15 BUT NOW AT 20 I REALIZED HE WASNT THAT GOOD!”. Scott’s site was SUPER popular until he just kind of shut it down for no real reason besides loss of interest. Bummer because he was a pretty cool guy, but all good things come to an end.

Silencehurts.org by Ashley was one of the more iconic sites I remember. Even the name stands out. God, so many memories! Ashley was an amazing designer, and judging by the layout I found, her designs are still amazing even when I look at this now 3-4 years later.

Slashmysoul.org by Ashley was yet another iconic site, especially with the domain name chosen. I can never forget this site, ever

Vionnet.despair.nu by Serena encased everything I wished I could do with my site. Colors, organized coding, great designs…Serena always impresses. She’s going into fashion design but I always told her she should do design on the side. Maybe she’ll make me a dress!

Radioslut.org by Amy was single handily the best site on the web during my time. Amy was so talented, as you can tell. The site was very popular in its running, until Amy decided to sell it. Even as years pass her artworks are still flawless. I looked up to this site so much. You don’t even know.

Do YOU remember any of these websites? Feel free to share any websites you used to visit and/or reminisce with me :)

There you have it. Half of my internet childhood (if you will) in screenshots. It’s sad to see all the years go by with things changing so much, but I believe there still is potential for a great web community if we all stick together! Sounds lame but eh, what else?

Posted by Jessica · Coding Q&A · Tags: graphics · picture blog
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Tablets and Canceled Classes

Type Challenge FINAL ROUND
New brushes coming, as well as a new tutorial. Which would you like to see first?
I finished a lot of new brushes. It’s really fun to make them so sometimes I get carried away, haha. Right now they’re actually drying but here are some previews of the upcoming sets.

I will be working on both tonight, since I’m not sure I want to make any plans. I feel like I have Saturday and Sunday to hang out and ‘have a life’ but Friday I could actually be productive. So I am willing to give up my Friday to be a nerd and work on what I’m always already working on. I’ll call it – Emo Friday.

Since I’m going to be doing graphics more than I’d like too – I’ve decided that I’m going to buy a tablet! Yeah okay, you guys try writing an angry message in illustrator to email to your friend with a laptop touchpad or a mouse. Looks like it’s written in Chinese. I should put that on my resume, that I know Chinese. COOL!

The one I’m leaning towards is called the ‘Bamboo Tablet CTL460’. It looks pretty cute and it’s affordable – which is nice because I’m not about to spend 400 dollars on a tablet when I can’t even properly draw. This one is for about $70 so it’s in the right price range for me.

Oh yeah and two of my classes were canceled this week, which would be nice if I knew about it before I got to class. It’s okay if teachers are sick, they can cancel a whole class but if the students are sick and they miss the class they have to go like a freakin bounty hunter and track down the assignments and finish them on time.
LOVE COLLEGE!!

Posted by Jessica · Coding Q&A · Tags: graphics ·
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