Since Illustrator seems to be working better for me these days, I have decided to try to make a vector watercolor. The image is not that good, but the fact that this is all vector is what is impressive. Once I refine the technique a bit, things will get better 
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/23 at 05:09 PM
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Just a quick little lesson in cuteness or kawaiisa…
Slight imperfections can make things cute.
Now I am not saying this is always the case. If you look at hello kitty, she is pretty proportional along with a lot of other Japanese characters…
But if you look really close at the designs done by BABY, there is a slight differences in their proportions! They noses of animals are not perfect, the eyes are a bit off… the cups are not 100% perfectly straight. The graphic designer has this LOVELY style, and it isn’t 100% perfect
As for my Princess bunny, I focused on making her ears slightly loopy and that really added to her character. It is the imperfections that make her cute, not the perfections. My friends Skinni talked about this in her thesis on cuteness… (something which I MUST read when I see her).
Anyway, here is my cute princess bunny!
I will be showing more cute examples later
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/23 at 10:25 AM
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I tend to be quite a trusting person, and Apple is one company which i trust. Well, after reading many reviews about Snow Leopard, and it’s speed and its size reduction I figured I would go out and get it. It was considered to be that of a Windows service pack update, and nothing too special. Well overall the OS works the same, and it IS faster on some things. I also recovered nearly 15 gigs of hard drive space. My CS3 collection seemed to be working smoother at first.
Then the errors starting happening…
I too am experiencing the crash while saving error in Photoshop and Illustrator. Bridge and camera raw seems to be ok, and I haven’t played with Indesign enough to know of any problems
The problem seems to be more on the OS side than the software side. I have had the same error with other programs when trying to save files.
As annoying as it is, the only thing we can do is wait for the engineers to fix the problem and release (hopefully soon in OS 10.6.2)
In the mean time, there are some things you can do to survive these crashes.
1) Save Now Save Often: that is right, the one thing which is reportedly causing these crashes is the one thing you should do the most. In fact, you should ALWAYS be practicing SNSO as a general principal. What I have found is that “Save” is not causing any problems at all. I managed to complete a large experimental project in illustrator (with thousands of strokes) just fine. So save works, and works well, so keep on saving.
2) be weary of “Save as:” that is where the problem seems to be. In the SAVE AS function. For some strange reason Snow Leopard doesn’t seem to like having new files written on the disk, but it is OK with saving over files that are already there. If you have a psd file that you want to save as a jpeg… then the save as may kick you out of Photoshop.
3) Save before save as: see #2
4) Create dummy files to work with: Thats is what we are going to have to do for the time being. Open up a new file in photoshop and save this empty files as a photoshop file. Granted, it might kick out out of program 2 to 3 to 10 times, but once you get your dummy file saved, you should be able to overstep the save-as bug. So what you can do is just copy the dummy file and use the copy for all your work, until the bugs are fixed.
(To save you the pain, I have a dummy file for you to use here)
5) Send prayers and wishes of good luck to the engineers, not complaints. I am sure they get plenty of complaints… they know the problems. In fact, Adobe already knows about the problem. The best thing we can do is send these engineers the best of luck…
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/23 at 08:59 AM
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I have decided to create another character. She came to me a few days ago before I was going to bed. I love rabbits, and I have a lot of rabbit stuffed animals on my bed.
So I decided to make a bunny.. Baby bunny.
I sketched her out in my sketch book that night. Then I repeated the sketch about 15 times until I got one nearly right.
I scanned it into photoshop and took her into illustrator.
I did have some problems with her feet and the pacifier. I originally made the rubber of the pacifier stick out to the side, and it was really looking funny. But i fixed it… I think.
So without further ado, I bring to you my latest character, Baby Bunny
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/05 at 08:57 PM
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Now I know there are those critics on a certain online group that is full of critics who would look at this and disregard it as mere copies of lolita art.
To which I say
Total BS
People have been doing master studies of artists for years and years, a lot of people learn from following the work of masters. I did it in my basic drawing class, and people do it throughout their lives. I met a man from Holland the other day, his father is a professional painter, who now restores Rembrandts. He said that his father spent year and years studying Rembrandt's methods. Now he is an amazing artist himself with his own style.
But anyway, here are my sweet lolita master studies. I just looked and kind of copied the idea, but I made them original enough. I just got the idea from looking and I made my own original version.
Une Tasse de Thé
Sweet Doughnuts
Lozza love!!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/30 at 11:24 AM
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Anyway, I decided to make some Gingham check background for your webpage! Gingham check is the PERFECT pattern for any lolita themed website. I made them in two sizes, large (170 x 170 px) and small (85 x 85 px) and 6 colors: Baby Pink, Sax Blue, Mint Green, Lemon Yellow, Milk Chocolate Brown and Gray (Ok, I have worked at BABY for too long LOL)
If you love this pattern, would would like to see it in another color to match your website, just leave me a comment and I will fulfill your request as soon as possible!
Mint Green and Lemon Yellow
Chocolate brown and Cookies and Cream
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/24 at 10:27 PM
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I just started yesterday, and I hope to have a lot more coming up soon
please left-click these to save them to your computer, and use them as your like.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/15 at 09:09 AM
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I have been playing around with Adobe illustrator a lot lately. Well, I just found this amazing collection of illustrations showing WHAT the program can do if you really put your mind to it.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/14 at 10:20 PM
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Like the title said, PTD is currently hosting the official blog for the San Francisco Store of BABY, the Stars Shine Bright.
The reason why I decided to host the blog was because it was the quickest, easiest, and least expensive way to get the blog up and running ASAP. The blog isn't using expression engine at its core, because Baby doesn't own a license to run it as commercial software.
I wanted to keep the blog in the same layout I am building for the english version of the webpage (or translating, it is already built. I am now building the product pages). When the time comes to officially open the English BABY site, the SF blog will integrate smoothy with the entire site.
The downside, I really don't like the blog management software I are using. Compared to expression engine, this software is a little bit more difficult to work with as far as designing goes. The design doesn't quite fit as nice and I had hoped. Also, the software adds strange code which causes some validation error, thus causing it to be picky with Internet Sxploder... :snake: (that is NOT an SIC by the way). T-san's computer didn't display it right, and she is using an older browser... maybe 6.0? But it looked fine on 7.0 in the office... and I am sure 8.0 will be ok.
Of course, it looks best on Safari, the browser it was built on (I love my mac)
Let me know if you encounter any problems, and I will try to fix it OK?? In the mean time, enjoy!!
Click here to view the blog
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/13 at 10:34 PM
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Hello,
Would you like to have this flower?
Ok, too many movies for THIS young designer! Anyway, I decided that today was a nice day to give away a freebie
These are some cool little flowers. Nothing much, but I wanted to give something out.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/11 at 08:02 PM
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Hi everybody
This is just a little reminder telling you that the about page is up and half-way complete.
I still want to put up my personal profile but I need to think about how I am going to do the layout.
One of the cutest things in the about page is the little bunny sketch I did today I haven’t done a photoshop sketch in a long time, so it made for a nice relaxing day…
I love how well the bunnies turned out!!
On another note, I found myself some really groovy music to listen to when I am designing. As much as I would love to listen to French or Japanese while designing… nothing really helps me get some cute ideas out like some good music. I tend to listen to a lot of chill-out or lounge music while designing, so my room always sounds like I am shopping at the GAP! Anyway, for some good BGM, check out Groovera.com. It offers some of the best in chill-out music, without talk nor advertisements. All three of their stations are pretty good, and can be listened to for hours on end.
I still need to get my RSS working! I have a very cool idea FOR the RSS button itself… but I don’t know where I am going to put it yet.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/11 at 12:52 AM
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I was always impressed with a font that appeared in the 2008 BABY, the Stars Shine Bright fall and winter collection catalogue. The font appeared on page 18, and was for the “Mary in the sky with Candies.”
It looked something like this:
I just loved this font, and I spent several sketch book pages imitating it on my own!
Anyway, the other day, I was browsing myfonts.com with a client. As we were looking for a suitable font for her page logo, I stumbled upon this font:
Acadian! This was the font BABY used in their catalogue! You can download it at My fonts. It will cost you $12, but it is very cute font, and there is so much you can do with it!
Yes, I am going to love using this font!
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/05 at 11:53 PM
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Hello and welcome to the revamped version of the Pink Tanpopo Designs webpage and blog. After long and hard consideration, I decided that it was finally time to remake my entire website from ground up. I am sorry to all of the fans of the old site. I loved the room design, but I really wanted to do something else. I may bring the room design back in my gallery, but I don’t know for certain.
One of the biggest reasons for the change is that I am now using Expression Engine to power the site! Although there are many free CMS systems out Expression Engine was the only one I found that gave me complete freedom as a designer to design my site. It is easy much easer to use than Druple, not quite as big and buggy as Joomla and it offers you a lot more power than wordpress.
The best part about it is that it is an extremely flexible CMS. It is 100% free of any pre-fabricated designs (unlike Joomla with its cookie cutter system), thus allowing web designers the freedom to focus on the design, not on hacking. You also get great customer service and technical support once you register! That is why I am a big fan Expression Engine!
Now for some news!!
Pink Tanpopo Designs has been hired by BABY, the Stars Shine Bright to create an English version of their webpage. As the world’s most famous brand of Japanese Lolita fashion, BABY understands the needs of catering to their overseas customers. The site I have created for them is almost done, I am in the process of translating all the item pages, and fixing some little things here and there.
Overall the site is very turing out to be beautiful!! All the Lolita brands here in Japan have their own image. For example: Angelic is very childlike and cute, Metamorphose is classy with a touch of punk to it and BABY is very simple and elegant. I did a lot of research into BABY’s image before getting this job. I looked at a lot of their advertisements, store decorations, products and so on. I was able to then build them an English site which I think matches Baby’s simplicity and elegance, while maintaing their unique image in the world of Japanese Lolita fashion.
Since I am officially employed at BABY for this job, I also get to wear their clothes and work in the head office! I also get an employee discount (but those are just fringe benefits)!!!
But I have never done anything bi-lingual before, so I am learning a lot of new things that you don’t normally have to consider when making web pages! So this is a great job from that viewpoint.
Anyway, look for the release of the site soon!!
Last but not least, I have many update plans for Pink Tanpopo Designs. Please be patient!! I will make announcements in my blog when site sections are complete!!
Thank you again for all your wonderful support!
Have a nice day
Val, Hungry Designer, Pink Tanpopo Designs
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/04 at 10:40 PM
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Since 2009.
Copyright (c) 2009 PINK TANPOPO DESIGNS. All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise stated. All text and images on this site are sole property of PINK TANPOPO DESIGNS, and can not be used in any manner whatsoever (printed or electronic) without prior consent. All cliental images/logos etc are the property of the specified client, and are subject to the copyright restrictions of the given client.