Book cover design for PickleWeasel.

I crowd-sourced feedback the new PickleWeasel book series, specifically about the title and book cover design. I had awesome responses from both Facebook and Ello, so it was a nice slice of different people-types.

The numbers came in at 36 votes for "A" and 34 votes for "B" - too close to call. It eventually came down to whether or not to keep the "101" in the title. Lots of people liked it because it follows an existing paradigm for story titles, and I admit that I was one of those people. But PickleWeasel's personality won in the end; it became a question of quality appeal over quantity appeal.

Here's the final version: PickleWeasel Picture Riddles.

Click here to embiggen.

There are 101 tricky PickleWeasel Picture Riddles in every book. And this is just Book 1; three more books are coming, each with 101 tricky picture riddles. That makes a total of 404.

Think about that for a moment.

Thanks to everyone for all your feedback; especially the kids!

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Sarcasm face emoji.

I was challenged by some fEllos on Ello to design a "sarcasm face" emoji.

Sarcasm has an element of two-facedness; you say one thing but mean the opposite. It's best served with a dash of humour, a pinch of bitterness, or a dollop of diss. We don't want to confuse it with exasperation, trolling or passive-aggressiveness (though I suppose there is some intersection with the latter).

A sarcasm emoji would be the emoticon equivalent of writing the word "NOT" immediately after a statement. Here's an example:

"Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine! I always scrape my face on the pavement like this to keep my complexion glowing. NOT."

Or you can use the emoji like this:

"Shall I call 911?" 

"No, don't trouble yourself. I didn't really need that eye anyway." 

"Dumbass" also works pretty well though.

Emoji are expression-concentrated into a very small number of pixels. It has to be decode-able at a tiny size. I went through about 8 designs before sticking with this one. This is definitely the face I make when I'm deploying heavy sarcasm: it's my ARE YOU A FUCKING IDIOT face.

Here's the cut & paste markdown:


Some folks must think I just pull this stuff out of my behind. But it's fine. I enjoy staying up until 4 AM doing drawings for other people. Really.

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Summer SLEEVES.

My friend Tanya (jewelry designer extraordinaire at Gracie Mack) was recently lamenting on Facebook, about the lack of sleeves on cute summer dresses. Her idea was to open a shop called "We Have Sleeves".

I generally do okay with my body image (mostly by not looking in the mirror). But honestly, I do have things that bug me from time to time and glunky underarms around the bra line is one of them. Here's my peri-menopausal cartoon body (without the Jessica Rabbit treatment):

Glunkity-glunk!

A few other women jumped into Tanya's Facebook convo, and when photographer Sarah Thomas suggested "fake sleeves" a picture formed itself in my head.

Think about it: with SLEEVES we won't have to put on a sweater or jacket or shawl, so you don't have to worry about getting too hot. Also, your silky shoulders will be exposed for "come hither" posing over a strawberry daiquiri... or ALLCAPS cocktail.

We could have these in solid colours, light sheer fabric for summer and a little heavier for spring or fall. SLEEVES could be simple to integrate with any dress (Tanya suggests putty, charcoal gray, white and black). Or SLEEVES could be more decorative; beaded or with silk-flowers for example, to make a fashion statement.

Now we need someone to make these for us. Who else wants them?

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I Draw YOU - @xtremeparnthood

Sunday Stilwell @xtremeparnthood hired me to redesign her Banshee and I loved every minute of it.

She's relaunched her blog Adventures in Extreme Parenthood and it looks gorgeous. Sunday's the frazzled mom of two autistic boys. In her own words the drawing "fully embodies how I feel most days chasing my boys around".

Gracious, smart and with a sense of humor. This woman is a pleasure to work with! It was easy to say YES to this job.

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