Little Stories 268 : Finally Visited the IPC Shopping Mall

Several weeks ago, I went to KL and saw someone using the IPC shopping mall tote bag (that I illustrated in 2021 but never really saw up close because you can only redeem it at IPC mall as a gift if you shop there). 

I posted the picture of me with the man holding the tote bag in the background, he did not notice that I actually wanted the picture of that moment. After posting it on my IG story, Vickie, the person who was in charge of the project contacted me again and asked whether I wanted the tote bag because she had 1-2 pieces left at the office. Of course, I wanted it. Then she invited me to meet last weekend. 

And so, we set the day to visit the mall to hunt for all the illustrations that I did.

First, we met Jatte, the 7.5 m tall giant inflatable Dala horse that they have installed for their 20th anniversary: 

I saw the giant umbrella at the customer service counter and Vickie said I could bring one home :

Then we saw some more horses at the 20versary Ferris Wheel:

Here is more stuff that they made last year for the Christmas season, these are just the remaining that she got for me, some wrapping papers, a tote bag, and a badge:

 

They are planning on making more stuff like socks and round hats next. 

I would definitely come to get some socks for sure. 

Soo happy ❤︎₊ ⊹

Mini Project : Introvert's Favorite Stuff

2 weeks ago I doodled stuffs that introverts like (I referred to what I love) - so perhaps I did a bit of stereotyping here. I'm sure a lot of people love the same things (shoutout to fellow extroverts & ambiverts !) but I think most introverts can relate to this.

As introverts, we love the solitude we can gather in our own house/room. We love being alone, we love the silence, away from all the dramas and distractions. I'm not saying that my lifestyle is healthy, but for the past 9 months I've been so happy and calm. I love working at home, I love the freedom and the silence. I don't expect anyone else to understand, as long as my husband is okay with my choice of living (btw, he is also an introvert so he understands).

So here are the things that I must have :

• Books (as distraction from the hectic world we are living in)
• Hot drinks (I love my hot Neslo in the morning, and green tea throughout the day)
• Favorite pen + pencil , and also doodle book (to write about my thoughts, to doodle, to find previous inspiration and references)  
• Laptop with movies/series (Anything worth streaming - currently I'm watching : The Crown and Riverdale)
• Pets (in my case, my lovely fat cat; Awan)
• Comfort foods (Sometimes sweet, sometimes salty but never healthy)

The doodle I did in my book using my current favorite pencil colour from Pilot Color Eno:

*

Images I edited for the shops :

*

I also made a simple process video of it and posted it on my Youtube :

Just to share to people the process of turning an illustration into something (in this case a postcard + sticker). I'm planning to make a new mini project every 2 weeks. I'm already working on the next one related to foods ! ❤

Work Related : First Self-published Travelogue

Heyyy, it's been more than 2 months since I resigned from being a full-time Chief Designer at a local start-ups ! I've been really productive and excited lately, I don't think I've ever been this productive (maybe I've been collecting ideas and content for long). 

New stuffs :

• Book : Travelogue Melaka (is still in the checking-editing process by the publisher)
• Enamel pin : 90s Game Nerrrd
• Patch : Wandering Soul
• Art prints : Moonrise Kingdom & Just Start
• Self-published book : Eskapi - Travel Notes & Doodle !  

*

The stories from this book/zine is not really new stuffs la (dah basi), plus, I already uploaded everything in this blog (in writings). These were travel notes and doodles while I went to Surabaya & Singapore last year, so the contents were already there waiting to be inked & digitized. I actually took 10 months to make this :D Hah.

This isn't my first travelogue. I've been keeping visual travel notes since 5 years ago (if I'm not mistaken). So I have some from previous Eid, Beijing trip, homestay programs and stuffs. But they aren't worth my time to digitize (old lame stories, I cringed when I re-read it). 

Anyway, long story short, I want to share my travel notes & doodles as an illustrator and someone who loves to travel since young. I want to make each journey matters (I already wrote it, photographed it, now I illustrated it). So I digitized this and self-published it. Hope you'll like it 💖

You can pre-order yours now at : My Shop for RM 12 and even get a copy of "Things to Doodle" zine for free (if you pre-order it before the 3rd of Aug). 

The estimated delivery time is : Mid August (they are currently in printing process) 

Who is this book for ? 

• People who love to travel, this is a fun + easy book to read about my short experience in Bromo & Singapore. 
• People who love doodles & scribbles in book, this is one example of how to turn your experience into something physical, a different way to share with the world. 
• People who love visual journals/visual travelogues, here is a sample from someone who loves to doodle and to record things in writing. 
• Anyone who would appreciate the work of a local illustrator ! 

About this book : 

• Size: A5 (15 x 21cm) 
• Printing info: Printed on 210 gsm gloss laminate cover, 128 gsm art paper content 
• Pages: 22 printed pages (24 pages in total) 
• Language: English + Minor Malay Printed in Malaysia
• Self-published (no local publisher or editor or distributor) :F
• All rights reserved to the owner.

*

Upcoming travel zine : Osaka + Kyoto 

The difference between last year's travel note and this year's travel note : the dedication and effort. In Japan, I really pushed myself to jot down something every day so I won't forget all the stuffs that happened. I also kept little stuffs (tickets, passes, stamps) to be added in the travel journal. I kept track of the foods I ate, and where I ate it (so people can use it as a guide as well). Plus, this time, I did all these in coloured version (because I'm getting used with illustrating & colouring ). I think so far so good 😃

I'm excited for this one to be published next !

Little Thing 234 : 2nd Anniversary & Video

Can't believe it's already been 2 years !

To the love of my life, Af.
I LOOOOVE chu, 

and Happy anniversary.

❤ ❤ ❤

***
If you want to see the process video :

This is my first attempt in screen-recording while digitizing my random doodle. My MBP lagged a bit while drawing, but it is still a decent-kind-of-slowness. This process took around 30 minutes, which for me was a bit too rushed ( but I was trying to set the timing here so I had to close my eyes and ignore the flaws ). I'll try to post the fast-drawing session in my Youtube every month ( my fellow Patreon will get the the latest updates and even request a video tutorials ).

Software : Adobe Photoshop CC 

Device : Wacom Tablet - Intuos

Video : Adobe Premier CC & Photoshop CC

Song : Free-licensed song - Good for You by THBD

Click here if you want to stalk to my Youtube channel :D

Little Things 232 : This thing called Love

You know what makes me move forward and never stop illustrating since I was 13 ?
LOVE

*

Yeap, that love that keep me waking up early in the morning just to draw, or stay up late at night. The strength, that energy, that passion come from my love for the things that I can illustrate and I can appreciate. The title that I can hold on to because I know almost everyday of my adult life were spent on creating this sparks that fulfil me. Thank you my Patrons for believing and supporting in me, it's love guys, LOOOOOVE, and I love you guys. 

*

I was a bitchy friend - I guess I still am. I can't change this, it's who I am. I don't make friends much, I get too attached and hurt and in weird situation all the time if I get close to someone. I have some issues guys, so I chose to not make any friends. 

But I'll try to be the best illustrator/designer I can possible be.

Work Related : Vectober

Other than updated Behance posts and its portfolio, I also post daily on my Dribbble account. Most things are vectorized items that I did when I worked with Freepik throughout this year - there are hundreds of little items, but I did an alternate version for the ones that I posted on my Dribbble account daily. It's a cute-eyed mini version.

It started with the #inktober that everyone in IG mentioned about, but I no longer have time to draw on paper, so I changed it to #vectober - apparently my current main medium is all in digital :F So I kept on posting it daily, sometimes 2-3 per day because I always missed posting stuffs over the weekend. 2 weeks later, it became like a dedication - a thing that I need to do at least for just a few minutes daily. 

I'm so proud of the outcome.
I posted around 25 shots in Dribbble for the month of October :

Work Related : Old Navy Poster

Have you seen it ?

I subscribed to Adobe CC for a year, so I got to use Adobe Portfolio. Tried it and kinda like the whole clean curated look of my online portfolio. All images are not auto-compressed like in Behance *even though they are in the same engine - images posted in my portfolios are images uploaded in my Behance, but they are all clean and crisp :F Compared to images I posted in Blogger, Pinterest, Dribbble and Behance - at least these uploaded images aren't auto-compressed by the engine. I'm super grateful. So you can see all my shared works there, none tiny-bit-blurry caused by auto-compression. *you have no idea how this issue disturbed me for a long while back :F

*

Note : All works now belong to Old Navy.

My last client before I started working full-time again was Old Navy. The Old Navy. I worked on this project for 2 months, since right after Eid until August 2016. 

This was considered as my first 'big' international client eveeeeer and I was super excited and nervous and everything in between. I took so much time to finish up the project even though I was working as a freelancer for full-time. I want to indirectly thank my art director for the project, Mr Jonathan for helping me and being super patient with the whole slowpoke process T^T

I even took 2-3 weeks for for the research, moodboard and first rough sketches. I don't know how other illustrators work, but I know I did take a long time than the intended timeframe they gave me. But I loved it, I love the whole process T^T It was like I finally been paid for my time and effort to make something that I really-really like in my own style and colours T^T 

*

Here are some of other cities' poster made by other illustrators from all over the world. The Malaysia poster was done by Big Mouth - I'm his super faaaaaan, I contacted him to ask for the formal forms that I need to filled in :D 

*

My poster was definitely wayyy different than all other posters because I chose to do in hard-line stroke for all the vectors when almost all other illustrators didn't use any strokes at all. But I took the chance. Mine looked different, but definitely my strokes - for anyone who've come to recognize it lah, I looked at it and it looked like my work. And I'm proud of it *at least while I'm writing this, I feel proud of it, who know 2 years from now I want to delete the work because it looked super ugly by that time kan.

Here are my first draft sketches :

My strongest feeling is the 4th sketch, and thank God he agreed with me too. So I came out with the version 2 of the 4th sketch. The detailing, the planning on what to draw, the size of the paper that need to resemble the poster size - so using a squared paper in my Muji planner was very-very useful. I came out with this :

*

To digitize it took few more weeks, and to finalize it took more and more weeks :F I had some problems with the colour mixture and the text wording of "Indonesia" and "Old Navy". They gave me a branding guide, so I had to follow their colour guide.  See how many revised files I have in my hard-drive :D 

*

We finally decided on huge blocky word for "Indonesia" and main colour : red to represent their national colour. The wording was customized a bit to make it looked like it came from the same person. Ditto the word "Old Navy" in a bubble surrounded by one of their national flower :

*

So that's the story of my first 2016 international client :D 

You can view the finalized version HERE. 

Rejected version :

*

Note : Best kaaaaan. Do you want to be an illustrator now? :D

Work Related : Japanese Foods & Drinks Sticker Packs

Here are some of my stickers from my previous trip to Tokiyo that I printed out for my Public Garden, Singapore event a few weeks ago. I've been keeping these for almost a year now :F I used these stickers in my personal travelogue for the trip. Sooo nice that I can draw and make my own stickers for my own syok-sendiri travel journal kan :D

These are my favorite items while we were in Tokiyo - like our first day early morning breakfast when we first learned how to use the vending machine at the airport (I remember the blue morning, cold breezy rain and both of us sitting at the deck waiting for morning light) , or our random juices like Coconut water that doesn't taste like coconut at all - more like a sweetened water that we bought at our first park when we were lost in the city while searching for the nearest Daiso we saw in the map, or our daily breakfast drinks throughout the trip, or lots and lots of Onigiris. 

*

*

All ready and packed for next events in November (I signed up for Junk-ed Makers' Market and Etsy Made Local). Also selling these sticker packs  in my Etsy.

*

Work Related : All things printed

I'm planning on joining my 23rd event, celebrating the 6th year in this small independent business. It isn't that far off from where I started, but I definitely learned a thing or two about doing things that I like for fun and making a small income out of it :)

244 orders / 348 sales from Etsy and 22 booths all around later, here I am ❤

I was doing a stock checking of what's left in my sticker library. I need to reprint some of the sold-out stickers and cut more finished stickers from my stock. 

*

Postcards are selling super slow on Etsy and I'm too latzy to do a proper photo shooting for some of the art prints, so i'm still keeping them all :

*

I'm still cutting up stickers every now and then, especially when I have the latest series of Grey's Anatomy to watch. Or I can do with Breaking Bad - I'm currently watching the season 2. I still have several hundreds of this sleepyhead stickers that are still raw and need a good cutting :

*

Here I'm using the left over envelopes from the postcards that I ordered. I don't think I'm going to be using the envelope so I'm using it for other things like a nice small packaging for our ESKP car sticker. So 1 envelope can be divided into 2 little packaging and we printed the small sticker to put it on the packaging as well. It looks decent enough for a hand-made packaging, so I'm going to stick with it for now :

*

I printed the camera sets in mini edition. 

I kinda like them all, so chibi <3 p="">

By this time I finished all my uncut stickers stocks. I no longer have any stuffs to cut. I finished 2 seasons of Breaking Bad and I need more new stuffs to make before the events :

*

Work Related : First 30 days in Reckless Life 2.0 as a Freelancer

I started as a doodler several years ago in 2010.

I worked myself up to be a self-learned graphic designer and a freelance illustrator since I was still in the university - majoring in IT. I love the fact that I learned so many things along the way, and I explored paths in the creative world as much as I could possibly take while working permanently with companies. 

So it's time for an experimental phase again.

Here I'm sharing with you, what it's like to be a noob full-time freelance illustrator. What the days, nights and sometimes weekends look like since I left the 'office' work. I used to get around RM 5k per month as a senior designer + freelancer before this. I left that stable life for a flexible working environment just so I can find meaning to my working life again.

This is a long post that I've been updating everyday for the month of March ;

* 

First week :

Tuesday (1/3) :

• Illustration - Brownies Packaging + Mockup. The client wants something cheeky and cute in my stroke. So I did something like my personal project - Macaron, and added more items like : brownies, vanilla, almonds, butter, and those little things.
• Colouring - Brownies Packaging x 4 options 
• Behance - Bfab Branding posted on Behance

*

Wednesday (2/3) :

• Photo Editing - Wedding Izah. She got married early this year but Af has been procrastinating, so I took the job for the full editing + touch-ups.
• Test Printing - Brownies Packaging (Failed - refer Pantone colour code for printing). It didn't came out as planned. I realized that everything on Mac looks way nicer than on desktop pc/printed, so the printing result usually goes different that what I see on my screen. I need to re-do the colour and do several more test-print :

*

Thursday (3/3) :

• Packing - Etsy stuffs + Tokyo Guide - not much of buyers this month as before. And I also posted the Tokyo Guide book to the next borrower :)
• Packing - ESKP car stickers. I custom made the envelope from our hundreds left-over wedding card envelopes. 
• Illustration - 2 templates (15 x Washi Tapes and 15 x Paper Crafts projects ). :

*

Friday (4/3) :

• Photo Editing - Wedding Izah
• Colouring - 2 templates
• Illustration - Didikan Sakura - redo old illustration :

*

Second week :

Monday (7/3) :

• FA Printing - Stickers for Aja's birthday
• Mockup - 3 templates illustrations fro Didikan Sakura
• Illustration - 1 template (Reading projects - 15 items) :

*

Illustrations added into my Dribbble :

*

Tuesday (8/3) :

• Cutting - Stickers for Aja + ESKP mini :

• Illustration - Japan travelogue Map (4 items)

*

Wednesday (9/3) :

• Illustration - Japan travelogue Map (5 items) - PTSOne
• Potential client : Cakenis

*

Thursday (10/3) :

• Illustration - Japan travelogue Map (5 items) + Detailing - PTSOne
• Colouring - Japan Travelogue Map started - PTSOne
• Freepik - First exam (due 15th March)

*

Friday (11/3) :

• A meeting with new potential client : CelebrateTV
• A meeting with the old lawyer
• Colouring - Japan Travelogue Map - PTSOne

*

Saturday (12/3) :

• Finalize - Japan Travelogue Map - first draft - PTSOne :

*

Sunday (13/3) :

• Video Shoot - assist Af at the wedding :D But I only recorded the voice while they were giving out their speeches. Ha.
• Illustration : Cakenis's first draft for illustrated tutorial. She sent me this ! But I don't really wear shawls, so I haven't wear it out yet. It is supposed to be the easiest shawl to wear. Here it it :

• Example of this week's schedule & to-do list :

*

Third week :

Monday (14/3) :

• Illustration - 4 designs for Freepik's first test (spring, love, anniversary, shop). I managed to complete all first drafts in 1 day, submitted at 3 am the next morning, while having the dateline that 7 am :F 

*

Tuesday (15/3) :

• Compiling : Travelogue Japan, sent the first draft to PTSOne
• Compiling : Cakenis's Tutorial - Illustration
• Freepik - I'm finally in !! :D

*

Wednesday (16/3) :

• CelebrateTV : Wushaf's Illustration (1/18)

*

Thursday (17/3) :

• CelebrateTV : Wushaf's Illustration (4/18) - submitted drafts and timeline visual. Comment from them : make the stroke thicker and cuter (?)
• This is the initial ideation and solid stroke illustration that I sent to them :

*

Friday (18/3) :

• CelebrateTV : Wushaf's Montage draft (x3 options) - Very odd random options that I did. I personally like the third one, but after a while it feels very amateur, even though they did specifically requested something cheeky and cute :

• Update : They really like the second one. They asked me to something like that and meet them up for a meeting on Sunday, at Chawan.

*

Weekends (19+20/3)

• Sketch for the latest Freepik tasks
• Help Kadok (KL > Semenyih > Shah Alam > Home)
• Freepik - Task 1 can be downloaded for public in Freepik ! :

• Meeting with CelebrateTV team, brainstorm from the sketches and drafts at Chawan, Bangsar. They want more test illustrations :

*

Fourth Week :

Monday (21/3) :

• CelebrateTV : They opted for the sketchy illustrations. So I had to re-do the whole things and additional character as well. Another draft & tester sent :

*

Tuesday (22/3) :

• Freepik Task 2 - in progress (5/10)- I was so packed with the #wushaf project last week, I didn't have time to do this task. Today I tried cramming these illustrations task. I promised not to take too much time to start on tasks after this T^T

*

Wednesday (23/3) :

• Freepik Task 2 - in progress (10/10) + amendments. I managed to submit that night, but only 6 of my assigned task were approved before my Art Director went on a 1 week holiday =.= The other 4 remained on-hold until he comes back.  I worked from 10 am - 1 am for 2 days straight, my shoulders are in uncomfortable strain.
• One of my favorite illustration came from task 2. I used this style before finalizing to much more modern clean 1-stroke style. This looks like Af :

*

Thursday (24/3) :

• Freepik Task 2 - All of those 6 illustrations were submitted and compiled. My assigned art director is currently on leave until the 30th.
• CelebrateTV - Wushaf updated content. Discussion with the assistant director through Whatsapp, I was too busy with other things and can't afford to meet up.
• Freepik Task 3 - Assigned (0/10).
• Update PTSOne : Travelogue Japan, put on hold. They need to wait for the writer to keep up. April project : Travelogue Turkey. 

*

Friday (25/3) :

• CelebrateTv - Illustrations for the first few scenes. 
• Cakenis - I think I'm failing this. I submitted the updates illustration to Keknis. But I don't think I'm reaching her expectation. She responded with more improvements to be made on the illustration, especially about the style. 

*

Sunday (27/3) :

• Product photography : Shooting at BeadsNBorders - Assisted AF. We took the whole day for around 130 little items. Our back, and thigh were both in pain by the time we got back. It was such a tough little thing, we definitely weren't expecting that. 

*

Fifth Week

Monday (28/3) :

• Aisy Abaya - Photo editing to add size measurement in IG picture.
• BeadsnBorder - Minimal editing for scarfs lighting. Needed to share the raw files to the client by tonight
• CelebrateTv - Wushaf illustrations to be submitted by the end of the day. I submitted half of the scenes in the afternoon and another half at night. I worked from 7am until 10pm, almost straight the whole day. It was such an exhausting day. My back was still in pain because of the photo shooting the day before. This is what they sent me from the production team afterwards :D Exciting ! :

*

Tuesday (29/3) :

• CelebrateTv - Tiny amendments for the submitted illustrations and another extra additions.
• Zanubah - Amend the logo to fit the new label structure.
• Freepik 02 - (1/10)

*

Wednesday (30/3) :

• Freepik 02 (6/10) - I sat in front of the iMac for the whole day, from 5 am - until 7 pm. I actually woke up around 3.30am, when Af was about to go to sleep after he did his freelance works *because now we shared the same iMac - until I send my MBP to the doctor =.= 
• CelebrateTv - There were some new illustrations they needed me to do while shooting. New addition, I had to cancel my working out session and finished it up in an hour. 
• Today was the shooting day. I couldn't join because I was too busy finishing up my Freepik task. So they sent me this :F Too bad I can't watch the whole process :

*

Thursday (31/3) :

• Freepik 02 (10/10) - All freepik tasks finally ready and submitted to be reviewed by my Art Director. Wuhuu ! I am so relieved ! :D

*

Summary :

• I did several types of projects in this month. Some of my clients/bosses were : Brownies Packaging, PTSOne, Didikan Sakura, Cakenis, CelebrateTV, Aisy Abaya, my Mom and Freepik. 
• Scope of works : Mostly illustration, some minor designing, photo editing/retouching, and product photography. 
• The thing I hate the most is meeting with clients, because I am forever awkward. The second thing are preparing for invoice and ask for payment.