I added the labels by printing them backwards, making a laser photocopy, and transferring the ink to the drawing using xylene (a wonderfully toxic solvent/cleaner). The transfer came out far too light, so I used a 005 micron pen to trace the type by hand. It was the last detail I added to the finished drawings. The effect is perfect, and after a half hour my nerves had sufficiently recovered from the ordeal.

You Moustache May:

1. Have / Grow a glorious moustache
2. Post one image per day
3. Participate in frequent shenanigans

You Moustache May NOT:

1. Go more than one week without posting.
2. Detract from your moustache with other overly prominent facial hair.
3. Be mean spirited, vulgar, or socially inappropriate.
4. Photoshop your images. Let’s keep it classy.

In addition to following these rules, I made Moustache May a personal project this year. My brother helped me build a stand that suspends a pane of glass between myself and the camera, and I’ve been creating a drawing each day and photographing the combination of myself and the drawing. My progress through May 16 is below (click to enlarge). Follow the madness and see full size images here.

One of those was a Wacom “Bamboo” drawing tablet. This is the  amateur user version of Wacom’s Intuos line. It has fewer pressure sensitivity levels and doesn’t detect the tilt of your pen like the more expensive tablets, but it’s a great little tool to play with. Besides, I generally draw in pen & ink and color on the computer, and for that it’s perfect.

It installed without a hitch on my macbook pro. I did have a little trouble in photoshop after the initial install. There was a long delay between my mark on the tablet and the mark appearing on the image. Then it would cut out entirely after a couple marks, and I’d  have to switch to another application and then back to PS. I restarted my mac and haven’t had a problem since.

The image here was drawn entirely with the tablet, directly over a photo of my friend, Evan.

I found this in a shoebox this weekend. It’s a collage/drawing I kept from my sketchbook that semester.

House Party!

Naturally I searched for maps online, and there are plenty. But I was disappointed — the first map I saw had every secret, every level, every door… OK, I know that’s what a map is for, but I immediately realized it took the fun out of the game. The process is half the fun – more than half. Add my natural fascination with maps, diagrams and information design, and you get this. I realize it grades me as a Class A nerd, but I don’t care.

No one I’ve shown it to has been particularly interested (not good criteria for a blog post, right?), but then I ask, “Did you play Zelda much?” The answer is inevitably “no”.

I’m pretty sure as a kid I had a map some friend tore out of Nintendo Power. I didn’t know what I was missing.

I see Moustache May and (from the same creators/organizers) Whiskerino as a space for daily creative outlet, and this year I started making merit badges to go with my photos, as if MM were some kind of scout troop. You can see some of my favorites at left and my full MM profile with pics here.

I didn’t keep it up the whole month – just not enough time in the day. But it was a great exercise to be drawing daily. I wish Sketchcrawl weren’t 45 days away – I’d love to dive in already warmed up.