Free form pop-up zine, part 1
So I was wondering: What if I made it more fun for myself?
I mean, making the Opossum and Magpie zine was fun in retrospect but I was also trying to stretch my abilities and gain new skills, which can be tough at times. I was also trying to hit a sort of children's book narrative style with the images, which is not necessarily my usual thing and required some effort.
But right now I feel like I have a handle on the workflow and I wanted to try making something looser, more sketchy, perhaps even weirder (I keep on going back to my "List of Contradictory Justifications for The Pursuit of Weirdness").
I started looking at some of the prototypes I made when working on Opossum and Magpie, and I found this repeated v-fold that made me want to try something similar but a bit more intricate:
So I pretty much free formed the shapes using the same basic dimensions but cutting more complicated swirls by hand:
I assembled it loosely and without glue so I could take it apart and scan it. Remember, I'm trying to go for a fun and loose attitude here:
I uploaded this scanned image directly into Cuttle and traced the designs by hand using the pen tool, nothing fancy. I wasn't trying to be too precise:
I added some tabs and score lines (in red), and sent it to the Cricut (digital cutter) so I could assemble my first prototype.
I liked how it came out so I made a reference image, and then added some freeform drawings on it using Procreate on the iPad. It felt like I was making the weird B-Side version of the first spread of Opossum and Magpie:
I don't know, maybe the evil cousin of this gentle tree:
It has some rough edges visually, but I think it certainly looks weird, so mission accomplished on that front:
I will be improvising a few more spreads in the coming months so I can assemble them into another zine. Hopefully things will stay interesting as I give myself permission to be looser and go into weird directions. Believe it or not that's a bit of a struggle for me. We'll see how it all turns out :)
Other projects and updates:
I still owe you the making and posting of Opossum and Magpie copies for sale. I don't know, other projects keep on popping up in my life (as you'll see below) but it's a priority so hopefully it's coming soon.
A few unrelated projects I finished recently and just wanted to share:
You can download and make a one page pop-up zine I made for my friend's yearly halloween project. Go to Gothtober.com and click on Day 17 to watch a short how-to video and download a printable PDF. The 3 pop-ups are made out of a single letter size page:
This hand-carved, wooden Godzilla I made for Giant Robot's annual Kaiju Show was surprisingly popular. I made a 1.5 minute making-of video if you are curious about the fabrication: youtube link, instagram, or tiktok (you choose your poison, lol). I was particularly happy with the texture I managed to achieve with simple carving gouges:
I had a brief moment of fame on TikTok a few months ago by making some geometric watercolors with heat erasable pens (Pilot Frixion), so I made another video in the same vein. It wasn't as popular but I still like it. Find it on youTube, Instagram or TikTok. Plus, it's a fun pattern:
I hope there was something that you enjoyed in this update, thank you as always for your generous support!
Federico