New Glasses

It's time for new glasses! Which... look almost exactly like my previous ones? 🤔

Actually, I change them every 5 years because of my driver's license. They examine my sight and if everything's OK, set a new expiration date. But it was time to get the new ones anyway, because these are in a pretty bad shape. There are surprisingly many scratches and I don't remember the last time I managed to damage my glasses so much. 😔

As I 'm not brave enough to wear contacts, I chose the model with magnetic clip on sunglasses for the first time ever. I used to order two sets of glasses - ordinary and sunglasses - but instead of spending my whole salary on them, I decided to try out these clip on glasses. So, only the time will tell if I was right (BTW, I still haven't got them, I have to wait for a week or two).

I need my glasses constantly, because I'm practically blind without them, but why do I need sunglasses so desperately? Well, I spend a good portion of time driving and they help me not only during summer months, but also when it's snowing and there's a white nothingness around me, or even when it's foggy. You'll rarely see me in my car without them, except during night, of course. 😁

Springtime

Here's my spring related illustration and my avatar for this season! 😁🌸🌤

Yuckly (Summer)

Let's continue with my avatar's redesign - here's my summer version of Yuckly! 

My questionable hairstyles

When it comes to my looks, I've definitely had my share of questionable choices. I've been cutting my own hair for many years now and sometimes I experimented with styles and even colours. Sometimes it depended on my curiosity, sometimes on trends. Or simply put - I wanted to try out some things while I still have my hair. 😁 So, while I was drawing my new avatar for "Art vs Artist" challenge, I came up with an interesting idea - I made two more versions of it, with different hairstyles and here is their story. 😉

The first drawing is for my current haircut. I know it's not that unusual, but it's dangerously close to becoming more "hipstery". 😂 When it was shorter, it was pretty complicated to get different stages of fade, but now I let the top part grow and cut only sides and back. I usually wear beard (although I shave it completely once or twice a year) and I try to keep it short or at least not too long.

The first drawing is for my current haircut. I know it's not that unusual, but it's dangerously close to becoming more "hipstery". 😂 When it was shorter, it was pretty complicated to get different stages of fade, but now I let the top part grow and cut only sides and back. I usually wear beard (although I shave it completely once or twice a year) and I try to keep it short or at least not too long.

And the third style logically followed the second. If the previous one was bold, this one was - bald! 😂 Bad pun, sorry... In fact, it was time to return to work after a vacation, so I had to get rid of blonde hair. I shaved it completely off and also trimmed my beard to some reasonable length.

So, what do you think about my style experiments? What kind of haircut do you prefer? Do you cut your own hair?

Yuckly (Spring)

As you can see, I keep redesigning some of my early creations. This time it's my Facebook and deviantART avatar Grdi, a monkfish/frogfish that also got an international name this time: Yuckly (yuck + ugly). I used most of its previous design, but made it look more cartoony and friendly: it's smiling, it doesn't show so many sharp teeth anymore and the eyes are a little bit closer together. Also, the pectoral fins and the tail look more like arms and legs. As this is my spring avatar, I used familiar details from previous versions: grass, daisies, sky, sun... This time Yuckly is holding a colour pencil to remind visitors or subscribers it's an artist's account and I plan to change its colour according to the season presented in the picture: green (spring), yellow (summer), brown (autumn/fall) and blue (winter).

Jedna od zadaća ilustratora je osmisliti prepoznatljiv avatar koji će ga predstavljati. Već godinama je to kod mene Grdi, lik grdobine koja na raznim crtežima upada u razne situacije. Odlučio sam ga malo redizajnirati i više angažirati u svojim ilustratorskim pothvatima, koristeći tehnike i savjete uspješnijih ilustratora. Dobio je i međunarodno ime Yuckly, što je zapravo složenica riječi "yuck", kao "fuj" i "ugly" kao "ružan" - u biti, skoro kao Grdi, a da opet ne bude neko ime koje se često koristi na internetu.

Iako se vani tako ne čini, došlo nam je proljeće, a znate da ja uvijek promijenim Grdijev avatar na početku nekog godišnjeg doba. Dakle, vrijeme je i da osvježeni lik Grdi/Yuckly dobije svoju šansu i ovom prilikom doživi svojevrsnu premijeru. Lik je očito baziran na starom avataru, ali nakon nekoliko pokušaja izabrao sam malo dopadljiviji, "prijateljskiji" dizajn, s manje vidljivim oštrim zubima, smiješkom i malo više približenim očima. Paleta boja će ostati ista kao ranije - zelena za proljeće, žuta za ljeto, smeđa za jesen i plava za zimu. Također je, osim prepoznatljivih elemenata koje inače koristim za godišnja doba, dobio i drvenu bojicu u spomenutoj boji za to doba, kako bi naglasio "umjetničku" stranu "brenda" GrdiArt.

Toliko za sada. Čitamo se uskoro!