The first month of 2o17 is almost in the books, but it’s not too late to post about xmas, right? I hope not, because I have several posts coming up somewhat related to that. I’ve been trying to finish up the book cover for the fourth Thea: The Little Witch series. I’m currently awaiting approval. I still have a handful of illustrations, plus a book cover for another author, awaiting me, but, I don’t want to fall too far behind on postings. I haven’t had the time to work on IPMDT while working on the cover, but I hope to get back to it before I run out of strips to post (I was a solid 20 or so ahead of the game at one point. Not so much anymore).
Anywhat, on to today’s topic: xmas! (Yes, I have my reasons for referring to it as xmas, no I’m not going to go into them). Every year, when we send out cards to friends and family, I’ve been drawing little illustrations on a handful of the envelopes, usually Plunger Monkey related. I’ve often felt bad that I was leaving so many people out of the fun, but it’s just not feasible for me to draw on 40+ envelopes in a timely enough fashion for the cards to be mailed. Last year I came up with the notion of making a PMD ornament, but it was too late to do anything about it. This year, I was prepared, though.
This was actually quite a lot of work, but worth it.
I drew something similar to this image on one of the envelopes last year, which is where the ornament idea came from. I had a lot of fun drawing this, refining my workflow/process. I am bummed, though. Somehow or other, either I had some technical difficulties or I did something dumb when I was saving/backing up the file, because I no longer have the file with all the layers, just the flat sheet copy with four PMD heads on it. I guess that’s not a huge deal, other than I tend to obsess over permanently being able to make changes (not that I ever would on most things).
Anytacos, several friends shared pictures of PMD adorning their trees, which made me quite happy (there’s a picture of one of my best friend’s daughters holding the ornament and showing it off, but she’s a wee one, so I’ll refrain from posting her face here).
Edit: I added this one late, this is how my parents currently have their’s on display, well after xmas.
At first, I planned to print these out at home. Then I realized I could only fit 4 on a sheet and I had darn near 40 to make. My printer is old and the ink ain’t cheap, so I uploaded the file to a print shop and picked them up when I was in the area. I then cut out each one by hand, laminated them (four to a sleeve), then cut them out again and punched holes in the tops. It was rather tedious, but worth it. They seemed to be well received. I’m not sure what I’m going to do for 2017, yet, but I have time to dream something up. I think it would a fun annual thing (note the 2016 in the purple ornament in PMD’s ear), though people might get sick of it. How many PMD ornaments does one need, anyway?
All of them. The answer is all of them.
You need to acquire a 3D printer and “print out” that puppy in full, three-dimensional living color with sound and light for next year. Maybe you should contact Hallmark about a designer series, limited editon run of PMD ornaments that the world can own!