Okay people, there are just some things I assume most people know are generally "right" and generally "wrong." Killing people, not okay, cheating, not okay, STEALING, hello?! NOT OKAY! I'm kinda ticked, lol because I recently discovered some jack@$$ stealing my design work that I did for my design studio website, 21 Ruby Lane. TOTALLY NOT COOL - JACK@$$! I mean common, there's a just a certain amount of trust all of us put out there when it comes to the web. And some people just think it's one big free for all. You wanna take a piece of art, use it on your desktop, fine - but don't be stealin' sh!t and saying it's yours. That's just ridiculous. How do you not feel ashamed for taking someone else's hardwork and blatantly labeling it as something you did. I just don't understand. So this is what I stumbled across:

And compare it to the design that I came up with:

I mean, look at that, they stole our code, MY DESIGN, MY PORTFOLIO, lol, everything! And how did we find this, Valerie was googling for our name to see what would come up, and because they had stolen our code, that website shows up. It's just ridiculous. The only thing that can really be done is just us calling it out. Even if it doesn't immediately affect us - I mean, I have no idea where these people are, but looks like their not aiming for an English-speaking market - I want to point out how guilty and shameful they should feel for STEALING someone else's work and calling it their own. What a bunch of lame, lazy hacks - and not only are they so obviously untalented and uncreative that they had to go so far as to steal my sh!t - they couldn't even do it right. I mean that is one hack-job of a site.

So what now? Well, obviously I was just far too trusting, every one of my large images is going to have some kind of ugly watermark sprawling across it saying "© 2009 Rhiannon Cunag. All Rights Reserved." Because obviously you can't just trust people to look but NOT STEAL! And really, what's most disappointing is that almost everyday, something I see, read, or hear about just causes me to lose a little faith in humanity. Whatever happen to good, decent, and honest hardworking people? :shakes head: very, very disappointing...

So it's that time of year! Tax time always rolls around at the same time I have to submit my new ad to the Directory of Illustration - which always gets me thinking about other ways to advertise. This year i decided to draw a new teen piece which I'll put in my DI26 ad and I will also use on some postcard mailers. I came up with this drawing of just a group of teens hanging in front of a case of gelato, lol. What can I say, I love food! I wanted to show off my style of drawing teens - and I wanted it to be more teen, then pre-teen (which is what I am assigned a lot). I also wanted to show off my fashion sense - I feel like a lot of the times, I other teen illustrators don't really pay attention to the fashion scene, and fashion is something that really defines teens, no matter what group they hang out with.

So here's my new piece, which I creatively call Gelato Gang!

I'm very happy about how it turned out! I think it really capturs my style and creative vision. Yay!

About a couple months or so ago, I was contacted by Hilland Knowlton to illustrate a poster for the President's Volunteer Service Award. I was pretty excited when they contacted me because it was slightly different from what I had been use to so the project posed a new challenge for me. Namely having a somewhat complicated scene where several different actions and activities were taking place on different planes. They already had a very specific look and idea in mind. So I went through a round of sketches, all of which had to be approved by the clients which I guess is a committee of people that are a part of the Presidential Service Awards organization. I worked pretty hard to get the sketches and revisions done quickly. Then they kinda dropped off, lol. I'm not entirely unfamiliar with this, I think when it comes to committees sometimes approval is delayed etc.

Then a couple months after, my last round of sketches was approved, lol! So I got to take it to final and I really liked the outcome. I think there are some things I'd do differently with the layout and text, but they were very specific about their idea, what they visually required - such as the eagle flying the banner with those exact words, and the sign post and the box, the teen and young boy in the very front with their backs to the audience and the open book ... in fact they were very specific about every little detail, lol. It was a different process for me.

I really liked the outcome and hope that I get the opportunity to work on more projects like this one. It was challenging in that the client had a very specific vision, and I had to be able to let go what I might typically do and be more open to what the client was looking for. And even though at first I was reluctant, I learned to let go a little, and the result was pretty good! Uh, not that I want every client to boss me around like that :winkwink:! I should remember to ask for a poster - as they are 20"x30" posters that I guess will be hung up at schools. Yay!

For the past couple months or so, probably a little longer than that, I've been working on a really fun project that is part of an educational tool for kids. I wasn't able to talk about it yet because their website hadn't launched, but they launched just this past weekend and so I am excited to be able to showoff some of the work I've done! The works is illustrative work for a San Francisco based company called Little Passports. It was founded by two moms and the purpose is to help educate young children about other culture's. You can visit the site here -> Little Passports

I did the some concept work for their main characters, Sam and Sofia, who will be guides for the children as they learn about other cultures. They're about 10 years old, but of course have to look cool and appeal to that agre group so essentially should look a little more "mature" than your average 10 year old. They travel around on a "magical" scooter, which has a "magical" little GPS type device. I continue on as the illustrator for Little Passports, as Sam and Sofia need to be illustrated in different poses and costumes according to their global adventures! I love this project and really think that it is a great product and am really proud of how the illustrations have turned out. In some ways, I really feel that the illustrations help to make it an attractive learning tool and really personable as well as fun and "cool" for kids, so I am glad to play such a big role.

Introducing Sam and Sofia!

Here's Sam and Sofia on their Scooter!

Like I was saying, I get to draw Sam and Sofia in different poses and in different "costumes" that reference the cultures they are visiting, here is one I did for their trip to Japan!

This one was a lot of fun, particularly because of how fond I am for the Japanese culture, but also because their outfits were really fun to draw. I had initially sketched sam with a sheathed katana, but they decided that it may seem "violent," so it was omitted. I liked it better with the katana ;P

So I found out the day before my birthday that there were going to be doggie auditions held for the next Disney dog movie! What that movie is, I am not sure. But the auditions were going to be held on my birthday, which was Friday the 13th of March, and I thought - why not? It was actually a lot of fun, there were lots of other doggies there and the auditions were also promoting Beverly Hills Chihuahua and Bolt, so there were lots of freebies. The stars of BHC were there as well. You could take pictures with them, but only humans, not doggie friends.

Anyway, the auditions were separated into two runways, one in the style of BHC where you got your doggie all "blinged" out, and the other runway was in the style of Bolt. You could walk both runways, but we just walked Bolt. I dressed Duke up in his preppy, striped polo shirt. Really, his Daddy prolly should have walked him because he is better at getting Duke to concentrate on doing tricks. But I'd say he had a really good walk down the runway, he wasn't scared at all, and he wasn't barking or going crazy!

Here's Duke doing his "sit" trick - lol, so sad, he has so many other tricks to show, and what did I have him do, sit. I was going to have him dance around and bark and stuff, but I felt kinda pressed for time.

And here he is just walking down the runway, he's such a cutie!

Yay! Productive day. Just finished this illustration for Girl's Life. The article is about the signs that your boy is cheating! Lol, okay, it's not a funny subject, but I love the cute illos I get to come up with. I really liked how this turned out. It's for their July issue, and at first I had a locker background, but was told to change it to something summery (such as a pool or ice cream parlor). I went with a pool! Last year I had done a split illo with a beach and ice cream parlor, it turned out so cute, still one of my fave illos. I love summer!

I've got some other fun projects I'll be working on, so I'll have more stuff to upload to the blog soon! I also need to work on my new Directory of Illustration ad - always makes me nervous!