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June 30, 2018

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Alberta Branded - At the Legislature Assembly

Canadian themed items for galleries and stores

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November 29, 2017

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Posted in paper art work, photography, publications, set design

My photographs, sets and designs- Pin wheel set.

I recently wrote an article on Bored Panda about the creation of two of my photoshoots, reusing some of the same elements and showing some of the process photos from the shoot. To check out the full article click here. I apologize for the SEO written title in advance ;)

Since some of you are already familiar with my work I will just be adding the photos and some brief descriptions!

The model (Elena Balueva) is wearing fantasy armour made entirely out of leather. It has been hand carved, dyed, sealed, and buffed to a shine using traditional techniques. The Swarovski beads have all been hand sewn onto the leather. The pinwheels in the background complement the designs on the mask and corset. The makeup artist (Ashley Skrocki) created makeup that matched the background.

I designed the backdrop to appear like a large head piece when Elena stood in front of it.

The same pinwheels were used in this photo shoot with hair stylist/ model Karly Vedan. The makeup artist (Ashley Skrocki) incorporated various design elements from the pieces into her work.

This string of paper flowers were all individually hand shaped, arrange, and glue together with a "rivet" on top.

Tiny flowers were added to the makeup and a paper flower shawl was made for this "scene."

A different view of the paper shawl with some pins I made to match.

On to some behind the scenes photos, taken with my cell phone, of part of the creation of the pieces the models wore.

The pinwheels before putting them together for the background.

Shaping and gluing together the paper flowers

The final paper pieces (the crown I ended up using for a different shoot)

The larger pinwheel with the hand shaped flowers in the centre.

The mask before it was dyed, painted and had all the beads, stones and feathers added.

October 15, 2017

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Posted in Design services

Designing for businesses to sell as their own products.

We are now publishing our policies on doing custom work for new lines and new designs for businesses that intend to sell our work as their own designs or products, or where we are manufacturing their items.

As some of you may know, being an artist is more of a labour of love than something a person sets out to make money from. We are a very small business consisting of just two people who do everything you see on this website, including marketing, setting up 50 plus shows a year, social media, several websites, and making and photographing everything.

In order to stop filling current orders, doing shows, or updating our online stores, we require a partially refundable down payment to begin the process of creating any samples or prototypes, purchasing new leathers, metals, wood, and other materials, and starting the design or production of samples intended for businesses to sell as a new product. Because our time is very limited, no refunds will be given, and payment in full is required before we begin any project. We are available by phone for a one hour consultation, after which our shop rate of $50 an hour applies. This fee can be put toward your order.

Our designs can be transferred from one item to any item we currently make, or to items made from the materials we use, and therefore a fee starting at $500 to $1500 Canadian, depending on the type of product you want prototyped or designed, is required as a down payment, which is in turn partially applied toward your wholesale order, depending on quantity, price, and type of item.

One bonus of choosing us to make and design your custom line of items is that the same design can be applied to multiple pieces — giving you a full line of items to sell with only one setup fee and deposit.

Because our time is very limited, no refunds will be given, and payment in full is required before we begin any project. We are available by phone for a one hour consultation, after which our shop rate of $50 an hour applies.

This is purely for orders where a completely new item is wanted with your branding. There is no fee associated with any of our current items or modifications of our items for wholesale if our labels and branding are included on the items.

If you are looking for promotional or branded items, or items similar to what we have, this rule does not apply, as the patterns are already completed. Only a small setup fee will be required. Design services are available for logos if needed.

Exclusivity will only be granted for your intellectual property, including logos or branding, and if we are commissioned to make a unique product exclusively, ownership rights will be detailed by contract.

Time lines. All reasonable time lines will be set up and confirmed in writing at the beginning of the project.

Thank you for your interest. We are always excited and happy to work on all serious inquiries.

June 13, 2017

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Posted in dance, events, masks, news, Nextfest, paper, photography, shows, workshop

Our NextFest Workshop

We were invited to Nextfest to do a workshop based on our mask designs. There was not a budget to work with leather, so it became an opportunity to use one of my other favourite materials, paper, to come up with something new. Part of the night, fittingly called Masks for Monster, also featured a performance that included our masks.

Tanner had a market, so I had Ashley, whom many of you have met at the booth or at another event, help me set up the workshop at the Paint Spot in Edmonton. For this workshop, I cut out well over a thousand pieces of paper, which was over an hour and a half of laser time. Well over the budget just in laser costs, but I really wanted everyone to make a mask they would be happy with. I also figured I could use any leftover components for upcoming photoshoots. Much of the supplies we used for the decorations came from my personal stock of crafting supplies, and it was nice to see it being put to creative use.

This is one of the original mask designs I did for the workshop and I also chose this mask for the promotional photoshoot I did for the event. The feathers are the same feathers featured on my "Seraphim's Belt."

Display table with masks and photos

We set up a small display table with some of the items we created in leather and metal, as well as, some pictures from the shoots we do with our wearable items. The large wooden mask in the back was created by Borys Tarasenko.

Our pre cut out masks and the stencils I created for the workshop.

Some of the supplies I separated out into containers. I noticed the paper I used to cut out the attachments created interesting stencils so I brought a few along.

Table and chairs... We ran out of workspace very quickly and apologize to those that had to stand, sit on the floor and were unable to stay.

Some of the display paper masks I created for the event.

Event photo of part of the class room.

Some of the awesome masks created by the workshop attendees!

Boris Tarasenko and his giant wooden mask behind him.

One of my favourite painted masks from the night.

I love the colours and complexity of this one!

This one ended up having a historic feel.

Some close ups of paper masks I created for the event

After the workshop, we headed over to the Roxy Theatre, where we set up a smaller version of our mask working station for anyone who could not attend the workshop. The masked dance was scheduled for 11, and even though I am not an event photographer, I still wanted to capture a few shots of the choreographed dance.

I have an older full frame camera, so I used the highest ISO available, a shutter speed of 1/200 s, and a very low aperture since there was minimal ambient and performance lighting. I had only brought one lens with me, my 50 mm f 1.4 Sigma Art lens. There was some noise, which I cleaned up in Camera Raw and Photoshop, and I removed distractions that surrounded the dancers.

Cheorgraphed by Aimee Rushton

Male Dancer: Jason Romero

Female Dancer: Anastasia Maywood

Close up of the masks used for the dance

Some of the dance photos with one creative edit of Jason Romero

May 01, 2017

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Gothic Wedding Shoot with Breanne Marie and Donna Lewis!

Last year at Western Canada Fashion Week, we had a model walk for us in our show with Lewis Mayhem. I had Breanne Marie of Breanne Marie Photography helping me backstage. Several weeks before that, we had talked about doing a gothic wedding dream shoot. Right after the fashion show, I began planning and creating a range of wedding accessories to make something truly unique. We had Donna Lynn of Donna Lynn Photography join us for the day, and the shoot was published in one magazine and one wedding blog based out of the U.K. called Plans and Presents.

The article can be found here from "Plans and Presents."

Wedding cake topper I designed and made for this shoot. They are available by custom order. They feature two ravens and heart shaped leaves on branches.

I also made the paper dollie underneath the cake :)

Bouquet I made out of flowers from my flower hoard :D The cathedral style waist belt on the bride is also available by custom order.

Matching belt, choker and cuff. Accessorized with our earrings and necklace.

Guest book (our golden skull) and a nice view of our paper dollie.

Our gold skull book which can be view here.

Our top hat, neck piece and cane I made for the shoot :D

One of the barrettes I made for this shoot is also visible.

I found the cane head at a local hardware store, The actual cane part I sanded down a thick dowel and then hand stitched on a piece of studded black leather.

Models were Michael Beniot and Lynnsy Michelle

Breanne is a wedding and lifestyle photographer based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and you can find her website here.

You may recognize Breanne's other work from a couple of blogs I've posted before- here and here.

March 06, 2017

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Our gallery show reception on March 4th at the Alberta Craft Council

Thank you to everyone who came out to our gallery reception. I am sorry we did not get a chance to talk to everyone, but it was greatly appreciated. I hope you all enjoyed yourselves and had an opportunity to chat with some of the amazing people who attended.

A very special thank you to everyone who had their photographic works of art on display. We answered so many questions and shared the amazing stories behind many of the photos. The photographers on display were Amanda Diaz Photography, Michael Legge, Donna Lynn Photography, and Breanne Marie Photography. I also had several photos on display as well. The photographers showed how they each saw the pieces so differently from how we see them.

We had event and portrait photographer Rick Halbert in attendance, who took the fantastic photographs below. The link to his Facebook group can be found here. In addition to the event photographer, we had model Listah Mutsaro in one of our creations from 2016. Despite the blizzard in the morning and the ice cold day, we had a good turnout and even managed to take a few photos outside the Craft Council of Listah, which I will add to my page shortly.

Below are some photos by Rick Halbert, please feel free to share them with a Facebook tag to his page on social media. :)

For those that want to see the exhibit we will be on display until until the beginning of April, with our featured spot light running the same time!! We did a nature meets mythology themed group of items including this Greenman mask journal with matching Greenman hair barrettes and a bur oak leaf hair clip. There are also tons of other new things we made just for this spotlight!

greenman, green man mask, leather journal, green man hair clips, leaf hair clips

April 20, 2016

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Spring 2016 wearable art showcase at WCFW.

I am going to slowly update this as there are lots of great photos to go through.

Here is a backstage photo of everyone who appeared in the show, including Tanner as the demon knight and me. This show was by far the toughest to prepare for and even surpassed the first time we did a 20 foot booth at the Calgary Comic Expo.

We want to thank everyone who helped pull this together, starting with Ashley Skrocki Makeup Artistry for makeup, scheduling, and so many other things, and Studio E Photography for the fog machine, inspiration, and being a personal cheerleader. Our fantastic backstage dressers and organizers, Breanne Marie and Emily, and our beautiful models from left to right, Carra Dawn, Pauline Yee, Listah Mutsaro, Randy Cusack, Samantha Njálsdóttir, Poppy Del, Samantha Adele, and Jessica Wright.

We would also like to thank our hairdressers from Eveline Charles, Stephanie Herwynen and Karly Shelain Vedan, all the amazing photographers for capturing our work, all our customers who came to the event and supported us, all the volunteers of the show, and of course Sandra Fernandes of Western Canada Fashion Week for putting on an event that allows us to display our unusual pieces.

I will include the full story line and character descriptions at a later date :) For now here is a little bit about the show and some of our favourite pictures gathered together!

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Background:

When the lights can be seen dancing against the evening skyline, the time has come for the quest to begin. When the isle appears from the mists, the watery passageway is revealed. When the waters are silent and the day bleeds to dusk, her beckoning call can be heard.

All those courageous enough to take the voyage will face temptations and dangers, both beautiful and horrifying, as they seek the Queen of Life. It is said that anyone who unites with this mystical Queen is granted dominion over all living things. Many have travelled these silent waters, climbed the overgrown slopes of the isle, and wandered deep into the sprawling forest, but none have ever returned.

Those who travel without the purest intention will surely be lost to temptation and will never again see the welcoming shores of home. So long as the Queen remains sequestered within the aegis of the grand tree at the forest’s heart, pestilence, plague, and death shall encircle humanity. Only through the union of humanity and the pure life force will the darkness lift.

Randy