Steam Nouveau | Phantoms Siren

Wordless 221B Wednesday

Phantoms Siren — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:34:05 +0000

Couple of Newish Things

Phantoms Siren — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 06:58:15 +0000

First off, here’s some steampunk for you. I actually started this back in June 2010, it was one of the first things I tried to create when I upgraded from my beloved (but clunky) G4. Because I also upgraded from Photoshop CS2 to CS5 at the same time, I found myself totally overwhelmed. The program was too different and the screen too much better. Seriously going from a tiny cheap plasma screen to a wide screen beast makes any kind of graphics work look and feel totally different. Well, having abandoned this mostly uncoloured, I finally dragged it out again just before Christmas and got it finished.

I’ve never been terribly happy with the focus on pirates and other ne’er-do-wells in the steampunk subculture, I think it might be time to start representing the other side of the argument. Airship pirates are all glamourous and that, but in reality I think I’d probably have more fun on the side of justice and not having all your stuff nicked Plus I wanted an opportunity to portray a slightly more realistic female fighting outfit

Prints available at DeviantArt : Folksy : Etsy

One of the major changes with Photoshop CS5 was the paint-effect brushes. I haven’t had many opportunities to play with them, other than when I was first learning my way around the program. I’ve been feeling a bit restless with the Art Nouveau style recently, so when a friend asked for fan art of the modern BBC Sherlock adaptation it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

on DeviantArt

At 4am this morning I randomly decided to change my Facebook timeline cover. This is from a REALLY old piece, but it’s the only thing I have that suits the horizontal format. I’ll get around to making something specific eventually. If you’d like to use this as your cover just click on the image to download it

Hope you all have a good weekend

R’yleh Sweet R’yleh

Phantoms Siren — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:07:53 +0000

I’ve not being doing all that well with the resolutions have I? In my defence I lost well over a week to a very nasty round of flu. But I’m back now, and I would like to take a moment to talk to you about dead Cthulhu, who lies dreaming in his great house at sunken R’yleh, awaiting the moment when the stars will be right, that he may return and consume the world utterly.

Well, the incredibly talented Picky Miss (whose awesome work I’ve previously mentioned here) has just completed the most amazing piece of cross stitch for me. Check this out -

Look at the detail! The Elder Sign, the squid, the ‘Color Out of Space’ themed flowers around the edge! Isn’t it just fantastic?! Truly a must have for any devoted cultist, acolyte or H.P. Lovecraft fan.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, go to your local book store, or you’re preferred internet book market, and buy this – The Necronomicon. Alternatively, WikiSource has a bunch of his stories for free, here.

New OctoSquidy Fabrics At Spoonflower

Phantoms Siren — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 21:28:00 +0000

Yup. I’m still obsessed with Spoonflower. Oh how I love that site! This week’s contest was to make 4 coordinating fabrics to be printed together so they fit onto a yard of fabric. I’ve been meaning to make some coordinating fabrics for Tale of Three Squids for a while now so I though this would be a good time to do so. The requirement was for a stripe and a dot fabric, so I paired those with the Squid-de-Lis and a smaller version of the ToTS designs. The fabrics will also be available separately. Click on the image to see a larger (and clear) version of the image.

Wordless Wedding Wednesday

Phantoms Siren — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 13:02:18 +0000

Happy New Year! Resolutions?

Phantoms Siren — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 13:20:28 +0000

Welcome to 2012! I’m a little bit late, but only by a day, which is a vast improvement on last year, when I missed it by three weeks!

I hope you’ve all had a lovely holiday season and a great new year. And that you’ve recovered from the hangover by now, if not, well done sir but cut back on the boozahol next year!

Inspired by the lovely Margrethe over at One Life Documented, I’ve decided to make some resolutions. I’m terrible at resolutions (didn’t even make any last year) but hopefully putting them in a public place might shame me into sticking with it.

I’m going to try to post new art here at least once a week, and I’m hoping to make at least 3 posts over at my personal blog Alternative Hausfrau. My personal blog is mostly cookery at the moment but I’m hoping to restart my book blog and add projects/tutorials over there as well. There’s a few things I’ve taken photos for and never uploaded.

I’m going to try to keep up with the Wordless Wednesday on both blogs as well, but I’ve also signed up to ShutterCal which is a calendar-based daily photography project, so I’m going to try to post there every day. If you’d like to follow my calendar you can find it HERE.

Another resolution is also to finish at least one old abandoned project every week. That might be art, or a half-knit sock, or the unbuilt garden furniture, but whatever it is I’ll be sharing my progress on my personal blog too, and I’d love it if you guys would share yours too.

Last year I took part in Julia Crossland’s Being Creative project, though I did rather badly at keeping a record of what I was doing. If you’re looking for inspiration or creative prompts, that’s a good place to start.

My last resolution is to spend more time on languages. I have many lovely international friends who speak better English than I do as well as their own language. To quote Korben Dallas – “Whoa, lady, I only speak two languages, English and bad English.” To try to make up for the shameful ignorance on my part I’m going to try to spend at least 30 minutes a week on both German and Norwegian (Bokmal), which might not sound like a lot, but I do read both languages regularly through out the day. If anyone speaks either language and would like to help me embarrass myself, feel free to write in that language and I’ll try to reply. I’d love to learn basic Icelandic too, but I’m struggling to find a suitable course so that might have to wait until next year.

Glückliches Neues Jahr! / Godt Nyttår!

Happy Wordless Yule Wednesday

Phantoms Siren — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 12:00:28 +0000

A Steampunk New Years Gift From Me To You

Phantoms Siren — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 10:37:16 +0000

2011 is almost over, 2012 is just around the corner and I wanted to make you all a little freebie gift for being so good to me this year. So here’s a little desk calendar featuring the Airship Pirates city mascots.

Click on the image above to get the full size image. (It’s set to A4, the standard international printer size, if you’re using another size just scale to fit when you print.)

Cut off the white areas and cut the slits on the left hand side to put the tabs through.

Then just fold along the lines between the images.

You’ll end up a three sided calendar that stands on its own.

Please note that whilst it works with paper it’ll look better and last longer on thin card.

You can purchase photo quality prints of this, in various sizes, from DeviantArt if your printer won’t cooperate

Bradford Industrial Museum Steampunk Exhibition

Phantoms Siren — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 20:37:48 +0000

Just got back from the opening of the Bradford Steampunk Exhibition. It’s on until May, and I strongly recommend that you go. There are many wonderful and baffling things, including a mermaid, and a 3D film featuring Jema Hewitt and Kit Cox, and 5 of my pictures from Airship Pirates, as well as a plethora of costumes, weapons and bizarre inventions.

The Exhibition is hosted by the Bradford Industrial Museum which has some fantastic collections of machinery, including trams, trains, antique cards and all the machines you’d have seen in a textile mill. I’m a bit of a fiber nerd so it was cool to see all the spinning and carding machines. If a bit noisy.

Holiday Shipping Deadlines!

Phantoms Siren — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 21:36:50 +0000

It’s the first of December and (hopefully) you’ve just opened the first little window on your advent calendar. Did you get a nice chocolate? I got a santa… with no shirt on, all a bit weird. I don’t celebrate Christmas, but I do celebrate chocolate.

Anyway. All those windows still to open, no doubt the holidays still seem a long way off, but really it’s not that long at all! Best to get your shopping done now, no one likes running around shopping centres at 6pm on Christmas Eve. Plus you can’t buy awesome things from online retailers at the last minute! Why not? Because of shipping.

If you’d like to buy something from one of my stores – Etsy or Folksy – then time is running out. Below are the very last deadlines for standard shipping as recommended by Royal Mail.

USA & Canada – 9th December
Western Europe – 12th December
UK – 14th December
Everywhere Else – 4th December

Please note that in the UK I maybe able to offer signed for delivery after the 14th but it will cost more, and I advise you to contact me first.

Please also note that if there is a massive snow storm and your town (on another continent to me) is cut off there isn’t very much I can do about it, though if I had super powers I would.

Any orders made from the DeviantArt store are shipping from their facility in the US, unfortunately I cannot find details of their last shipping dates, however since items are printed on demand there may be a delay so order ASAP if you need anything from there.