Goodbyes and Hellos!

Yesterday was my last work day as a DISC intern. Today is all about celebrating the first year of DISC and the interns who are moving on to their next step in life. It's an emotional day but we all knew it would have to come to an end. We have a fun day planned, from games to food! No computers, no work, just fun! We showed memories, everyone got awards for their achievements, I was a crying mess! I was honoured to make the design for the new DISC T-Shirts, which all the interns got! I made sure to get everyone to sign mine.

Saying goodbye isn't fun, so let's say hello to Sulley! This is my adorable kitten, only 9 weeks old. He's been my best friend the last few days, getting to know him and watching him explore is such a lovely experience. He and Narla, my rottweiler, are slowly becoming friends, though with the height difference (and Narlas not realising said height difference) we're taking it slow for their friendship. Sulley has adapted very well to his new environment and has been great overall, could do with less of the biting though.

We're only a few days away from Art Fight! Check out my profile!

What is ArtFight?

Artfight is an annual art event where artists of All kinds are pitted against each other in an 'Art trade battle'. Participants are split into 2 teams at the start of the event, and the event lasts for 1 month. For the event, you earn points for your team by drawing characters belonging to the opposite team. Likewise, the other team will do the same. Drawing art of someone else's character is referred to as 'Attacking' them. At the end of Artfight, the team with the highest total points wins! But technically everyone wins because it's just about artists appreciating other artists.

This is actually my first year doing Art Fight as I promised myself at the start of the year I'd join! Hopefully, I have the time and energy to do this but I'll be happy even just doing one attack! Past me wanted this and I'm glad to be finally joining.

Barbie advertising blows me away AGAIN! You can find my last blog about Barbies advertising here. This time it's in a physical form, with a bright Barbie pink plain billboard with the date July 21st.

To most people, this billboard is a mystery and that's the greatness of the advertising behind it! It's a conversation starter, it gets people Googling, and questioning the date. As someone who is excited about this movie and obsessed with advertising, I instantly knew when I saw it, I verbally went "Oh my god, that billboard is amazing!" and the people I was with were confused, I said "July 21st, Barbie movie, pink billboard". Love the marketing team behind this movie, everyone's gonna know about this movie! Some other movies should take note of this kinda stuff, though I know some movies don't have that big of a budget for marketing.

Go check out this @MoshIsaccians Twitter thread about the Barbie movie marketing!

I only started blogging because of DISC, but I don't plan to stop. Blogging has helped me let out my weekly issues and events, it's a journal for me to look back on and for people in my life to keep updated about what I'm up to! It was hard to get into the loop of blogging weekly but now I think it would be harder to stop! So don't worry, you'll hear from me again next week.

Lastly while out eating Ezra found a mysterious coin with the words Together on one side and Solo on the other. We all had theories of what it could be, is it for a trolly? Poker? Or is it an art piece in itself? Well, the answer was an art piece, a project by the artist and wheelchair user Ryan Gander, there are 200,000 of these coins all around Greater Manchester, read more about The Find project.

P.S. don't mix alcohol, I learned the hard way that wasn't the best idea today…

Colourful Endings

Last Friday DISC was on the BBC North West news! It was about Dylan's GetAutism campaign which is to get Nerodivergent young people in the workplace and help working environments be more accessible to Neurodiverse people! You can watch it on the DISC website.

This has been our last full week at the DISC internship. I’ve said this so many times now but I will continue to say it. DISC has been a family to me, I felt accepted by the team and they’ve given me so many opportunities that would have been impossible without them. It was more than an internship for me, I’ve got my independence back because of their help, I have built my skills to a point I can be so proud of and that’s thanks to all the love and support. I’m so grateful to have had this experience and I will forever thank the team. I am also lucky enough to be working alongside the team in the coming months! I’m excited for this career path because I didn’t think it would be possible to do the things I love for a living but DISC has given me that chance.

A few days ago I read something and at the end it said “You may not be where you want to be, yet, but you’re not where you used to be”. I never thought of this, I try to forget my past so I can come forward but how do I know if I’m moving forward if I don’t want to remember what happened before. I’m not at my fullest potential yet, I’m far off in some areas, but I definitely am not the same person I used to be. I may not be like my parents, at my age they owned houses, had families and amazing jobs. For me I’m only just starting my career, but if you talked to me when I was 13, I couldn’t tell you where I would be in 5 years, let alone 10! I couldn’t even read properly and now I write blogs every week without issue! I love who I am now, I always say this, I’m not who I used to be but she shouldn’t be forgotten because without her I wouldn’t be here. Younger me fought so hard and pushed to get to be who I am today. So yes I am not where I hoped to be at my age, but only 5 years ago could I not do the things I do now.

This blog is a little bit emotional so let's try and cheer this up by talking about a very colourful new art trend!

This trend looks so fun! You have a normal colour wheel with 8 colours and you draw in that wheel characters that match the colour! They can be your own characters, they can be from your favourite series or movie, you can have one character or more! In the art community this is all over social media, from Twitter to Instagram. I haven’t taken part yet but I plan to soon! It’s such an open concept, all you have to do is pick a character that matches the colour, you can add your own theme if you want like ‘only animal characters’ or ‘only muppets’, it’s an opportunity for endless possibilities.

10 years ago, one of my favourite movies, Monsters University, was released! By no means is it a movie masterpiece, but for the animation world I think it stands out. It’s one of my biggest inspirations for storytelling, character development, colour and art as a whole. It’s a movie I know far too much about, I mean this ask my family and friends. But I take my time to research this film as every new piece of information gives me such a creativity boost! It’s a beautiful film about accepting the way you were born differently to the world around you and how that shouldn’t stop you from reaching your goal. I didn’t think a silly movie about cartoon monsters would stick with me for so long, but it has and I am far from ashamed!

Unofficially Finished

I have unofficially finished my GOM Booklet and DNA Poster projects (technically the booklet hasn’t been signed off so I still could get feedback on that, but I’m confident it’s done!). It feels like it was a long project but I started it last month so it was actually done pretty fast considering it was something new to me. It was a fun project to get the chance to work on and I’ve learnt a lot about working with clients and following design briefs. Though there were changes that had to be made to make it more accessible, I was disappointed in the changes because it ruined the nice designs but I care so much about accessibility that I didn’t mind as much after making the changes.

After what feels like forever, I have finally started my rebranding of BladeDaBunny! I’ve been holding off my own branding for so long because I didn’t think I was at the point of advertising myself for anything other than character art commissions. Now I feel I am at a point in both my skills and motivation to start my own business. I want to take on logo design jobs, do designs for companies and sell my work as posters, cards, shirts, etc. I’m very excited about starting my work. The biggest challenge was whether I should change my name to my actual name or keep it as my silly username. I decided to make BladeDaBunny my business that is run by Caprice Dipple. I have both names in there, I have my own brand using a username I’ve had for over a decade and I can keep my fanbase that I already have without fear of losing anything. It’s a strange business name and is likely to be dismissed by some companies but in a professional capacity I’d use Caprice Dipple to advertise myself. Next step is updating my website and social media to match my new brand!

Recently I haven’t been happy with the quality of my art but I still loved my style when drawing people. I was sure of the changes that needed to be made to make me happier with making my art. After going through all of my art from the last 3 years, I made a list of things I wanted to keep in my style and things that needed to be changed! The main things I loved were my art style and the way I shade. I wasn’t happy with my lack of backgrounds, motion/character poses and the line thickness I use when drawing. With these in mind I tried a few tests whilst drawing to see what I could improve. I found that I may still have a long way to go. I've begun loving my art more with these changes and they are fun to work on! My favourite thing is learning how to do backgrounds in a way that follows my style. I still need practice but I’m proud of the progress I’m making.

This week my favourite band, The Struts, released their upcoming UK/Europe tour dates! I got so lucky because they are coming to Manchester on the 11th of August. On the 13th I’ll be on a plane to Arizona, so I don’t have to miss them! They are also playing at the same place they played last year, which was super accessible and was the best experience I’ve ever had at a concert! Last year when I saw them, the ‘wheelchair space’ wasn’t really one at all, instead, I could sit anywhere but on the dance floor, which worked out great because I got to sit right at the edge of the stage and was super safe the whole time! Staff were great last year and I was given free water due to it being the hottest day of the year and we were all locked inside a rock concert, it was boiling. Fingers crossed I get the same experience as last year, hopefully not as hot though!