Stefan G. Bucher | Ninja vs Penguin

Ninja, where are you?

Ninja November 7th, 2008

Thanks for your thoughtful (and concerned) emails! I’m still here. I’m still alive. ^____^ But a few things have been keeping me from posting:

+ being really busy with work (bleh, boring, but true)
+ taking an Anatomy night class at SVA (yay!)
+ being sick for quite some time & seeing a slew of specialists (early morning appointments, giving up vials of my precious blood for testing, getting poked & prodded = foul mood)
+ being overly sleep-deprived = being cranky, sarcastic, & a giant bore = I go into hiding mode because no one wants to be around me when I’m all miserable (I don’t even want to be around me)
+ trying to get some personal art work in (mostly unsuccessful)

My apologies, my dear readers. And HUGE thanks to Penguin for holding down the fort in my absence & putting up with (& still loving) me.

A quick update as to what I’ve been up to:

In October, I went to visit my dear friends, NC & Tim in LA. While there, I took in the sights, checked out Art Center, celebrated Stefan Bucher’s 35th birthday, & met Ophelia Chong. It was such a dream vacation. Blue skies, sunshowers, & some of the sweetest folks ever.

Oh, yah, & we stopped by LACMA, too.

In more recent news, the breathtaking Ms. Tanya Dakin (model/photographer/Suicide Girl) is allowing me the honor to paint her in the buff (as in she’s posing nude, not me sitting nude while painting). My college friend Tony was kind enough to set up our online introduction—a thousand thanks, Bing Chi Ling!

As always, thanks for checking in & stopping by our humble blog.

Cheers & have a lovely weekend,
Ninja ^______^

LA: Day 1

Penguin October 11th, 2008

We got in late Tuesday night. Our flight was delayed about an hour and a half, but we did make up some of it in the air.

The first night, we just kind of settled in and watched Planet Earth: Seasons in BluRay.

In the morning, we woke up to this:

The view from Nancy and Tim’s balcony is amazing. They’re such gracious hosts for letting us crash at their place.

I could really get used to weather like this.

After a quick breakfast of french toast, we went to the Amoeba:

This is a crazy large music and DVD store. They sell tons of used stuff. It’s not a place where you go to browse, but to go in with a plan to find something cool and obscure.
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Happy Birthday, Stefan!

Ninja October 8th, 2008

The talented triple-threat (designer, illustrator, writer), Mr. Stefan G. Bucher, turned 35 today. Stefan has been a good friend to me these past 2 years, & he’s been kind enough share his work & keep me company during the wee hours of the morning (seeing how we share similar sleeping schedules).

Today, NvP had the pleasure of celebrating Stefan’s birthday with the man himself!

Before entering his cool apartment, we were greeted by his flock of festive flamingos.

Oh, and here’s the birthday boy with plushy monster number 80. I commissioned Wenny to crochet this little guy, after all she did such a bang up job making amigurumi versions of us!

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Failure is…

Ninja May 3rd, 2008

Failure is never as frightening as regret. Don’t worry. It’ll all work out.

– Stefan G. Bucher (from his book 100 Days Of Monsters)

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Tarsem Singh’s The Fall trailer

Ninja March 30th, 2008

Here’s the trailer for Tarsem Singh’s The Fall. Beautiful imagery, fantastic landscapes, and vibrant colors. For this alone, it’s on my list of movies to see. ^__^

Googly Films logo and The Fall logo by Mr. Stefan G. Bucher.

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Mr. Stefan G. Bucher’s portrait

Ninja March 19th, 2008

I’m on a bit of a portrait roll.

Stefan kindly volunteered to be a victim for one of my hair portraits. But he’s got pretty good bone structure, so I figured why not? I’ll just ink his face. The hair portrait will have to wait for now.

It was a lot of fun, but I went a little overboard with the shading in the face. I think I just aged him… @__@

But I’m not afraid to bare it all—good and bad—to you guys.

Photo by Tim Moraitis.

As you can see, Stefan’s a lot more cheery and youthful in person.

Happy inking,
Ninja

Design , Illustration , Posts by Ninja
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AIGA’s Fresh Dialogue book

Ninja March 17th, 2008

On Friday, I got a happy package in the post—the AIGA’s Fresh Dialogue book. I keep pinching myself. This is incredible—one of my illustrations is in this book.

Haha, I can’t believe that Ze Frank asked if I was dating a Suicide Girl.

Much thanks to Mr. Stefan G. Bucher for including me in this lovely book! It’s an honor, really!

^___^,
Ninja

Related link
+ AIGA Fresh Dialogue 23 Event

Purchasing link
+ Order your copy of Fresh Dialogue 8: Designing Audiences ($11.53 USD)

Design , Posts by Ninja
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Dangerous Curves

Ninja March 7th, 2008

Ooo, Mr. Doyald Young’s new book, Dangerous Curves is now available for purchase from his site!

In Dangerous Curves I have attempted to show both emerging and expert designers how, in an age of computer-dominated design, the designer can turn to their very own hands for both inspiration and solution. The only way to create a logotype that is truly unique is for the designer to transcend the limitations of the available fonts and typefaces on the market. Dangerous Curves provides a roadmap for that very worthy endeavor.

—DY

Take a look

Pencil Comps. Seasmoke wine was featured in the 2004 movie Sideways.

Pencil sketches for Eclat typeface.

Tehru Oraoka monogram exploration.

Purchasing link
+ Buy your copy of Dangerous Curves here ($100.00 USD)

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Sneak peek at 100 Days of Monsters

Ninja January 19th, 2008

I haven’t been this antsy with anticipation over a book since James Jean’s Process Recess 2. Here’s a quick preview of Mr. Stefan G. Bucher’s 100 Days of Monsters (due out in March). The book is $13.59 on Amazon, so each monster costs less than 14 cents. But wait, there’s more. It comes with a DVD with all the monster clips!