World Landmarks: 
The Taj Mahal
This was for the World Landmarks LTC tracker.  I wasn't sure what landmark to pick since there were so many to choose from but i always like the beauty and mysterious setting that the Taj seems to exude.  When i saw this image it almost made me think of a watercolor painting.  It was very dreamlike in its state.  I also wanted something antique and old looking so i choose this marble type card stock to print on.  The whole image has this sort of wavy disappearing quality to it.  I punched some fancy corners on the tops of the cards to give it a regal look to it as well as kind of clouds in the sky.  It turned out ok.  This ended up being just simply black ink on a marble tan card with scalloped corners.

The Girl With The Gears Tattoo
This was for a Steam Punk Pin-Up tracker.  I really wanted to continue my work on fine line stamps.  I ended up finding a great image to work with.  Some of the lines in her hair, eyes, lips and legs i really like.  Overall i thought the carve was pretty good.  I ended up stamping on vellum which is a more see through paper.  I found some great card stock with different types of gears displayed so i used that as my background.  I attached the vellum and card stock using some brass colored brads in each corner.  There were several different background designs that i ended up using so there were a couple of different cards made available for this tracker.  I knew the novel "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" was quite popular during this time so i thought it would be a funny play on words to use that as my title.

Looney Tunes: Daffy Duck
I did this for the Looney Tunes LTC tracker.  I just tried to pick a main character for my choice.  I had always wanted to do a two sided carve and so i thought this would be a good opportunity to try this out.  I decided to do two expressions for Daffy and then do a two sided card as well.  There really wasn't much to these carves.  I ended up using Staedtler Master Carve rubber since i knew they had a thicker type you could buy.  It was much softer than i wanted but it allowed me the greater ability to have greater control when stamping the image because of the thickness to it.  Other than the carve, there really wasn't much left but using some orange marker to fill in his bill and feet.

Star Wars: Grand Moff Tarkin
This was for the LTC tracker Star Wars.  There were just so many characters to choose from but i decided to do someone that no one picked.  I had always liked his portrayal from the films and thought of a simple design.  There was really nothing to this carve except carving out the negative space.  I probably could have done a little more detail on some of the lines and eliminated some stress lines from his forehead and chins but the likeness seemed to turn out well.  I used some colored pencils for the flesh tone and subtle color in his shirt.  The flesh tone was a little too strong so i then used an eraser over his entire face after applying it and this seemed to soften the color which then looked much better afterwards.

Famous Authors: Arthur Conan Doyle
This card was for the LTC tracker Famous Authors.  I ended chose Doyle because i was in the midst of doing a Sherlock Holmes tracker as well as having seen the tv series and movies recently.  He just stood out as someone who would be cool to do.  I originally did not carve his name on the stamp but thought it might be better if i had it on the card so proceeded to carve his moniker on a separate stamp.  It took me quite a few tries on some scraps to get that lettering right and i still had it just a 1/16 or so longer than the card stock so that also made it more difficult to line up correctly.  I stamped them both of a glossy card stock which really made the black pop.  You cannot press hard on glossy card stock or else the images will smear.  So you just have make sure you have enough inked applied and just give a firm but delicate impression when stamping.  The lines on his face and jacket could have been tighter and less jagged but i think the area around his moustache, lips and mouth came out very well.

Movies from A to Z: Quantum of Solace
This was a last second addition to my Movies from A to Z tracker.  someone had not turned their card in so i had to come up with a movie, design, and card within a few days so i could get them all out by the time the Academy Awards premiered.  This actually turned out better than i thought.  The lettering, which can be hit or miss sometimes, turned out a little choppy.  They could have been a little neater and less wobbly.  For the most part, i think Daniel Craig's face turned out fairly well.  It could have been a little cleaner and more defined but overall it was a cool card and welcome addition to the set.  I ended up using grey markers on his face, red marker to fill in the OO7 and used black pastel chalk to do the shading next to him.

Movies From A to Z: Zodiac

This tracker was my first tracker that i ever hosted.  I really wanted to do something movie themed and to coincide with the Academy Awards.  I basically sent out requests to all my favorite carvers and had them fill up the tracker.  I was going to take whatever letter was left after everyone chose theirs.  I had a feeling i would be doing one of the less popular letters so i already had in mind what movies i would be doing for certain letters.  I chose "Zodiac" because of my love for all of David Fincher's films as well as it was one of the few movies that began with "Z" that i liked.  I wanted to do a card with a movie poster look to it.  I had this idea to do a double embossing where the title of the film would be black and the Zodiac symbol would be red.  This took a little bit longer and was more challenging than i thought.  But in the end it worked out and it looked cool.  I liked how the black embossing almost disappears with the black card stock.  I then had three different images i collected to carve and assemble.  The two main characters and the golden gate bridge were all separate images i found and then pieced together to carve.  I thought it turned out pretty well.  I think Robert Downey Jr's face could have been photoshopped better and his hair got cut off a little but it's a nice card.  I added some fog with a pencil for some of the background and used a grey card stock for my foreground stamps and then pasted the whole thing onto black.

USA Postage Stamps:
New York
This was the second card i did for the US Postage Stamps swap.  I was just trying to help fill the entire set and this was one of the last states left.  This was a bit harder for me than the South Carolina one because of the Statue of Liberty and the buildings with words intertwined with them.  I was just trying to keep everything lined up correctly with the carve because it was a one color stamp (navy blue) and some of the letters in "Greetings" were not defined as well as i would have liked them to be.  The rest of the colors i used were a combination of colored pencils, markers, and watercolor.  Again i wished i had carved it bigger than what it turned out to be.  This would have been better had it been slightly larger so i could do some of the more intricate facial features and details on the statue.  But i liked some of the lettering and the fact that it helped fill the tracker to achieve a full set.

USA Postage Stamps: South Carolina
This card was for the US Postage Stamps tracker which was a series commemorating all the states with a unique image related to each state.  The reason i chose SC was that we were traveling there late in the year and i thought it would be cool to do this up as a card and then plant it later in the state as a traditional.  This was a bit of a challenge in getting the colors right and some of the intricate details in the buildings and script letters.  I was pleased with how this turned out but probably should have measured it a little bigger because i knew i was using scalloped edges for the borders so i made the stamp smaller than it needed to be.  But i still thought it turned out fairly well even with some of the small flaws here and there.

Wizard of Oz: Treasured Trio

This was for another Wizard of Oz tracker i signed up for.  I had been wanting to do something with the main characters for a while as well as doing another stamp to go with my previous cards.  It wasn't easy finding the right image but luckily after digging around for a while i found this one.  I really liked that the three main characters were all together and doing more of a publicity shot.  I liked some of the details on the scarecrow as well as his hand behind the tin man.  I wasn't as happy with some of the lion's fur and the tin man's face and body but it was a large stamp and the card folded out.  So i was trying something new with a foldout card.  And i also wanted to keep it black and white with a tinge of grey so i opted for a very light grey card stock.  I think the piece has that old quality to it.

Here is the front of the card i did.  I just wanted to do something of a title card like the beginning of the movie would have.  I really liked how the letters turned out.  The card folded in half and then opened horizontally to display the main characters from above.

Locke Zombie
This was for the OMG Zombies and Monsters tracker. I love anything related to zombies so this was a given to do something in this genre. I had really loved a comic book as a kid called Deadworld which had the whole people vs zombies storyline but with some new twists added as well. But the one thing that stood out about these comics were the covers. An artist by the name of Vincent Locke who does a lot of graphic drawings and paintings of zombies and monsters did most of the covers for the series. And i was always a huge fan of this piece he had done for the first issue so i wanted to see if i could duplicate the image with my own take and style. I was very happy with how this one turned out and really like the moldy kaleidoscope of colors i added for effect.

American Pickers: B & M Railroad Lantern
This was for the American Picker tracker.
The television show, which showcases hidden treasures found within backyards and barns, is a favorite of mine.  I love antiques and historical items and so it was just natural pick for me to do this series.  I had so many ideas and it was hard for me to narrow down my choice.  I ended up just gravitating to these old lanterns that were used during the heyday of railroads.  This was not an item that is usually featured on the show but i just liked the history behind it.  I tried to make the glass case stand out a little with the color and have some copper color accent the handles.  In the end it could have been smaller carve and could have been designed a bit better but it was a decent card.

HP 7: part 2 
"The Flaw In The Plan"
This card was for the Harry Potter Deathly Hallows tracker.  Obviously there were many images and ways to approach this card.  I really wanted to incorporate something to do with the last film and what better way than Harry and Voldemort's dueling encounter.  This was one of the images that some of the promotional posters had.  For the most part i was happy with the faces and how closely they resembled the characters.  I think more so with Harry because it was a side view.  But i liked the stuff around his eyes and glasses.  I tried a couple different pencil/lighting techniques to get the right pop.  I tried white, red, green and it seemed green had the most impact.

Self Portrait With a Cap by Rembrandt
This LTC was for the tracker Great Works of Art.  There literally were dozens of pieces that i was trying to narrow down to but i ended up choosing this one because of its playfulness and line work.  I wanted something not too intricate but enough to continue to make progress with fine lines.  I thought this stamp came out well.  Even though there wasn't any color in the piece, the striking image really helps make it pop.  And i enjoyed trying to reproduce a famous piece of artwork on such a smaller scale.  Overall, i think it came out as a good representation of a famous work of art.

"Cherry Tree in Blossom" Japan 1981                                        
This was for the Postage Stamp 2 Tracker.  There were just so many great images to choose from that it was a hard decision.  I went with this one to try my hand at a little more fine line work and because of the subtle colors.  I also like Japanese culture and themes so this one just jumped out at me.  I was very pleased with how the lines of her face and hand turned out.  And i was happy with how the coloring captured the beauty of the piece without overpowering it.  I also used a scallop edge puncher to make the postage stamp border around the card.

Scooby-Doo and the Ghost of Captain Cutler
 This one was for a Scooby Doo LTC i did.  I ended up choosing two different images and then piecing them together to form a new image.  I was very pleased with how this one turned out.  I really wanted to incorporate some kind of villian in the card and there were so many great ones to choose from.  I just liked the sort of glow in the dark ghostly deep sea diver and the coloring of his outfit so i decided on him.  Then i just tried to comb the net to find the right Scooby-Doo to go with him.  I was happy with some of the line work around his helmet, hands and seaweed.  And with Scooby it was just a matter of cleaning out the negative space inside his frame.

Movies You've Over-Watched: Jaws 

For this tracker there were so many choices i could have picked.  I already did my other favorite in an LTC which was the Godfather so i had to take the next one on my list which was Jaws.  I probably have seen Jaws the most of any movie ever and could probably recite most of the lines from start to finish.  I was very pleased with how this one turned out because i just wasn't sure what image to choose from or if i even could do it justice.  But once i got something i liked and fit what i wanted, it wasn't a bad carve.  I am very pleased with how well the shark turned out because that was tough to get right.  I just didn't know how to handle certain shading and textures but overall this came out well.  For the back of the card, i ended up listing a whole bunch of quotes from the film to round it out.

Finding Nemo: Gill

This was for the Finding Nemo tracker i did.  This one was a pretty simple carve and design.  Not much to it.  Probably could have done something with water or a fish tank for the background but decided just to do the character i picked.  Just finding a suitable image was tough enough.  There just aren't enough reference materials for certain characters out there.  I was happy with the area around the eyes and nose.  That was a little tricky for me to make them stand out being intricate.  I am also happy with the Finding Nemo font.  I think the coloring and lettering came out well. 

Stephen King: The Dark Half

This tracker was for a Stephen King LTC.  There were so many ideas and books that i loved and it was a tough choice.  The reason i picked this one was because i thought i could do some interesting things with the birds coming out of his head.  I wanted it to look like part of his face and then part of birds manifesting from it.  I also like some of the unusual shapes that came out from doing it. I didn't even see or think about them when i did it.  I played with different shapes and arrangements until i finally settled on this one.  I also liked the stark lime green i used underneath for the lettering.  I just shaded in an area where i knew the letters would be and once i stamped over it, i had some color underneath.  I enjoyed this tracker and hopefully down the road will get to do some other Stephen King designs.

Chick Flicks: 
You've Got Mail

This card was for the tracker Chick Flicks.  There were so many movies to choose from but i tend to watch this one every time it's on and since i had been doing a lot of likenesses, i figured i would continue that theme and try and do Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.  I also thought of the idea of putting the card in a small envelope with some postal service notifications on the front might be cool.  I thought the overall outcome of the stamp was pretty good with the card and envelope together.  The back had a bio of the movie with a faux stamp border around it.  The only thing that was a little difficult was doing the lettering  on the front for this one.  Also, stamping it in a different color with the black figures was kind of a pain too.  I should have done the letters on another stamp but i tried to do one big stamp.