Eraser Stamps 1 - 15

Since I was tidying up my desk, and putting away all my eraser stamps creation into a little box. (They were strewn all over my desk!) I decided that I should line them all up, count them, and take photos.

Only problem was that I don't even remember the order I made them in anymore.

In comes the handy little notebook that I've been stamping all my creations in!

Hurrah! Now I have the order! I decided to number the stamps too, so that I could see the improvements in technique as I progress. Compared to the first one, my stamps look much neater now - better carving technique. Still not good at hollowing the inside parts out, but at least the sides (more) neatly cut.

There it is, eraser stamps 1 to 15. You can also view them one by one in the gallery!

Stamp No. 15: Rilakkuma

Ok, with this post my 'catch up posting' will be all finished.

Here's my 15th stamp. A really simple design that I go off from a Rilakkuma character wire tie on my desk. Like literally lying beside my laptop because my desk is to messy.

Like literally in that pile of junk stuff beside my lappy. I know! There's Tiger too, maybe next time!

My finished stamp beside the wire tie. 

A test inking. 

I cleaned up the design a little afterwards (and applied less ink when stamping to make the lines thiner. Notice that ugly dot in the eye on the top left stamp? That's a piece of rogue eraser. 

Reminder to self: Always get rid of the eraser bits before stamping!

Some of the bits stick to the ink pad too, dirtying the pad :(

Stamp Nos. 13 & 14: Of Squares and Triangles and the Arashi Japonism Shape

When the Arashi Japonism goods came out, the first thing on my mind was "Oh! I'm gonna carve this thing!"

So I copied the design on a piece of sticky note (which is so old that it's no longer sticky the moment I tear it off the pad)... and did just that. Well. Typing is way simpler than it actually was. This one took me a LONG time to carve. I'll explain why in a bit.

My 'copy' of the logo. Yes, 100% messy handwriting.

Anyway. I tried to draw the design on the eraser. Just some straight lines, easy right?

Well...

Well....

Ok, maybe I just suck!

My first attempt ended up being a TOTAL failure. And my second too...

That's my first two attempts, first one on the left, second one on the right. On the first try, the diagonal lines were not evenly spaced. On the second, the diagonal lines were properly spaced, but it was way too big! There's not enough space on the puny eraser for the design! I can 'reuse' the eraser by drawing over in pen (and I can even 'erase' the pen marks, more on that in another post), but since the drawing is all full of lines and I didn't want to mess myself up, I reached for a new eraser each time. It's a box of 48 anyway! And I could always draw something else over these when I had inspiration.

It took my a long time to get this stamp done. Between my tries there was probably a whole week break; it was pretty frustrating because I couldn't get such a simple thing right.

My 4th, 3rd, and 2nd try, shown in that order. 

You already saw the second try in an earlier photo. For the 3rd try, I thought I got wiser and drew in the vertical and horizontal lines first instead of diagonal. (Stupid right? I know.) BUT. Just as I finished drawing the last of the horizontal lines, and counted the number of squares I needed... I realised that my boxes were too big once more. I couldn't fit the design in! Gosh! That shows just how small the eraser is! I was using 0.5 cm squares and it didn't work. A little mental calculation later... I realised that I had to decrease the length of the squares to 0.4 cm. And that lead to my 4th try. Finally, everything was in order. I didn't let the erasers go to waste though, and filled out that pattern on the 3rd try as you can see above. 

Here's the two erasers carved out. 

And the test inking results. Pretty decent if you ask me. well, since it's all straight lines, the carving part was easy peasy. The drawing though... hahaha.

In hindsight... I could have just rotated the Japonism logo so I can make it bigger. Yes. Silly me. I'll do it again and bigger next time. I'll update the blog when I do!

Stamp No. 12: A random frog

I used to draw frogs like this a lot. In secondary school when I was just bored. And in junior college on my graphic calculator. Yes, did you know you can draw random stuff with your graphic calculator? I installed games, yes games, on it too.

Anyway... I think this frog is pretty ugly... still...

Not the prettiest nor cutest of frogs eh?

Stamp No. 11: Sumikko Gurashi Polar Bear and Foroshiki

It's another Sumikko Gurashi stamp!

This time it's from the box of the cup again! I got my sis to draw this for me... but well, she can't really draw cute stuff... so I had to re-draw it a little myself.

It's of Polar Bear and the cute Furoshiki, or wrapping cloth, on his head.

The end product.

My stamp, versus the actual thing. 

Stamp No. 10: Sumikko Gurashi Penguin - Thumbs Up

So continuing with my Sumikko Gurashi love... I bought all the available Sumikko Gurashi stickers on LINE (the messaging app), and since I absolutely love them, I thought, hey, those stickers make the perfect next thing for my to carve!

Carving them is actually very simple. After doing the puny alphabets, and even more complicated designs like the circuits and the lines/circles, this is a walk in the park. The carving part that is. The drawing... well... let's just say that my penguin and their penguin doesn't look the same.

This is their penguin.

And this is mine! Mine looks slimmer huh? Hmm actually it's pretty cute too :P (self-praise FTW)

Since their penguin is cut off halfway, and I think that wouldn't look nice on a stamp, I took the liberty of adding in legs and completing the rest of the penguin.

Stamp No. 9: Sumikko Gurashi Penguin in Hotsprings

I bought the Sumikko Gurashi book sometime back, and on my birthday my sis gave me a Sumikko Gurashi cup! Just absolutely adorable aren't they?

The Sumikko Gurashi picture book.

Sumikko Gurashi Cup

The cup and the book together.

I just searched on Amazon and gosh! There's TONS of Sumikko Gurashi goods. The first thing that actually popped up was this Sumikko Gurashi SUSHI plushie. Sushi!!! Another of my favourite! 

 

Aren't they adorable?

Anyway... I tried to copy the one of the images on the box of the cup. (Yes, the box is really useful! Good thing I didn't throw it away!)

I just free-handed it, and since there's not 'left or right' with images like these, I didn't bother flipping the drawing over.

Half way through the carving process.

And the final product!

Here's the two penguins laid out side by side. Certainly not identical... but not too shabby either? :P