Owl Post

A little while back I found out and managed to get to the Graphic Art of the Harry Potter Films, which would be exhibiting work by the graphic artists Miraphora and Eduardo - MinaLima. It was such an amazing opportunity to look at the work in great detail. What was even more amazing, and I still can't get over til this day - both Miraphora and Eduardo were there, and they talked to us! It was so interesting to hear about their work, and so lovely for them to take the time to talk to us and point out little design secrets. They are a bit inspiration to me, and to actually meet and talk to them - yep. I therefore wanted to make them a thankyou card. I then got pretty carried away! It went from a card design to a full blow mini-craft-project!

Owl diagram and plan

I drew out the design for the owl and then I was able to apply the feathers on top of each other, separately, into the correct formation.

Final Card

Close up of some of the card illustrations

I originally had a few thumbnail ideas of possible cards, but I ended up going for a collaboration of different Harry Potter related objects, all in monochrome.
Mounting the illustration onto the black card, really work well with the black ink illustrations, and really brought them out.

Completed wing, with separate feathers

The wings of the owl were crafted from the original design. I used it as a template for layering the feathers in the correct formation, to get that wing-span shape. All the feathers were cut separately, so that on the back of the bird, you can still see all the feathers.

Owl: BACK

Final paper-constructed Owl 

Holding the owl up to the light clearly highlights all the wing construction

I wanted to make the owl hold the card-envelope.
To make with possible, the beak and neck feathers are only glue at the top, and the feet are glued at the bottom of the talons. This way, the letter can be slipped under at both ends of the owl, and it will be as though the owl has the letter in its mouth, and the talons keep it secure.

 The whole point of the design was to have the owl - based on Hedwig - carrying the well known Harry Potter-Hogwarts style envelope.

Full collection of pieces

and a very Harry Potter Birthday to You!

It's my youngest brother's 14th Birthday tomorrow, and per usual, I have to make the birthday card; therefore using a combination of his love for trains - especially steam engines "because they have more character" and Harry Potter (and the fact that as a birthday treat, joint with my other brother's 16th, at the end of the month, we are going to the Harry Potter Studio Tour) this was the final product!

Final Birthday Card

For the  card I have used a combination of raised and flat pieces of card. The base of the card was all flat to the base-card, however, as I built up the image of the train, I chose the main features to make them for 3D. I did this by bending and manipulating the flat pieces of paper.

This is the original sketch of the card design. To make sure that all the separate pieces of the paper fit together and are the correct size, I overlaid the drawing onto the colours papers, and drew over in a biro with quite a pressure. This makes an indented line onto the coloured paper, and it means that you know where to cut, but it also won't leave a pen or pencil line.

As you do pieces which may be overlapped, you draw over the lines, for this is only the design guide.

To help connect the raised pieces to the flat paper, I used various bits of cardboard stuck together to create a variation of heights, in relation to how much the piece of design has been raised.

Final Smoke Box piece

 I cut all the letters and numbers out separately instead of drawing them on, because it went with the overall design of the card. Everything else had been cut out of paper, and therefore it felt only right to use that method for the whole card.

Sneaky Design Tip: With the lantern, to make it yellow, but not a bright yellow colour, I overlaid the yellow paper with three sheets of tracing paper. This therefore destaurated the yellow, but still kept a hint of the colour, so it wasn't just white.