Stouffville, Ontario Canada (647) 962-1997 gwstudios@rogers.com M-F 8:30am - 2:30pm & 8:00pm - 11:00pm

Author: greatwallstudios

Married, Graphic Designer, enjoy playing the electric guitar, model building, wood working and sculpting.

Ticking projects off my to-do list

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on Ticking projects off my to-do list

It has finally happened, after seven years, both of my children are off to in person learning at the local public school and I am left at home alone in peace with six uninterrupted hours to get stuff (and my paid day job work done.) However, seeing as i am self employed I am opting to use some of this new found freedom to knock a fairly hefty number of odd jobs around the house off of my honey do list. Last week the progress was slow going but it involved a lot of deep cleaning of the main floor of our bungalow home. Sweep, vacuum and mop the floors, wash the inside/outside of the fridge (yuck!), do the same to the stove, dishwasher and microwave. Wash the cabinets, clean out all the left over and accumulated junk from all of the random drawers. Clean off tables, and art stations and bedrooms and the main bathroom needed a total hose down. Gosh, and golly gee, that was a lot of washing and sanitizing. Glad the bulk of it is done, and now I can just maintain it (I hope).

But today, today was the start to the bigger items on my list, namely painting. Sanding, priming and painting the fireplace in the exact same white as it was when first put together. Looks good, but it also looks like nothing really happened. Which sort of sucks. Next step is to paint our back hallway and staircase to the basement. That looks like it’ll need at least three coats of paint, and has some really nasty looking tricky spots. I might make that stretch over two days, I’m not sure yet. Once those two jobs get done I’ll head outside to power washing and sanding our back deck, and then adding a weather sealer (colourless of course, going oh naturelle!) I’d love to get that done this week too. Then all that is left is to wash and paint the garage door, and my biggest jobs will be completed. I can then turn my attention to the basement, where I’d like to finish the trim in our second bathroom, and generally tidy up the basement.

Something I have been meaning to do and have felt great relief getting it done, is purging years worth of crap out of the house. Our home feels bigger, less claustrophobic. Smells a hell of a lot better as well. As we turn towards autumn I’d like to wash all of the windows and winter coats in preparation for that drastic shift to grey rainy November.

Truth be told I’d like to get the bulk of this work done soon, in case my eldest wants to build a Halloween costume from scratch and we can turn our full attention to that in early October. Without feeling like I am neglecting household projects and deep cleaning for the sake of candy, candy, candy, candy.

Here’s a few old packaging projects

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on Here’s a few old packaging projects

Which I have finally gotten around to producing 3d renders for. The first is a plastic packet of gluten free chocolate crispy chunks. From what I recall of the project, we did up a few samples as spec work while we were submitting a bid to actually manufacture the wrapper. We did not win that particular job. The second is a paper bag soup pouch that was going to have an inner bladder to contain the different soups or chowders. Both were fun to work on, and far outside my usual alcoholic beverage wheelhouse.

Chocominiz mock up.
Clam Chowder soup pouch/bag.

I will continue to dig through my archives and see what else I can bring to life, whilst simultaneously working on my program skills, and completing my day job projects in a timely fashion. On a side note I’m well under way on one of the two Harry Potter trunks I have been commissioned to build. Sorting out the kinks on my box joint jig and I’ll be good to go. Might have to revert back to my mitered 45 degree edges until I get it up and working 100%, the box joint jig that is with my router.

Cheers! Stay as healthy as you can.

” You look terrible, what happened to you?”

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on ” You look terrible, what happened to you?”

Shouts the older grey haired man almost immediately after pushing his way through the grimy glass revolving doors, knocking an elderly man’s elbow causing him to fumble his hat, dropping it and then kicking it out into the gutter. Crossing the shabby lobby faux marble floor directly towards the rather bohemian looking man in a mad rush, his hawkish angular features pulled back into a sneer. “Oh, don’t start with me Derek, it’s this whole thing. I’m tired and sore so just leave me alone this one time, ok, huh!” squeaks the meager looking man shambling along with the flow of foot traffic heading to the thick line up for the elevators into the enormous and drab building. Pulling along beside the bedraggled man, Derek leans down over top of him and whispers “Come on little man, tell me, you always have the best stories. I need another doozy to impress the c-suite suits!” It’s a harsh whisper, the kind that carries and reverberates off of the polished concrete and forty year old wooden accents on the wall behind the sconces. Above the bank of elevator doors the massive brass clock ticks away noisily. People stand crammed together in the tight space, shuffling their feet and readjusting ties and hair pins. The heat of other peoples breathe is starting to make the little man sweat. Somebody has eaten day old eggs and sardines. “It was nothing really, nothing much at all!” whimpers the emaciated man. “Not sure why Doris made me sleep on the couch, I didn’t really do anything wrong.” His voice a wet warble little more than a whine. “Sure sure, bud, of course, I know you have a good heart.” “I do, I really do, I just say things some times, they just come out, I just tend to blurt out what I’m thinking.” “I know you do, and it tends to be the gods honest truth doesn’t it bud?” “It does, yes… but I don’t know…” He groans. “Come on bud, the elevators almost here, just gimme the Cole’s notes version.” “Well, after I got home from work, Doris had made me dinner, you see, a burger, well an unbattered chicken burger to be exact, so should have seen it, it was so thick, it was glorious!” He exclaims. “Ok, ok bud, there’s only twenty floors to go before this carriage gets here.” “Oh, ok, yeah, so It’s great you see, I’m tucking into it, and it’s juicy and delicious. Then on my fifth bite I get a real heavy crunch, like, almost crack my tooth kind of crunch right?” “Yeah, ok, crunchy chicken, not so good.” “Yeah, so I says, without thinking mind you, ‘Oh! must of had a bit of beak!’ and Doris without missing a beat, she throws up, all over Avery and Gemma. That’s my boy and my little girl see, they’re attached at the hip with Doris. Then they start to throw up, on themselves, each other and Doris too, you know for good measure. Then the dog wanders into the room because of all the commotion, you know?” “Dogs and commotion! It’s a real thing, I believe you.” “So he starts feasting on it, it is fountaining out of all three of them, all over the walls, the floor, each other’s hair, the carpet, the couch. It was absolutely everywhere.” “Oh, dear god man. why would you say that?” “I don’t know, it just sorta slipped out. Either way, Doris threatened divorce yet again, and they all retired to bed and I spent the first half of the evening cleaning it all up because…” Cutting across him Derek adds in. “Because you had to sleep on the couch, ok got it! Great, thanks bud.” With a loud chime the elevator signals its descent to the main floor lobby, and Derek pushes beyond the little man, and leaves him to wait for the next one. As the door closes Derek points his finger guns at the man and gives him a thumbs up.

In regards to my previous post about 3d rendering.

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on In regards to my previous post about 3d rendering.

I might be behind the eight ball here in terms of knowing about how to turn illustrations of uniquely shaped bottles into fully fledged 3d objects using Photoshop, but learning that work flow and then being able to chuck that stuff into Dimension and creating realistic looking mock ups is astounding. So glad I came across this stuff. No longer do I need to slave away drawing every bend of light or using finicky meshes. No no no, now you can draw up your custom bottle in illustrator, render the 3d shape in photoshop, with separate outer glass, inner liquid fill, cap and cork, plus add your various labels and tie that shit up with a fucking bow in Dimension with lighting effects, camera perspective matching to your background. Dear lord, it’s a game changer! I for one am pumped about what this could do for my beverage, and packaged goods clientele. Mind blown. I am tickled pink. Pleased as punch. Until next time.

Also – side note. I wrote a book of short stories available on Kindle, and kindle unlimited for $.99 USD. The Company – A series of interconnected space short stories by Mark Holyome. Available in 11 markets worldwide.

“I’m absolutely amazed that you’ve managed to get away with that…

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on “I’m absolutely amazed that you’ve managed to get away with that…

For so long, I mean, it’s kind of disgusting… the smut that you write.” Barks the stout middle aged man whilst walking around in the garden of the slovenly seated man. He is sat slumped in a deck chair, bent low over his dirty keyboard, the man looks up from his cracked screen and blinks rapidly in the glare of the hot overhead sun. Both to moisten his eyes after staring for a long period of time, and to give himself an excuse to cultivate a scathing rebuttal. “It isn’t smut, fuck you very much, it’s romance. And I do not apologize for my romantic bent having a thoroughly sexual vein running through it. If you pardon my phallic pun of sorts.” Quips the pudgy gentleman from his rustic looking deck chair. “Who the fuck asked you in the first place? As I recall, Benji, I pay you to look after my gardens not to interrupt me when my pages are finally starting to come together!” Leaning back now in his cruddy wicker deck chair, stretching until his spine pops loudly between his shoulder blades the pudgy writer smiles and waves lazily at a mosquito buzzing by his ear. The garden isn’t huge, but it’s quiet and secluded with massive rhododendrons and lilac bushes, surrounded by forsythia and Russian Olive trees. The garden smells divine on this late spring afternoon. A big proponent of hostas and day lilies and all manner of shrubs, the writer is slowly rising from his chair. “What do you care anyway Benji? I didn’t think you even read my stuff.” Standing a few steps away, half buried in the overgrowth of a gargantuan rhododendron Benji quips “I fucking well don’t, but I caught Gary reading one in the tub last night and I could hear his breath catch in his throat. He moans ever so softly to himself when he reads anything racy. So I picked up the book to peruse the chapter he was reading and it was all about throbbing this, and heaving that, with glistening chests and wetness and moisture. Oh god! It’s so hackey, it’s like every tainted soft core porno trope wrapped up in a bow. I couldn’t believe Gary was so turned on by it!” Benji is sweating profusely under the partial cover of the shrub, not only because it’s thirty some odd degrees in the cloudless heat. “Gary reads my stuff? I’m touched. People keep buying it, so I’ll continue to write it. Also, as a side note, my mother wants you to deadhead my roses again this year, she likes to see the bushes in full bloom from her bedroom window.” Both men turn away from the rhododendron to face across the yard to the next house over, where a tiny ancient woman sits smiling and waving from her modest porch overlooking the garden. “Damn straight Benji!, my little Julian wants me to be able to see those roses in bloom! From my bed!” Benji’s face contorts between a smirk and a grimace. “Oh of course my dearie, any thing for you – you shrivelled hag” he mutters under his breath. “Come at me you bitch!” Blurts the elderly woman while waving both arthritic middle fingers around in a figure eight pattern. “You leave my lovely boys alone, you know how much my Gary and Julian mean to me!”

Having some fun messing around with 3d rendering.

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on Having some fun messing around with 3d rendering.

So over the last few years I have doodled some faux beer brands for shits & giggles to keep busy and sane. Well now I am able to render them most realistically and in about 1/10th of the time my old method took me. Which makes me both happy and excited for the future of my graphic design business. Mock ups won’t eat up endless hours of my day anymore. Wah whooh!

Some samples with and without lighting effects and/or surface effects:

So I wrote a book of interconnected short stories set mostly out in space.

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on So I wrote a book of interconnected short stories set mostly out in space.

You can of course read most if not all of it for free when you search my archives, or if you are a Kindle/ Kindle Unlimited user you can read it all in one place on your handy device as you please for $.99 USD or $1.24 CDN or £.77 UK pounds. That’s as cheap as I can make it and still make it available in 11 different markets under Amazon.

Book is available on Kindle only at this point.

It was a great run.

greatwallstudiosLeave a Comment on It was a great run.

A bitter sweet moment has arrived now that I have completed the entirety of my four terrain boards to build one large interconnected 4ft by 4ft gaming table. Just in time too, as I came perilously close to finishing off my modpodge, ground cover, spring & summer grass flocking, foam stock and various colours of paint. Not to mention the store bought pepples and decorative sand. Phew – it was a nail biter. All of my best trees were used and the last few are so tiny I’m not sure how or what I’d ever use them on. Without further ado, I present my newest war gaming terrain build, and the final grouping.

I am happy with how they turned out. I might have miscalculated the foam alignments, but as I built them all separately I am not surprised by this at all. I look forward to many hours of story telling, make believe and quality time with my girls playing war games and D&D on these things. I’m in the process of building us each our own dice trays and at least one dice tower. In a few years I’d actually love to build a proper table (a nice one with hand cut joinery) for games that can be left set up. Now I need to finish reading my manuals and handbooks, nerf some stories or do up some homebrew adventures.

I followed all the same steps from boards 1 through 3. Although we chose the coldest day in March to try to cut foam outdoors to avoid the smell and fumes ( which worked for our health, but left us with numb fingers, and a perpetually cold hot knife). Memories – that’s how we make’em.