The AstraeA Saga (An Image-Laden Journey)

As I have mentioned before, my friend Todd is in a band called AstraeA. I have never actually heard any of their stuff, since they are very picky about what they have been doing in the studio, but I do know their album art, because I sort of had a hand in that. Sort of. It's a long story.

So. I was first given this, along with a couple of stock photos snagged from deviantArt and Google and some vague color descriptions, and asked to see what I could do.





With that in mind, I came up with this:





Although it's not my greatest work ever, I really liked this beginning, and I was pretty proud of it, but then I was introduced to the wonders of making things for other people when they already know what they want.

(As a note, this is not intended to be some sort of passive-agressive blog bitchery. It took a looooong time to get to the end of this, but that's part of the process. Plus, I had fun!)

Anyway, following my new instructions (the girl needs to be greener, the halo gold, and the whole thing centered), I updated, also adding detail to the halo, since I liked that better. (Note: freeballing not recommended. It just gets you emotionally attached.)





Now that the figure was at least settled, I realized that I did not know which logo to attach, which was fun. Todd had drawn and facebooked a logo, which looked like this:

.



Using that logo (with a little added tweaking on my part, since it's me), and my new directives (adding mist, making her look more ethereal), I came up with this:





Now here is where my emotional involvement and stubbornness sort of fought with my desire to please. I was given the official AstraeA logo, and asked to make her more transparent, add more mist, and generally make it more space-ghost-ish.





Since this was sort of displeasing to me, and, as it turns out, to the band members themselves, I made this other one (Direct quote from me at the time, "I had another artsy bitch moment and am trying something different, just because I want to"). I centered the person to match the symmetry of the logo, and handed this one, my favorite, over.





At this point, I am not sure if the poor guitarist got sick of my shenanigans or if he just decided to second opinion it, but he sent it to the guy who did their official logo to tweak.
(As far as art etiquitte goes, probably not the nicest thing ever, but I am sort of alright with it, since this guy is sort of amazing? Check him out here)

Aaaaand, as it turns out, he's making them pay for it. So there's that. I'm sure the story will have a less anticlimactic end some day.
Hopefully?
Yes.

Ganache

It all started one fateful afternoon.

My friend Nathan and I were going out to lunch to catch up and hang out, whine about boys, etc., when we were served the artsy nutjob's favorite dish -- fondue. I, personally, am not actually a fan of eating fondue, but I am a fan of making art on the plate with the leftover chocolate and skewers. And so it began:





Poor Danny, our waiter, was blown away by this (or, according to Nathan, the creepy, sensual way I [accidentally] explained the concept of paisley to him.), and Nathan was inspired. He insisted that for his next dinner party, I would be decorating his plates, for pay, and so, a couple weeks later, I did.

Having been forced to take home the leftover fondue chocolate, I had surmised that the chocolate was not simply melted chocolate, but was, instead, ganache -- a smoother, softer mix of chocolate and cream that stays liquid longer, and has the consistency of a thick pudding when chilled (and eaten for several days later by a chocoholic homebound girl with no impulse control).

You (or I) can make ganache by combining cream and chocolate in a one-to-one ratio (one cup of chocolate, one cup of cream, etc.) in a double boiler and heating them together, stirring constantly to mix the two together evenly and avoid burning. As I learned when making mine the first time, it is highly important that you both use baking chocolate and heat the cream with the chocolate. If you add cold cream to melted chocolate, you will get a settled out mess that tastes delicious (imagine an incredibly moist brownie), but is actually impossible to paint with.

Anyway, given this chocolate and a set of beautiful, crisp white plates, I went to town.




This was my first paid gig (a whole $25!), and it was highly satisfying.

All you need is a wooden skewer, a double boiler (or a sauce pan and a glass bowl, really), and some chocolate and cream. And maybe a plate. Then, pop a couple slices of fruit on your fancy new plates, or serve ice cream, or do something else. Any way you do it, it will be both beautiful and delicious.

Dethkake

It was my friend Todd's birthday recently (well, recently-ish.) a while ago, and we decided that since he is a metal guy (he actually has a band and everything, feel free to check out AstraeA), we decided that he needed a metal cake to go with it.

The actual contents of this cake, taken care of by my guy friends, were obscenely sugary -- Devil's food cake sandwiched on top of chocolate brownie, held together with a nice thick coat of vanilla frosting -- reinforcing my theory that type 2 diabetes is actually hardcore metal.

The top of the cake, though, was my place to go nuts, and go nuts I did.
Inspired by the boys of Dethklok (see: Metalocalypse. No, seriously. Go watch all of it.), I crafted the Dethkake, featuring Dr. Rockso, the Rock 'n Roll clown.




He does cocaine.

(As a note: cake should be coated in syrup and given a layer of dirty icing before being decoratively frosted, in order to avoid the chunks and lumps evident here. Sometimes, though, laziness is totally necessary.)