Some updates from me :)

Hi everybody!! It's been quite a long while since the last post! I haven't forgotten about this blog or my dream :) I was actually busy being a new mom of my precious little angel!!! There was also a period of illness and confusion about my life and future, and I was lost in darkness for quite some time. But I'm mostly recovered from them, thanks to God, and would like to refuel my passion! This time though, is not for myself, but for the LORD. After a recent Bible study called "Restless: Because you are made for more" by Jennie Allen, I found myself understanding my purpose in life a lot more, with a clearer direction for my life. Now, I would just want to jump right in and run the race for the purpose God showed me!

Something I did last year: a Facebook fan page was created and I mostly publish my posts there from then on :) The one below is a commission illustration of a fellow Fiat driver from a Fiat dealership where I bought my Fiat! :D

A pic of my happy diapering boy for my Facebook fan page:

A pic of my angel who loved doing this after turning 6 months!!

My teething cutie!!!

Thank you so much for reading my blog!! <3 <3 <3

Rooster and Leaf

Random sketch of a rooster we met in Jerome, AZ,
using my custom brush :)

How to Change Blogger Pages Font Style/Color

I just found that I can change the font style/color of the PAGES tabs in Blogger in just one simple step!! :D

Go to Template on the left > click Customize > Add CSS

Copy and paste the following inside the box on the right:

.PageList li a {

font-weight: bold;

color: #6BBAB2;

}

You may change the color code, and add different styles in this simple CSS coding :D Hope that helped (a little)!

Custom Adobe Illustrator Brush Experiment II

I just noticed that I can set 'pressure' in the art brush I made from the last post (silly me)! 

Below:

I used a little pressure on the random sketch on the left, and a little more pressure on the right profile head (notice the chin). I think the wrinkles of the brush make the line look organic. It's fun and I don't have to worry about shaky lines coming from my shaky hand with this brush!! :D

Custom Adobe Illustrator Brush Test (with Free Brush) :D

Made a random sketch of a character I made long time ago, and used it for a custom brush made recently. I think it looks kind of like ink. 
Kind of :)

I followed the tutorial here from Steps 11 - 13 to make the brush, then modified it by cutting both ends with the knife tool to make it not tapered, because I don't like the ends of the line not linking to each other. And I followed Step 14 to make the art brush in the end.

My Brush (not tapered)

After cutting the two ends, the line on the face looks seamless :D

Another brush made without cutting both ends and more wrinkled.

Feel free to use my brush if you like! :D Use it wherever you like, but I would appreciate it if you can show me the illustration/graphics you made with my brush!

>> Download Peggy's 1st Custom Brush :D <<

Adobe Illustrator Brush Test

Ever since I started using Adobe Illustrator, I haven't really tried to use the brush sets because I always think that they look very fake. However, recently, because I want to submit some illustrations to a stock illustration site, and they need vector illustrations more, so I tried to see if I can achieve that hand-drawn feeling with AI.

Here's my first quick experiment with the Artistic_ChalkCharcoalPencil Brushes. I like the look of the 'Pencil thick' brush:

Applied it to the Noel illustration I drew with the Pen tool (P). 

Filled the illustration with color like usual.

With color on the background:

It's fun to use, but I'm not very satisfied with the outcome. I'll try to see if I can make a custom brush that can achieve what I want :)

Church Website Go Live :D

After all these months, the church website has finally gone live!!! Yay!!! \ (>w<) /

http://mpcac.org/pc

As some information on the website needed to be confirmed before going live, the site just sat there and waited and waited, until last month, our pastor said, "let's not wait any longer and upload it" :p.

I changed the church title on the top left corner and took off the "30th Anniversary" banner, added a "Chinese version" tab, changed the slide for the theme of this year, and some corresponding changes back end. I think it looked better than before :) I still want to find a font with both upper and lower case that looks like the Bebas font though, because Bebas is in all caps and it's difficult for the audience to read content in all caps.

For the Chinese version, I looked into the language switcher function in Joomla, thinking it could help make the site bilingual a lot easier, but I really don't like the flags >><< they use to switch the language (the Traditional Chinese flag doesn't even show), and as I understand, there's no customization you can do for the graphics or location you can put. (With the help of extensions like United Language Switcher , I could put all the flags in one dropdown menu, but still, I don't like having flags there! Please let me know if there IS a way to use my own graphics with the language switcher!!! I'd love to give it a try!!)

Anyway, I resolved to just create another database, restored the backup of the original English site (I highly recommend Akeeba Backup!!!!), and changed the text inside into Chinese, which means there are actually TWO separate sites, instead of one (just like what we have right now). I think this way, not only can I skip creating all the menus and sub-menus again, it can also make the design and organization of content a lot more flexible, especially when the English ministry might have different content to use in the future, and the Chinese version might not necessarily need those content.

I guess the down side of this solution would be an almost duplicated site LOL, and I can't switch language on the same page. When people click the "Chinese version" tab, it will just open a new window of the Chinese website.

That's all for now :D When the Chinese version is finished, I'll post an update again! Thanks for stopping by!!