Colouring Books ♥

hello! It's been about 3 weeks since my last blog, which is a vast improvement for me and my blogging track record of late. It'll just be a quick post today, not rambling essay like last time.

So why am I making the time now to post a little blog? Well, i'm actually super excited to share my first ever colouring book with you all!

I've wanted to bring out a colouring book for years now, and i'm really pleased with how they've turned out, not bad for a first attempt. I was a bit nervous, even though I triple checked every page, I always panic that something might go wrong and i'll end up with something that I have to bin. But these arrived and they turned out perfectly.

I own a few colouring books myself but I rarely take time to fill any of them in (I get headaches from some of the more detailed ones!) so I thought it might be fun to have a go at creating my own instead. pretty much 'colour-in' for a living and when I post any of my lineart designs online, one or two people usually say 'oh you should make colouring pages', so that's what i've done.

as expected, the books are super girly and feminine, with girl gang themed pages and lots of candy and other sweet treats. Inside there's a selection of Candy Dolls ad a pair of Sugar Skulls along with some brand new designs created JUST for the books.

all of the images have a nice bold outline and while some of the candy doll images are on the detailed side, a lot of the 'montage' pages are nice and spaced, plenty to colour in without giving yourself a headache or hand cramp.

I think my favourite set of pages are either the 80's/90's ones (above) or the Space Babe ones (below). I had a lot of fun putting the pages together and coming up with cute things for each 'pair'. I think there's something for everyone inside, or at least for every girl. Someone asked me why I didn't put anything for boys in there... but why should I?! they get enough already.

So this is 100% girly, just like the rest of my work really.It has cakes and sweets, unicorns and trolls, a princess and a witch and heaps of GIRL POWER!

The colouring books are A5 sized (148 x 210mm / 5.8 x 8.5") saddle stitched with 32 pages and 28 pages to colour. The cover is 300gsm silk coated stock (nice and sturdy to keep everything safe) while the inner pages are 170gsm uncoated stock, perfect for pens, pencils, paints or even sharpies!

The books really are SUPER cute (even if i do say so myself), they're perfect for young, aspiring girl gang members, or grown-up girl bosses!

Here's a sneak at some of the other pages inside. As for the rest... you'll just have to order one of the books and see for yourself! 

speaking of which, I also have a brand new online shop. Although I still have items for sale on Etsy, I think my time with them might be coming to an end. So i've opened a brand new shop on Shopify.

and if you want to get your hands on one of my brand new colouring books, you can find them right HERE

if you do decide to get one, please, please, PLEASE send me a photo! I've already had a few snaps from customers, but so far I've yet to see anyone actually colour in any of the pages and i'm dying to see what cool colour schemes people come up with!

is that it, do you think i've plugged it enough? well, I hope so.

i'm just really proud of my colouring books, okay?

and on that note, i'll say goodbye, and hopefully it won't be too long until i'm back for another blog post!

so until then, thanks for visiting...

 

Now Fight ♥

hello chums, today it's going to be an Illustration post because I FINALLY finished my new 'Babydoll' fanart piece...

for those of you unfamiliar with her, Babydoll is a character from the 2011 movie Sucker Punch.

Now you probably know by now that I'm kind of a big Fangirl and that I often Geek out over all sorts of things (books/TV shows/movies/games/people etc) and that from time to time I like to draw characters from Popular Culture to show my appreciation for the source material. Well that's why I drew Babydoll! Also I really like Emily Browning, the Australian actress who plays Babydoll in the film.

The movie Sucker Punch often gets a really bad rep, it's looked down upon as nothing more than a video-game style fantasy movie for teenage boys. It was pretty much universally panned by critics which is ironic because I would bet money that had the film been gender-swapped, with an all male leading cast instead, it would have done much better at the box office! Just think, they keep churning out films like the Expendables series (who cares?! I DON'T) but heaven forbid someone release a female action movie.

 Anyway i'm getting into RANT territory here. Because if you watch it, and I mean really pay attention, look past the skimpy costumes (which DO make sense within the storyline I promise) and flashy gamer style graphics and what you have is a FEMALE led film about a group of young women working together to fight corruption and oppression.

It's one of those 'guilty pleasure' films for me but in truth it shouldn't be a 'guilty' one at all. I mean it has dragons in it for crying out loud! And pretty girls fighting and generally kicking ass all while looking GORGEOUS. It's completely unbelievable of course but who cares; the leading lady is a tiny girl wearing a sailor outfit. She has tiny cute plastic charms hanging off her gun while she shoots the living crap out of various baddies. How can you not love this film?!

Right anyway, enough about the film. If you've seen it and you liked it... GREAT! If you watched it and hated it, then 'oh well, never mind'. And if you've yet to see it, try not to take it too seriously and just enjoy the visuals! It also has a pretty killer soundtrack, with some brilliant mash-ups and remixes.

Back to the drawing now. I meant to have her finished in time for Halloween but I was so busy with other projects that I only managed to finalize the design a few nights ago. As always she's my take on the character, so she looks like a Candy Doll and she has tattoos.

I was going to add some ombre colour to her hair but I settled for keeping it simple in the end. By that point i'd added so much detail to the outfit and weapons that I figured it didn't really matter what colour her hair was! In the movie her gun and sword both have intricately engraved designs on them, featuring cute characters and flowers. I recreated the design for the gun but the sword was even more complicated so I skipped it. I'm SORRY!

The tattoos are simple but reflective of the film's storyline. The quote 'If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.' is one of my favourite lines from the film. The swallow represents her inability to escape from the confines of the asylum, the knuckle duster is there because she's such a badass, and the bunny because it's a symbol in the movie, painted onto one of the girls' weapons.

You can see the texture in the clothing better here. I don't always add loads of texture or detail, sometimes I just keep simple gradients or flat colours but I added in some texture for the skirt and top for this one along with some contrasting stitching which took FOREVER to do.

Am I boring you yet? Anyway, the design is all finished now. I uploaded it to the usual spots online including my Society6 and RedBubble stores.

Personally I quite like the design on the tank tops, they look like the sort of thing a Girl Gang might wear to go out and cause havoc. 

So yep, a new illustration, hop y'all liked it and if you didn't, I don't particularly care! ^_^

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in other news, there are only FOUR days left to enter my mega Instagram Giveaway...



I'm giving away a literal HEAP of cute stuff + extra goodies have been added to the bundle. To enter you must be following me on Instagram + follow the rules HERE

and on that note i'll say au revoir for now, hope to see you here again soon.

bye

Giveaway Time ♥

hello dearhearts! Back again so soon! Must be a special occasion... and as you might have guessed from the title, i'm currently holding a little giveaway.

It's been quite a while since I last did one but I thought it was about time I gave away some cute goodies again. So to celebrate finally reaching 1000+ followers on Instagram, i'm doing a super cute Girl Gang themed giveaway!

This time however, the giveaway is being held exclusively on Instagram, and to tempt you to enter, here's a list of everything i'm giving away to ONE lucky winner...

a lucky troll necklace in YOUR choice of colour

a Girl Gang patch + Candy Doll Club rosette

a sheet of 12 girl gang stickers

a Custom glitter brooch with any words or phrase of your choosing

a Candy Doll vinyl sticker + official membership card

a  hand screen-printed felt  candy doll patch

a Candy Doll Club postcard

a set of 4 circle stickers

+ a cupcake badge, candy doll club badge, mini stickers AND a super special BONUS surprise that i'll be revealing next week! oh and some sweeties.

So for a chance to win ALL of this neat stuff... here's what you have to do.

first of all, get yourself over to Instagram and FOLLOW me @jade_boylan

then RE-POST the Giveaway pic and TAG it with #candydollclubtreats

then you can also TAG a friend for an extra entry! if you want to

The giveaway closes on Nov 15th at midnight GMT.

it's open worldwide but giveaway-only Instagram accounts will not be counted. This is for people that actually LIKE and WANT my stuff, not sneaky chancers!

You can enter as many times as you like and i'll pick a winner using random.org on the 16th

altogether there are over £20 worth of goodies up for grabs, and everything is SUPER CUTE AND LOVELY!

so you know what to do, go visit my Instagram page and enter the giveaway!

and that's all for tonight, i'm off to watch the Fireworks in Ramsey

cheerio!

Candy Hearts ♥

hello chums, as promised i'm back again with yet another thrilling installment of Jade's Life, this week featuring a new Candy Doll illustration + some other stuff.

so let's get on with it.

As you may have noticed, I spend a lot of my time drawing ladies with colourful hair and nice clothes, I'm not always sure why I draw things like this but I enjoy creating them so that's what matters right?!

Anyway there's a new one further on in this post...

but before that, here's some anti-Valentine Candy Hearts I did for V day last week.

I usually try to create some sort of illustration for Valentine's Day but this year I left it too late and I didn't have time to put together a new Candy Doll (like the one below) so I opted for Girl Power candy hearts instead!

 In case you're wondering, I spent my Valentine's Day wandering round town with my little cousin Sienna and then in the evening I went for tea with my friend Lorna before going to see 50 Shades of Grey with her at the cinema for our Valentine's 'Date'. In my defense, I would like to point out that I only agreed to go see that film with Lorna on the understanding that she'll go and see Crimson Peak with me in October! ^_^

Lorna is a MASSIVE fan of Jamie Dornan, so I didn't get much say in the matter when she booked tickets to go see the film. I didn't mind too much, it was nice to spend a V Day out doing stuff instead of sitting at home watching horror films by myself + consuming my body weight in butter popcorn.

ps: here's the Birthday card I made for Lorna last month! (see, i'm SUCH a good friend! I mean this card was obviously soooo tedious and boring to put together...)

right i'm getting distracted, back to the post, back to the ART!

 I also made the design available on a bunch of products over on Society6 (I think the clock is my fave!)

Right then, onto the other thing i've drawn recently, say hello to this gal!

I braid/plait my hair pretty much every single day so it's always fun to draw a Candy Doll with a nice plait, gotta love that chunky rainbow braid right!

she's not got any (visible) tattoos but she's a certified member of the Candy Doll Club (see her rosette!) and she gets her jeans and necklaces from ASOS 

she's also available on various cool stuff via Society6

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in other news, this week I sent off a super cute Sailor Moon tote bag to a lovely lady in Alaska! I'm sooooo happy to have finally sold this bag! I really enjoyed working on the design and when I added it to my shop it got a lot of likes and faves from people but nobody bought it! So i'm glad to know that someone out there liked it enough to give it a home.

 after i'd sent the bag off I took the opportunity to update my Etsy Shop with some more tote designs,
there's currently only one of each bag in stock so if you've had your eye on one, be aware that it might not be around forever!

 

ALL available bags are listed HERE + each bag comes with a matching Candy Doll Club ribbon rosette! AND a bundle of free postcards and stickers, it's really super good value for £8

right and now I can't think of much else to tell you so i'll end the post. I think i've done enough self promotion for one blog!

until next time, thanks for stopping by to read (or look at the pictures) hope to see you again next time!