Satire vs Protest (POVO magazine commentary)

For those of you that love African arts but didn't manage to get your hands on POVO magazine I'm going to be commenting on the articles and stuff.

I really enjoyed Rumbidzai Dube's (@dubbydacious) article inonzi "Is Satire the New Protest?" mainly because I love protest music (I have every major Bob Dylan track) and I'm abscessed with satire comedy shows (like Arrested Development - "It's a satire - Marc Cherry"). Anywhere back to Povo magazine..

Rumbie's article is ridiculously hilarious. She anatomical dissected the "Zviri kumbofamba sei" (Best translated as - What [censored] is going on in our Zimbabwean society). Dubbydacious is a lawyer/ blogger** by profession, so you can expect nothing less than brilliance in her article. She even expresses her bafflement with Alick Macheso' unorthodox "nhova" medicine he allegedly tried to use to cure his daughter.

If it wasn't for this attile I wouldn't have connected the dots of similarity between my two favourite forms of expression; satire & protest. If you failed to get a copy, read the entire magazine online:

http://issuu.com/povo/docs/povo_journal_2014-anniversaryeditio


**Lawyer/Blogger reminds me of Arrested Development's Wayne Jarvis and his tongue-twistingly titled law blog.

#ReadingPOVOmagazine

Teaching a child the alphabet.

 

Illustration by yours truly, Tafadzwa Tarumbwa

Whatsapp has a new Anti-hero called the Bluetick.

It's been a while since I updated my blog. Today is Sat 8/Nov/2014 and yesterday my Whatsapp started showing 2 blue ticks whenever someone reads your messages. This has, as you can imagine caused mayhem. A few people in my social media circles started complaining that they can now be exposed when they ignore/ refuse to reply someone's message. The blue ticks are being painted as somekind of mega villains. I thought it would be nice to play around with that idea..

Follow my studio on Twitter: @totally2d 

Have an awesome day!
Tafadzwa Tarumbwa

Totally2d (Where you can find cartoons made in Africa)

After a while, Totally2d.com is back online. The above image shows a visual sample of the website, and in the next couple of months new content is going to flood the site. Let me know what you think.

Dating maCelebrities (from animation to African novel)

 
Salad Chick's star actress has decided to expand her empire from animation into novels. This move shall see Ambivalence Chiweshe debut novel "Dating maCelebrities" being released sometime in 2014. Her animated short films like Salad Chick have been screen at film festivals the Stuttgart Festival in Germany, and she has also won awards like Best animated short film during the 2009 Zimbabwe International Film Festival.


 A lady this gorgeous must have tonnes of male-skeletons inside her walk-in closet. I have just finished designing the cover for Miss Chiweshe's debut upcoming novel. It's going to be a calabash of African love, juicy secrets, and scandals. Those of you who love our Salad Chick films are in for a slightly more matured treat, rich with suspense and drama as Miss Chiweshe puts on red heels and leads you down into the burning pits of her darkest imagination in "Dating maCelebrities" (the novel).

Novel sample:

........Blistered feet caught the attention of two black souls smoking by the sidewalk, as I passed by barefoot. Grains of rough pavement pricked into my torn flesh, like expensive salt. Injecting a numbing pain into my stride. The odour of my drenching sweat was even stronger than their cheap cigarettes. As I passed the suits, nothing else was cheap about them. I lowered my red eyes to the ground in shame, and my sight was met by their matching pairs of fancy Italian leather. Those over-priced kind, I've only seen in newspapers and the magazines I sleep on.

A church in the northern suburbs used to feed both soup and hymns of grace, to the destitute. They used to. I only ever went there for the bread their colourful newspaper advert promised. If I hadn't drooled all over that paper in my sleep, I would've known that it was all just temporary for them. These oil stained African hands relieved me of my agony, as I scrapped off the sand in-between my cracked sole-flesh. Whilst awaiting for the little green man's appearance, as Durban's traffic bulleted past. Pigeon Valley has a lot of potholes, someone says behind me! I strongly disagreed in silence, potholes? Maybe here and there. His gorgeous female companion kept nodding and smiling, in her perfumed animal-fur coat, and glass heels. To him she's just temporary. Very temporary.............

Author: Miss A. Chiweshe

Comic strip artist for hire!

 Greetings :)

AWESOME news Totally2d had been designing well polished, creative comic strips. If you have comic strip ideas that you can't draw yourself go to this link and Get comic strips designed for you.

cheers!

so Disliked (the introduction)

INTRO:

It's finally here! I have been tirelessly working at crating a t-shirt line for the rebellious and young. After about a year or even more I have refined and kick-started the brand so-Disliked. I have now created the first t-shirt line which currently consists of 3 very unique designs under the theme "You know I'm bad."

In November so-Disliked will officially launch with the unveiling of these works of art online and who knows, if you follow @soDisliked on Twitter you might end up winning a tshirt or two ;)

THE NAME:

so-Disliked is best described in one word "REBELLION." On Twitter I stated in the profile that "The t-shirt range for the rebellious revolutionaries. Other people hate change, they can't evolve, not you. That's why you're so disliked".

That description covers part of the thinking that went into the name, I had the vision of wanting to create a "rebellious" brand. Who are my target market rebelling from? Any form of oppression really, be it social standards or otherwise. I see it being a brand for women mostly, not that men can't wear so-Disliked t-shirts but I gave the brand a level of lustful energy. A lust to be free to act and speak your mind. 

THE LOGO: 

 The Brand's logo has a heart and tail, with a star and a pair horns. The single star is a constant feature in the identity of so-Disliked. It's based on the 5 star rating system that judges use to grade products and services. 5 stars mean the product is the best of it's kind, however I use a single star to identify with so-Disliked. Since its rebellious, so-Disliked doesn't aim to fit into the existing system. Other people hate change, they can't evolve, so-Disliked is the "black sheep" you love and hate.

The heart is a symbol that's used to represent love, but so-Disliked uses a heart with horns to represent a mixture of three feeling envy, jealousy, and lust. The tail also serves the same purpose in the logo. Being an owner of a so-Disliked product is expected to make people react to you in one of those three ways. It's definitely a teenagers' and young adults' brand, no doubt about that. I started this brand with a specific target market in mind and every element is designed to attract and please that target market. Attempting to please EVERYONE with a single product is a bad idea cause people will pull you into a million different directions. So Grandma and Grandpa might not like so-Disliked, reason being it's targeted and the young, the risk takers and the rebellious

The red star is also a subtle reference to revolution and uprising, which ties in with the element of rebellion so-Disliked is building on.

THE MODEL:

Kyla Terblanche is just perfect at being the face of so-Disliked. She has tattoos and the right energy for this kind of brand. Visit the website to check her photographs out www.sodisliked.com. I will be doing a lot of shoots with her to keep you up to date with the latest designs and fresh updates on whats happening. Expect to learn a little bit more about her when I do my interview with her sometime next month.

Website: www.sodisliked.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/sodisliked

Facebook: www.facebook.com/sodisliked

I'm back

Hey, I know I've been away from my blog for a while now but it's time to say a few more things. I would like to start by congratulating my friend and fellow blogger Ackie she is going places. I just tumbled upon this post on her fashion blog:

http://ackiekingdomrags.blogspot.com/2012/09/im-on-news-paper.html?showComment=1346761620604#c5864927314604398870



Congrats! Now the picture above is one of my latest work :) it's two creatures; a bird and a fish stranded in the middle of.. nowhere. The bird Bobo is using his drinking water to cool down his scorched friend (whom I haven't named). Needless to say I enjoy Angry Birds a lot but this designed wasn't really motivated by that. I've always liked a good and nicely illustrated cartoon bird like Tweety Bird. I'll keep you posted when I have something new to share.

Speaking of new things I'm working on a series of comic strips, the project is looking AMAZING. Once the client publishes it I'll get the links and stuff for you to see. Thank you for dropping in :)


eat.sleep.animate

Orient Islamic School

Hey! It's been a while since I last posted anything. I've been slaving away at college, and just pushing my side-jobs in comic books, character designs etc.

Today however I went with the rest of my class to Orient Islamic School to do our presentation. We had been there before taking pictures for this very project. In my presentation I had a brochure (is that how you spell it) I also had a document folder and a CD sleeve. The picture above is the front of my 2 fold brochure. The images work really well together, and we had been asked to cover sport and obviously religion.

I really enjoyed this project and hope to keep improving on my design and photography skills. the school treated us really well and they're currently deciding which one of our designs they want to use. I might upload the other stuff later on today my internet a bit too slow.

Currently I'm working on my comic book project. It's going super well. Have a wonderful day!

To know more about the school just visit:

www.orientschool.co.za/

Salad chick Returns

It's now happening! I have decided to bring back Salad chick, I have been dying to do this for ages. The script is going to be nuts! I have been refining Salad chick so much that the end product is going to be AWESOME! You know that feeling you get when something is about to happen? This is it!

http://www.indiegogo.com/saladchick?a=650817&i=wdgi

Visit the link above and be shareholder in the Salad chick Returns comic book publication.


I will keep you all updated
Tafadzwa Tarumbwa

Beechies Gum

I'm working on a few comic book ideas I'm working on. Recently I illustrated a Children's book "Grumpy Frog". The writer, my friend Megan had the first copy printed yesterday I'm keen to see the print later today :)

Moving on to "Beechies" design.. I was given a challenge to re-brand the Beechies bubblegum packaging at college. Beechies is a very vibrant, young, sexy. I wanted my packaging to reflect that by with bright orange, that makes the packaging radiant. The illustration I placed on the pack is also on the print advert I created. I really enjoyed the class project :)

If you want to gain a greater understanding of Beechies, checkout their website

www.beechies.co.za

Thank you for coming to my blog
Tafadzwa

My website

My Animation  e-shop

Grumpy Frog

 

My friend, Megan Kinloch and I worked on children's picture story book "Grumpy Frog". The first print was done yesterday. I'm going to see how it came out later today! Megan says it's awesome :)

I'm looking into how we can self publish the book. Someone recently recommended Kickstarter to me but it only Funds American citizens (sigh). Luckily my lecturer recommended Indiegogo as a viable option for me, I'm now and member but haven't had the time to check out a lot of the features yet but it's a lot like Kickstarter. So I'll probably use Indiegogo then, if all goes well the book could be published.

A lot of sleepless nights went into the project, it was Megan's school assignment but we now want to bodly take it even further. I mean the work has been done.  The book is here, we thought why not publish it? I might get her to write in a few extra pages, or we might tweak some stuff. Who knows?

Blackrose fantasy

Greetings

 Two days ago I had an amazing photoshoot with my friend's sister Cyndy. The results are really awesome, and I'm really pleased. My model fitted in perfectly into the dress I had, and the weather was on my side.

Of all the projects I've done this particular photography work is the most accurate depiction of my inner most favourite style. I enjoy fantasy themes, and some degree of gore. My goal was to come up with vampire like esthetics. The quarry where I took these images had some ducks nesting there or something, just the perfect place. I'm still scheduled to do another similar shoot with Cyndy and I'm sure to use more props and models in my next shoot.

I have no words to describe how wonderful it is tolook at these photographs with my name written all over them. The shoot produced more shots that these. The ones I've uploaded are just a fraction of what I got from the shoot. I just hope it gives you an idea of the standards to aspire to maintain and surpass..

Tafadzwa Tarumbwa
animator.designer.photographer.

 

Elsa Kamsoda - FUTURE

The album launch is just around the corner. I don't have dates but I'll keep you all posted when it's out. Elsa's new album as some of you know by now is called FUTURE and I did a photo-shoot with her a few weeks ago. Now here are the poster designs!

The album cover is also complete now and the print runs have already started. I'll post that later on when it's ready. If you look at the two posters you'll get a feel of how Elsa's image will be like in all her upcoming work.

I'm trying to capture a Zimbabwean feel in the work I'm ding for her a nd the Zimababwean flag colours play a big role in my achieving that.

It's funny how far the projects have all come i.e the animated poem we made lats year, video shoots, and now a new album is upon us.

Enjoy your day!

Tafadzwa

http://www.totally2d.org/

2d animation template

The past few days I was designing a Album sleeve for Elsa Kamsoda, and that went really well. The printing is being done as I write this and I'm so eager and excited to see the final product :)

I'm now working on some new character designs to upload into my e-shop. The "Death Machine" above is one of the many designs I'm currently working on. The bot has a War Angel feel to it, and I think it will make a great addition to all my e-shop customers' galleries. More information is coming soon!

Eat.sleep.animate.

Tafadzwa

Crazytalk Animator templates

Hey I've recently created a new set of 2d animation templates that can be imported into Crazytalk Animator (CTA). The beauty of CTA is that if you go to the market place you'll find lots of shops that sell several items. Visit Reallusion's Market place (in a new window). I'll be posting images whenever my shop has new content.

The two buildings below are part of the latest uploads I did earlier today, they also fit in really well with the other buildings above.

I hope you'll be able to visit my e-shop and see how it's looking: http://city.reallusion.com/store/Totally2d

Cheer!

Tafadzwa

Crazytalk Animator templates

Hey.. I've been working on some new stuff since the year begun! I've opened a store on Reallusion's website where Crazytalk Animator users can purchase my content packs and background designs! The store also has a few freebies to try out if you're intrested

 http://city.reallusion.com/store/Totally2d

One of the first content packs I put in my Store was a theme pack I call War Angel 1st Edition. It includes the gun above, the helmet below, and other military weapons like a Jet fighter etc.

The other content pack I made was these buildings below. Each of the buildings can be purchased in my online store along with other stuff

http://city.reallusion.com/store/Totally2d

For those that need car props for your high speed chases and action scenes, I've also created the model below which can be used in Crazytalk Animator v1.2. Just Download it from my store and let the drive begin.

After I finished War Angel 1st Edition, i recently went on to create War Angel 2nd Edition which has swords, and other sharp instruments of death. Great props for a battle scene. As you can see my store intends to provide a wide selection of content for Crazytalk Animator users. Visit my store and just browse through the items there

http://city.reallusion.com/store/Totally2d
 

Movie poster

I created the above poster in photoshop. The task was to create a simple vector-like movie poster, and I chose a western design. I imagined the people who would have created this Poster could use stencils and end up splashing drops of paint on their work. that is why I played around with white paint splashes. The white horse illustration I did also works really well with the concept.

All in all this was an amazing class project, and I finally got to do a design with burnt margins (looks amazing). This was a very productive venture for me.


Have a great day, and thank you for visiting my Blog! Cheers

Tafadzwa Tarumbwa
www.totally2d.org

Simple self sketch

Packaging Design

 

Hey! Welcome back to my Blog, I recently designed these packages for a class assignment.This kind of packaging design is used by food outlets like KFC and I found it challenging to stick the packs together. My base was too big for the wall :D I'll fix that next time. I'll upload photographs from my most recent shoot later... #TooMuchWork

Check out my site www.totally2d.org later on for some cartoon templates etc!