Following from the first and second Seasonal Frog Sets, I present a third, by somethingorother, a friend off the Mortal Engines discord server. Rather than dress the same frog in seasonally appropriate outfits, he’s done a series of stages of the lifestyle of actual frogs. (And no, before you ask, the tadpole is not a pregnancy announcement.)
You can see more of his work at his Artstation page here.
I posted a few years ago about the joys of being able to go out and commission art from people (almost all of it on the theme of sad frogs). This winter I went to TWO artist friends commissioning an icon refresh and, now that Spring has Sprung, it’s time to get these frogs into action.
These were by my pal Lilla, who posts lots of stuff at her Tumblr here. If you’re interested in commissioning her for some work, she has a commissions page here with prices!
Last week we had settled snow in my part of London, for the first time in a few years. There was really only one thing I could do.
I am completely terrible for guessing the gifts my extremely kind, patient and generous other half frequently gets me. However, through a long period of working in secret and hurriedly hiding things under blankets when I drew near, she completely blindsided me with this absolutely wonderful embroidered frog. I’m very lucky to have her (and the frog.) Also, I feel like my Personal Brand has been alarmingly well established.
She’s taking up embroidery as a proper hobby and is thinking of putting it all online on her new instagram – watch this space!
One of the real pleasures of being an Employed Adult and having a little bit of disposable income is getting to commission things from artists. I’ve been using Matsumoto Hoji’s frog print (henceforth The Gloomy Frog) as an icon on Facebook and various other places for years now (since 2014!) but decided I wanted a bit of seasonal variation, and the lovely Skyla from the Mortal Engines Discord server was only too happy to oblige.
Here are the Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter frogs she created for me.
And a bonus picture she did of myself WITH the frog!
The frog is for sale here: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/708868745/gloomy-frog-hard-enamel-pin-badge
Design
This is an enamel pin based on a lovely woodblock frog print by Japanese artist Matsumoto Hoji, from the 1814 book 名家画譜 “(Meika gafu”, an anthology of pictures by celebrated artists of the Edo period). I made a couple of very minor changes to the design in order to make him work as a pin, but believe I have preserved his glum, grumpy character. You can see the art which inspired this badge at the British Museum in London, or find more details of it here: https://www.bmimages.com/preview.asp?image=00286082001
Material
20mm hard enamel, black nickel, single pin fixing, butterfly clutch.
His tummy is white but the rest of him is a very dark brown – it’s quite visually distinct from the black nickel in natural light.
The challenge of signing large piles of books quickly is something I had never expected to trouble me (although I’ll admit I’ve always secretly hoped for it). I’m dyspraxic, so dragging the pen across all these things is tedious, uncomfortable and leads to an ugly, inconsistent scrawl. I did wonder about getting myself a little custom signature stamp made, as the Japanese so sensibly do.
But, as noted, my signature is ugly, and I in general Dislike Signatures: the hangup is partly from how all-around antiquated and crap they are as a form of identity (and specifically impossible for people like me), partly from working on a court case where a hell of a lot of signature-forging happened. So, I would prefer a different mark. How about the Matsumoto Hoji frog icon I’ve been using as my icon for quite some time…?
Perfect.
(I used http://stampit.co.uk/ for my custom stamp. Price was not unreasonable and delivery was very quick – recommended.)
For my 29th, cake pops in the shape of the Matsumoto Hoji gloomy frog!
underneath the open sky 
