This is what I like to call a “throw-away" blog. As that characterization suggests, it’s a filler piece, put together to fulfil the quota I have set for myself or else I get the hose again. But in my defence, it does have some merit to it. One thing I feel that sets my blog apart from other people’s blogs is that I usually include some fancy Photoshop artwork I made all by myself. Sometimes I am proud of them, sometimes I am ashamed, but either way - they don’t get enough attention. To rectify this, here is an entire blog dedicated to this side of Juice Nothing, which is my way of jumping up and down, screaming “LOOK AT ME OMG LOL WTF FTW”.
This is also the first ever DOUBLE FEATURE! blog for J0, because it is essentially two different blogs with opposite messages back to back. I hope you like it. Or at least read it. Or at least look at the pretty pictures. Or at least think of me occasionally. Or at least pray for me, because I fucking need it. I can't tell if I'm funny anymore.
Part 1: The Best Of Juice Nothing Artwork
Make no mistake, I am very aware that a “Best Of Me” topic comes across as one big self dick suck. But let it be known, I love getting my dick sucked. And fuck you if you don’t like my self-worship. I am officially giving myself permission to be proud of my word-decorations because I listen to Hip-Hop, and those guys talk about how cool they are all the time. Maybe just pretend this is a song? I dunno. Anyways, seeing as my last blog claimed I was John Lennon Reincarnated, I feel like I can pretty much say anything I want now.Onward, here are my Top 10 Favourite Artworks that I have produced for Juice Nothing thus far:
10 People You Have To Follow On Twitter
Funny enough, I was originally going to put this one on the “Worst Of List” because it was so thrown together. But I looked at it for a while and it brought a tear to my eye, and a little soft spot grew inside of me. Like a bruise. Or the desire to puke all over my conceited self.
The message should be pretty obvious, but I’ll explain it anyway: Sylvester is “following” the Twitter bird as if it was Tweety bird (geddit? TWEETy? Whatevs), and in true Looney Tunes fashion he is about to fall off of a cliff. Omg, hilarious. I also used the real Twitter font (hint: it’s actually a mix of two fonts) which makes it look more authentic. Basically: It’s not as bad as the majority of other things I have done, which isn’t saying much.
Top 10 Formspring Questions
In all fairness, there was very little editing done to this image on my part. But I love the absurdity of it: A Song About Rusks? A pile of said biscuits lying placidly on a plate? What does it all mean??
Well, it related to a formspring question I was asked by Matthew (my formspring arch-nemesis) which turned out to be one of the most creatively challenging yet memorable entries on my profile. The related blog itself was a bit meh, but the answer I gave is one I am proud of and this image stood out, giving me a sense of joyful panic and victory.
Rockstars Fuck Each Other, Happy Valentines Day
While this blog wasn’t my favourite and was more of a “let’s do something for valentines day” bit, this image is cool for a few reasons. The main one is that it is borderline pornographic, taken from a REAL GENUINE porn image (don’t tell my gran). And if you look closely, I cut it off at juuuust the right place too. However, it doesn’t seem tasteless because the whole thing was sweetened up with the surrounding heart texture, giving one an emo-tug and a hard-on at the same time. Awwww, who says romance is dead?
Another useless fact is that the original image I was using was one of a kangaroo. I have no idea how that came about, but in my mind it was justified it by adding the caption “The only creature I ever loved was a kangaroo. We didn't fuck though.” At some point I realised this was stupid, changed the image, but somehow that caption survived and is still on the blog to this very day - go look. I can’t imagine what people thought that meant.
10 (more) People You Have To Follow On Twitter
The follow up blog to the image featured in entry 10. And let’s face it: those Twitter blogs are terrible - I know this. What's even sadder is that I will probably make another one, I JUST CAN’T HELP MYSELF.
Regardless, I figured this picture was quite clever (pats self on head). Much like the other Twitter one, it contains a cultural reference: this time to Alfred Hitchcock’s movie The Birds, starring Tippi Hedren (featured in the image). See the original here. However, the joke being that instead of The Murderous Birds, I included the Twitter birds, which once again is OMG hilarious. I used the real Twitter font again, but with a little “(more)” added in, which looks totally rad. I think so anyway.
Personal Appeal From Jared Woods
This wasn’t from a blog per say, but one of the Juice Nothing News items. The post featured me begging like a little child for votes to go towards The Funpowder Plot’s David Lynch music video. We didn’t win anyway, and the over-promotion we used for this was an experiment which I will never repeat again. Regardless, the image is rad, as it's an obvious rip from Wikipedia’s own personal appeal for money, which I did end up donating £20 towards.
But mainly, I am super hot in this photo because you can only see half of my face and I am wearing nailpolish like a girl. Fuck, I love girls.
Easter Eggs Up Your Ass
Ok, so if you ignore the snake giving birth, you will find yourself enjoying a rather great wood finish on this piece, which was featured on every one of the pictures from my Easter 2010 launch. What maybe you don’t realise, is that it was created from scratch, screws and all, using nothing but filters and whatnot. I consider it good icing on a blog which is one of my most informative, if I do say so myself. And I do say so myself. I just said it, in fact.
Now, if you stop ignoring the snake giving birth, you’ll have to admit - it looks pretty disgusting after all. It kind of sticks with you, I find. Please note the little flies and the veins stretching out. It’s the most relative image to this blog’s ludicrous title, and I hope you have a healthy wank to it.
20 Hottest Girls Ever (according to me)
This blog is another great example of a "throw-away" piece. In fact, the best part of this entire effort was the images, which I based on De Stijl art movement. This wasn’t for some artsy-fartsy I’m-so-educated kind of reason; it was mainly because the style gave decent space to feature a few images of each girl for your perving pleasure.
When creating these, I would drag a picture of a girl onto the template and it would momentarily span all the colours. One of my best friends
You Don't Have To Choose
My first launched short story (and definitely not last) was greeted with, well, nothing. Nobody responded to it in any way, which can only make me think that either nobody read it or nobody enjoyed it. NO MATTER, I am proud of it. Proud of the story. Proud of MYSELF. And, of course, very proud of the imagery. They were all quite detailed pieces, took time, and reflected the vibe perfectly.
I chose this specific one as it shows the character Japan (unimaginatively represented as Asian despite no mention of this in the story) with her eyes censored for no apparent reason. Oooh. Mysterious. But what people might not notice is the distorted sickly Patrick in the background, also censored, lying in his bed dying of cancer. Not to mention the smaller green marks which follow on The Machine’s vibe. I love it. I love me.
One little fact that people wouldn't have picked up on is that the original title of the blog was on all of the pictures. Up on the right hand side it clearly reads “Numbers You Don’t Have To Choose”. Just by chance the whole title wouldn’t fit on the Juice Nothing homepage, and when I shortened it to “You Don’t Have To Choose”, it sounded so much better that I kept it instead. The last chapter is evidence of this as well. YOU ARE NOW EDUCATED.
Until It Happens To You: My Paranormal Experiences
This was my Halloween blog, a personal bit of writing which accounts my dabbling into the freakier unexplainable side of life. People liked it in all the right ways, and I think the imagery helped secure the vibey I was going for.
The main image itself is my favourite. All of the pieces had the crusty border and the creepy font, but this one’s centrepiece was the best. It was taken from a violent porn picture where one girl was viciously stretching another girl’s mouth open. I positioned it so that you can’t immediately get what is going on, but it still gives me an unsettling feel even though I made it. Total win. And if you don’t like it - you should have seen what I didn’t use.
I Am The Reincarnation Of John Lennon
I was very happy with all the images from the John Lennon blog, I could have used any of them on this list. They all just seemed to fall into place despite following some strict criteria I had set for myself. Which was:
(1) The title of each chapter had to reflect the overall chapter’s message by using a Lennon/Beatles lyric;
(2) The image had to reflect this title;
(3) The image had to feature John Lennon; and
(4) The image had to feature my face hidden somewhere. I doubt many people picked that up, but if you look at each of these artsies, I am always there somewhere.
I chose this image specifically because of its cool psychedelic appeal which came out of nowhere. If you look at the original image it’s so plain and boring despite portraying a more obvious message. It wasn’t looking right, so out of frustration I overlayed some hippie-crap on top, and this came out. It’s almost painful to look at, but for a blog that's heart lay in the 60’s - it’s a trip maaaan.
This concludes part one of our double feature. I am sure at this point you are no longer interested in me trying to convince you of how great I am. Which is why I saved the best for last. Ladies and Gentleman, this is how shit I am:
Part 2: The Worst Of Juice Nothing Artwork
Rule 1 of all good self-worship: it should be followed by self-deprecation. With this in mind, please enjoy the “Worst Of Me” part of this blog, which not only makes me feel stupid and inadequate, but also gives you the platform to mock me. Please enjoy:
Jared Woods' Top 10 Formspring Questions
All things considered, this is a rad-ish image. But it’s just a bit too much... me.
“Oh yes, check me out, deep in thought. I am the formspring master. I think about a vast array of subjects without thinking about anything at all. I’m so deep and so cool.”
Sometimes I piss myself off. Often even. That whole blog was just one exercise in narcissism really, not to mention that the thought-bubble’s outline is far too heavy and the neckline of my top is very stretched. OMG, embarrassing.
The Top 20 Naughtiest Musicians, Ever
The images for this blog were a little ho-hum at best, aiming to get the whole “naughty person was arrested” vibe or whatever. But when it came to finding an image to summarize it all, I was stuck. I eventually settled on this man waving his finger as if someone was being naughty. “You’ve been very naughty” he might be saying.
A while after this blog was launched, fellow Funpowder Plotter Ammr Khalifa said “Oh, that’s Bruce Campbell”. And I was like “yeah, obviously” but I actually had no idea. So my stupidity and ignorance of using an image without even knowing who it was, is why this enters at number 9. Whatever. I’m busy.
Dear 2010,
I don’t like the style of any images from Dear 2010. I was trying to make a cool calender vibe by using nothing but Photoshop trickery, and in a rush I got halfway there. The worst part is that little fold which appears on the bottom right corner. Pathetic. Wtf. Show me one page that folds like that in real life. It’s terrible in every way. Inexcusable.
I picked May specifically because if you summarize an entire month by saying “Janelle Monae released an album; Picasso sold a painting; and the bassist from SlipKnoT dies...” then it was a very lame month indeed.
That Band vs. Band Thang
Yeah, ok, so I get it. The boxers are symbolic of a music fight right? And because it’s a voting thing, it’s supposed to be clever hey? Something like that? Am I close? I guess my biggest issue is that it’s fucking boring.
Dear 2009
Open Photoshop. Fill an area black. Slap on a fiber filter and a bevel. Cut out 3 holes to show images through. This must have taken me all of 2 minutes, surely. And much like the 2010 image earlier, this month was chosen due to its content: Lady Gaga breaks a record; Blur play a show; and a solar eclipse takes place. Where the hell was I in all of this?
The Disney Afternoon
I liked this blog even though it was written so long ago. And the image isn’t all bad, you might not even notice what is wrong with it. What could be? I didn’t even do that much to it - just look at the original.
Well let me tell you. First of all, the bottom reflection is pretty badly done, as they are hard to do correctly anyway. Check out the table that old Gummi-Bear is writing on (bottom mid-right). Reflections don’t look like that in real life do they now? But the main thing that really bothers me is the Gargoyles left wing. The text is actually cutting a piece out of it. That is bad bad designing, a fireable offence, and I just don’t know how that slipped though. I AM BETTER THAN THIS.
That Band vs. Band Thang
The images for this blog were sketchy at best (point proven that this is the second entry from it, the first at #7), but I did feel alright with them at the time. Unfortunately this image contains a huge mistake, can you spot it?
That’s right. 46% + 64% = 110%. A math miscalculation on my part, and due to my messy psd practices, impossible to correct. The worst thing was that other people pointed it out to me, which always hurts the most. Fail.
Writer’s Blog
Ok, what the fuck is this? I mean, at least it wasn’t from a real blog blog, rather a news post, but still... wtf srsly.
My idea was obviously to use something representing “a rock and a hard place”, I found this image, and decided to not really edit it whatsoever. Even worse is the title, a pun on "Writer’s Block", which is so stupid that I’m sure no one else even got it. But instead of fixing it, I made it worse by using a shitty pixelated font which was hardly legible, and missed the apostrophe. Abomination.
Jared Woods' Top 50 Essential 2010 Albums
So I had finally finished BY FAR the hardest blog I have ever written. I had listened to hundreds and hundreds of albums; painstakingly put them in order of preference; wrote and rewrote everything I could muster about them; found all the album covers; and even did small treatments on each one. That left one thing to do: the main picture. Only problem is that when it came time to create it, I was completely burnt out and didn’t know how the fuck to summarize a year of music. Any ideas? Please??
I tried to go for a champion "Yeah I Did It" vibe. Found a picture of Rocky, moved it around, blurred it, inverted it, loaded it with shitty filters, said “fuckkit” and then used it. I must apologise. What the hell is that thing? It doesn’t mean anything, and I consider it the only weak point of that entire blog. That said, my original plan was to use Justin Bieber’s face as a joke, so be grateful I suppose.
The Biggest Mistake Of My Life
Ouch.
So this blog in general was pretty much completely ignored. In fact, only one person ever commented on it, saying “you are weird Jared”. Whatever, I honestly love it.
But this image is... I just don’t know. I am so so sorry. I even knew it was bad when I finished it. I took an image of Meryl Streep, liquefied her mouth and burnt out her eyes. I then crudely made a swastika on her forehead and burnt that in too. Done.
It is so disproportionate, I must have purposefully only spent a second on it, otherwise I should quit design right now. Even the shading of dribble (?) coming out of her mouth looks like nothing. I am ashamed. Was I trying to be comical? Was I trying to be scary? Either way, it’s not quite that. Although in my defence, the strap-line does deserve some kind of a point. So that’s 1 point then. Thanks.
A wise man once told me “Jared, they can’t all be winners”. And that wise man was me. And really now, if you can’t trust yourself, who are you going to trust? At least they weren’t a complete waste, as I somehow managed to write an entire blog about them. Now I shall cry for the remainder of the evening. This concludes part 2 of this feature.
One thing anyone can agree with is that practice makes perfect, and so I predict a rise in Photoshop quality for the blogs to come. A lot more porn, a lot more death, a lot more risky things you shouldn't view at work.
And if you think you can do better - you go girl. You show me. You're so novel. What a good idea. You can keep your time to yourself. You don't need date insurance. You can go out with whoever you want to. Every boy. Every boy in the whole world could be yours if you'll just listen to my plan. The teenage guide to popularity.
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