[K-Gall] [TheBestCo] Does this even count as art?

(Giving off lowkey Andy Warhol vibes)

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I tried carving the KFC Gallery icons into eraser stamps. ■ Motivation: When I first saw the art contest announcement, I had zero intention of entering. Mostly because I have total poop hands, and I’m just an engineering nerd who’s lived a life completely unrelated to art. But as the end of the year rolled around, I felt like it’d be a waste to just let 2025 end like this. I wanted to try something, and this contest popped into my head. While thinking of a theme, I remembered playing around making stamps out of erasers back in elementary school, so I decided to take on my final challenge of 2025 with eraser stamps. ■ Process ■

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When I looked up supplies, I realized eraser stamps are already a pretty popular hobby. I saw people on YouTube making literal masterpieces and was shocked to find out there are specialized erasers just for stamps. Since I’m a total noob, I just bought a starter kit. ■ Subject Selection: What should I turn into a stamp? I had a few ideas from the jump.

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First, the OG of OGs, the KFC Colonel Sanders logo.

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Next, the 'made by professional' Cap-bung-ie character (who is also the OP's character) that we spent the latter half of 2025 with. I also considered 'App-Manager' who worked so hard this year, and Ragu who also put in the work, among others...

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But I settled on our simple mascot, Dyori. Unfortunately, as you can see, the App-Manager character...

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...is way too high-level for a beginner, and Ragu didn't have a proper character design, so maybe next time... Anyway, I picked these three and got started. ■ Transferring the design:

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You just put tracing paper over your phone screen and trace it. I definitely traced it exactly, but sorry for my poop hands... Next, I had to figure out which parts to carve out. This is where AI carries!

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I figured if I just follow the AI's settings—keep the red lines and carve out everything else—it should work.

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They said if you stick the design onto the eraser surface and rub it, it transfers perfectly.

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?? I’m cooked... It looked so easy on YouTube, so why me?! I looked it up and found out YouTubers use dark lead like B, but I used HB, so it didn't transfer right. So I had no choice...

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I had to draw it directly with a pen... I'm gonna leave the black parts and carve everything else out. ■ Carving

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Carving it out as planned

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Carving more

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And carving even more

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And it's done. It doesn't look like much, but this took 4 hours... Now that you've seen the process, let's look at the results.

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The first one I made, Dyori. Looks a bit janky...

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The Colonel Sanders logo. I think this one turned out the most satisfying.

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Finally, the Cap-bung-ie character. Dark Cap-bung... Sorry for my poop hands ㅠㅠ

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There are a lot of mess-ups, but I'll submit this as my entry. It's my failure, but it's also my asset, so I gotta embrace it. ■ Epilogue: Honestly, while carving the first stamp, it was so much harder than I expected that I actually quit for a few days. I was like, 'What kind of wealth and fame am I even chasing doing this?' but I felt like if I ended the year like that, the future me next year wouldn't be able to grow. So I pulled myself together and finally finished. Even though the quality is lacking, I'm happy I could burn through the end of 2025 like this, and I feel proud that I didn't give up. Like I said before, I want to level up and try making App-Manager and Ragu next time (so please make a decent Ragu character). Thanks for reading to the end!