Its also the last post I'll make in 2010, talk about fine coincidence!
Luckily for me the last update of the year is on a thursday, the day that I upload a colored drawing officialy and unofficialy I also upload a "making of" clip from it. It would have been a bit dissapointing if the last update would have been on a sunday. That would have led to me uploading a sketch only, just for the principle of following my update scedual.
"But surely you could draw something special for the last update of the year if that was the case" said Michael and looked at me with question and smugness glooming in his eyes. "Read the title of the blog boy, 'procrastinations' is the keyword" I replied while pointing at the screen "I don't DO overtime."
Ok, so maybe it didn't go like that at all, but I do keep a strict scedual on my updates and I would have a hard time breaking the rithme that I'd have going over here. Maybe this is one of those weird little things that I might have, but hell it helps me with keeping this blog updated, even when I don't feel like doing so.
Like this update, sure it looks sorta ok, but I could still work on the drawing. A few more hours of handywork on it would probably make it that much better, but I'm a bit on the late side with my update and so I stopped working on it when I had a pleasent feeling about the drawing and started the upload proces.
I don't think I've seen that much snow in Belgium ever, global warming é. Its fun though, all the people cleaning the street in front of their house, others falling down, and even more trying to push a car out of the snow. Such fun, especialy since I don't have most of those problems. Though I have improved my balance skill with 2 points.
My "walking through snow" skill has improved a whole 3 levels I belief. After spending about 2 hours in the snow, going to work by foot, you get a good idea on how and where to put your feet in the snow. Its really cool to see your feet disapear in a pack of fresh snow. And yes, my trust in the public transportations has diminished a whole level as well.
Normaly I don't like to make fanart and post it on the net. The biggest reason for this would be the fact that it is just easy advertising. For example: its very easy to make a drawing about something popular, a fancy action hero, a famous singer or actor, a wicked character from a movie and so much more. Posting it on the internet is a guaranteed win.
I'm sure that a drawing of superman will have it easier to be discovered then a drawing of something completly unknown. Sure the second could be better then the fanart on a mere artistic value level. But the fact remains that more people will do a search for "superman" then they will for "guy with glasses"
This is sorta the reason why I don't want to make fanart, if people watch my drawings and like it I want them to like it for the fact that my idea is fun, or that I drew it in a wicked way. If they only like it because their favorite character is in the drawing, I tend to have the feeling that the appreciation isn't a 100%. Sure I may be nitpicking, but that's my opinion about fanart and its popularity.
So frankly, when I drew "Superman" it was completly against my own rule. Luckily I have an excuse, cause one of my collegues did a request for it, so I cannot be blamed for it.
I like to make little comic pages, like the one below, you won't hear me say that I'm any good at it, but that doesn't really matter. The comic over here is a little parody on the dirtyharry movies. I'll have to admit that I haven't watched any of the movies in a long time, so its only natural that I have the character wrong and since I draw this on the bus I had no reference for the gun. PS: Wow internet sure took a big bite out of the quality, Damn! :o
Last time that I checked my folder of finished stuff I noticed there were about 944 drawings, photomanipulations and animations in it. This is all digital works from the past ten years. So somewhere in my head a little voice was screaming: "Duuuuuuuuuuude, why the hell don't you have at least a thousand files in that folder?"
I'll have to admit it does bug me a little bit that I won't reach the thousand drawings by the end of 2010, the only way it seems possible is to work full time on it for the next 15 days. But that means I'll have to produce 56 drawings. That's 3,73333... drawings a day, or to make it easy, 4 drawings a day. When I say drawings, I actually mean digitings (digital drawings).
Of course I could reach the quota by making four quick sketches every day, that take me no longer then half an hour, but that is not what I want to fill my folder with. Somehow it feels bad to lower the quality for the sake of quantity. But then again, my mad obsession with numbers and meaning might push me towards that last resort. In the meantime I'm just making drawings of an hour of two each.
Working with irl-paper, just to get the hang of it.
Right now I have this idea sketched in MS-paint, yet I can't help but think that it is impossible to get the right feeling of the idea with this software. So I'm going to use irl paper and try to work out the idea that way. Using a central sheet as the basic of it all and then drawing lines outwards. Each line will "go" towards another piece of paper on which I'll make the specific details I have in mind.
That way I'll be able to spread out all the papers on the floor (what little space I still have available in my room) and get a general overview of the concept I'm trying to figure out. The main reason why I'm not giving away too much details is because I just don't have any. I'm only in fase number one. The "Ooh, I could make a comic" one.
A comic unlike the ones that are on this page of course. These three "comics" have no story, no logic, no "whatever it is that makes a comic good", but they have charms and a my artistic personna has a special warm fuzzy feeling for these little baby comics. Baby comics, I like the sound of that.
Its almost Christmass time and thus its also time to send a little card to friends and family. A few years ago I had an animated card. This year, I figured I could try to make something special again. At least not just something 2D and non-moving. But as this brings the difficulty level from "piece of cake" to "Djeezus dude, what the f***" I realise I might need a backup plan.
So that's what the drawing below will be, a backup plan in case I can't finish the difficult X-mass card for this year. Another challenge will be making an analog paper version of it. Cause apparently I got myselve in a situation where I promised to make an irl xmass card, not just a digital quick thingy that I can easily send to a lot of people.
So I was stuck on a bus for an hour or more this week. Apparently the snow came as a shock to all the drivers on the road. The way to work was a slow ride through a traffic jam that lastet for way to long. Its a good thing that I took a bus earlier, or else I wouldn't have been "just in time".
But you know, an entire hour on the bus isn't so bad when you have a sketchbook with you. To bad that I didn't know what to draw. For once I had the time to drawon the bus and just then I hadn't a clue. I did manage to draw a shoe skiing but I think that is the highlight of it. The bottom sketches are about Sinterklaas being attacked by a suitcase.
Any excuse to play in the snow is a good excuse, but do wear gloves.
Its not something you see here every day, but the past few days it has been snowing up here. Last year we had a great winter with lotsa snow. Also a lot of slippery roads which weren't a help back then cause it stopped me from learning to drive the car. But this year I don't care anymore. Now it doesn't matter if it snows for weeks. I sure wouldn't mind a white x-mas.
Besides, now I can draw in the snow. The first snowing has already been made and covered again. So tomorrow I'll make a second snowing. Just like I did last year. Btw, sorry for the peeps who can't check out the photos cause they aren't on facebook or whatever other reason.
But on to other things, like drawing stuff and making movies and showing them over here bundled togheter and actually not being sure if anyone actually sees it but not really caring about it cause I'm just using this blog as an excuse to constantly make drawings and suddenly thinking I might as well just paste it on facebook since that site is like the public advertising board in the middle of the townsquare.
A while ago, thats about three weeks ago there were two pieces of paper hanging on a wall at work. It was an advertising poster of H&M, they were both the same except for one thing. The first one was untouched, but the second one was altered. I had taken a marker and had drawn a few things on the second poster. Its what I do when I'm bord, I draw stuff.
Later on I upgraded it to a second level by actually drawing the pieces on clean paper, cutting them out and then pasting them on the poster. The result was funny and needed a few tweaks in clean cutting edge technology and some good tape to paste it on the poster. But now the wall needed room for new things and thus my lunchtime occupation had to go.
So I adopted the two posters and took them home with me, now I can finaly show them to the rest of the world. The funny thing is, the posters didn't survive for that long, only a month maybe, but there is one thing of mine that is still hanging around in the kitchen. A small "spaceship" I had made of some material I had found at work. Right now it is hanging on the roof, out of plain sight, and thus out of heart.
It has been hanging there for months now and I wonder how much longer it will last. I hope it'll stay there forever, so that one day somebody will sit in the kitchen, look up and see it, wondering what it is and who made it. Hopefully nobody will be able to awnser it, cause that would make it a mystery, which would be wickedly cool.
Yesterday was an interesting day. There was work, but there was also burned pizza and two movies of waaaay back in the days. Pinochio and Bambi. I hadn't seen those movies since I was a kid. So being able to see them now was a rather interresting experience. Pinochio was a bit more evil then I remembered, the story in the movie Bambi was actually very, very, very basic.
But the skills and experience that you see in the movies is wicked. The water effects in Pinochio are amazing for that time. Not to mention all the effects off water and leaves flying and floating around. You have to keep in mind that it was all handdrawn. Not a single computer calculated those random bubbles or leafs. So that is some wicked skill and patience that went in those movies.
As for todays drawing, I've been a bit, "meh" about it. I had some lineart ready in my sketchbook, but I wasn't too pleased about it. I thought it might change once I had it scanned and inked on the computer, but nope. I generaly didn't like it that much so I just went crazy on the colors. I figured that the drawing is rubish anyway, so it won't matter what I do to it. So this is the result.
This saturday was spent in the company of a bunch of screaming little kids, another bunch of shopping mothers and fathers, and a really big shopping mall filled with skeletons and puppets of dinosaurs. That about sums it up really. I was sorta bored this saturday and when I got the oppertunity to go to waasland shopping center I gladly took it.
So once I had done the tour through all the shops that interested me (games/software/movies) I took my sketchbook and pencil and started drawing the items of the exibition. They had a whole bunch of skeletons of dinosaurs inside the hallways, a few small, a few medium (triceratops) and a big one (T-rex). It has been a long time since I saw dinosaur skeletons so I was pretty excited about it.
Now I had two options, either I'd sit on a bench and draw the things that I could draw from that place, or I could just sit on the floor in the middle of the hall and draw the big ones like the T-rex or the triceratops. But with a few experiences from other drawing times I was assuming that security would start fussing about if I'd just sit on the ground.
So I went for the first option and put myself on a bench, I even had to be a bit impolite and ask if I could sit on someones spot. The guy was sitting on the corner of the bench that had the only view to one of the skulls there, (the second sketch in the drawing) But he had a lot of extra space next to him so it didn't bother him.
A lot of people walked in front of the things I wanted to draw so sometimes I had to wait, or watch inbetween their arms and heads to see the subject. "Move away that guy is drawing it" is one of the sentences that I heard alot that day. At one point some little kid was sitting behind me and I guess my jacket was very interesting since he was fumbling with it.
But overall it was a succesfull hunt for sketches, I had planned to just sit down and maybe draw chairs or people or the hallway of the shopping mall, but instead I got to see and draw Dinosaur skeletons. So that was actually a pretty cool and lucky turn of events.
The only thing we ever wanted was to make our fantasies come true.
First off all, we are pretty darn close to a lot off ideas from the early science fiction movies. The communicators from star trek is our modern cell phone, doors that open and close automaticly was a concept introduced in early television series. Touch screens, motion controled software, flying to the moon, instant food, augmented reality and so much more that I can't think of right now.
But for today I'd like to focus on this one specific piece off technology.
projecting images/characters on a screen to make them appear like holograms.
Songs created with pre-recorded sounds and voices.
A concert that is made up from digital characters and music.
The "holografic" technology isn't really perfect yet and gorillaz beat them to it. It also isn't true 3D and although I can't speak from personal experience I don't think these projections have the 3D effect if you would walk past them from left to right.
I am amazed however by the enthousiasm of the audience. They chear and sing along with the music as if the person in front off them isn't an illusion. They accept the fact that this character and music is made off only digital information. Its funny how people used to complain about singers doing playback when you watch this digital concert at work. It is this idea that I'd like to present here now. Where is the line? When should we concider something authentic and when is it just plain cheating? I'm sure that a playbacking artist will receive a lot of hate mail. But the people behind this digital concert won't have to bother about those mails at all.
And as people always tend to do, they start learning and living with the new technologies.
Soooooo...
Lets take this digital concert and combine it with this recording technology!
What can we create with these two ideas? Imagine how a group could record themselves in a studio and then transport that image to a concert. At this concert they could project that image live on stage. I don't think it would work as well if it is prerecorded and just show while the group sits at home drinking some coffee. If they did that the fans would feel cheated and the hate mail would be right on its way.
No, for this to work properly I'm guessing that the group would have to perform "live" and it would have to be shown in more then one location at the same time. Or else the fans might not accept this use of technology. But if they do accept it there could show the same concert at the same time to hundred off different places all over the world. Sorta like watching a concert on TV, but only this time you can be still experience the feeling off a live concert.
If people would allow themselve to accept this sort off concerts and if they wouldn't feel that they Have to see the people in real life it might work. Of course the technology would have to be in perfect condition for that, but there are a lot off benefits to it. They could add a bit off extra flavor to the images, a little spoof here, a hint off special effects there et voila, a wicked, science fiction concert is born.
Even people who aren't into science fiction might concider this cool.
And best off all, its possible, the technology exists today! The only thing we need now is a bunch of crazy rich people to fund such a thing.
On a completly unrelated subject. I didn't plan on doing the thingy up above but coudn't resist after seeing the first clip. So I got stuck with that and a new drawing that I had planned to show. This leads to a really big update for today. I don't know why I'm not splitting it up over different days but somehow I can't do that cause it doesn't fit my schedual. ow well.
I guess I could have shown these sketches a bit earlier this week, but its so much fun to have a few sketches in reserve for sundays. I had no stress or worries for todays update because the sketches were already resting in my sketchbook. Concidering this I reckon that I should do this a bit more, sorta like a plan B in case no sketches are born.
Of course there is one problem, its hard to keep up that pace sometimes. For instance, this thursdays update needs a drawing with a youtube clip again, but its not yet made, just like the sketches for next sunday. Sure I'll be able to shoot something down for it, but it would be nice if I had a bit of reserve from time to time.
So anyway, looky here, a rat mime and the flying pinguin who plays gitar hero. I think I mentioned these at the previous update. The rat mime can be explained by a sort of trailer for the movie tangled.
This monday I went to the movies, no wait, I tried to go watch the movie "Despicable me". But it was in 3D. After experiencing a few movies in 3D I started noticing the flaws in the concept. When scenes are moving to fast they tend to go blurry and its harder to focus on nice details, well maybe that was only in the movie "alice in wonderland" from tim burton.
Since the other movies I wanted to see were dubbed in French I just walked out of there. Nothing worse then watching an english movie in another language. Subtitels! They have been invented for a reason! Anyway, this gave me more then enough time to try some sketches and stuff. I came up with some random word combinations, like "rat mime" or "flying penguin playing gitar hero" and "city in a waterfall". I made a pencil drawing of those three ideas. But the last one really sparked my interest.
The next day (tuesday for those keeping track) I got to babysit the house (theres some rebuilding going on in the bathroom). This gave me plenty off time so I started drawing lotsa things on my computer. One of them being a digital version of the waterfall city. In the "making of" clip you can sorta see two parts. The first part where the colors are in normal daylight, and the second part when I changed it to sunset. These two parts represent the two days that I worked on the drawing.
The only moment that had more then one layer was when I first applied the orange color, but once that was settled I got back to working on one layer. It was also the first time that I worked on my other computer, my laptop, which doesn't have any of my custom made brushes. So that was another challenge that I had to work with.
In the end I dare to say it turned out rather nice. Sure there is always room for more details, maybe adding a little person running on the road or in the city somewhere, but I'll leave that for another moment somewhere in the future. The song that I used in the clip is quite awesome. The other works of Brian sadler are also wickedly amazing.
I thought he was another newground user so I didn't really pay attention to his status. Cause apparently he wasn't active on that site anymore. So I had to go on a wild google search to see if he had some other place on the web where I could notify him. You know, if I'm gonna use their music without asking first I might as well tell them about it, if they don't like it they can still ask me to remove it. But damn, it took me a while to find that site.
Now without further ado (or however you write that word) heres the stuff!
So lately I've been playing some heroes of might and magic, and in the game they use two levels for units, sorta. This level idea was inspiring and it kept me busy during my busrides. I tried to make some variations of different levels on random items. Sure it may not be the regular stuff like mages or weapons but thats the charm off it.
The thingy in thick black lines and the hole in the paper (see green arrows) are part of a little project at work. There are two advertising posters on the wall, one off them is untouched and the other has been smudged. Smudged with little objects that I've drawn and cut out of my sketchbook. With a little help of some tape I've pasted these things on one of the posters.
Now there is one poster with an added belt, elbow protectors, horns and a button. The other is still clean to make the comparison. I might have to take a photo of it in the near future.
Now lets see, the pencil in level three is half magical, like a digital brush but in real life. On the top left there are rollerblades, with level three being a hover rollerblade with jet engine propulsion, booya!
But until then, in honor of my uncle/godfather who passed away last week, this link. And that's all I have to say about that.
The rest off this update will be as positive as possible. Showing the drawing of the Ladybug Princes I made earlier this week. It started as a quick sketch in photoshop that soon transformed in a fine drawing. I had a lot of trouble to find a decent balance between a lot of hair and a little hair. I can't say a balance was found.
Somehow there was some time to write a little background to this drawing, it isn't much, but at least its going to give you some inside information.
" Princes Ladybug was a very sweet princes. She was always kind to her fellow man and never wanted to judge anybody. It was only natural that everybody around loved her. But despite her kindness she had this aching feeling that she didn't belong in the castle. The world of lords and ladies seemed too cold and empty. She needed something else. Through her window she saw the outside world and wished to be free, to be one with mother nature. To spread out her wings and fly through the sky.
When finaly her 18th birthday had passed the moon was filling her room with a brightness she had never seen before. What was this feeling she had, this urge to go outside, to venture into the dark woods? Like a gentle wind was pushing her feet she couldn't help but tiptoe out of the castle. When she finaly touched the grass outside she knew what was going to happen.
She took one more glance at her old house, realising she'd never be able to go back, then pressed on into the woods for her final transformation. "
Making a drawing without reference aint as easy as it seems.
So I'm watching this movie "the kid" from disney, with bruce willis in it. About him and his eight year old self who suddenly are stuck with each other. Some hilarity, some drama, and some enlightment, but overall a feel happy disney movie. Nothing to new. One of the scenes includes a woman closing a door after letting someone inside, smiling while doing so.
Of course I was foolish enough to think I could recaputre that scene from memory. I failed horribly, but I'd like to share this attempt with the world. No reasons whatsoever.
Right now I don't really care much about making a drawing.
Instead off rushing myself in drawing something I decided to take one off the drawings I have in my "still working on it" folder and see what I can do with them. So I stumbled upon a drawing that I tweaked a bit before posting over here. This is by far "post worthy", but its in color. So thats the least I can do.
It seemed like a good idea to use the original sketch as a texture layer for the digital piece. The roughness in the sky and ground are off the original drawing. I put them in an overlay layer and played a bit with the shadows and lighting. Spiked up the hue/saturation filter and popped it as saved and classified.
So this drawing has now officialy left my "still working on it" folder and has been moved to the "finished stuff" folder. Though I guess I might as well just place it in the folder "sketches"
So I didn't sell that much, at least I got to meet some nice people.
What started on saturday continued on sunday, two days that were sorta the same all over. Going in, putting all my drawings on a table, sitting down, and spending the day at facts. So what made the two days so different from each other? On the first day I was a bit shy you could say, not really knowing what I had to do or where to go to. This included a lot of going from here to there.
The first day I got to meet Nikki, one off the guys that is famous in the DAbelgium group. I didn't even realise it was him until he told me his name. He was there with someother people from DA, sharing tables and stuff. On my right was a guy who sold a "hot" comic. A very friendly chap thought. On my other side was first of course talisje, but next to that some older guy and his comic series. Both looked very professional, which made me look like a noob of course.
My first client was a german woman who bought this little one. I had to take a picture of my first client of course. One of the things I remember most of the first day is also pacman and his ghost, doing a chase throught the paths on facts. Hilarious to look at cause when the ghost was interupted by a thick crowd pacman was waiting and jumping up and down in anticipation.
The second day! It started with me being a bit early. I got to talk to a cosplay guy from a star wars club from which I learned some interesting things. At the beginning of the second day I checked out all the other stuff at facts before I really started my day. There were some cool star wars props, life size insides of a spaceship, and some other really big "toys". I even got to talk to the guy who made the original and unique facts 2010 figurine. He had some cool stuff to mention about it. He even asked which of four figurines was best painted, its funny to meet the person behind the props and art.
Again a lot of funny things to see during the second day and a lot off people that came by to say hi, some family and friends. The second day I had nobody on my right, and on my left was another artist then yesterday, besides talisa of course. Oh, and there was a replica off the toy car from toy story, kids sized.
At one moment in time I was sitting at my booth, making a drawing when suddenly this guy appears and gives me his card. He then starts talking in french to me, explaining something about who he is and what the card was all about. My french is not that good, so I actually lost him around the second line and only understood a few words like convention france and vampires. I just nodded and thanked him for the explenation.
My final impression of facts: The convention itself is filled with pretty cool and friendly people, the customers will buy very little, but the crowd is amazingly cute, funny, cool and sexy. I'm not sure what my plans are going to be for next year, since I didn't sell enough to pay for the boothplace itself. So moneywise it wouldn't be a smart move to invest in it again. Well, not unless I'd have some comics to sell I guess.
One of the drawings that I made during the facts convention.
Listening to music is one of the quick ways to get inspired.
A few days ago I was sitting on the bus, sketchbook in my lap and mp3 player activly playing a song in my ears. When suddenly I heard the words "mushroom hunting". It was a song from Cowboy bebop that was playing and for some odd reason it seemed like a good idea to make a drawing about those two intriging words.
What came next was a journey of sketching, erasing, sketching again and finaly the digitalisation of a drawing. That took me some time too. At first I had started with a very dirty style of shading, but after having the drawing lay on my desktop for a night I decided to go full cell shaded again. It had been a while and it seemed like the good way for this drawing.
I'm not sure if I kept to it thought. At one time I blurred a whole shadow, and started adding gradient shadows and textures. But overal it looks ok. I'm not to sure about the colors. I just noticed that a lot off the colors that I use are gray brown and blue. It seems like a returning color palette in most off my drawings. Not sure what that is all about.
Anyway, this weekend is FACTS time. Hopefully I wont forget my camera cause I hope to make lotsa photos and stuff. Of course I might give a full blogupdate about the weekend this sunday evening. But first, I have to get a bit more excited, even though I already am =D
The countdown has begun, only 5 more days until F.A.C.T.S.
I might have mentioned it before, but next weekend, the 23 and 24 of october I'll be at FACTS, trying to show my art and illustrations to the world of geeks and fanboys/girls. It dawns on me that I still have a few things that I need to take care off. Little cards that people can take with them, a camera to take photos off the event and some other little trifals.
But most off all I'll need courage to get past the first hour. Right now I'm rather anxious for those days. Will they be fun days, or will they turn out to be a terrible disaster. Who knows? A lot of questions will surely poke inside my mind. Reminding me off all the things that can go wrong. So hopefully I'll be able to focus on all the fun things that might happen in those two days.
Let me tell you that there will be a lot off space for fun facts that weekend. Meeting people, maybe selling a few drawings, seeing some cool cosplayers, and generaly having a geeky experience. :) *insert sketch now*
When I was a kid I used to paint a lot in ms paint. I used it for making little software drawings. From altering existing Windows backgrounds too completly changing the sprites in bitmap games. Back in the day I even tried to change the winamp layout a bit as well. Which turned out to be a sort of stoneage thing. But most off the paint stuff from back in the day wasn't that spectacular.
Well, neither is this, but I think you can see that I'm not a rookie when you look at the next two images. Since they have a sort of flow in them that shows I'm not a little kid making the drawings. At least I'd like to think so. Aah, ms paint, never will I forget the gradients I tried to replicate with your darn stiff coloring system.
Yeah, can you imagine that, one day you're just sitting there relaxing and then boom, something happens that shakes the very foundations of the world. The sketch below is a continuation from my huge sketchpage, the file where I constantly work over previously drawn stuff. Right now I can still see some of the previous things that I had made in it.
But I'm sure you chaps can hardly recognise anything else besides a planet in an odd state of mind. I'm not sure if I'll continue detailing this thing out or if I'll just end up destroying this drawing by painting something else over it. mh, we'll see.
The figure below is a character from an animation that I'm working on right now. Its not yet finished and sometimes I wish I could just show something already. But as I only want to show the finished product, this little sketch will have to do. Maybe I'll even work this drawing out a bit more, but for now a sketched version will do. In the animation the character is more cartoony of course.
True to the blogs name, I have been procrastinating this week.
The little animation I am working on is still in need of a s**tload of work, but the result never feels satisfying. Hence the reason why I didn't work on it as much as I could have. Its just that I draw a lot of frame by frame movements and when I check the result its always over in less then a second. Hours of work and a few seconds of yay. It doesn't feel like a good deal sometimes.
One thing is for sure, the next movie I'm making will use a lot more tweens. Speaking of the next thing I'm making. This week I made a sketch on paper that I scanned for some digitalisation. Unlike what I usually do I started to draw over the sketch, and after a while I got to a point where most of the original sketchlines were removed by the digital colors I had added.
Its a drawing of an ageless egg in an ever changing environement. Someone said it might be an alien ship and another person said it might be an egg of the air dragons. Its funny and inspirational when I notice what other people see in the drawings.
Well, I havn't been that bussy with drawing sketches, though this popped up somewhere on the road to work. I took some words and started brainstorming on different stuff around me. I ended up with "mutant car" So that is what I tried to make.
At first I wanted to draw a normal car with fleshy stuff pooring out of the cracks and doors. But that didn't allow me to draw a lot of mutant, which was the thing that needed most focus. So I swapped to mutant car where "car" is just a the shape that a mutant animal has transformed into. Yes, its alive as well. *insert mad scientist laughter*
Even more so if you try not to use any text in them
This is something I just realised, there are a lot of my comics that don't have any text in them at all. Not that I mind of course, its always interesting to see how much I can do without the help of text. Where is the border of speach and no speach. The latest comic I made was without speach since the images work for themselves.
Its a little comic that will help decorate a café in Sweden. Sara who will be baking lotsa delicious cakes, pies, whatnot asked if I could make something for them. They just started working on the café and I'm sure the exitement will be great over there. Especialy when they'll be open for business. KA stands for Konditori Axelsson, just so you know.
During the clip you might notice a moment where I'm making green outlines and suddenly the two other frames next to it are done in an flash second. That's because I had forgotten to press the record button again. I only noticed that when it was already too late.
On another notice, soon I'll be posting another comic on DA. Its a page that I used for a letter I sent to Studio 100 as a job application. It shows the storie of someone trying to send a letter to the company. I used the characters that the company created, that way I could show that knew what they made, how my skills are and that I'm interested in their company.
The original is of course in dutch and at this moment its not yet translated for internet use, but that'll be fixed soon enough. So be sure to check that out today or tomorrow.
An old person with a big expressive face. A character with no name/face/voice whatever that is just there. Some cute little characters, an enemy that isn't really that evil but a real evil that is actually more in the henchmen. A good character that isn't perfect good cause the perfect good is reserved for the main character and stunning animation of course.
Or I'm only comparing "Howls moving castle" and "Spirited away". Maybe the rest of his movies aren't like that at all. I ought to watch his other movies first before I make a definate conclusion. But for now this one will do.
Speaking of animations, a few days ago I was investigating my "still working on it" folder and discovered some old file. An animation I once started making but never finished. A frame by frame thingy, which means a lot of patience and repetitive work. Probably the reason why I stopped working on it. But somehow I felt good enough to finish it.
Of course its still not done, If I can count on my calculations I'll still have to work a full 24 hours on it to get the motion finished. Then I'll still have to color all of the frames too. Thinking about all that work makes me numb already, but I'll cary on nonetheless. Most off the animation is done anyway. So soon it'll be finished and I'll be able to look back on it with glee.
A few days ago I was working on an animation I had rediscovered in my "still working on it" folder. I thought it would be cool if I could finish it someday. But since its frame by frame it takes a long time to make it and I realised I wouldn't be able to get it done that evening. So I stopped myself at midnight and figured I'd hit the deck.
But a little post on the internet caught my eye. It was a tutorial on how to work with creative ideas. Interesting as that was I tried it out and at 3:35 that night I stopped working on the pinguin drawing. The next morning I tweaked it a bit more with some extra pinguins and splashes in the water. But as I had made the drawing mondaynight I didn't allow myself to use it as the update for today.
Instead I tried to make something new yesterday evening. Which failed horribly, it started out fine and at one moment in time it was actually very good in its simplicity, but then I kept working on it. And as they said in school once: "Ge moet het ni doodwerken", which sorta means, don't focus on unnecesary details and stuff.
That is of course exactly what I did, I focused too much on perfecting the flow of the shadow- and artlines. But by doing that I forgot the global picture and in the end it just didn't work as I had planned. So one moment off frustration later I went to bed and decided to make something fresh today. Which you can see below.
I didn't want to upload to much videos so I pasted it behind the pinguin video. The black and white drawing is a sort off visualisation for my worktechnique. I sometimes make a sketch and then start drawing cameras in the scene. Then I add a little sketch of what the view would be through that camera. This helps me in getting ideas on how to show the scenery.
It may seem like a lot of extra unnecesary work, but somehow I belief that seeing all the different options at the same time on paper is better. It helps to chose the right one when you can easily compare them. This time however I stoped at that perticular fase, which I think turned out ok.
I'm not sure about pirates in space, but it sounds awesome!
Here are some more sketches that I might use in a little animation I might make. Notice the frequent use of the word "might" here. Cause my reputation on animations isn't that good. I have planned a lot of clips in the past that I wanted to make, but never got to finishing them. Of course back then I never had a storyboard or any general idea of direction.
So a good idea might be to start making a propper storyboard and some decent guidelines. I have made a few sketches in the past weeks to get some ideas out in the open. Even a storyboard of some sorts. Right now the only digital file I have is the storyboard pasted in a flashfile, while the music is playing over it.
I'll see how far this will go. Oh, and look at that, the paper got bended when I put it in the scanner, how funny.
So I had the idea to draw this steampunk girl in a bee colored outfit with a beehive on her back and some sort of gun to shoot either honey or bees. When I started sketching you can clearly see how I tried. At the third sketch however I saw something completly different in the lines I had just made and fleshed it out a bit.
You can clearly observe what came after that perticular moment. The bee-girl never reached the status of existence and is still living in the plains of imagination. Mr Dummy however is quite alive for the moment. Not sure what it is suposed to be or if it even represents something, but I'm sure people will see something in it.
Never hang on the branches off a tree, they might break off.
This weekend I was off sketching a bit with Lieven, it has been a long time since we had done that. My result is the pencil sketched church below. Something I didn't notice while I was drawing was the size off the tower, it was way to big, or the other part of the building was too small. But when the sketch was done it was too late to fix it. I also rediscovered why trees can be a pain to draw.
The second part of the image today is a screenshot from my big sketchfile. Its the file I mentioned a few updates ago. Right now it is filled with smaller sketches all seperated by some white area. But today I'm at the point where I can't really draw in it without destroying previously drawn things.
Those paying attention might notice the little girl and the tree, on which I based a drawing off a few days ago. We also have a little stitch in the water with some sort of big animal swimming underneath him. Yes I know stitch would never go in the water like that, but its a sketch, so I'm allowed to draw anything I want.
I don't like it when I want to upload something that I'm already not too pleased about. (drawing and short clip) and then blogspot decided to fail two times. Making me retype everything since its not that friendly with ctrl-v. So I'm keeping this short. Video and drawing below...
To start a little impossible project or not to start it?
Last week I found a nice song on Newgrounds called "Edge of the universe". Quite a nice song, and for some reason it has been speaking to my imagination. Imagining a little boy and girl in or on a spaceship, flying through space, going on an adventure. When they encounter a spaceship with pirates they flee into a nebula and escape the evil pirates. After which they happily fly off into space again.
Right now I have made a "storyboard" of the three minutes and twenty nine seconds. Storyboard is a big word, its actually more like 209 squares with a few lines in them, spread out on four pages in my sketchbook. Of course I also have the character sketches down here. But while I'm thinking about it I actually belief it would be fun if I could make a music video of some sort.
My experience with animation isn't that good of course, the most I've made up till now is threeshortclips which you can find on my youtube channel. Only one of them is actually movie-like and the other are more like roughs. So I'm not sure if I'll be able to pull off such a big animation like that. Last time I thought about doing it I ended up with a bad dragon animation. Who knows what I'll end up with this time.
I'm not sure how I'm going to cope with the sketch file.
I've been using a big sketchfile for the last week now. Its an A3 sized file that started out blank and every time that I just want to sketch a bit I do it in that file. Since I'm only using one layer I'll eventually end up painting over previously drawn sketches. Right now I've still been able to paint around them. But soon I won't have enough place left and I'll have to cross the border.
Its a bit frightning to destroy those little sketches, and yet I know I have to do it. Being able to give up an old thing for something new and maybe even better is a thing I still need to learn. It might come in handy when I'm drawing, so I won't hesitate to try something new. Instead of holding on to the old piece even if its not as good as it should be.
The drawing of today exists out of a tree, a little girl and an apple. Each of those three things were drawn on seperate occasions. Firstly the tree, which I drew while listening to Sea of honey from "Markyspark" on Newgrounds, which is my new favorite site to look for fresh music. The apples were a small addition when I got bored for 5 seconds.
The little kid was something I drew over them keeping in mind that i'd use the tree as a background for it. Somehow it felt nice to combine new sketch with something that was already on the paper. I'm not sure if I'll be able to do that again. But we'll see how that turns out. About the speedpainting of last thursday that I didn't post, I have some good news I guess. I'll post it today.
You can check out the finished piece in my Deviantart gallery, linky
I Started out without guidlines, not sure if it stayed.
Lieven pointed out to me that it might be interesting to try out other techniques of drawing stuff. Like the way of not starting with "guidelines" sorta. Hard to explain so I'm not gonna try it. The piont is that I tried some other way of drawing stuff.
Not starting with a line but with a shadow around what I wanted to draw. Finally I ended up with some sketches that follow the flow of the music I was listening to at that perticular moment. The sound of a piano, or the flow of twinkel in a song. Stuff like that.
I've been at it for two days, but the time I spend on it actually drawing
is only 5 hours and 30 minutes.
I started out two days back, and though it would be a simple drawing, easy coloring, easy shading and so on. But then I had to change everything. I decided to give it color in the worst way possible and then I even started shading in the more detailed way. The lineart itself took 4 layers. Sketch, easy outline, more detailed, and final lines.
During the coloring proces I drew over the outline, so in fact I didn't have to spend a lot of time on the outlines after all. But that's what happens if you decide to start coloring in another way then planned AFTER the outlines are made. The big question is of course: what the hell did I do in those other 42 hours of those days.
Sleep is one of them. Work is another one, eating, watching the first Harry Potter movie, and some standard reading of the webcomics. Its clear to see that my failed deadline is my own fault and thus I'll have to live with the fact that post number 60 is a bit boring. But not to be alarmed, the drawing is definatly popping up in the next post.
But for now I'm just going to give this sneak peak of it. For now I still have the monster to shade, and then later on add some extra blured shadows and textures. Of course there has to be a color correction as well.
Actually I'm watching some comedy stuff by Russell Peters
Yeah, haven't got much to post for today, but as I made myself the promise to update every sunday and thursday I'll paste some sketches in here. The green one was suposed to become something serious. But I haven't gotten to it yet. Though I bet it'll probably end up in my sketchfolder. The folder in which I place all the drawings I once started but never finished.
That'll be all for today, next time it'll be a bit more. I'm sure of that.
Apparently you don't have to be horselike to be a unicorn.
"Does anyone have an interesting idea to draw?" It seemed like a fairly normal question to post on facebook. I hoped to get some cool idea's for this wednesdays drawing. Luckily for me someone said I should draw baby unicorns. At first I was just thinking about the movie "Fantasia" with the little horses and that wine king.
But then she showed me a picture of what she apparently had in mind I had a second thought about it: "Thats new!" It was a humanoid figure with feet as hooves, and a horn on the head. But nothing else was like the regular image of a unicorn. This combined with the steampunk concept I had just seen the other day was too perfect not to use in a drawing.
So 5 hours laters in the middle of the night I ended up with this little succer. I used multiple layers of shadow, and somehow the figure had to be outside the box. Just like the concept.
Rule number one with brushes: Experiment with different types.
That rule is definatly something I'd have to remind myself off once in a while. When I started working on the comicpage (shown underneath) I had my normal number of brushes that I've used for quite some time now. But soon I realised I needed to fix my brushes, tweak the functions a bit and even make brand new ones. Some didn't work out thought.
The technique of coloring this comic comes from the last update here. With that drawing I had the figure drawn in lines and colored like a comic character. But the background was with brushes and no outlines at all, yet still trying to be detailed. It is that style I'm trying to incorporate in this comic. Which is btw only two pages long. The big battle is on the other page.
Hopefully it'll turn out alright. The stuff I still need to do with the page underneath is mainly the colors and of course the three last frames. But once I have all the frames I'll bring some color to it all, hoping it'll work with the characters. My biggest fear at the moment is the fire. I'm not sure if I'll be able to color the white areas propperly. I'll have to see about that first.
What can I say, I like to compare the styles between old and new stuff.
Yeah, I decided to do another remake of an older drawing. In 2003 I made the following drawing. Three years later I made it again, but that time I had altered the colors of the character. This time however I stuck with the original colors. Though you might say that isn't completely true. Since I'm using less "BAMM ITS A COLOR" colors, but more balanced onces.
When you watch the "making off" speed drawing you might notice that I've spend quite some time on the hand at the right. Somehow I wasn't able to pull it off correctly, so I'm making a mental note to myself that I need to practise drawing hands again. With that I should also concider learning propper anatomy again. Cause it has been too long ago since I've practised.
This saturday was indeed the wedding day of my best friend and his girlfriend. Two fine people who are sure to stick togheter like bees on honey. It was one bussy day with lotsa stuff happening, and frankly you had to be there to fully grasp what happend. So I'm glad I got to tag along that day as his witness. And I'm sure his photographers (friends from his school) had a blast too.
It is kinda odd somehow to see Lieven and Carla getting married, knowing that they are people of my generation, and in Lievens case, to see where he came from in life to end up where he is right now. The party was crazy too with all the relatives and friends who were present. The location was actually very nice too, a cozy white house with a fine dine/dance room.
Needles to say I haven't mentioned anything here yet, it would take me too many pages to write down all the stuff that happend. So for the rest of this blog I'll just post what little sketch I was able to put down in the second part of this week. But the wedding was definatly something to remember.
Going snowboarding is a good idea, not wearing gloves while doing it isn't.
So yeah, my buddy is going to marry this saturday and for that occasion we deviced a plan to go snowboarding. As a sort of bachelor party, without the strippers or the getting drunk. We did got to fall on our faces a few times. A good thing snow is sorta soft, but its still to cold for comfort. The day after, and right now, my body is still a bit aching. Maybe I should have stretched a bit.
On a drawing notice I got this little succer worked out. Took me an hour and 23 minutes to complete. This time however I started a bit different. At first I made a sketch of a spider on a road, walking its way. But it was just a boring old situation sketch. No special perspective. Then I did the good old "put camera's in the scene and check what they see".
This usually ends up in a sketch with five or more little triangles pointed in the direction that the camera is looking and then next to that a little square with the image that the camera is seeing. This allows me to choise the best frame, and to discover an angle I hadn't thought of at first. This time I only needed to draw one camera, for some reason it was enough to get me started.
This time the title has nothing to do with the subject.
I got my driving permit the other day and so I brought myself in the car and drove off for the first time all on my own. Definatly a fun experience to have. So I chose to go to the movies, thinking I'd be able to park somewhere close to the building. But apparently that wasn't going to happen.
When I got on the parking closeby I noticed every place was taken and all the other cars were just driving through it helplessly browsing the parkingspots. Driving off the parking place I started driving on the streets nearby which were just as packed with cars as the parking lot. "What is happening" I thought, "why are there so manny people around here?"
The awnser came with the smoke of weed in the air, lotsa youngsters walking around and the sound of beats coming out of the park on the other side of the lane. After parking on a sorta empty parking lot far away I started going to the cinema. I had to go through the park from which the music originated. Apparently there was a festival in it. I have to say the location was awesome.
Trees in the dark, little food and drink tents all around and then a big stage in a small opening in the park. To bad the movie didn't wait for me or else I would have stayed there for a bit longer. I got to see "inception" which is a cool movie, very nice concept and crazy to with all the dream layers on top of each other.
In another story, the sketch I made was sorta for the kids who were sitting behind me. I noticed by the shifting weight of my seat that they were sorta peaking over my shoulder, to know what I was drawing. So I decided to go for a cute little monster at sea. The double fun was when they had to get off the bus but were lingering as long as possible.
While driving keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times.
This monday I had my first go for the driving test. I failed horribly. My stress level was beyond the radiation level on venus. Which resulted in me trying to start in second gear and failing three times at it before I was even on the road. Let me tell you that the examinator wasn't too pleased about that fact. That and the crossroad that I crossed in an evil way.
But today I was well prepared, completely stressless and better used to the car. Plus I knew what I had done wrong and was sure not to make the same mistakes again. Which I luckily didn't. No this time I succeeded in my test, though I have to say it was a funny trip that day.
On this ride I was treated with a lot of normal things happening. Trafic lights staying on red for an eternity. Little girls pressing on buttons to turn on red lights so that they can safely pass the crosswalk. Cars coming from the opposite direction in very tiny streets. Garbage trucks being parked at the other side of the road blocking my way and a lot more crazy stuff.
But from now on I too can become a danger on the road. In other news, I wasn't very inspired by the events of the day to draw and late at night I had to try three times before I got something that is moderately ok. While drawing this I spend way to much time on the space. I should find a new way to draw space. The trick I use now just doesn't do it anymore for me.
Having some creative time during lunchbreak is always good.
During lunchbreak I can be bored at times. So if I'm bored and there are some things lying on the table I tend to play with them. This time there were some clips, a rubber band, and a few other things lying on the table. After a bit of experimenting with the possibilities I got to the final design. By putting them togheter I was able to transform them into some sort off airplane.
The rubber band on the table helped me to attach something else to the "airplane". And to finish it off I got two pieces of paper wrapped up like tubes and attached them in such a way that they were the "engine blasts". If it hadn't been for the fact that a red marker was lost, the airplane would have been decorated with some red colors here and there.
Once finished I couldn't help playing with the toy and I started making it move through the air while producing those "mmjiiuuum" and "vrrooooom" sounds. The child in me was awake again. As a finishing touch to it all I made a little sketch of how I saw the contraption in my imagination. It definatly has a sci-fi touch to it.
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