Rain

When it wasn't raining today, there was still a bit of rain.

I was on the bus while drawing this thingy bellow. There was this big motorhome that wanted to go to the right while the bus was still riding next to it. Needles to say that didn't go very well. Very odd indeed. For you people who drive on the left side of the road: we drive on the right in Belgium.

One day I might draw a better pirate ninja with robot arms. But for now this sketch will have to do. The head is to big and the legs might be a bit bigger. I do like the arms. Though they aren't very good for battle. Those wires that stick out could get damaged by some knife or other weapon. So that would be a design flaw. A deadly design flaw.

Reviving the computer

I don't like viruses, and I don't like them infecting my computer.

Cause you know, whenever I'm in such a situation I have to format my drive, and reinstall all the sheblam. Winamp, avg, internet explorer and necesary updates. And then I have to uninstall all the crap that gets installed on the computer from that recovery disk. Yeah, laptops, great stuff, but terrible on the extra software they provide.

Luckily I was able to get a drawing done for todays update. It took me about an hour to draw this. I drew this from a photograph that I had taken when I was in Norway some years ago. On a holliday with my parents in a motorhome. Awesome trip I can tell you. I took the photo with one of them analoge camera's. Yeah, nothing digital at all. Darn kids and them modern toys.

So years later, today I was browsing through my photographs to look for a decent thingy to draw. I removed a few objects from the photo. There was a tree on the right, in front of the "Stave church" and some pillar was in the grass blocking the view, so that got deleted too. But besides that everything else stayed in it.

Norwegian stave church by ~wulfnstein on deviantART

I also decided to use this oppertunity to make a speeddrawing of it. So instead of a cartoon speed drawing, there is now a "realistic" speed painting available. Hopefully to your enjoyment. Though the quality could be better. But my windows movie maker on my computer failed at the moment that I was making it. But that should be fixed by the next time.

In other news, the music used is from the game "system shock 2" In my fair opinion, one of the best games ever conceived.

Music

Music is awesome since you can still do other stuff while listening to it.

Yeah music is great indeed. Whenever people ask me to what music I listen I can't really give them a proper awnser. Most of the times I'll say I listen to most genres. Which is true of course, I have enjoyed metal, hardcore, oldies, dance, instrumental music, disney, drum & bass, even the pop songs that everybody in the world likes. But I will confess that I do tend to return to soundtracks alot, and I have a dangerous graving for stupid songs.

Soundtracks from movies, series and videogames. Somehow I can't really deny their awesomeness. I supose its the feeling of something grand in the sound that appeals to me. Or the meaning behind it.

But besides music, lets take a look at a few sketches. This one has some star trek in it. Some random sketches that might turn into big drawings and a sticker. I had found it on the bus pasted it in my sketchbook and continued the drawing. It seemed as the right thing to do.

The little gladiator scene at the right bottom seems like a good candidate for a larger image, and the alien robot killing others in the top right is also a good one. After some tweaking though.

Don't ask what that thing at the bottom is. It looks like a rocket flying and leaving a smoketrail or something behind. But I can't really say that it is just that.

The last image is a little experiment. I gave myself a subject, which was "I shoot". Then the page was divided into nine squares, sorta. And then I would draw in each one of them a little drawing with the subject "I shoot".

Since I drew them on one day I had to invent new ways of showing "I shoot". And therefor that sparks the creativity. Which was the whole point after all. See what different idea's I can imagine and draw them out. I'm not saying they are good though, but they do tend to change my perspective on the different ways to show something shooting.

Live long and prosper

I wonder if Kirk and Spock ever posed like that for a photo.

I made a quicky this time. But because I was listening to soundtracks from Jerry Goldsmith I stumbled upon the soundtrack from star trek the motion picture. It took only a few seconds to conciderd making this drawing. I mean come on why not. Now even though I did googled some images for reference, I didn't use them as good as I should have. But hey, at least I got the colors sorta like they were on the image.

And oh look at that, its the makig off. You can also check out the finished drawing up here.

Another quick sketch I made from a few days earlier is this Viking thingy. I made a small storyboard/comic and on page 2 frame 4 I had this scene. Right now its the only frame that I have drawn. And knowing myself I'll probably forget to draw the others. So unless I get really motivated or inspired I'll just leave you with this frame of the vikingship being struck by lightning.

This is just after they pillaged a town, and its before the ship sinks in the sea and gets found by an archeologist a few hundred years later. Not really a great story to make a comic for, even if it was only supposed to be 4 pages.

Vikings failed escape by ~wulfnstein on deviantART

Paintings for Communions

The final communion in this side of the family.. for now.

Well, its the last communion of this generation, now its up to us to get kids and get them to do communions. Or some other party instead of it. But anyway this saturday my little niece had hers. And just like I had done for her sister, I also gave her an A3 aquarell painting. A few months ago she gave me the subject she wanted.

For this painting I went to the store to get me some masking paint. I know how hard it is to get the color all smooth and equel in the sky or on the water. Especialy if there are other parts in its way. So this masking paint was sure to help me with it. First time ever that I used it, but definatly worth it, cause now I know how to use it propperly.

The drawing itself has a few babies in it for cuteness, one girl who isn't a fairy and mushrooms. The not-fairy-girl can be anything from thumbelina to just a human who was shrunk to that size. I leave that up to your imagination. The babies are sorta in opposite positions and the little kid in the waterlilly is making the connection between them through a rectangular triangle.

The communion itself was pretty interesting, some fine food, a great desert and a fine revenge for me. With her older sisters communion the kids had stolen my shoes because there was a bouncy castle which I had gone into of course. So this year they were very eager to get me in the bouncy castle again. Though I didn't gave in this time. It went on for a few times that evening. So late in the evening, right before I left I said goodbye to the kids who were watching a movie inside the house.

And then it hit me.

Most of the kids are in one place, which is not outside and which is not near their shoes. They were all very confident that I wouldn't do anything cause they still had their shoes lying next to the bouncy castle. So what did I do. I took on shoe of each pair and then dropped the shoes somewhere else in the house. Not that far away, not that hard to find. But still away from their original spot.

The only sad part is that I didn't get to see their reaction. But knowing that they will be supriced by my revenge action is sweet enough. But anyway, here is the painting I had made for my little niece.

Fairylake by ~wulfnstein on deviantART

The masking paint experiment

This masking paint has the worst smell imaginable.

I recently got me a bottle of masking paint. It should be usefull to help me with coloring oddly shaped areas on a painting. Like the sky or big water areas. I've been testing it just a minute ago and my first reaction was that of disgust. The smell is terrible. So windows open and doors closed. Putting it on the paper is pretty easy with a brush, just like normal paint.

Getting it off is fairly easy too, sorta like a little rubber layer that you can pull of. Though it seems that I am damaging the aquarel paper a bit. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, so I'm testing it now on a piece of drawing that has already been colored. I don't want it to remove the already painted areas.

I hope it'll turn out allright or else I'll have to color the sky and water the hard way. Which isn't really that difficult, but the result just isn't as pleasing as it could be. I'd have to color tiny seperated patches of sky independantly, and its not as easy to get the colorflow in those patches just as good as in the big area.

For this thursday update I don't have something good. But this sunday I'm going to post an image of the painting that I'll give to my niece for her communion. Just like I did for her older sister. Its an A3 aquarell drawing for which they had a free choice for the subject and I went on from there. I just hope it'll be alright enough.

Links for your pleasure

It was suposed to be a funny sound, not that one word.

This sunday I don't really know what to write about, so I'm just going to give you a few words that are a bit entertaining.
Princes mononoke, sci-fi guns, wicked technology, aint it true, "zie mij gaaaaan jong"

tata

Sneezing

Apparently you can erase pencil lines with crustless bread. So I heard.

I havn't tried the bread trick yet. But the person who told me was pretty darn well convinced it was a good way. Just like you can fixate a painting with hairspray. That second one I knew, but I had never before heard of the bread eraser. Tomorrow I'm going to try that, and no I'm not going to eat the piece I used.

So today I will present you with the sneeze comic. Its something I have had in mind a couple off times. When I'm working in the store I sometimes sneeze. I can't sneeze on the merchandise and it would be sorta unethical to sneeze in my hand and then touch all the clothes with that hand. Thus the solution would present itself as sneezing away to my side.

Now when sneezing you close your eyes and don't really pay attention to what is in the fireline. Its also fun to exagerate a sneeze. Go loud and make a big move, and of course after it go "aaah, that was good" and maybe add a sniff for expression. But anyway. It hit me that if I sneezed in the store there would actually be a good chance of sneezing on a customer.

A customer itself is not really fun, its more fun to sneeze on a kid. Cause they will have a more expresive response to it. So frankly, I find it funny, that concept. There is only one problem with making a comic about it. The scenario in my mind is perfect and funny, but its almost impossible to get that feeling, those expressions, and that mood onto paper. I tried a lot of different ways in that last pannel. the eyes, mouth pose, it was all wrong at one moment in time.

I also spend quite some time on the "aaghtschpeww". Tried different versions of that sneeze. Like atchoem, ahtschoum, aaaaahpew. But somehow I think the onomatopoeia that I used is presenting you with every feeling you can have in the sneeze. At least in my opinion.

So the result is my best try at drawing the expression that I wanted. The expression of disgust, sadness, "whyyyy?", cry, disbelief and maybe even a vomit to it. Ow well, I'm sure I got the point across and I hope your imagination will do the rest.

Sneeze by ~wulfnstein on deviantART

Brunch with the family

A brunch that started early in the morning and ended deep in the night.

This saturday there was a brunch at my brothers house, which he now occupies for 4 month by now. After the brunch there, we went to our uncle, who provided dinner. In the end we stayed there until a bit in the night. A whole family day and some great, funny conversations.

This however had the bad effect that I didn't really make a lot of sketches.

So today is gonna be a very slim day. Better luck next time.