Jo Jo Action!

Hey hey, a bit relaxed coloring
here. Like how I playfully run over the lines?
Do you think it looks good? Please say yes, because
it is a lot more fun (which means "less work").
I guess my whole style roots in not caring too much
about neglectable detailing or uptight rendering
(which, again, translates into "less work").
Kidding aside (I am only kind-of kidding here, though),
I love drawing LOTS, but I don´t like spending too
much time on a single piece - especially if it turns
out to be rubbish in the end.




Oh god, it´s "Yoyo" instead of Jojo.
Jo Jo Action is a bad, bad eurodance song by
"Mr. President" (the band, not the president) that
is so BAD that I won´t even link it here.
But since my quest for catchy, upbeat and
nonsensical 80ies pop music continues, I found
this heartwarming gem.
I found it while listening to the Aaron
Carter version for nostalgic reasons
(my little brother used to dance in our
livingroom to that and I wanted to get the lyrics).
"No more charades, my heart´s been displayed."
OH YES PLEASE.

IF: Trick or Treat // Oni

click to enlarge, or else I´ll GRÖÖÖÖAAAAAAR


"TRICK this Oni, and he´ll
TREAT you with his club!"

Another day, another shameless plug of
fitting my own work it into the recent Ilustration
Friday topic. But hey, it IS pretty easy.

An Oni is a japanese ogre-kind of creature,
and the first dedicated piece I did for my
own project, which will be some kind of
monster encyclopedia-styled book. Making
our own books is the assignment at our current
class, and while I know that the idea of doing
a monster book isn´t revolutionary by any means,
it´ll free me from making up a cheesy children
story - I am not a good writer (or lacking any
pratice at least), so I´ll pour all my love for
weird creatures in it.

It´s going to be
about the more unusual monsters though,
some northern and eastern european fable
creatures, asian ones, maybe some african
characters... It should have at least some
part of educational purpose. Or maybe not.
I just wanna have as much fun as possible with
this, which is the only way to guarantee a maximum
of quality in my eyes - I wanna make a book I would
buy myself (kinda like those bands that say they
make the music they would wanna listen too, which
is both simple and genius at the same time).

And check out Amy Brown by the new
link on the right, she does very good lighthearted
stuff, and what I find most fascinating is that it
seems so natural and unpretentious, very joyous,
just like art gets when you try to do something
that´s fun to you.

IF: Grow, take two.

click to enlarge...or something.

Growing up - peculiar times.

That´s not me. If that was me, I would
have short hair, a bleached hair streak,
and a black-and-pink Gameboy belt bag.

Not nowadays of course, I mean back
then. Thinking about it, the Gameboy bag
was kinda cool. If I still had it I could wear
it "ironically". And get beaten up.

IF: Grow

click to enlarge

When will this boy ever grow up?

...

So what´s been happening lately besides
me not updating my blog? Well, I decided to ditch my
penciling attempts (not penicillin), since the approach
to do rough pencil sketches and tracing them on
transparency paper didn´t work out the way I wanted.
It might be a handy and effective technique to some,
but I noticed how much more I love bold, direct
drawing. Sketching and tracing is NOT FUN.
It feels like it´s killing the random elements
in my lines - the small dents, the weird curls,
the overall rough-around-the-edge touch
to it. So, there. Back to the old school, so
to say.

Mango chutney, ginger, ghee (clarified butter),
spices, mung beans, chili. AWESOME.

Also, I am getting into indian style cooking
lately. I never used to cook anything (beyond pasta
and water for my tea), and I think being able to cook
at least a handful of delicious, nutricious dishes is
a basic skill everyone should have. Taking some rough
ingredients and make something that beats
processed food out of the can by a mile always
fascinated me, and since I love mushy, spicy food
like many indian varieties, I thought I´d start
with something completely new:
Curry mung bean "dal" with mango chutney
and basmati rice. Worked out well, I ate this
three days in a row. And it´s cheap!

Also, please check out two new additions
on my link list. I still have to add Jeannettes new
text blog from Japan.

IF: Extremes

click to enlarge

Katla, emerging from primitive
times, is an extremely cruel
monstrosity.

I am also extremely stretching the
IF topic again.

This is another illustration for my
Brothers Lionheart submissions
for Bologna. It took me almost a day to figure out
a proper head - the monster in the book is
clearly described as a dragon, but I hate
dragons with their schmaltzy fantasy symbolism,
they remind me of half-naked women and He-Man.
So I went for something that looks like a cross
between a dog and a snake (well, that´s what
it turned out to be anyways), but I like how it
looks a bit weird and scary. I mean,
who still finds dragons scary?

Comments extremely appreciated.

Tyrant

I decided to participate in this years
Bologna childrens book exhibition, our school
sends submissions for this together. There is a
certain size and a fixed number of pictures needed,
five to be precise. I will submit my first
Brothers Lionheart illustration, the second one
(the boy in the bed) is a bit weaker, so I will
do four new ones. Deadline is around October 30,
so I should be able to get this in time. Above
is Tengil, an evil tyrant.

I don´t really know what to expect from
this exhibition thing, but I guess the best is to just
make good stuff and don´t think too much about
what this is all about. It isn´t enough time to
create something completely coherent, so
those five pictures will be a bit all over the
place, in terms of stylistics and also how
closely they reflect the text, but whatever -
maybe I will win some people over with
"carefree charisma". Or something ^_^