Drawing fiercely, posting slowly

Actually, that´s not a lie!

I´ve been busy with some "real life stuff"
(because blogging takes place in the internet
and therefore is part of a digital cyberverse
blogosphere cloud computing dreamland and doesn´t
count as "actually doing stuff"), building our
Poste Aérienne blog (link at the top right!)
and drawing submissions and posters
for various projects.

So right now I have my own website,
this blog, our groups blog, and a Flickr
account, all of which is quite a task to keep
updated simultaneously.

As you can tell it doesn´t
work that well.

So yeah, this is some stuff I made.
I swore myself that I wouldn´t point people
to my Flickr account or our Poste Aérienne
blog, but nevertheless this is exactly what
I´m doing. I don´t really think copy/pasting
the same text on all three sites is very
entertaining to read, so I think that this will be my
intimate snotty homebase, and try to be more
professional on the other sites.

In other news, I bought Matcha green tea powder
to make green tea icecream with. It´s one of the
most interesting sweets I´ve ever eaten, and this
is one of the rare cases where I really am ambitious
enough to actually go ahead an try to do it
from scratch. It´s that delicious!

IF: Repair

click to enlarge. Trust me, it looks shitty that small.

The winged monkey is beating up poor
Tin Woodman. Who´s going to repair
him afterwards?
---
This is also the submission for the recent contest
"Biester im Film" (Beasts in movies) that the new german
illustration magazine Jitter is holding. I was browsing
the net to get some other ideas than the obvious
Godzilla, Yeti, Dracula and whatnot, and stumbled
upon the winged monkeys from The Wizard Of Oz.
Man, what a cool concept - flying monkeys.
I mean, monkeys are already awesome
enough as it is.

What´s next?
A T-Rex in a F-16 jet?
(Free imaginary cookie if you
catch this reference!)

Visit us!

If you´re at the Frankfurt book fair,
why don´t you drop by and buy a
little truckload of our stuff?
Inside sources told me that you´ll
get a discount if you buy all 5
Poste Aérienne books. AND you´ll
be able to score my new postcard
and my fancy business card!

Poste Aérienne Flyer

You can see my stuff in four seperate spots here.
Can you find them all?

What I´ve been up to

Quite a few people remarked that they
miss my blog entries, and to be quite honest I
started to miss them myself. So I will keep both
the Blog and my Flickr account up to date at roughly
the same time; maybe use Flickr for smaller stuff and
the blog for the "big" new illustrations.

These two pictures are the front and the
back of the promo postcard I´m going to
sell at the Frankfurt book fair, along with my
book. I´m going to be there all five days
along with Boris, and I´m wondering
what it´s going to be like.

The original drawing for my books cover.
Unlike the inside, this has an added blue color, and
I used black color pencil for this soft look. I had to
make a few cosmetic changes in order to fit in
with the typography, though. I´ll post some
pictures when I´ve got my hands on the complete
book. I really, really wonder how it will feel to
finally hold it in my hands completely finished
after all these weeks I´ve worked on it, and the rather
big gap between working on the last picture and
the finished book.

I also finished the "Anansi" illustrations but
didn´t get into the Figures Futures contest
catalogue. What´s a bit annoying is that you never
know how things went when you don´t get
anywhere in such a contest - did I get thrown
out at the first round? Did I ALMOST get in there?
What did the jury think of it? It´s really a weird
feeling not getting any feedback. But anyways,
I´m left with two illustrations I´m pretty satisfied
with, so there ;)



...and finally another illo from
my book, this is the inside of the cover -
fictional sponsors for a fictional race.

IF: Detach (2)

click to enlarge

"Anansi detaches the wisdom he
collected."

This is an illustration of an african folkore
figure, Anansi the Spider. In this particular
story he collects the wisdom of the world in
a calabash (a container), then tries to hide
it on top of a large tree. He binds the
calabash to his stomach, but he keeps getting
stuck in the tree. When his son points out
that he needs to put the calabash on
his back to get to the top, he realizes
that the wisdom he collected did not
make him wise, so he releases the wisdom
back into the world.

You can see older versions of this
one on my Flickr account if you like
(link to the right). Hope y0u like it ;)

IF: Detach

click to enlarge

"Plane detached! Mission to sun commencing!"

This is inspired a lot by the works of
Martin Tom Dieck and Markus Huber. This is
my usual Uniball Eye finelines, but the grey
shades are made with a Faber Castell
Polychromos black color pen.
I like the more chunky and slightly
metallic feel it gives the drawing.
(I used a slighty similar ink
wash technique some time ago.)

Hope you like it ;)

Oh, and from now on I´ll posting
mostly on Flickr since it´s a lot easier and
more comfortable for viewers. I´ll keep posting
my IF submissions here, though.

IF: Enough

Please click to enlarge

"Enough of that terrible noise!"

---

Also:
I´m on Flickr now!

IF: Fierce

click for large version
(Please do, it looks pretty crummy in
such a miniscule resolution...)

Drawing fiercely! Too bad one of
the light bulbs is broken...

My schools annual exhibition is approaching,
and I´ve been asked to make one of the posters
for our classes rooms. I did this one in a larger
format than usual, and it shows in how much more
detail than usual I crammed in there. And somehow drawing
animals heads is much more fun than human faces to me...
I think I find the shapes involved more interesting.

I also did some work-in-progress shots
of it, to give you a little peek into
my work routine (Haha, "routine"...)
(You can enlarge each of these as well.)


I actually did the head first the day before.
I usually do the heads and faces on a separate sheet
and then cut-and-paste them.



I did this piece on two seperate sheets
because it´s easier to scan it this way.
There is also very little penciling involved,
just a few vague orientation lines.
This way I stay more flexible and
I improvise A LOT to keep things
exciting, and also because I am lazy.



Skribble, skribble, doodle, doodle.
This is my favourite part because
at this point I usually can see whether or not
it´s going to be any good, and I can lose
myself in the details. Very relaxing.



Here you can see White-Out (called Tipp-Ex in Germany, though
in this case it´s actually a Pentel correction pen, very handy!)
and the cut-and-paste marks. Things can get pretty messy
after some time because I started to cut and paste
a lot more ever since I make more complex drawings.

After I finished drawing by hand I scan it all
in, clean it up in GIMP (a free Photoshop clone, I can´t
be bothered to spend truckloads of money for software
I just use for basic coloring and editing), add some
simple color and draw in the white parts,
the letters in this case. A very efficient and
timesaving work routine; I did this piece in half
day while catching up with the Euro cup soccer final on
the radio. Getting a proper idea, however, takes
a lot more time, and I guess I got lucky in this case ;)

Hope you enjoyed my little tour!

IF: Punchline

click each to enlarge. Please, I encourage you.

Punchline, eh? Here´s my punchline for this
weeks Illustration Friday:

"Who let the dogs out?"

And what dogs they are.

I like the first one better, but overall
all these black elements were a lot of
fun to do. I tend to do a lot of scribbling
and adding details, so putting in more
solid black parts adds to the overall
contrast. I only did that once before,
here.

I´m thinking of picking up regular
posting again from now on, the deadline
for my book project is somewhere end
of July or August, so I have still
a lot of time to finish that AND draw
some other things on the side. I just
needed to do something with a little
color again. Hope you like it.

Instant gratification

A little illustration I did for the creative
writing class project long-term readers might remember.
It´s going to be made into an audiobook, and there
were some texts without illustrations. The one I
received was about a man writing his wife
about live in Paradise, and the part that
stuck most in my head was that everybody
has a little button on his or her nose, that upon
pushing creates a wonderful orgasm.

So, yeah, this is what you see.
The rest of the text is pretty earnest,
but really, you can´t have something like
an orgasm trigger on YOUR NOSE in a text
and NOT illustrate that, right?

By the way, the book is progressing pretty
well, I´ll see if I post some more samples
later on. Until then, posts here continue
to trickle rather than flow ;)

IF: Electricity // WIP

click to enlarge!

Hi-tech racing steering wheel,
consuming tons of electricity.



Guess what? This one will enlarge upon
clicking it, too!


I promised myself to not post any new
pieces from my upcoming book, but I thought
I could at least show some updated material.
(These engines below are new, actually, but I
just couldn´t resist.)


Click this image for free health insurance!*
(*Does not have to be true)


So after I noticed that the most recent
pieces had a lot more black parts in them and
were much tighter in general, I decided to do
something I NEVER did before: Modifying drawings
that I thought were "finished". Going over them a
second time had pretty interesting results, as you
can see if you compare them to the last post.
It´s much darker now, with more cross hatching,
and the steering wheel got a huge redesign.

Maarit gave me a very valuable constructive
criticism on my pieces in progress -
just had to mention that. She just updated
her blog after weeks and weeks of silence,
so go check it out!

IF: Wrinkles // Intermission

click to enlarge

(Trust me - it sucks at this size)

"Racing at top speed will get your

suit all wrinkled and sweaty."

--------

I am a bit sad to say that this will be the

last post for the next few weeks as I am working on

my first book that is going to be self- published with

other books by a small group of like-minded people.

The working title

is "Velo City" and it´s a no-text, 16 pages story

roughly about high-speed racing, full of exaggeration

and stylization. I am still not sure how it will turn out

or what exactly will happen, I´ll rather let the

ideas grow while developing scenery and
characters for it.

These two samples are a little peek of what

it MIGHT look like in the end; I´m quite

satisfied with the stylistic approach - still pretty

rough and sometimes wonky lines, but overall

a bit slicker and more details than usual.

By the way, all of the sponsor companies are

made up, and it´s highly unlikely you´ll get

every one of my little references ;)

Anyways, so long for now, maybe I´ll throw in

some little progress shots, but don´t expect anything

big in the next few weeks. Yeah, I know, millions

of devoted hardcore readers crying out all at once.

Colorful theft

Do not buy this book.

click here

IF:Fail // Bologna Fiere 2008

click to enlarge

"I will never fail."

This is a character I plan on using in a small
book I am working on, it´s going to be self-published
as part of the edition Poste Aérienne that
my fellow artist buddy Boris is starting together
with a friend of him. It´s going to be a roughly
half-letter sized booklet, with a the only
colour being bright blue on the outside.
I am not 100% sure yet but I plan on making
a series of drawings roughly centering around the
topic "Velocity". I´ll keep you updated on
the progress!



WELL! BUTTER!


I also just retured from the Bologna Childrens
Book Fair in Italy. Huge fun, a great group, haven´t
been on the actual fair not even nearly enough
to call this a "business trip", but had a lot
of fun with all these great people and made
some new friends along the way.



VOTE FOR ME AND GET PUNCHED


Also, please check out the work of
Julia Gruner. Aside from making great
paintings and even better photography she´s
a lovely person and usually supported me when it
came to sleeping on park benches in various
italian cities. It´s nice to have vacation buddies
that are equally lazy as me.

BONUS: An arrow made of cold cuts.




...and the mandatory "Dear god,
how can this place be so beautiful" photo.

IF: Heavy (2)

click to enlarge

Heavy music, heavy speakers!

You know what´s also heavy?
Having a stye above your left eye.
It´s not as painful as it´s annoying,
and I look like I had a stroke, with one eye
just a little bit more closed than the other.
Alternatively, I look like somebody had
punched me in the face, but very tenderly.

Thinking about it, having a stye isn´t
that heavy, it´s merely a little inconvenience.

IF: Heavy

click to enlarge

Kraftwerk on heavy rotation!

IF: Garden

click to enlarge

My little garden.

IF: Leap

click to enlarge

First being leaped over,
then leaping himself.

IF: Multiple

click to make it REAL BIG!
(Because it looks a bit crap this small)

7427 giant work unit with multiple
heads. Those heads are a weak point,
but thankfully it can repair itself.

IF: Theory (4)

click to enlarge them all

Basic drawing 101.
If you still have any questions,
contact me via the comment section.
Please recap after use.

IF: Theory (3)

click to enlarge


...but is this all just a theory?

IF: Theory (2)

click to enlarge

A german proverb says
"Grau ist alle Theorie", which means
"All theory is grey", saying that only
putting things into practice creates something
worthwile. I thought that those posing dolls
always had something very theoretical
about them.

IF: Theory

click to, you know...

I have no idea what is happening here.
Nope. Not even a theory.

This is a t-shirt design I made
for my girlfriend for our anniversary,
which also happens to be Valentines
Day (aaaaw!). It´s the first time I ever
printed a shirt and I am quite happy with
the outcome.


The only problem I have with it is that the
shirt themselves are a bit transparent, and the print
film around the drawing makes these parts whiter
than the rest of the shirt. Ah, anyways.
If you read this and you happen to be living
in Hamburg, they were made by Eindruck,
a very nice little shop with friendly guys
working there.

Also, please notice that this drawing is
done in my one style, it´s called "effort".
Where most people use pencil tracings, I

just drew and cut and pasted a lot of times.
I even manipulated many thing after scanning
it, including completely drawing the tail in GIMP,
but to my surprise you can´t see all the surgery.

I really have to invest more time into
my drawings before I consider them "finished".
This also means not being as lazy as I used
to be, but on the other hand, doctoring on work
in progress is a lot easier than actually STARTING
a new drawing. Also, using glue and scissors is
a lot of fun. Digital and analogue - best of both
worlds!

IF: Choose (3)

click to enjoy

"So many heads to choose!"

This is a pretty old piece I did
originally for IF "Mask". I still love
this drawing, it´s one of the few ones
that actually feels like a solid part of me,
so I wanted to share it with you again.

Its weird how I try and try and yet
rarely do something that comes close
to this to me. Maybe I should hang it
up my wall as the only picture and
meditate over it a whole year.
I don´t know if dissecting a
picture like this will result in anything.
Maybe I should take a couple of my
all-time favourite pictures from all
artists I know and try to get behind
what makes them so great.

Because really, when do we ever
do this? We know what we like but
we can´t say why. But there HAS
to be something.

IF: Choose (2)

click!

So much music to choose from.

This is actually a t-shirt design I
made for a friend of mine. If you look
really hard you might be able to see
her name.

IF: Choose

click to enlarge

So many stars to choose from.

I actually made this drawing in my
bed this morning (noon is what I call
morning) right after waking up.
This happens maybe two times
a year. Finally I can brag about
my self-discipline ONCE! Whooo!

Ah yeah, on regular days I "check
my emails" for about two hours a time
three times a day and generally waste
my time like... erm... like someone
who is wasting his time really bad.

I am working on it, as you can see.

IF: Blanket (4)

ARGH! Last minute submission!