IF: 100% //Rooibos

click to enlarge - 100%!!!


With a fresh jug of Rooibos, I am
read to give 100% drawing power in
your face. Yes, that´s me up there.
Well, besides the shirt and the hair and
I wear glasses and don´t use sketchbooks
like that, but otherwise...okay,
that´s not me. It´s somebody else.
I have no idea who he is.

100%! 100%! 100%! Hooray!

BIKE BOY!

OMG WTF!!! WITHOUT A HEAD
(OR ANYTHING RESEMBLING A BODY!!)

I really like the rough look of that
pentel ink pen. Why do I use it so rarely?

Also, I haven´t updated my website
and my IO portfolio in AGES. At least I linked
to this blog instead of my website from my IO
profile, but at the moment I make very little
use of it otherwise. Must be because Blogger
is really a breeze to use, unlike the clunky
IO site structure and the pure horror that
coding a HTML page is.

New Years Eve

Kind of slapping the christmas slumber out
of my face. Well, actually I´ve been working on
my day job for the last weeks, including two
days on christmas and new years eve.
Now I am scrubbing off the stink of
working for "the man" with some doodling
(well, and lots of Super Mario World).

Never too old to have fun like a kid.

IF: Soar

Click to enlarge

Who´s that on the horizon?
Armed werewolves, that´s who.
Wait until they soar into the night
sky with their feathery wings.

Oh boy, I am really stretching the
IF topic again. One day one of the site
admins will find out how badly I shoehorn
the topics onto whatever drawing I am
working on and drive to my house
to twist around my arm really, really
hard, and then tell me to be ashamed
of myself.

So, better leave a comment now
before this site gets shut down!
Also, I hope you had a nice christmas
or whatever have (not) been celebrating.
You know what I got?
A 20 CD box with everything
David Sedaris ever put on disc so
far. TWENTY DISCS. Over 22 hours
filled with stories read by one of the most
charming writers I know.

Rain, houses, smoke, street.

IF: Backwards (2)

click to enlarge

Monkeyboy loves to play
his recorded voice backwards!

IF: Backwards

click click click the image, not this text.

Sailing backwards.
Hurray!

IF: Small things 2

click to enlarge


Small things....
FIGHTING TO (ROBOTIC) DEATH!

IF: Small things

If you want this particular small
thing to be larger, why not just click on it?

I am working on almost every day during
december at my job at the coat check of a
local theatre, and it´s pretty hard to still
get some drawings done when I am at home
again. It´s either that I work early and have to
get some sleep when I get home again,
killing the rest of the day by not getting
fully awake again, or I have to work late and
can´t get anything done with work looming
further down the day.

Creative work is a very precious and
fragile thing I actually need a lot more time
for than I thought I would. But on the
plus side, I am really appreciating my free
time right now.

I like how pencil gets a smooth,
charcoal look to it when setting
the contrast settings to the extremes.

IF: The Zoo // The Headless Rider

click to enlarge

"Behold this wicked creature, and
you know you´re in the foulest
ZOO ever."

(I know I am shoehorning this weeks
IF-Topic very badly again, but please don´t
hate me for it. I can´t control myself.)

***

Headless AND only one-armed, that
poor guy. That horse had gone through
a lot of trouble, too. I really have to
press those illustrations out fast, Monday
is drawing near and I have to work four times
at the weekend. But it´s fun having to come up
with stuff quickly - when I can´t be doubtful
and hesistant, I seem to draw very efficient.
This is actually the first try at the headless
rider, without any sketches involved beforehand
(as you can tell by looking at the horse, but
neither do I have enough time to learn animal
anatomy, nor do I think anyone cares about this much).

(This is the old color version)

Another ANOTHER Yeti

CLICKETTI-CLICK TO XXL

I really wasn´t satisfied with my last
coloring of this Yeti, so I cleaned the rough
edges (which were more pretentious and lazy
than "expressive" and didn´t add anything interesting
to the linework), changed the colorscheme and
dimmed some black lines. I like this one a lot
better. Funny what a difference coloring can make!

By the way, this is my 200th post.

Another go at the Yeti

I am not going to draw him AGAIN,
that´s for sure. It´s a far cry
from the first version, anyway.
Monday is the Bologna deadline,
and I have three more pieces to go,
which means I don´t have any time to
think twice about keeping illustrations,
which is actually helpful and good.

IF: Superstition // Oni Ver. 2

Click to enlarge

My new version of the Oni.
Calling a part of asian mythology
superstition might be a bit of a stretch,
but, eh, well.

I´ve been too much in a creative hole again
lately, so I got back to my favourite, smeary and
cheap art too - the biro pen, and tried to
lose all of the tension, to just have FUN
drawing... I´ve been so uptight with
drawing lately for all the wrong reasons.

I hope you can see I had fun with this!

Best Of (or something)

Ah yes, a creative blockade,
just in time for the nearing Bologna
deadline. After a weekend of jobbing I was
happy to have two completely free days in front
of me, but I just produced for the rubbish
bin today.

So instead of brutally forcing it, which
only makes me unsteady and angry, and reluctant
to surrender, I flipped through my own little
back catalogue. Usually I have this strange,
unnecessarily perfectionistic habit of dismissing
my old work really quickly - for instance,
only very recent work is presented in my
portfolio (aside from bad web design).

I have the slight feeling that I did
better stuff some time ago, amongst
it many pencil drawings with lots of
neat colours and coloured lines.

I really need to print out some of this
and hang it up my walls, as a reminder
that I don´t have to start from scratch
each time I start a new drawing.

Changing my mind again (again)

Some doodles I did on the train to my
new job at the coat check of a small local theatre.
It´s pretty fun, though I worked quite a lot during the last
days. On the other hand, it´s not too stressful (apart from
the three minutes everybody wants their coats back instantly
at the end of the play), and drawing in the subway is
something I missed, strangely enough.

I am too used to my Uniball Eye pen to get back
to pencil properly, and I really can´t blame the pen
itself if my drawings get too stiff - it´s more in the
daily, consistent, joyous routine that makes my lines
more energetic again. There simply have been too
many days with NO drawing at all lately; and just
doing quick 10 minute sessions two or three times
a day make a huge difference.

Nulla dies sine linea, indeed.

Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

I am going back to pencil now again.
Much smoother, more fun.

New Yeti On The Blog

CLICK THUMBNAIL TO WIN FREE iPOD*
(*Must not happen)

A litte variation of my Yeti piece.
I have to do it again anyways, and I felt like
experimenting today, so I used the pencil
after a long time, and am surprised how much
livelier (is that a real word?) it looks.
It could, however, just be the fact that I
actually DREW this one livelier.
Argh - why is making art so complicated
sometimes?
I´m a bit confused on how to
continue, especially with the
Bologna Fair drawing nearer...

Also, two posts in ONE day?
It´s been a while!

Up in the trees

Comic artist Renée French had a speech
today at our school, and I almost missed it.
But after speeches from good artists I am always
very pumped and inspired. Her speech and especially
the question-asking afterwards was witty and
entertaining. I asked a lot of questions in my
famous broken, dialect-heavy german English.
I loved her work, and she published at
Fantagraphics among others, and as you may
or may not (may not is more likely) know, I am
a Peter Bagge (Hate! - Buddy Bradley) fan.

I´ve put a link to her site on the right,
please check her out (you SHOULD!).
Man, our school really is wicked awesome
sometimes. AND I ALMOST
MISSED THAT.
*self-punching to the face*

IF: Hats // You´re as cold as ice

A headband is a kind of hat too, right?
Also: Click to enlarge.

The Yeti. He needs no introduction.

Another illustration for my Monster
book assignment. I went for a blue colour scheme
here. In the former version, his scarf and the headband
had stripes, but it turned out to distract from
the other elements too much.

*SPECIAL READER LOVE BONUS*

If you are a long-time reader of my blog
(and chances are you are not), this yeti might
actually remind you of something I drew almost
one year ago. If you don´t remember what I am
pointing at, check this link.

Uuuh, just one day away from being
EXACTLY one year ago. That´s pure
coincidence, though!