Beating the drum

It´s good to know I can make a picture
like this above without much trouble on
one day (with much sleeping and enough
breaks to keep my lazy side satisfied).
I am experimenting with some (hopefully)
subtle digital additions besides the colour,
and, well, you can see the results.

That´s all for now. Comments
appreciated, as always.

More sketches

Better than no post at all!



Two bird-people with large tummies.

More demons. Demons all the time.

Scaring innocent pedestrians.


Biro pen on cheapo paper (as always).

Caffeine - Illustrators best friend

I was just skribbling around a bit today, late
in the evening again, and after scanning my
results in I found it to be rather unexciting, so I
slapped some additional layers on it and messed
around a bit (I still have to learn what all those
layer options in GIMP are, so the result is
mostly random).

I am quite pleased with the outcome, I am not
used to using much colours, but it fits the rather
dry drawing quite well. That´s why I love digital
editing so much; you can experiment all you want
without being able to ruin everything. Maybe I´ll
explore into that direction some more.

IF: Thanksgiving

The problem is that I don´t live in the US and
have therefore a very rudimentary and generic idea
of what thanksgiving actually is, and no emotional
connection to this subject - and looking it
up in Wikipedia isn´t something I want to do.
We do have a similar occasion in German by
the name "Erntedank", but it is not a big
celebration like Thanksgiving.

Instead, a take on the turkey/turkey wordplay:



Keep in mind that this is not a political caricature
or something, to avoid misunderstandings. It´s just
a weird thing that a bird and a country share
the same name in English.
And making jokes about that is indeed corny.

I hope that in the future we keep getting
topics that anyone can relate to, worldwide.
(Too bad someone already had my initial
idea of someone who is giving a "Thanks"...)

And please, no christmas topics in
december. Please, no. That only invites
stereotypical ideas.

Double Update!

I have no idea what is going on in this picture.
This is the result of drawing straight away,
from left to right, without concept, without
penciling, with a good amount of
randomness in it. I like working that way,
though it doesn´t make sense when illustrating
specific subjects. But it´s good excercise nevertheless.
Man, I had a tough fight when colouring this one -
I used a lot of shades but finally reduced it to only
a few, contrasting colours again. It just works best
right now, and colouring is always my least
favourite part.

The second one remains monochrome -
I don´t think colour is necessary in this one.



What are those grey lines between the text?
Too late, I am hitting the pillows now. Oh, time
to check out this weeks IF topic.

Angry demon REDUX

First of all,
thanks for the truckload of comments
(though its beyond my imaginative powers how
comments could ever fill any truck, but let´s move on),
and especially John Reddinger
for pointing out that a certain Johnny
from drawn.ca found me via my IF submissions
(and of course, thanks to Johnny too!) and linked
me on their site.

I wasn`t expecting being picked
for such a sweet site so early, and have been
found among all the other fantastic submissions
on IF. So here is a variation of the demon
that Johnny took for his post.


This is how I eat breakfast each morning;
mixing sugar and oatmeal with lots of milk
and gulping them down like a hungry
coyote. It´s nutricious and stuffs me
for at least 3 hours.


While I drew and coloured this, I listened
to this all the time. I simply love those guys.

And I love you, people.
So long!

Kudos to the biro pen

Nothing new or revolutionary today. I´ve tried my luck
with some different materials and it didn´t work out
so well. So instead I flipped through a couple of
sketchbooks from earlier this year (those are really
great small books with 144 pages for 3 euro, stitch bound
and linen cover - from the netherlands HEMA store), and
share some sketches.



I used to draw nearly exclusively with biro pen
during the last semesters, and will start using them
again - if done right, biro pen drawings have
a lot of expression, detail and rough power in them.

I remembered writing a Wikipedia entry on that
subject, seeing that biro pens are usually not
considered "art tools" but cheap everyday
supplies (and on a sidenote, the best biros
are usually the cheapest ones, including the french Bic
or the german Schneider pens). And upon
looking it up again, I saw that someone
added pictures going with my article!

So a like-minded individual improved my entry,
and here it is in german:

Kugelschreiber

And, for the non-german readers
(with added auto-translate awkwardness, but
still understandable):

Autotranslated

To sum it up, biro-pens are durable, nearly
indestructible, varied, uncomplicated,
cheap and avaiable nearly everywhere. To if
you think you´re too sophisticated to use a
mass-market cheapo product, think again!

Life in the streets

Sk8ter boy? Indeed.
I wanted to colour this one too, but it
turned out ugly, so instead of letting this one
rot away in my desk, I´ll share it with you.

Illo Friday - "Clear"

Oh boy, Illo Friday again. With "Clear" we
have a nice, loose term, which surely will
lead to many different results.
So here is mine. This time
around I didn`t interfere with colour so
much and kept it simple.

In case you are new to my blog,
feel welcome and check out my
other illos if you want.

Enjoy!

Medicine - Therapy - Caretaking

I should be in bed now. Why do I always have to work
late in the evening? Oh well. Here is a first idea of
how the aforementioned illo could look
like. See the gap between the upper arm
and the head? I never pencil first but draw
straight away, so I often correct by cutting
and glueing instead. Its just
a pain to correct it digitally afterwards.

So long, good night.

(Random topic stuff)

Another sketch I coloured today. Looks a bit dirty and it
lacks a proper background, but, well...
I am currently busy working on a calendar page
we do for our university; the topic is "management
of therapy, medicine and caretaking in hospitals"
and I noticed how hard conceptual
thinking still is for me.

These are pictures without concept, so don`t
ask what they mean - they just randomly
fall out my head. Not when it comes to
class assignments, though. I need
some drill - badly.

In my early semesters I was completely
consumed by stylistics - sharp and symbolic
thinking is something I wasn`t bothered with.
Studying gets a lot more serious for me during
the last weeks but I like that a lot.
Dedication!

Clouds

My newest creation - don´t worry, this isn`t my
own mood pictured here. The fountain-pen / brush technique
is growing on me, its much less countour-driven
and very satisfiying to use. After I made this
one, I picked up an old catalogue with poster art
from Poland (50ies till 80ies) which is easily
the most impressive collection of art I have.
Fascinating because they are mostly
commercial posters, advertisments and festival
announcements, but with a very distinctive
feeling of shape, style and colour,
and very sharp concepts. A large number
of them will serve as inspiration for
future ideas and approaches.

So here is a link to let you know what I am talking about:

Polish posters

There are a couple of other drawings waiting
to be coloured, so I will be able to serve you
with frequent updates in the next few days.
Thanks for taking time to comment!

A weird sheep

Yeah, that`s about it.
See you later!

It`s "Smoke" again

Yesterday I complained about not having enough time for
making an original Illo Friday contribution, but instead
I downed a load of tea and started going at it.
I thought about shamefully erasing the last post,
but since you people already commented on it,
I choose to make a new post. This picture
has some issues, since the paper went wavy and
so there are blurry spots in the scan. I simply need to
use thicker paper when working with water... oh, and
besides, I drew this with water-soluble ink and then
went over it with water - I think this makes my drawings
meatier. Just tell me what you think.

(FREE bonus sketch for your delight)

And I can`t stop telling you how much I appreciate your
comments. I will not get tired of saying this, it`s like saying
"I love you" over and over again, because you just
want to make it clear again and again.
It`s really surprising me how motivating this
whole messageboard - blogging -
art community via internet-thing is.
I guess we all should be thankful for this.
Well, I know I am!

Illustration Friday - "Smoke"

[EDIT: There is a new original contribution to "Smoke"
above this post. Yeah, I got myself together at last!]


Ah, what do we have here? I know I posted this picture
for the last Illo Friday already, but at the moment I am a bit
sick of digital colouring, so I will simply sketch and doodle
for a few days. And since this picture fits BOTH wind and
smoke (a lucky coincidence!) I might as well present it again; maybe
some new people will see it who missed it last week.

But to show at least something new, here is a random
sketch I did today. It`s self-explainatory. So anyways,
thanks for your visit! Next time there`s gonna be more stuff to
see. Maybe I´ll get something new for "Smoke" together, with or
without colour. Until then!

Draw Man

This boy has a very special super
power. I doubt that this will get him to save the world,
but at least he`s having fun. He already has got
a super heroes cape and mask!

And thanks again for the many comments on
my last picture!

Illustration Friday - "Wind"

Here is my contribution to the recent Illustration Friday: "Wind".
This time I am a little early, but it just flowed well today, and I don`t think
I would have enough time later this week since the first concepts in my
Illo class.

And to everyone who commented me so far:
Your positive feedback is very valuable to me.
You really keep me going!
I invite you to come back every
once in a while, you`re always welcome!

Bathtub Love

Autumn time is bubble bath time.
Enjoy!

Demons

Drawing ghosts for the Illustration Friday was very
satisfying, I loved exaggerating so much.
So here is another one.
Enjoy!

Thanks you all for you comments!

My orange record

Heart Rock Coffee

Thank you people for commenting on my illu!
I appreciate every comment, and I was not even expecting
1 comment, let alone 3 - considering that I am new to this whole
thing and seeing how many submissions are coming in to each topic.
So those pictures above are a "thank you" to you.
I´ll take some time to browse your work too.

I wish you good look!