Cocoa puff salad

Ok, he's obviously not making salad, but it was a funny snippet of a conversation I heard somewhere and the whole inspiration for this picture, so...

Stuff and more stuff

I believe the professional term is SKETCHDUMP.
Well, since this is a sketchblog and since I'm having such fun working on these characters, here's what's happening with Jack and Stephen YAY!
I don't know how this whole colouring business will end... It's not my forté. I like the texture though. Wonder how it would come across on my gradpage...




Some not at all bad croquis of Trev and then some female models that I didn't like very much but whateverrrrr




We keep wanting to go to the zoo but keep getting foiled by rain. Here are some marker doodles that I based on quick sketches from my last trip to the zoo, over the summer.

I love to read

Here are four illustration type of things, first of which is finished and rest I'm still working on. (Includes book-Jack and book-Stephen, holy sh*t I could go on and on about those books.)

How To Train Your Dragon Widget

Yeah I totally jumped on the BANDDRAGON! Aaahaahaa... Grabbed the widget from Terra's blog (dappled studios) :D
Hatched! My dragon is now called DAFFY NIGHTMARE.




Oh but anyway I saw this movie on Friday and I was very surprised to be that visually stimulated, entertained, and just basically to NOT have to sit through a crappy Burger King toy advert.
Again, it's not Meatballs but it's still easily the best Dreamworks digitally animated movie. (When am I going to stop bringing up Meatballs?!)

The story is extremely simple but at least it made sense - not something like "if you start out as a total loser but you get your ass kicked long and hard enough, you become a kung fu champion." It's just a kid trying to get acceptance, realising that he can't agree to the things he has to do for that acceptance, and it is up to him to do what he believes right - whatever the downside.
On top of it others end up seeing things his way, which is more of a stretch (I would have been pretty happy with the first part of that as a movie plot) but smooth, not grating, and hell who wouldn't want what those lucky, lucky SOB's get for their "happily ever after"?! I have nothing against a good dose of wish-fulfillment in my movies.

Most things on my cons-list are quite inconsequential, and I'm so shocked to have liked this movie this much that I'll let them slide. Except Baruchel's voice acting. I can't really call that inconsequential. It could have been a lot better, but in "serious acting" sequences - in a pivotal argument with his father, threatening situations and so forth - he was great and I totally felt his panic. Everything else was so flat I could have sworn it was a Kaurismäki film :P

Backs are ...back

We had one of my favourite models in class yesterday, had a wonderful time.

But... Why can't I do ANYTHING except lifedrawing?! OMG yeah that is so going to impress the Pixar people D: NOOOOOTTTT

Although I just realised this is like my 12TH post this month and only 4 (!!) of those posts including this one are lifedrawing! So I'm starting to branch out noticeably!

Return of the Space Kid & some enjoyable influences

I finally finished painting my first maquette. It's been over a frikkin year!
"Holy crud there is a giant cat outside the window!"

He's laughing at you, not with you.



For better or for worse, I stole the colour combo from Tove Jansson's Moomin picture book "Kuinkas sitten kävikään" ("The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My").

To phrase it diplomatically, Jansson's books have influenced me in artistic, literary and the-devil-knows-what-other ways since ...always. "KSK" had an electrifying color scheme, in which the combination of purple, orange and black played a major part. And which I've often shamelessly copied since then.

That reminds me of another artist without a blog or site to speak of who inspired me as a child: Jean-Jacques Sempé. He's mostly known for his few-worded comics, his work for the New Yorker, and (my particular inspiration) his illustrations for the "Little Nicolas" -books written by another hero of mine, René Goscinny.
Goscinny, for his part, was the writer of the comics "Asterix" (original artist: Uderzo) and "Lucky Luke" (original artist: Morris), two other MASSIVE influences on me.

Did you miss out on childhood? Or did your childhood suck? Good news: it's never too late to get one. A GREAT one.

Don't let the lack of an internet presence discourage you from checking out these people's work if you have a little time to spare for book-searching. Especially if you like good children's books.