Monthly Archives: July 2012

Sketchbook Sunday #27 – Requests

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Last week I asked you readers to suggest something for me to draw. I got  four suggestions via the comments, and I’m really thankful for all of the responses to my request! I also got two more from my private Facebook-friends when I linked to my blog post, so that makes a total of six VERY different challenges.

In short, here’s a simplified list of the suggestions:

  • “Killer coffee!” Literally just these two words…. If you read further, you’ll see in this post how I interpreted it. Submitted by Josh.
  • American lady tourist pointing at some goats in the open air area of the Norwegian museum “Maihaugen” at Lillehammer, saying: “Look at the kind of sheep they got here!” Submitted by Persijn.
  • Illustrate an abstract idea, more specifically a question like the kind you would find in language learning books. Examples are “Where do you live?”, “What’s your favorite color?” and “How old are you?”. Submitted by Brian.
  • “A juice carton going rampage around a city, (a big ass juice carton) and you can see some heads and hands in the air screaming while the killer juice goes “Blubb blubb rawwwr”. Submitted by Mariann.
  • “Moose in the sunset”. Submitted by Siri & Kurt.
  • “Something related to surfing and ukulele’s”. Submitted by Ole Bertil.

So, I had not anticipated this many requests. Again, I’m really stoked by the amount of responses, but this also means that I had to abandon my goal of finishing all of them by today. However, I’ve drawn three sketches/illustrations, and they’ve all been processed slightly different in regard to time spent drawing and coloring. Here they are:

1. Killer coffee
I went for really simplified coffee-related things and made them anthropomorphic. And they’re ninjas simply because ninjas are very good at killing… right? I think you can safely assume that this is also inspired by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (hence the weapons). This is based on a really small pencil sketch, inked with Sakura Micron pens, which I then scanned and colored with Photoshop.

 


2. “Typical” American tourist (click to zoom)
There are quite a few stories going around about tourists who’ve said something weird or remarkably ignorant during their stay in Norway. For example “When does the Fjords close?” and “I’ve been ripped off! We went to see the midnight sun, but it’s just the same old sun we’ve all seen before!”.

This is the illustration I spent the most time on of the three I’ve finished today. Both before scanning and doing touch-ups with my Wacom tablet. I actually had to partly redraw the man’s face, because he turned out to resemble how I draw myself (unintentional, of course). I also did some really simple shading with a single grey color.

3. Moose in the sunset (click to zoom)
This was a challenge in a few ways, as I had to illustrate a lot of things that I’ve never had a clue how to draw before. I also worked very small, with the surrounding frame measuring about 16 x 9 cm (6.2 x 3.5 inches). I only colored parts of it because of time limitations.

In an attempt to bring something funny to such a “classic” motif, I added the laptop and hinted to that Mr. Moose M. Bingley just updated his Facebook-status… (not that I think that this hasn’t been done before, because someone must’ve thought of it by now).
To the people whose suggestion I’ve illustrated in this post, what do you think? Leave a comment and tell me what you liked or disliked (or just say “Hi!”, if you want). I hope you enjoyed these, because there’ll be three more coming soon!

Sketchbook Sunday #26 – Brush pen turtle

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I’ve been on a blogging and tweeting hiatus for about a week, so I reckoned it was time to post something new. These are just random sketches that I inked with the Tombow Fudenosuke brush pen in the picture. I honestly didn’t draw much during my ten-day vacation, mostly because I had to do some preparations for a friend’s wedding party. However, I hope to make some “in retrospect” journal comics based on the exhausting, but fun stag party, the task of editing the stag party video and the wedding itself.

Back to the sketches… The brush pen I used was very nice, and I was able to draw both bold lines and tiny details. You might’ve noticed the tiny snail on the guy’s head? Also, I asked my girlfriend what I should draw, and she said “a turtle”. So I drew a funny looking turtle and some swiss cheese. And yeah, I don’t speak french at all, so I hope the turtle’s speech bubble makes sense (and more importantly, doesn’t offend anyone).

I want to try something new, just to see if I can get some responses. If you leave me a comment telling me what to draw, I’ll include your request in the next “Sketchbook Sunday” post. Make it fairly simple, and remember that I really like drawing characters (Tokyo-sized cityscapes and hyper-detailed realism, not so much…). Provided that it is doable, I’ll draw every request that’s submitted before Friday, July 27th. You can also tweet requests directly to me, should you prefer that above leaving a comment.

Once every 2.5 years

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Believe it or not, I got a fax yesterday! It has actually happened twice this year, and it just baffles me that some people send faxes rather than e-mails (granted, they might be elderly people that have never used a “computer”, or have never set a foot in the “internets”). The math behind the title is this: Since I started working at my part time job five years ago, I’ve only recieved a fax from someone twice.

As I’ve mentioned briefly before, I work part time at a national newspaper. At the moment, it’s my full-time summer job, and it consists mainly of editing text and images received by way of e-mail or regular mail, and working with page layout. If someone wants to wish their kid or grandkid “Happy Birthday”, show their photographic skills in the “Snapshot of the day” category, or if someone wants to announce their marriage etc., they send their stuff to me. I also work with the regular, news-related pages. But the aforementioned job is my main focus, simply because it takes a while to organize and puzzle everything together.

Okay, I’ve bored you enough already, but I’ll give you a quick, technical explanation of my “process”. This comic was created on a smaller size of paper than usual, namely a generic A6 notepad. I drew it purely with a blue Pilot Hi-Tec-C 0.4 gel pen, with no underdrawing or sketch. I actually drew most of the first panel before the fax-thing happened, kind of like a “At work” self portrait. You’ll notice also that the borders of the second and third panels are ruled (with a make shift ruler made of folded paper, mind you), while the first panel border is drawn freehand. I know there are some anatomical wierdness going on, and I noticed now that I’ve forgotten the eyebrow in the last panel. However, it doesn’t have to be perfect, right?

Meet the baby

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Here’s my second journal comic. I hope it makes sense (it was funny in my head at least). It changed a little from my original idea in the drawing process, but that’s how cartooning is I guess. I can’t guarantee that this is exactly how the conversation went, but I hope my friends will forgive any inaccuracies.

I kind of wanted to make it longer, but I found out that drawing five people around a restaurant table was a daunting and time-consuming task. It was difficult mostly because I had never drawn anything like this before, and partly because I was afraid that I couldn’t represent my friends correctly as cartoon characters. Again, I hope that they’ll forgive me.

Anyway, if you’d like to leave comment, please feel free to do so below. I really appreciate any kind of feedback.

Sunday Sketchbook #25 – Watercolor pizza

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On request from Mariann, I colored my recent “Free pizza!” illustration with watercolors. This is a quick photo of the result. Although not perfect, I’ve tried to tweak the colors to resemble how the watercolors look on paper. Taking photos isn’t exactly the most predictable way to digitalize traditional artwork, however it will have to do until I get a decent scanner. I also need to use watercolors more often to get better at it (sometimes I feel like a child, merely painting within the lines, not being able to correctly indicate shadows and color nuances).

A couple of artists whom I look to for inspiration when it comes to watercolors are Sarah Becan and Lucy Knisley. They have both got pretty neat styles, but you might already know that… I would highly recommend you to go and look at their artwork! That’s all for now. Leave a comment if you’ve got suggestions, questions, or just want to say hi!