Tag Archives: comics

Freelance work and character designs

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I haven’t posted anything in a while, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been working! I’ve suddenly become swamped with various projects, which is both very exciting and a bit stressful. Exciting because there are a lot of fun things I can work on, and stressful because it gets difficult to keep a productive work schedule.

Also, most of the projects are unpaid as of yet, so I’ve had to put them on the back burner, simply so that I could focus on a specific paid project. This was a six page long comic in color for a children’s magazine, and it was way more work than I had suspected. However, creating this comic has been a very rewarding and useful experience. It’s also nice to learn how to plan out a comic based on a provided manuscript. One of the things I had to do was to design a few characters, so below are two of the main characters from the comic.

Character design - Boy and girl

So yeah, that was fun! I’ll probably post the whole comic at some point (preferably after it’s been published in the magazine, of course). On that note, it’s about time I start posting things more often! After devoting most of my creative efforts on the aforementioned comic, it’s nice to again be able to draw something completely different. Until next time, stay creative!

Hourly Comic Day 2013

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So hey, I actually participated in this year’s Hourly Comic Day, which was on Friday, February 1st. I’m only a few days late in actually posting the comics… and I might have bent the rules a few other places too. Sorry about that (if you’re unfamiliar with the concept, here are some simple guidelines that explain Hourly Comic Day).

Nevertheless, I’m pretty proud that I managed to finish these, simply because I’ve never documented a day in comics before. In hindsight, I see that my panels are wonky and pretty horrendous. I should’ve known better than to freehand them… And of course using a ruler didn’t help when it was wonky in the first place. I could’ve used a template or skipped the borders on the original drawings and added them later in the process. Now I know!

It was very fun to feel that I’m a part of something much bigger. I tried my best to keep up with the updates from all the creative people I follow on Twitter, but it became increasingly difficult. I ended up spending Saturday morning scrolling through a lot of hourlies.

Also, feel free to leave a comment if you like. The comment section is open for constructive critisism as well. Or perhaps you would like to share a link to your Hourly Comics ? I would definitely check them out!

Hourlies - part 1Hourlies2

Hourlies - part 3 Hourlies - part 4

 Thanks for reading!

- Jostein

Comic strip for a magazine

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I made a five panel, fully colored comic strip! Click here or on the image above for full view… Actually, I tweeted the first panel from this in the middle of August, and now that it’s been printed, I think it’ll be alright if I post the entire strip. It was commissioned by a Christian magazine for teenagers. If you’re Norwegian, you can find it in the fall 2012 edition of NMS U’s “Magazin”.

I don’t mean to bore you guys with details, but I have to admit that it was the first time in a long while that I’ve made something like this. I spent about a weekend finishing it, working for a few hours every day, which is more than I think was necessarily required for one, lonely strip. Nevertheless, in the end I figured out a relatively easy workflow and got some useful training with my Wacom tablet. You could say that I finally became friends with it, considering that I’ve had it for so long without really using it.

I also learned that putting text in speech bubbles is hard! And that choice of font can make quite the difference for a comic strip. I haven’t spent a lot of time on the text in this one, but the font is called “GosmickSans”, and it can be found at dafont.com (incidentally, I used a different font in the Norwegian original). Please let me know if you think it looks too much like Comic Sans! Or, you could also leave a good old, regular comment below!

PS: Here’s a funny music video about Comic Sans, made by Canadian YouTuber “Gunnarolla”. Check it out!

Raptus Comics Festival 2012 write-up

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This year’s Raptus International Comics Festival in Bergen (Norway) happened on Saturday the 8th and Sunday the 9th of September. In short, the Raptus festival is a very fun event to attend, and you get the chance to meet a lot of creators and fellow fans of comics. I attended specifically with the panels in mind, but just being around artistic people and seeing what they can create made it a fully rewarding and interesting weekend.

Fredrik Rysjedal and Eirik A. Vik, two handsome comic artists.

One of my main goals this year was to get the infamous comic book “When we met Lucy Knisley”. The 60 pages long, locally made comic is a retelling of certain events that happened before and during last year’s festival, when Lucy Knisley was one of the esteemed guests.

The story is, according to creators Fredrik Rysjedal and Eirik A. Vik, a truthful (though exaggerated) documentary about how they wanted to meet and talk to Lucy Knisley, but never got the chance. By the way, you might want check out the post I wrote about Raptus 2011.

At one of the panels I got a chance to see Jill Thompson (the artist behind “Beasts of Burden”) creating her own interpretation of “Madonna” by the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch. It was very interesting to watch how she worked projected on the big screen as she expertly controlled the watercolors.

Bergen resident comic artist Kim Holm was also among the several cartoonists who interpreted classic paintings by Munch. In the photo above, he’s working on “The Scream”. All the while, the chieftain of the Raptus festival, Arild Wærness (wearing the colorful suit jacket), interacts with the artists on stage and the audience.

This photo shows Thierry Capezzone, maker of children’s comics, and Italian Disney cartoonist, Giorgio Cavazzano at another panel specifically aimed at a younger audience. There were a lot of eager kids and their parents in the auditorium’s seats. Cavazzano answered various questions from the audience with impromptu drawings, and several Disney characters, including Donald, Daisy, Mickey and Fethry Duck appeared live on the big screen. For example, he illustrated several of his impressions of Bergen city, the only bad one being an annoyed Donald clutching a broken umbrella in rainy weather (it’s not for nothing that Bergen is called the rainiest city in Norway).

On Sunday afternoon, the end of a weekend filled with comics was celebrated with a final panel. The festival leaders gave their thanks to everyone who showed up and made Raptus 2012 a great event, and a lot of the artists at the festival participated in funny live drawing sessions. In the photo above, Julia Thompson and Thierry Capezzone have just drawn each other’s caricature, to which they harvested a cheery applause from the audience.

It was all in all a great weekend. I got the book I came for, learned a few artsy tips and saw quite a few skilled artists doing what they’re good at. I can definitely recommend a visit to the festival to anyone who’s got the chance and is interested in creativity, cosplay and comics. Also, if you’re a Norwegian reader and have written about Raptus on your blog, I would love to read it! Please leave a link to your blog in the comments, or give me a shout on Twitter.

Sketchbook Sunday #11 – WIP comic

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These are not exactly sketches, but it’s nonetheless a work in progress-thing, so I thought I’d share it here. You could call it an experiment in making comics, and it’s the first time in a long time I’ve actually made a decent effort in that. I sent these two pages + a blank page to an artsy friend of mine. It’s worth mentioning that he didn’t know about this, so you might say I’ve challenged him to continue the story where I left off. I’ve also got to point out that the character you can see here is myself, and that I’m breaking the fourth wall right off the bat in the first panel. This is due to it actually being a letter in comic-form to my friend, which is also part of the reason why I’ve removed the text (well, most of it anyway). Don’t worry, we’ll add the text when the project is finished.

I’ve used Deleter brand manga-paper. I found the pre-printed rulers to be extremely handy when making panel borders and guides for the text. By the way, I posted a WIP photo on Instagram, just for fun. Inking was done with Uni Pin fineliners, sizes 0.05 to 0.8. I usually sketched the different panels on a separate sheet of paper, before tracing the finished sketches onto the manga paper. I’ve also included an homage to a Norwegian cartoonist I know in person, because he commented very nice things on the Instagram WIP photo. That is all! Comments and critique are very welcome in the comments section!

Traditional Christmas comics

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Christmas Eve is approaching, so I want to take a minute and share a tradition my family and I have kept as long as I can remember. On the 24th of December we would always have Christmas comics available for reading while waiting for the presents. I’m actually not sure if it’s solely a Norwegian tradition (perhaps it’s Scandinavian?), but in December every year there’ll be a wide range of different Christmas comics available. Most of them are made by Norwegian artists, but there are also a few made by Disney, among them are classical stories by Carl Barks.

The drawing style in the three comics pictured above is kind of old-fashioned and may not be a favorite of the younger kids. Nonetheless, reading these kind of seasonal comics are one of the best ways for me to get into the Christmas spirit. A delicious once-a-year dinner, good old Christmas movies on TV, snow, Christmas songs, being with family and reading these special comics…. This is Christmas to me.