Frog Comic WIP

After yesterday's little accident, I started working on this, the idea of which is to illustrate this surreal Danish no-rhyme poem. Not sure about adding color. It would really liven up the page and I do love color, but it might look bad in the end. You'll knoiw when I know.

- Jonas

Logo Design

So, this is our first real assignment in Graphic Design. We were told to come up with an organisation based on a few things about consumers and such.

The concept is very rough and posted here more for me, so I can access it on a school Mac, than it is for you. I'll be trying my hand at Illustrator for this.

- Jonas

The Worst Thing

Okay, so the worst thing happened just now. A project I was working on corrupted right in front of me. I dropped my layers and resized the image which I undid quickly after which things looked wrong. Then I decided to close the file and open the saved version, in which things had actually gone missing for some reason.

Really really bummed about it...

I mean, I worked on this thing for the last two days, really pumped about doing something in a much shorter timeframe than other recent projects. It was a picture called "Gustav and his chicks" and had Gustav big brute stand smiling with little chickens on his shoulders and head. So much fun to do. Damn. It followed much the same formula as the Samu picture, and I even thought of setting up a whole book project around this type of image and short stories to go along. Damn.

The good thing is that I didn't lose the practice that it gave me and if I choose to redo it, I can do it better.

For now, I'm going to bed. Cheers!

- Jonas

Blowhole Concepts

Some concepts that I finally got around to doing. I'm making a game with my brother, which I've done before, but this time I really want to finish the thing on time - it's for a contest, of course.

I can't tell you much, mostly because I don't know much at this point - many loose ends, storywise, but I've codenamed the project "blowhole".

- Jonas

Samu and the Aliens

Day started out pretty bad, stressed out and generally sad, about things - Monday blues, I'm hoping. Got better later on. Saw a movie about Helvetica, the font, and got around to finishing this drawing.

Wasn't happy with this for the longest time, didn't know where to take it to make it more than just this guy posing angry. Quite happy with how the whole thing turned out in the end, though. The aliens really made it for me. Totally fun.

- Jonas

Head Sketches

I think I've talked about some sketches I did recently, and that you'd see them once I came by a scanner, which I did earlier today. Drawn in front of my laptop, listening to podcasts and CHIUstream interviews.

Some misses inbetween, but generally I'm happy with them. Great working with the pencil like this again. Details and such.

Now for something else. This past week has been one of my best. Learned so much and had so much fun doing it that next week has me worried. I mean, will it be as good or will it be a letdown? I hope this week's successes will keep me motivated for a long time and keep me going, and going better.

Here's hoping for an awesome next week. Cheers!!

Jonas

Chalk Studies

On Friday, the last day of drawing practice, we did studies, the key idea being to tkae our sweet time, noticing and including details. Sounds boring on top of Thursday's quickpaced figure drawing, but it was actually quite fun and time again passed too quickly. The idea was to model and mold the subject in black chalk on a piece of paper, only paying attention to the form (though light and reflection were added when it came to the bow), using light and dark to explain distance and depth. Here are the drawings of the day.

That last one was done from a photograph, likeness lost completely. As you see I am quite messy in working with chalk - it was even said that I seemed to be drawing with my sleeve on the bow drawing - I kinda like it :D

- Jonas

Figure Drawing

The drawing exercises continued today with figure drawing, or croquis. Now, this had me all kinds of excited - I mean, every artist I know speaks highly of the subject, and finally I would be able to give it a shot. Indeed, muy muy excited.

I worked with pencil first, but I don't like them much so here's a single one:

The pencil ones ranged from 30 seconds to a couple of minutes.

Then we were given chalks, reddish brown, maybe Burnt Sienna, I don't actually know. Anyway, this was fun. It was easier to keep the drawing loose and I had fun fleshing out the form and shadows. It was a very messy method, chalk everywhere. These were done in 3-4-6 minutes.

 

We then continued with water-solluble earth-colors - colors pulled, as they are, from the ground. I'll share those some other day - they need to dry properly.

Something I really enjoyed about th whole thing, was that after a while of drawing we were told to put four of our best/latest drawings on our board and then go around and look at everyone else's work. Very inspirational in the midst of things. Also It seems to have been a good thing for us to do the other execises first - they helped us build some speed in these ones.

Cheers!!

- Jonas

Samu WIP

Another WIP.

I had planned to do a lot more today, because we had like four or five hours off from everything else. Then I fell asleep, fullblown cold now, and here we are. Okay, okay, I only lost an hour and a half to the nap, but my head was all stuffy afterwards and so it took some time to get in the zone. I've been working mostly on paper today, drawing busts and concepting for a game, I'll be making with my brother. I'll scan it sometime and post it up here.

The above sketch is just about the only thing I did digitally today. I had actually detailed the face a bit, but I felt it lost what I liked about it, so deleted that.

- Jonas

Noah, the Demon

Okay, done. Meet Noah, a demon brought forth by the ringing of bells. Not surprising, he hates it.

 See you all tomorrow. Cheers!!

- Jonas

More Drawing

Did more drawing exercises today. Practiced drawing things with just circles and ovals and rectangles and triangles. Below are two of my favourite drawings of the day. A camel and a gorilla. The gorilla was the most fun - we got to sketch a lot of ideas first and then had to do a finished drawing. The gorilla was to be made out of wood, a Trojan gorilla, if you will. Love to do something with that character.

No drawing exercises tomorrow - Wednesdays around here are mostly about cleaning, having time off and stimulating the student's need for entertainment and mind-expanding input. Tomorrow, for instance, we'll have a rhythm workshop before noon and an acoustic 'concert' in the evening - four hours off in the afternoon.

- Jonas

Ball is Rolling

If you look at my previous post, you might notice that some of the comicbook pages I got to draw from, were from Hellboy by Mike Mignola.

Inspired by these pages and other things I like, I sat down and started this today.

It's a beginning, I think - feeling really good about things.

- Jonas

Drawing Exercises

This week is all about drawing. It's not something that is taught at the school, so they've brought in some guest teachers for a week of intense drawing. Today's focus was expressive drawing, and while I like my stuff to look like something, it was actually quite fun, albeit somewhat unnatural.

Here's some of my favourites from the day. Drawn after photos and comicbook pages.

- Jonas

Propaganda Poster

Well, it's been a while now, since I last updated. It's been a busy week, is all I can say - so, so busy. And troubling, too. Got really stressed out on Monday, ie. day two, bordering on a nervous breakdown - I'm better now, but still a little on edge. Kinda bummed about not having any time, energy or inspiration to really do something for myself. I mean, the week was a lot of fun, hoping to show you the rest of the week's work some day soon. Didn't get any pictures myself, so gotta rely on others to post it somewhere, the school should do it at some point.

Anyway, here's the result of our first assignment at the folk high school:

The picture's a little skewed, I know - had some trouble finding a place to hang the poster, so I put it on the floor and held the camera over it - it's the way i had to do it :)

The poster is supposed to depict the act of achieving success, not in spite of, but because of a long line of failures - strictly artwise, I thought, you know like, you're not really successful until you've tried to fail. Also, it's like 'practice makes perfect', thinking of Bobby Chiu a lot. Then a fellow student pointed out that it felt like a propaganda poster, depicting a fascist regime's quest for the super soldier, with failed genetic experiments and all....I know, right:)

I thought it was funny, a really cool idea - might even go and make that poster, inspired by this one.

Done with printer's ink(letter-stamps, people), acrylic paint, brushpen and colored pencil(for underdrawing) on bigger-than-me-paper. Had a day to do it, worked long and hard(heh). Should have made the pile of heads more organic in form, I was told - I see, where, they're coming from with that.

Anyway, another busy week coming up and I got the sniffles something fierce - Goodnight.

~Jonas

Busy, Busy

Turns out it's quite easily explained :D

I'm going to a Danish folk high school, the operative word being "folk" - didn't know this the other day. It's basically a six month long course of sorts with room and board. I'm going there to learn about Graphic Design, be around creative people and figure out what to do with my life. It's gonna be good :D

Time, in which to do personal projects, will be somewhat difficult to find, however, especially at first, but I'll do my best to keep at it. The laptop, for instance, is a way for me to do what I do at home, but anywhere else, albeit slightly smaller scale. We'll see how things go.

I haven't had much time to do anything creative in the last few days, as preparations are taking up most of it. Plus, the stress and fear involved with this big change have been taking my head for a spin. I'm super freaking happy that I won the CHIUstream, but what a time to do it. That night I was really motivated and energized - I wanted to do everything: draw, paint and write, like I used to. My mind was just preoccupied, as was my body. It won't be forever, though, and I'll be ready - like Lar said : "no hesitation".

Anyway, here's something, I did manage to do. Brushpen sketches (black, red, pink), trying out a simpler look. I did several, but these were the best - from the one piece of paper anyway. Color overlay added digitally.

~Jonas

Things Going On

Kinda feels like I went underground there for a moment. I've been very busy preparing for a new phase in my life - I'd tell you what exactly, but at present I have no idea how to explain it in English, because of many possible misunderstandings.

Anyway, a lot of my time has gone with setting up a little 11.6" laptop to suit all my creative needs, testing its capabilities and such. It's looking good so far. Got around to installing my tablet - Wacom Bamboo - here's the first sketch I did with it on my laptop.

Nothing overly exciting, of course, but I'm pretty excited about the whole thing. Plus I've been focusing on simplicity recently.

~Jonas

It Happened :D

I won a CHIUstream challenge, people. I can't tell you how giddy I am about it, I'm so excited. I've been doing these challenges for a while now, because they're fun, incredibly motivating and keep me learning and doing, but I've never expected to win - this is too amazing!!

It was Lar deSouza's challenge and out of five favourites he chose my Were-Chicken - how unreal is that :)

The prize is original artwork by the artist and deSouza made this wicked cool were-penquin.

Here's that chicken again:

So yeah, big thanks to Lar deSouza, Bobby Chiu and everyone else who made this possible. This is sweet!


Anyway, be sure to check out the CHIUstream thing - it's totally cool, and if you'd like to see more of my stuff, I suggest you go to my deviantART page.

This is Jonas, passing out from excitement :) Cheers.

Spalko

And this is Irina Spalko finished. I think it turned out good.

Thought I'd post my entry for the Chiustream last week, you know the one, where we copied Frederic Leighton.

The original painting is here.

The Were-Chicken

A couple of progress pics and the final thing:

Good fun, this one. Thought of making it black and white, but really happy I ent with color after all, especially around the face. Textures, too, were a blast to do.

A Couple WIP's

First off, the latest Chiustream challenge, theme being "strange lycanthrope", which is basically like a werewolf but a different animal, I guess. I went with a Were-Chicken, idea given by my brother.

Second is a little something inspired by my watching the latest Indiana Jones movie. Worth noting, is that I'm not going for Cate Blanchett's likeness, but rather just painting her character in the movie. I want to tweak it a bit more, before calling it finished, so she might wind up looking a lot more like Cate in the end. Right now, I'm liking the depth and color of it.

Quicky Robot

Late night speedpaint.

Also, did a Chiustream just now. Bobby had us "copying" a piece by Frederic Leighton as a learning experience. Actually quite fun.

About the banner, I've tested some colors and fixed the sketch a bit, but I'm still not totally happy with it, but it's getting there.