All work and no bloggin' fun make Janne a dull boy. Here's just a workplace quickie but just to keep all of you regular visitors coming back please :)! My new year's resolutions include updating this blog again more frequently and with some new good stuff. Here's hoping.

Happy New Year 2007 to everybody!

Again, returning after a long time of not posting, I feel ashamed and also compelled to post at least something. I apologize from those who have actually seen the trouble of returning to check my humble blog and not finding anything new or even old stuff. I've been busy with my day job and also doing a bit of freelance on top of that...The new year is approaching with it's new challenges and promises...I for example promise to get some new work and actual work done that I can post here.
Here is at least something now :) I collected a bunch of hippopotamus character design sketches that I did a while back on a project. It was quite fun and I think some them actually turned out pretty good. My favorite has to be the kinda middle aged hippo at the top getting it on at the dance floor, wheehee.

This little sketch was done already over a year ago but I decided to post it 'cause it kinda fit my mood after I went to see "My Neighbor Totoro" by Hayao Miyazaki today. I've seen it a dozen times before from video but since it got a re-release I wanted to see it in a theatre. It is still one of the most genuinely heart warming, funny and innocently beautiful films I've seen.

I'm so ashamed that I haven't posted anything for quite a while. I was on a trip and after that I just didn't think I had anything to post. I'm not sure if these are worth a post either but hey, it's a free doodle country so here are couple of pages of them as random as they come :)

Some doodles, dood. Beware for the explicit content.

This was a really quick small doodle with a felt tip pen. But I liked the crooked look on the croc (haha) and the redneck from the swamps -appearence, so I gave him a little bit of color. An exercise really.

Well, this was a quickie at work (probably over a year ago) done with a pen and "enhanced" a bit with pencil. I like the pose of the snake.

A pencil sketch for a change, done a while ago.

Doodlahs.

Now something a bit different. Yes, it is a photo and although you might think that it is from the warehouses of 20th Century Fox ;D it was actually an alien "bust" made by a me and my good friend Mikko Paakkunainen when we were 17 or 18. We did it during art classes and boy, it took a few of them to get this done...
It was basically life-size and we were quite proud of it. Of course it wasn't all accurate in design of the original Alien but it was the first try on the subject..in "3D" I mean (I had done something like a hundred doodles of the creature by that time).
I'm saying how it was because it got battered several times in it's diffrent storage places and when I moved to Helsinki it fell a couple of times to the floor (or my head). That's the reason why the "shoulder" is cracked and plaster is showing through. So finally I got fed up with it and got rid of it. It should have been burned with gasoline or something but the garbage storage where I threw it, did have a garbage compactor of some sort. So it got the fitting death/funeral.
I'm sure that I'll do another one someday!

Since I haven't been posting for a couple of days, I'll post a few pics. Again, these are just random doodles.

One of those dark moments.

I planned to do a colored version of this...but that never happened :)

One of these random doodlepages that get filled up.

This was a quickie done while back in an "art" pingpong with my good friend Mia. If I recall correctly the brief was to do a heavy metal cd-cover illustration. So I quickly tried some digital sketching and this came out. I know I call myself a graphic designer by profession but I really didn't put much thought to the typography on this one :D. I think it turned out quite funny..

Yep, it is a hidious thingie.

It's been a bit slow around here. I'm trying to pick up some speed again! I went today for the annual Animatricks animation festival here in Helsinki and saw The Ugly Duckling & ME!, a CG animation film by the danish A-Film. I liked it! It really differed from the american mainstream animation features in it's design, humour and handling of the story. Of course it's not a Pixar film from a technical point of view but still they had done a pretty darn good job! Then there was a 2 hour collection (first of two) of new and recent finnish animation. There were several really good ones and that gives hope for the animation industry here.
These pics have nothing to do with animation but are in fact more recent sketches that I did while on the trip at the Azores. A lake and trees and some of the view from our hotel window. I really need to draw more landscapes and buildings, sheesh...

Just a couple of old croquis for a chance. Should do more of these again...

Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been on a vacation at the Azores (great place!) and last week I was just plain lazy.
Here's something though.

Da-da.

Doodling with 20 year old (no really, they are) crayons of mine...

It's a drawing made while in a meeting at work :)

I went to see a concert at the Sibelius Academy on friday. It was part of the Clapping Music festival which celebrates the minimalistic style of composing. The choral pieces were really interesting and a big thing for me was to meet Michael Nyman. I've been a fan of his music for well over a decade. Naturally I had to be also a little bit of a fanboy and got "The Claim" CD signed for Janne. He reminded me to come also on saturday to hear the concert pieces performed with six pianos. The final piece by Steve Reich was quite extraordinary with all six pianos playing together and in different meters, creating sonic layers that sounded at times like completely different instruments.
Michael Nyman also gave some lectures at the academy. I attended the one concerning film music today. It was great to hear some "inside" perspective from the business. It ain't all easy or less meaningful then concert works and I feel that it is largely dismissed for no reason in the "classical" circles. I think that it is a little bit like the school of "fine art" and free art against professional illustration and graphic design. The traditional sides tend to think that it's like committing adultery or something. I say that in both music and visual art it's more of working under certain circumstances and a budget (patrons anyone?) to come up with art rather than drinking your grants in the local pub, ranting about the society and what is true meaningful art. Of course by saying this I don't mean that all film music is good or has great "artistic" value. Hell no, a large portion of it is bland crap and so is a large portion of illustration and design but that's the way it goes and some good ones find their way to the top of the heap.
What about this pic here then, is it art :)? You be the judge of it. I just felt inspired for a quick doodle after seeing a screening of Jane Campion's The Piano, which Michael Nyman presented and talked a little about composing the music. By the way, a fun fact was that Campion actually said to Nyman on the phone when she was hiring him to do the score that: "oh and I don't want any of your Greenaway shit." I rest my case.

Must be a MAD scientist of some sort, embarking on a diabolical scheme of poisoning the world with carrot juice...

A pirate that I could take further perhaps.

This striped doggiething is slowly developing into a character...a slightly different version was here.

Yes, it's a chick with a BIG gun, nothing to be ashamed about.

I have had trouble posting here in Blogger during the couple of days hence no new ones. Actually, this isn't new either. It's a several months old doodle but what the heck...

No room for words.

What was I thinking here...mmm, yeah man, I guess that we're all like one and like connected and yeah united as one being...Oh hell, just popped to the sketchbook page...a long long time ago.

Ain't he jolly?

Doodle doodle doodle

Haven't posted in days and nothing but this small little doodle here.

Sorry for the violent content in this doodlepage post. The excellent EC comics and crime stories of of the 40&50's came to my mind the other day. Drawing a few page comic in that genre has been bubbling in my mind for awhile...
The anatomy in the harsh scene on the lower right is a bit off. I guess I was just trying a difficult angle in this one.The other stuff on the sheet is just really random.

Just fast and small this time.

Another freefall sketch with a pen.

Have a jolly weekend!

Started doodling around with a black felt pen on a A5 paper. Little pictures came here and there. I guess I got a little lazy with this one, when compared to my previous similar thingies here.

Sometimes I like to do these little people, kinda small croquis with just hinting the pose almost silhouette-like. The pissing one is of course my favourite.

This was a really fast little sketch and I kinda liked it, the trippy feeling of it. So I decided to give it some color.

One of those...

Something fishy.

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