Inglourious Lifedrawings

They're back. Had the chanche to do some some actual lifedrawing today. It had been a while so I was feeling a bit rusty and didn't remember how exhausting it is to sit and draw one pose after another..

Here you go then.

(Lately I've had more freetime available but that doesn't seem to show up here :( )

Comic Doodle Confidential

Sketches related to this and this post.

The Day After Doodle

Heyheyhey kids, it's doodle time! Yep you know it, random scribbles and twirls on different scrap papers make a fine collection.

Enjoy.

What Dr. Sketchy ordered

Little fast drawings from the last Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School -session. A bit of a horror theme goin' on.

Is it "the battle with the beast" within?

5-7-5 The Taking Of Artist's Block

I'm currently on this quite extensive (comics) scriptwriting course. I really hope it will help me in producing more of comics or other stuff as well.

This was a quick exercise in doing a haiku in the form of a comic.

It' subject and feeling has been around me a long time :I

Tales from the crypt

Click for bigger images.

I thought I'd post the comic online that the cover in the previous post was for.

Eija lappalainen wrote and I drew.

More about the comic here. The comic was published in a comics competition anthology called 5 Fantasiaa by Egmont. It seems to be pretty hard to come by in stores nowadays but I'm sure you'll find a copy in the used book stores or the bargain bins ;)

Sorry, the pages are in finnish only...(if someone really wants a translation, give me a message)

Don't judge a comic by it's covers

I realized that I hadn't posted this image before.

It was firstly a picture that I made as a contribution to a great book called: Pingstate Art of a Visual Community. It has many many many many wonderful artworks and is a nice gift for a friend interested in visual culture.

Secondly this is a "unofficial" cover for the comic that me and Eija Lappalainen did for the Sarjis 2007 comics competition. You can find my posts about it here, here, here and here :)

It served more as an inspirational artwork, as an entry for the aforementioned book and as a start for work with the actual comic.

But the cover certainly has it's roots firmly in the story of the short comic. The Helsinki comics festival was held again last weekend. As usual I was solely on the reader's side of the tables so I decided that I might as well publish online the only comic that I've been able to produce during the last 2 years :/

That will be the next post.

Night of The Living Burlesque Art

An update, an update, we have an update :)!

Every year in Helsinki there is the Night of The Arts where there are hundreds of different happenings with music, theatre, dance, film etc.

One of these things was the Dr. Sketchy's in the window of a bookstore. They were handing out drawing supplies to people passing by to draw the Burlesque models posing in the window. Pretty cool.

These are uncencored scans (=even the crappy ones included, nothing dirtier than that ;) of what I drew of the poses.

All The President's Doodles

See, see, I'm picking speed again...a post again! Until it's gonna be quiet again here 'cause I'm gonna go sailing for the whole next week in Greece :) But I'll hope fill some sketchbook pages there too!

So, I present you, random doodles, lines, curves and scribbles!!

Some Comic Sketches Part II

This megapost continues the previous one...

I haven't been very productive this year. This is obvious from the amount of posts that I've been making to this blog during the past 6 months.

I and some work buddies got an idea. Since there's many of us there who are interested in comics or who have even done them, why wouldn't we make a comic book of our own. This got to a pretty speedy start which then fell flat on it's face when we missed the original deadline. Then came the summer vacations and..well you know the story.

I for my part was very ashamed that I haven't got my comic done yet. If you put laziness and lack of spine aside one big reason is that I haven't arrived to my starting point. Which at this case is the style. I want to do this comic in a bit different style, try to draw differently or at least in some way break free from my mannerisms.

These doodles and those in the previous post are collected from 15 A4 papers and were filled with either straightly related doodles or just random warming up doodles. These are more of a spill of frustration and that's why I posted almost all of them :)

I still haven't arrived there yet but the first one with some quick color is a step towards that.

Some Comic Sketches Part I

More writing on the next episode :)

Back from the dead - doodles

Hi folks!

Remember me? Don't sulk...I know I've been a bad boy, lazy and all. But you have every right to be fed up with me..let's see, last update was in MARCH for Pete's sake! That's over 4 months!!

I won't make any promises, better that way but here are some collected doodles again (mainly from work meeting/doodles). They are at least something I might add :) I haven't been drawing very much in the months between and frankly I'm starting to think that I'm losing it...ability to draw that is, my mental state is against all odds still quite on the level.

The next update that will be arriving soonish™ will have a bunch of the stuff that I have been doing or drawing of late. That is the several A4s that I've filled with sketches trying to find the look and style that I'd like to draw my next comic (what was that?! Did I hear correctly?). Which is the "anthology that me and my mates at work decided to whip up...very slowly though. But more on that in the next update...stay tuned people, don't lose your hope on me :)!

Just doodles

Since this is essentially my sketchblog and "digital sketchbook", here are some of those random doodles from random pieces of extra papers and backsides of work documents...

Also it has been a while since my last doodle collection...I don't just draw enough nowadays!

Hot in the Face

A quickie, to keep this up and going. Sometimes I try to shake my "comic drawing" sensibilities and try to draw in a more classical way. That means a bit more naturalistic and no outline -type of drawing. Well here I failed miserably 'cause I have some outlines instead of just shadow/light. I also couldn't skake my feathering habit or that laying in values with separate strokes/lines.

But I lov drawing on a tinted paper. If anyone comes by a sketchbook that has all the pages tinted in grey for example and proper paper quality, please let me know :)

OMG lifedrawings

It had been a while since I did traditional life drawing and it also took a while to get going this time. I still tend to stop to think too much thus slowing the pen down and often that results in stiff drawings, poor weight and bad proportions.

I should also start experimenting with new media and a bigger paper. These were done an a A4 pad, about one per page.

Burlesque all night long

Some drawings from Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School from last friday. Dang, it was something special. Again held in bar Dubrovnik which is a great place to have these. It's got the mood for this type of thing...
Since this "Dial B for Burlesque" was also part of the Helsinki Burlesque festival, they had more shows than just those for drawing. Really fun and colorful performances!

Here's some collections of drawings I did of them glamorous ladies.

All it needs is a little bit of paint

A friend of mine commissioned a painting from me. There were few requirements. It had to fit the frames that she already had and those were of challenging proportions, really wide and quite low. I needed to have a certain color palette that fits with the interior of the room. Also the subject matter was set to have lovers lying next to each other.
I think the proportions were the toughest bit. I took the color palette a bit too seriously and went almost monochromatic. The subject was nice and I did go at first to the more sexual approach but settled (had feedback) with the more cuddly approach.
I hadn't painted in many years, at least not in traditional acrylics. I kept looking for the undo button and digital eraser. I got the colors almost right in the first pass and they had a fresh transculent glow...but then I fucked up. I saw that several proportions were of with the figures and I just couldn't mix the same colors on the palette that had come up with the thin layering of colors. So painting off the mistakes was producing colors that differed from what I originally wanted. I didn't remember that traditional painting was so hard...with lack of practice obviously.
If it had been just my own painting I had gone the other way but now I had to stay true to the original sketch and the required palette.
I definitely want to paint again so this didn't put me off it but it came close :D! And here's some sketches and "in progress" pics which I forgot to take from the first phases. I'm not completely satisfied but gald that I got it done..

"Political" Cartoon Tryout 2

Updating the blog for a CHANGE! Another cartoon that did for the competition mentioned here. With this I skipped the sketching to avoid excess noodling which is apparent in the previous one.

Again, this was not intended as ha-ha funny. Partly 'cause I couldn't come up with one but because of the subject. So what do people (especially the 40-50's generation) still generally think or react when talking about the climate change.

Text translates: "The increase in rainfall is caused by the climate change."

Dead or Alive?

Heellooo, remember me? I just can't believe that I previously updated the blog in November! Obviously I didn't make any serious "I'll update my blog every week and be a good boy" -New Year's resolutions.
But hey! Happy New Year to everybody let's get this show on the road, ONCE again!

Last night was again Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School session here in Helsinki. I must say, the show was the best one yet. It's gonna be hard to top this one. It was held in the Theatre Museum and on this little stage with red curtains we saw scenes from the movies of David Lynch come alive! Angelo Badalamenti's scores led the atmosphere as the permormers took poses in costumes that were all obviously hard work and commitment. Great job, thank you!

This time I was more just looking than drawing. The amount of decent art from me in this session is minimum.

There's this really tall guy in the Helsinki Burlesque crew that I just knew had to at some point appear before the red curtains. Wearing a white shirt and a red bowtie he stood in the spotlight and said: "It is happening again...it is happening again". I didn't even draw that classic scene since I was just staring and thinking "this is great!".

Of course there were interpretations but I think the Lost Highway "scene" with the girl looking like Patricia Arquette, holding the telephone in her hand as a menacing figure appeared behind her was spot on. A stark mood that I tried to capture in the very limited times that we had again on each scene.