Moving!

I'm moving in 2 weeks... I have been trying to make too many things at once!

One thing that's really awesome is that I took my bulbs inside to force them into flowering before I leave.

It worked like a charm. 

I'll try and post an update for skull-collector.com

I drew many panels, just had no time to vectorize and put them online..!

That Wind!

Have you ever been in a wind so intense you thought it could remove the horns off a bull?
Some people certainly did; the expression exists and always makes me laugh.

I'm drawing the comic characters again, I plan to start it up again soon.
Stay tuned!

Banana Time

So here's what happened in the last few months.

I basically got really focused on things that are... yeah, bananas.
Since I started to run, about 3 years ago, I see people eating bananas, praising this fruit like it was the top of nutrition for runners. Have they already erected a monument to the fruit? (erected and banana in the same sentence! Ah! :)

Like everyone, after races, I took a banana piece and oh it tasted beautiful.

Then I started buying them at the groceries and the next thing I knew, I was eating at least one banana a day. Sometimes up to 3 bananas in a day. You gotta love bananas at that point. I was seeing them everywhere.

At some point, while at the grocery with a friend, I bought them to bring them to a barbecue. Quite unusual you'll say, but I didn't want to drink to much yet wanted something in my stomach. Then this friend of mine asked me how relevant it might be to buy bio bananas. They've been brought here to beautiful Tshermany by airplane, leaving a huge carbon footprint and so. So I got deeper into the topic.

At this point I was sitting between piles of studies and texts about bananas and how they grow, why they are wonderful, and how they are so yellow and curved.

That was pretty much a wake up call... So I started applying for jobs soon thereafter..!

Barca! CSS! And sweet honey!

I`ve spent the last days of February in the pretty and sunny Barcelona. Smart as I am, I thought it would not be so crowded and less expensive since it's the low season. It was still too many people for me and there were plenty of loud tourists at the hotel. The city itself is a real treasure! In the middle of my trip, the battery of my camera died and I thought I could just stop at media markt and buy a charger. My camera must have been the only model to have an un-conform charger. So I drew. Quite a lot. Made a page every evening once I was too tired to do anything else.

Since I came back I`ve put a lot of effort, time and energy into the comic, drawing and building a new portfolio. The thing with these activities is that they don`t show until everything is ready. The new portfolio is now online, the theme is honeycomb this time. I've used CSS and Ceebox, I'm slowly getting better with html, but it's still a bit of a headache to get into it!

I've been drawing quite a lot and updating the comic and doing some long overdue changes to the websites. So, I'm still here! Just a bit busy! I'll be back here again soon!

Holidays

The holidays are now over. Christmas was celebrated this year again, at least three times if not more. I think it's perfect that way. Over the many dinner we had with friends and family, a question came a few times and really, I had to do a bit of research myself to find that out. Everyone knows the sausage is German, the croissants are French and fish and chips (and ships! lol) are British. Now what counts as Canadian food exactly? Here's the problem; what we Canadians call Canadian food generally is either French or British recipes adapted to the local ingredients. Along with that is the many interpretation of a meal along this big country. A sea-pie is made of different fishes along the coast, but up north it became a cipaille... a recipe stolen from the native with 6 layers of meat and dough. Yes, you read that well. It's brilliant. The tourtiere, is a meat pie that used to be made with tourtes; a type of pigeon that doesn't exist anymore. Possibly due to the many pies made of them. Other dishes that came from the native have just lost their original names, like deer with blueberry sauce.

Anyhow, after all that thinking about food let me just say the pfannkuchen lauf was hilarious. I got lost. On an organized 10km race. Impressive isn't it?

I didn't draw much... I shut everything down for the whole holidays; computer, books, phones... And just enjoyed the mostly-technology-free holiday.

I hope you all had a great Christmas and an awesome start to 2012, hopefully you have a super year ahead!

Tricking My Eyes

A week or so ago my computer got infected by a trojan and I couldn't rescue all the data on my laptop. I ended up losing a lot of work on all my current projects and so I don't think there will be too many updates in December. I also can't keep on the story topic for the moment with Won Long Leg for the same reason.

Here's something interesting though. Everyone holds a pen their very own way and looks at their paper in a certain way. Some keep their face close to the paper while drawing, and some turn the page at 45 degrees while drawing. There's no wrong in any of this in my opinion. Every now and then though, it's good to see things straight.

Maybe it's a problem with my vision but I know that I can't always see if curves are good or not. I've noticed also that some drawings of mine tend to lean a bit on one side if I don't pay too much attention. So I came up with a trick to verify if my curves are ok. I rotate 90 degrees in all directions and correct on the way. Like in the picture above.

I'll be coloring that one. It's me waiting for the bus stop at -40 back in the day. It's 10 degrees still here in Berlin and there's no snow. I miss the cold. (:

Making Up Stories

I wrote another story for Won Long Leg, my very own legend of Kung-fu and I'm in the process of making a short animated film from all these ideas. This is really not something I have extensively done before. I learned that about 10 years ago so I thought I might want to refresh what I've learned.

The story itself;
     Just like the comic, I write a basic story line first. It needs to be very basic, not much more than a page. It should answer the questions you might want to have answered before buying a book for example.
                  - What kind of story is that? (horror, comedy, etc)
                  - What is the main quest? (true love, ruling the world, paint bird cages, etc)
                  - Who are the character and can I relate to them?
                  - Some hints on where the story is going

      However, that isn't clear enough for me when drawing a comic or planning an animation. I take this story and start slicing the story in single sentences. Each sentences can translate to about one panel in cartoon term and about one action in the animated version. From doing this exercise I also get a more detailed view of the story and can see if the timing of each element is good or not.

     While doing that, I often stop and think about my characters and take a lot of notes for the next step; Character design and description. I'm currently looking into that topic and I have found quite a few interesting things so far. I'll post again once I'm a bit further along that project.

     On another note, I'll be participating in a 10k race soon and need to train a bit more... I'll try and post again soon! Have a super week!