Portugal: Summer Vacation 2013

Last Friday I returned from two wonderful weeks in Portugal. It was good to take a break from things but it always feels good to get back home to. I took a couple of sketchbooks and a lot of pens, pencils and markers but I didn't do as much sketching as I'd normally do.

Im not sure why. During the first week I hardly drew anything at all, only after we got to Lisbon did I begin to do some sketches. I still had a great time and took a lot of photos. These are all the sketches I did.So only one post this year. Hope you had a great summer too, I promise to do more sketching on my next trip!

Marker and ink in a Moleskin Kraft cahier sketchbook. 

Divine Wind

Sketch based on a picture of a WW2 Kamikaze pilot. I did some more but this is the only one I think turned out nice.

I'm prety amazed by some of the videos of Kamikaze you can find. Weird to see these guys preparing for certain death. As they say in Ghostdog: The Way of the Samurai: "Ancient Japan was a pretty strange place."

Marker and ink on paper, and some digital textures. 

Extra! Extra!

Quick sketch of an old fashioned newsboy. Ink on paper, digital colors.

The Lobster

A quick doodle of Lobster Johnson. Ink on paper, digital colors with Photoshop.

At the Zoo

Yesterday I spend the afternoon at the Amsterdam zoo, Artis. It was a lot of fun, although it was really cold. (We're not having much of a spring so far.) 

If you have been to Artis you might be surprised by the sketch of the tiger. There are no tigers at Artis but in the Aquarium building they have a small museum with mounted animals. At the moment most of it is closed though, because starting next week they will have a new exhibition showcasing the legandary Artis hippo Tanja. She died back in 2009, aged 49. Tanja was extremely popular and starting April 25th she will return to Artis.

I'm looking foward to do some sketches of the hippo; the great thing about the mounted animals is that you can get real close to them. Also they tend to move less than their living counterparts. Which makes for easier drawing. 

If you're wondering why I didn't finish the stripes on the tiger if it was stuffed anyway, it was because I had to leave in order to be on time for a masterclass by storyboard artist Jim Cornish at the Imagine Film Festival. Really cool to see and hear him talk about storyboarding for feature films. (He worked on Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, most of the Harry Potter films and X Men: First Class.) Check out his site for some cool storyboards!    

All sketches are ink (Papermate Flair & Pitt Pen) and marker on grey sketchpaper.

Gangster Doodles

Some tough guys that visited my faithful note paper today. By the way, I do not work on cardboard and old brown-paper bags all the time, I just hate the way black lines look on a white background when watched on a screen. So I always add some old paper texture for your viewing pleasure.

Ink and some marker on paper.

Rough Ezio

I'm trying to do an Assassin's Creed piece, but I'm having a tough time. One of the things that's giving me trouble is the hood. The assassin's hood has this little flap hanging down in front of his face. In real life this would look stupid, it would also be quite impractical since it would be constantly in your eyes, obstructing your view. But in the game, of course it looks really cool and mysterious, it ties in with the whole bird of prey thing they got going; it looks like a beak.  

I like the rough look of the older Ezio. (I want my heroes old and grim: Batman, Solid Snake, The Dude) I haven't played Revelations yet but I'm anxious to get to it. Old Ezio has a beard -which rocks- and he is also more buffed than young Ezio. I also quite like the furry parts they added to his costume. These are some sketches I did of Ezio, the two left ones are of him wearing the Armor of Brutus, that you can unlock in Brotherhood. The one on the right is Ezio as he appears in the trailer from Revelations.

I hope to have more to show you soon!

Ink on paper, digital colors.

Do You Need Some Time On Your Own?

Can you remember when MTV actually used to play music all day? I grew up during the golden age of the music video, and I feel a little sad for kids today because they have to miss all these awesome videos. Of course a music video was never much more than a commercial for a band or artist, and I guess they helped the evil music industry to stay in power, but there really were some sweet videos back then!
 
The other day I was hanging out with a friend when I began to doodle Slash rocking his guitar outside that little church, in the video of November Rain. It amazed me how many details of the video I could remember. (This is not that doodle by the way, I watched the video before I drew this one.) It made me think how music videos used to be everywhere when I was in high school and how they have quickly disappeared in this digital age. Maybe I'll do some more drawings based on music videos, I had a lot of fun with this one.

Pencil, ink and (paint)markers on grey skectch paper.

Oh, and by the way... Happy new year!

Doodle Thug

Whenever I'm working I usually have a stack of blank paper lying next to me. At the end of the day most of the paper will be filled with doodles of random tough guys and gangsters. I don't much worry about it, that's just what I put on paper when I'm not thinking about what I'm doing too much.

This drawing is a typical example of one of my doodles, although I have to say that I usually won't leave so much empty space on my doodle sheets. I've got some marker brushes in photoshop that I really like so I gave this some quick color using those brushes, as way of exercise.

Papermate Flair on paper, digital colors.

When in Rome - Numero Due

Two more pages from my sketchbook. The first shows some details of everyday Roman life, the second one is the interior of a museum. I miss Rome a lot, especially since I fell ill the day we got back, not the best way to return to the Dutch fall. I am quite literally sick as a dog: I have been barking two days and nights and it is annoying the hell out of me.

To make things worse I am still working on my storyboard for the Klik festival. I want to do a real good job, but I'm not sure I will have the time to do everything the way I want it. It might be a bit rougher than I intended, we'll see...

I hope to feel better soon and I hope to see many of you at the Klik festival this Saturday. (Yes I will be there, sick or healthy, 11.00am, Kriterion, Amsterdam!)

Looking Solid

A rather quick sketch of Old Snake; the Metal Gear hero as he appears in Metal Gear Solid 4. I want to do a more dynamic drawing of him, this was mainly a study to get the likeness and to try some more sketchy techniques. When I get the time I want to use this sketch to do a cooler, more action packed Snake. 

I love the original designs by Yoji Shinkawa, Ashley Wood's versions are also fantastic. To be honest I have never played MGS4. I am an X-Box owner, so I just never had the chance. I am looking foward to that HD package that is coming to 360 and PS3 next month!

Ink and marker on paper. 

Faun

These are some studies of fauns for this small side project I'm working on. There is not much more that I can say about it right now, but there will be more on this soon.

I'm still working on my blog, as you might have seen. There have been a few changes, and there will be some more. I hope that it won't cause too much inconvenience.