Keeping Track...

As I posted ages ago, I'm off to the University of Gotland for a few weeks to do a course in life drawing. My flight is tomorrow. My room is all empty and I'm feeling somewhat excited/nervous at the thought of what this summer will bring. In no way would I expect a 10-week life drawing course to be some kind of miracle medicine and revolutionise the way I draw, it's much more of a long-term process, but it's a step in the right direction and hopefully there's still some of the momentum from Twelfth Night going.


My awesome landlady has managed to find me a job at an old folks home. Not so exciting job, but it should pay well. All I know right now is that I will need my driver's license. Considering it's been about 4 years since I touched a steering wheel, the re-learning curve might prove interesting though... O_O I'll be pulling night shifts mostly, which means more money due to the late hours. :DD I'm relieved to think that paying double rents this summer will be bearable after all.

I'll be hitting Gotland on Sunday, but before then I'm stopping off in Stockholm for a few days. On Friday morning I'm visiting Ateljé Stockholm, which offers tuition in how to draw in the old academic tradition. The tuition fee is pretty steep, and I doubt that it's right for me right now, but it will still be interesting to see what they offer. And then on Saturday I'm really excited about meeting the awesome people at Studio Yokaj. As a little plug for their series Kick Off!... volume one just one a prize for best comic in 2008 in Sweden!

Now I'm finally going to pack my computer into the box and kiss it goodbye for a good while. My trusty old laptop will have to get me through the weeks on Gotland. My landlady doesn't have internet, which worries me slightly, but hopefully I should be able to connect at uni.

So that's an end to another expo! As usual, it was pretty awesome. First of all big thanks to Emma and Pud for their hard work. The comic village was the most organised and impressive yet. Hopefully it will be a returning popular feature!

I was sharing a table with Susan and Steve from Studio Two Sides Wide on the Saturday. Susan had  literally just come back from a 3-week stay in Ghana for her uni project on Saturday morning so a big thanks to her for coming straight to expo from Heathrow. What a trooper! Steve was the voice for our table, the man sure can schmooze the crowds. In the beginning I had harboured the illusion that our table would be the chilled out place where people could chill and chat but clearly I had forgotten how busy Saturdays are. We were taking on commissions to pay back the table since we didn't really have that much to sell and that kept us working for most of the day.

Since I was stuck at my table for most of the expo, the only pictures I took were of the people I did commissions of. This girl's shirt was pretty fun to draw, and she was very patient with my snail pace.



( Shout outs and conclusion )

For every day in a week starting today I'll do a streaming experiment on Ustram.tv. There are numerous reasons why I'd like to do this, but mainly because I spend days on end working in the isolation of my room. So much so that some people might wonder if I'm still alive. It's not the best way to keep in touch with people but it sure is effortless. :) I'm also curious to see if I can keep this up for a week without getting stage fright. So far it's been fine, I tend to forget that the webcam is on.
I can't show any progress work from Twelfth Night due to the making-of article series in NEO, but I don't reckon there will be a problem of showing me working on it.

It would be really cool if more people who work alone back home could set something up! We'd all feel less isolated I reckon.

There was a most bizarre, yet strangely sweet note arriving with my package from an ebay seller today.
( The note on lovely letter paper... )

My family just got a puppy. I'm so jealous of my sister! She gets a bunny, a DS and a puppy after I move out. I desperately wanted a kitten as a kid, and I wanted a Nintendo back in the days. Now I can blame my parents for being emotionally detached and never being able to become a decent gamer. LOL

Seriously, jokes aside, we do have a puppy now. It signifies a huge change from 15 years ago when my parents wouldn't even hear about having anything that sheds in the house. (By that standard dear Chloe would have been barred from our house back then XD)
I guess they've become sufficiently westernised now.

I think this is the puppy they got:


I got to see him on webcam last night. Adorable little thing!! Quite large already, 4 kg I think. By the time I see him IRL he'll probably be full sized though. T_T My sister named him Viggo, which makes me think Aragon. X)

Yesterday was the manga portrait day at Tokyotoys with the lovely ladies pinkapplejam and fayeyong.
pinkapplejam has posted some pictures from the Tokyotoys portrait day yesterday. I hardly took any pictures, save this one. I think it was the last full colour commission of the day for me.



( Short write up and shout outs... )

Some may have wondered why I haven't posted any work in progress from Twelfth Night, which I've been working on since October 2008. So far I think the only thing that's been revealed is the cover. Well here it is, the reason for it all. Starting with the current issue (56) and for another six issues I'll be talking about how Twelfth Night is taking shape in NEO. I'll be taking readers from the early discarded concepts to the smell of finished printed book (oh yeah baby!).
The first issue is an introduction where I talk about my background, how I got into comics and getting in touch with SelfMadeHero.

Of course NEO is packed with many other goodies as well, so check it out if you please! :D



EDIT:
Actually, apart from the cover there's a partial preview of one of the interior colour pages on the Manga Shakespeare Ning site. Doug and Emma are gloating about having tickets to the sold out kabuki staging of Twelfth Night I see... T.T

Most people here probably know comic guru Scott McCloud. His Understanding Comics was a major eye-opener for me in many respects. Here's a video of the man himself talking about comics.



TED is a website with loads of talks about all kinds of cool stuff. I was pretty amazed to see how the backwards aging in Benjamin Button was done.

Does anyone know if Borders carries NEO in Cambridge?

Had a great time at the Norwich Dragon Workshop... Such friendly, enthusiastic and overall lovely people attended the workshops, both in the morning and the afternoon. A super friendly group from the library anime society (S.A.M.) stayed for both sessions, took me to the Norwich market food court for lunch and gave me a tour around some major sights of the city at the end of the day. I had no idea scenes from the movie Stardust were shot there.

The Millenium Library in The Forum is pretty amazing in itself. Very modern and very busy, not your usually idea of a library.

( More pics )

It was a thoroughly enjoyable day, mostly due to the lovely people who came and the kind, helpful staff at the library. Many many thanks to them! Overall it was a much welcomed break from working at home all the time. :)
Now I'm knackered. Who knew Norwich was such a big city! The old cobblestones were a killer!

Following the most snow south-east of UK has seen in 18 years, it would have been a shame not to frolic in it.
Made in the image of wyldflowa 's Bunny...



( Goofy pics in the snow )

I just went and checked my study loan debt. It's something I haven't thought much about since the Swedish student loan agency is known to be fairly lenient on payback policies. Luckily I don't need to start paying until 2010 so I still have a year's breathing space, but once it starts I hope I have a steady job...

Been home for about a week now. Most of the time has been spent sick. My tastebuds died along with my sense of smell so I haven't been able to taste the Christmas food... T^T
It's getting better now though, thankfully! God knows I need to get more work done.

Today me and dad took a trip to Östersund, which is the closest Swedish town which has two of my banks, to get some necessary bank errands done. The errands took an hour at the most, but the trip back and forth took about 7 hours! I wish I could go back more often.

Even though Norway and Sweden are extremely similar in terms of language and culture, there is still a pronounced difference (at least to me) between the two countries. There is a noticeable shift in the look of the landscape as you cross over from Norway to Sweden. On the Norwegian side the mountains are steep and the roads are narrow and winding. As you get to Sweden the mountains become more billowing and the roads become a lot easier to drive on. Also as soon we got to Östersund I got the overwhelming feeling of being in a Swedish town. It's hard to say why... perhaps it has something to do with the city planning, but it definitely felt Swedish rather than Norwegian.
Maybe I just miss Sweden...

I recently found out that one of my oldest friends just lost her dad to a long battle against disease just before Christmas... Since coming to the UK my contact with friends back home has been rather sporadic and nowadays we get in touch perhaps once a year, mostly around Christmas time. A year is a long time and a lot can happen so it was a bit of a shock to hear how tough things have been for her and her family recently. It makes you feel there was more you could do to help...
Take care Gabbi! *HUGS*

My cards went out very late so I reckon a bunch of them won't make it in time for Christmas, thus the "Season's Greetings" rather than "Merry Christmas", but at least they will get there in the end. :)

Christmas eve is the big day here up north, so here's from Totoro and me, wishing everyone a warm and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Not too bad... Although I did pick blue as one of my favourites at the end of the tests... <.<
It's quite interesting how these tests are often surprisingly accurate. The questions in this one were rather straightforward though.

Around exam time this year (which is when you usually get most of your brilliant ideas for world domination and such) I decided that I wanted an art blog. It would be a place where I would write and ponder around art, comics and illustration. Having to write things down forces you to think things through, so I'm hoping it will help me, and perhaps others to learn.

As much as I like LJ for the social networks, f-lock and keeping up to date on people's lives, it's not really ideal for posting pictures. The nice publishing and posting functions in blogger beckoned. (Also it matches my website design :D) So, instead of subjecting everyone on my f-list to my ramblings people now have a choice. If you want a (hopefully) frequent dose of artsy talk (not just manga), feel free subscribe to the feed!

If anyone has any art-related topic ideas, let me know! It could be anything really. I will try to talk about things I've learnt and found helpful over the years from time to time, but if there is anything specific, feel free to poke me about it.



Thanks to pinkapplejam for hooking me up! :D

I will still use this blog for life-stuff... just need to get a life first. XD

The intention was to reserve this journal for life-stuff, whereas I've started a separate artblog for my arty ramblings, but judging by the lack of posts here recently we must conclude that there is no life without art! ^_~

Life at the moment pretty much revolves around work on Twelfth Night for SelfMadeHero. Both me and Faye are already in the 2009 catalogue with all the existing and coming titles, although there are no covers for us yet.... oo the anticipation! I've been asked not to post any of my work yet for reasons that hopefully will become clear in time. Sorry for the secretiveness! If everything goes as planned it's going to be pretty fun.

I've also started going to life drawing classes at The Shop (awfully misleading name for an art space if you ask me). They're very cheap compared to most options around and the location couldn't be more convenient. Today wikivic came along as well so it was fun catching up.

Christmas seems so close all of a sudden. I'm planning to do Christmas cards this year, I just hope it won't be too late... I don't know if I have everyone's addresses... might send out a mass email asking for it. :)


Have a winter pic! The ice rink outside the Natural History Museum is out!



EDIT: I just realised both mine and Faye's cover's gone up on the website! :D

The target of affection in our house: Chloe's cat Bunny! Here seen looking very comfortable (notice the tongue sticking out!) and playing on my desk. :)



Let's be as much in the way as possible - in front of the computaa screen!

Is it a haystack?
Is it Cousin Itt?

Afraid it's the result of a pre-lightening procedure on my hair... X3
At the moment it's a blotchy mess of blonde, orange and brown, but tomorrow it shall be red! :DDD

In the process of joining two separate scans of a B4 comic page from Girl in a Box  in Photoshop, this slightly disturbing image appeared as I switched to multiply mode. It has nothing to do with the story, but somehow I wasn't particularly surprised when I saw it. It reminds me of previous work by this particular writer. ;D

The work on Girl in a Box  is my first time using B4 and overall I like the extra space to draw on. Joining the scans in Photoshop is quite a hassle though, and sometimes the scans won't fit exactly (probably due to slight rotation) so I have to edit the lines manually.
This A3 scanner offers a more hassle-free solution, for a decent price, but considering my current workspace I doubt I'd have room for it. Ideally I'd like to continue working big since I ink by hand, but without an A3 scanner it's very time-consuming to scan the pages.
Hmm I'll have to have a good thinker about how to work in the future...

At the moment my art tech shopping list consists of:

1. Desktop (probably  Dell's Inspiron series since I'm a hardware dummy)
2. Printer (still trying to decide between inkjet and laser, but it's leaning towards inkjet at the moment)
3. A3 Scanner (if only I had somewhere to put it)