A fish a day...

By the way, great sketch by Dirk van Dulmen. An in-between exercise in our studio.

just a quick paint

There's a story in everything.

I started this exercise with just some basic tree shapes. Nothing special, but I wanted to go through this process for two specific reasons.

I felt that it was too easy to lose myself in painting the foliage and at the same time losing the basic shape. I often found myself creating all these smaller areas that only made the foliage and tree shape unclear and weak.

Also, I often drew the tree starting with the branches. This sounds weird maybe, but I did it. Probably without thinking. Starting with a basic shape helps me to define where branches are and why.

This time I added a little bird house just underneath the top foliage to help focus, giving it some character, purpose or meaning.

New Children's Book!

ALthough I think that I should focus more on one particular subject, I constantly find myself working on several projects at the same time. This one is a color study for a new children's book I'm working on right now. I have a story outline, I have a character and some sort of direction for the art. The thing I'm struggling with at this point is: How do I turn night time into colorful illustrations and at the same time create iconic and recognizable artwork?

You maybe thinking: Why don't you make it daylight? Well, the story can only exist in the night time.

Siberian background

A Russian Soldier is living and working on an outpost on the border of Russia and Siberia. He has been isolated from the civilized world for almost 4 years.

I started working on the background already, because I had a clear view on how his house and cabin should look like and wanted this to be leading in style design. Although I'm still considering to make it less realistic.

Bop & Belfi and the Goggly Goblin

It's been 7 years since I finished working on my first book "Bop & Belfi and the Goggly Goblin". I should say, a wonderful children's book that I produced together with Marck van Dooren. I'm still very proud that we sold the concept and the book.

What’s it all about?
Bop & Belfi are going to stay with Auntie Myopy in Clearview Village for the weekend. They are looking forward to eating pancakes and playing hide and seek in the villa’s many rooms. But a monster lives in the house of Belfi’s aunt. It is a mean and nasty beast. A beast that crushes glasses with its feet! And that is a real problem, because Auntie Myopy has a special hobby. She collects glasses... Can Bop & Belfi save her collection?

Who is Mr. Camel Hick?
Mr. Camel Hick is a pseudonym for the creators of this exciting book: Michel and Marck. And of course this sounds much more exciting than their real names.

The book was a premium at Het Huis Opticians and truly is a collector's item. It hasn't been in stores and it probably never will be...or will it...?

Emperor's New Clothes

This is a personal assignment we decided to give ourselves at work together with Dirk van Dulmen. Something completely different than I am used to do, but some interesting things came out of this one. One of the most important things I've learned in the last year is to concentrate on a specific subject. If you're interested in never getting anything done, you should try to work on everything at the same time. (I have to work on that one...)
So I've been reading and studying Walt Stanchfield's "Drawn to Life" and working on gesture drawing for a couple of weeks now and this is the first colored attempt.

old tree

Encore!

And then one day...

Old stuff

Some conceptual work I did for GameHouse. Never been put into production though....

Meet Mocci

Meet Mocci from The Wonderful World of Mr. Sweed.

I decided to begin character sketching on the little guy. I felt he needed some more extreme facial features because I want him to underline the main character's emotions. So BIG ears and a magical tale.

Mocci has been in the big guy's family (haven't got a name for him yet) for a little over 320 years. And not without a reason.

Every once in a while the ripe berries from an almost extinct plant spread a scent that puts some sort of spell on Mocci. He gets in a trance and he transforms into something very special with very special abilities. This is Mocci as he gets into the first phase. Check him out.

The Wonderful World of Mr. Sweed

My first visual acquaintance with The Wonderful World of Mr. Sweed. It's a story situated around the mediterranean sea. I'll tell you more about the story as my blog progresses. Hope to update some more soon.

color sketching part 4

color sketching part 3

I turned this little sketch into color last night. Maybe I'll do another pass to make it a little stronger and maybe more interesting. Original drawing done by Dirk van Dulmen.

real baa's and mehs

Just a new post to keep the blogblood running. It's funny, I thought I'd do one piece every week, but that's not as easy as I thought. Anyways...this one is just for fun.

color sketching part 2

color sketching

Like I said before. Trees. It's not because i like 'm that much-I do-but it also gives me the opportunity to play around with colour and mood. I'd like to do more of these little sketches. Stay tuned!

equilibrist

Back at the office...I promised I'd start my blog with a tree-sketching and painting excercise but instead I wanted to do something that reminded me of our short but well earned holiday. Just a couple of days ago I tried to walk over a chord in "Klein-Zwitserland" which is a fantastic playground. It was hanging next to a circus and tied between two trees and some 30 cm above the ground and I almost walked all the way to the other side of it. I heard my wife and daughter scream -while my other daughter bounced off the chord when I jumped on it- and because I was cheating because I touched the ground while I was walking over the chord...anyways...

btw...the jumping and bouncing part didn't really happen...