Death and all his friends

Or his scythe, more like it. Another mostly Dark Souls themed sketch, with some focus on draped fabrics (credit for the Death-draped-fabric-idea goes completely to someone else ;) ).

And now I can't stop thinking about Binky. If I ever figure out how to draw horses properly, you'll get a mounted Death :)

Mega-Cow

Yup, I finished my monster-drawing of a cow for my niece :). She hasn't come to pick it up yet, so I'm really hoping she'll still like it in real life (she's seen some pictures).
It's still really big, 75 by 155 cm, and dominating our dining table.

Quick sketch

Only what the title says, really. Quick sketch of Will, who has been sorely neglected lately.

Bad influence

So a friend of mine introduced me to Dark Souls, and it turned to be ridiculously inspirational. I won't ever play it, as I don't own a ps3 and more importantly, I suck at video games, but I'll surely look up some more art.
(click for larger picture!)

Cows, cows everywhere!

First and foremost: I refuse to call cows cattle, end of discussion.

These cows are color-tryouts for a huge-ass (75 cm by 115 cm) painting for my cousin. She's a vet, hence the cows, and asked if I could paint something with livestock and lots of color for her new home. Since I rarely draw for other people, much less even as a decoration for their living rooms, I've been fretting over the color palette ever since... Anyway, I'm still working on it right now, and I might or might not post some crappy phone pictures of the progress later.

In case you're wondering, no, I haven't been drawing the same cow four times. I've drawn it once, taken a picture (because of non-working scanner) and printed it four times. And learned two things: printer ink bleeds and people like tetraptychs*.

*Tetraptych apparently isn't an English word. English artists seemingly never went above three pictures in one... picture... painting... whatever. The English are silly. If you happen to know the correct word, please tell me!
*edit: it is an English word, or at least recognized as such by Wikipedia. It just doesn't feature in my dictionary. 

Midsummer Stormclouds

Troy and Joyce from Midsummer Murders, a show I've definitely seen enough of for a while. I can practically whistle the tune and I can't even whistle!
Therefore, some of Loki for a bit of diversity :)

 Paper texture is blah blah...
Who can get me a nice scanner? 0:)

More fanart

Because playing Kingdom Hearts means seeing Cloud, and seeing Cloud means thinking: "Zack!". Because Zack is much cooler, and a lot less depressive.
Off to rewatch Advent Children now, since I haven't seen that one in quite a while.

What shall I say about that texture? Yup, my scanner still sucks.

Manus

Waiting until the birds fly into it's mouth. Ain't gonna happen boy.

Again, paper texture is paper texture.

The Flurry of Dancing Flames

Would you agree with me if I say I find that an incredibly stupid, un-menacing name? It might just be me, but flurry makes me think of bunnies ('furry') and icecream ('mcflurry').

More to the point: I finished playing Kingdom Hearts II, again. Can't help but to love Axel, no?

Paper texture all mine. Why? Because the stupid thing wouldn't let itself be removed from the image. Hurrah for over-textured paper 8)

Drawing me

This is a selfportrait without mirror. And I can tell you: that's really hard.
So while not very correct, it was very much fun to do. But in the end it doesn't really look like me at all. Or so I think ;).

The unadapted

There is a kind of moth, the peppered moth, which favorite tree is the birch. And while a birch is usually white, exhaust fumes and other black nastiness caused trees around factories to become dark. Which can be quite a problem if you're a white moth.

I thought the image of the unadapted moth against the dark bark was quite striking. 

On account of the technique behind this picture: it's not a cut out. It's also not made with masking fluid, because I don't own that (I would have loved to though while making this, would've saved me some headaches). It's just made by extreme carefulness.

Tree with saplings

It's a walking tree! With kids! And murderous razor sharp roots! And it has absolutely nothing to do with Tolkien!

Also, it might be carnivorous.

My heart

Not literally, of course. What began as a sketch to practice swirly patterns (I do not like patterns, not to design them myself at least. Unruly things, patterns) grew into a art-schoolish experimental pen-picture.
It's not very visible, but the lines and writing, which is deliberately near-unreadable, depict the major veins of the heart. I think 'aorta', left on top, is still readable.

Art Nouveau with a twist

Since I am an avid fan of both Art Nouveau (Mucha! ) and animal corpses a joining of those two was inevitable, right? It certainly did lead to this picture, which borrows both from my creepy imagination and the art nouveau movement.

The flowers, which do not seem awfully appropriate in this picture, are poppies and deadly nightshade (belladonna). I fear though the belladonna is only visible in close up, and even then just barely. These flowers are actually very appropriate, as they symbolize death.

Which is exactly what the main monster is. A kind of walking corps-ey, ghoul-ey thing. In my head (where everything is possible, mind you) it's kind of an exploding fur-ball, as shown on the left bottom of the sketchpage. I.e. it has only fur when it needs it, shedding it when hunting or eating and "exploding in fur" when cold.

Also, last but not least: pen drawing! :)

Labels and other misc.

 I apologize in advance for any missing 's's, my keyboard seems to miss them sometimes, especially at the end of words. So any weird singular forms where it should have been plural are probably with the courtesy of my keyboard.


I realized today I had to point out a few things. Starting with:

Yes, ALL PICTURES on this blog are made by me, with pencil, paint, computer or otherwise, unless stated explicitly. 

Right. Now you don't have to ask anymore whether I drew all this. I did. Thank you for your faith. 

So much for the snarky comments. Now for something not entirely different: the labels.
They might be confusing.
I thought they sounded really nice, all ending on "kiwi", but it might actually be not all that clear what the categories precisely entail. The words (up to now) in front of "kiwi" are either a mood, or state I was in while writing or drawing, or a description of used materials. In a few cases, it explains the state of the picture or the time when it was made.
The ones I want to point out, because they might cause questions, are: "pre-kiwi", "wip-kiwi", "digital-kiwi" and "manipulation-kiwi". I think the others are pretty straightforward.

"Pre-kiwi" means: a picture that has been made before this blog was created. Not a picture created before I existed ;).
Sometimes I like to browse through older pictures and find something yet unpublished, but publishable.

"wip-kiwi" is an abbreviation of "work-in-progress". When you know that, it explains itself.

"Manipulation" and "digital" are two terms that are (in my eyes) very closely connected. "Manipulation" refers to "photo-manipulation", which I do in photoshop sometimes (for the lulz). It's possible to imagine photo-manipulation done by hand, but since I do not own a analog camera nor a darkroom I prefer a computer. So my photo-manipulations are 'always' digital. Furthermore, by 'photo-manipulating" I mean creating a new picture from multiple photos and/or techniques like airbrushing, changing color, and the liquefy tool.

Which brings me to my next, and final, term: "digital". First and foremost it means: made on the computer. But without the "manipulation" label, it's NOT photo-manipulation. I've got a very nifty tool on my desk, a tablet:

 It enables me to paint in programs like Adobe Photoshop or Corel Painter, just like one would paint on paper (okay, it takes some practice). Which means that everything that is not a manipulation, is still drawn, only with digital ink.

The reason I'm explaining this? Because many people believe "drawing on the computer" means "cheating by manipulation photos" or "so easy even monkey could do it and produce high-standing, super-realistic art". Both are quite insulting to me and other artists who work with the computer. It's not a magic medium, it ain't "tricks".

Please believe me when I tell you that anything I draw digitally is drawn in the same way as it would have been on paper: no photos have been drawn over and no "tricks" have been used.

Soo, uhm, yes, that were more slightly snarky comments, but as you can guess, this digital-misunderstanding hits me pretty hard. Anyway, I hope I've cleared up a few things.

Pre-Kiwi (but barely) - Heron Blue

As the name may, or may not, suggest did the inspiration for this particular piece come from the song "Heron Blue" by Sun Kil Moon. Pay attention to the third and fourth quatrains, this image was especially stirred by those*.
I'm never quite sure if the stories behind the pictures come before or while painting. In this case, I would say the story is as follows: rape, possibly of a prostitute, followed by death by constriction. Also, on a deeper level, lack of dreams, or soullessness.
Another two major inspirations for this picture come from this picture by "berkozturk" and the general style of cellar-fcp.
I'll stop rambling now and let you look at the picture... (yes, it might need a fair warning for mature content...)

*(lyrics: Her baby skin her old black dress /Her hair it twists round her necklace /Constricts and chokes like ruthless vines /To sleep she overtakes her?

Her room is painted Heron Blue /Lit by candlelight and chandelier /And from her headboard perched so high /A million dreams have passed her
Heron Blue, by Sun Kil Moon)

Simple Portrait

Well. Yeah. Ahum, not really artistically high standing or anything but merely a simple portrait to test Corel Painter. Which is a crazily difficult program to get a hang of, by the way. I feel threatened by the sheer number of different media and brushes. Oh Photoshop, je t'aime ta simplicité...
But I digress. A simple portrait, which makes me very happy nonetheless.(oh, and in two color tones because I can't decide which one's better)

Pre-Kiwi: Stylized

Not anyone or any thought in particular, but rather the outcome of an absentminded sketch and too many animations. Somewhere along the way my mind decided this would look really good in just black, red and white. It's no reference to the White Stripes in any way.