Newspaper-illustrations part 1.

Publication in a national newspaper has been on my "things I always wanted to do" list since I left art-school. A few years ago I gave it a shot and send a presentation to Het Algemeen Dagblad. A national Dutch newspaper. What happened? Oh HELP! They liked it. In the same week I started working on my first illustration. This one was number 5. I still like it. The story was about confronting criminals with their victims. It worked out wel for both sides. The criminals were burning with guilt inside and found a way to show their regret. The victims were given a chance to look at the whole thing from the other side and to find peace. I think newspaper-illustrations should be "easy to read". People don't like difficult grafic art for breakfast. And they should not be pictures from comic books. The comics is another section.
Here's my interpretation of the story.

More glamour for Illustration friday.

Probably the best artwork in my archives. It's not mine.
Its done by one of my favorit comic-artists. Francois Walthéry. The creator of the gorgeous air hostess Natasja. Back in the eighties I had the chance to talk to him a few times on the Susteren Comic convention. He did this drawing on the back of one of my originals. It's 42/30 cm. A proud possession. You see the stamp with my name and adres there.



Here's a book-cover of the Natasja series.



Ans some more Natasja glamour to fit the topic.





Wanna see more? Click the title of this post for a good starting-point. Surf around from there. Enjoy.

Soccerglamour for Illustration Friday..

Some years ago I did the development and the first 25 pages of a soccer-comic for the national footbal assosiation. I found inspiration in all famous players. And of course when it comes to glamour you cannot forget The Beckhams.



It was never my intention to do a portrait of them. The drawing is loosely inspired on.

illustrationfriday.com

This weeks topic: CATS. I'm a catfan. Wish to come back as one after death. Quote Iwan Fox:"You know the way they maaaauw to go in or out when the door is closed? It's not that they want to go in or out. It's just control of the door".

I love that in a cat. One of my comic-characters is a cat. Ploes is her name. What beter occasion than illustration friday (click the title of this post) to tell you more about her. Some pictures from development.

I am looking for a lady. And in her final version she will be a costume for a tv-show. But at first I start to just draw cats. No direction, not a certain character, just catfun.



Male



and female.



I did a 3d version with my gum-eraser



and some drawings following those photographs.



I went on to a more female approach.



What would she sit on?



How would an actress fit in the costume?



A statue was made. Nothing is a better help to explore the character than having a statue as a model to draw from.
It was done by Sebastiaan L'Ortye. A talented artist. And it's about 25 cm high.



We even did a test for the color. Kids were asked to pick a favorit. And we gave them the craziest of choices. 90 % of all girls wanted a dark-pink cat. We couldn't ignore the outcome.



I did'nt mind. Pink was my favorit all the time. I even did a sketch for her place to sleep long befor we even started to think about the color of the characters. It never made the show. Way over budget.



In the invitation for the first presentation the characters did not have color yet. The date for the presentation was set but we did not know what color the characters were going to be. Guess it's the way things go.



And here's the lady. Funny story. This was the first time I met my own character in full size. I hugged her and rubbed her belly a bit. Like I would have done with a real cat. At the same moment I realised there was a girl inside the costume.... that I did'nt even know. OEPS!!

My archiv

Back from the holidays. Sundayevening after a long traintrip from Austria. We had a great week. Going through my archive for a blog-story is a good way to remind me I have to start working again tomorrow. I found a nice one. But a story that needs a little preparation. A story about a theaterproject for children I did 15 years ago. A story that involves friends. Here's a drawing from that period to tease you a bit. A drawing that represents the way I felt at the end of the eighties.



Tell me what you think.

Wintersports

It's about a year ago that I started working with Adobe Illustrator. Rendering photo's is good practice. I did one with a portrait of myself made during our wintersportsvacation. I'm getting a little nervous seeing this picture again. In 5 hours we will leave for Austria for some more fun in the snow. See you in a week.

It's annoying.

5 cartoons I did for the program of the city theater. All about annoying things people do. Taking pictures with a flashlight. Making disturbing noises. Smoking where it's not allowed.... You know these kind of people?

A neighbour for Prins and Ploes.

The whole Prins and Ploes story is in fact a publicitycampagne for a Dutch dog- and cat-foodcompany. Prins Petfoods. Since 4 month there's a new partner in the project. Beaphar, a company that produces foods and medications for rodents and birds. Their new character is a guineapig. She is called Bea. The costumedesign was a big challenge. Guineapigs look like this. Hairy worms with eyes and ears.



We decided to make her a good looking classy lady. A little older and still beautiful, but gorgeous in her younger years. Catharina Deneuve was my starting point. This one is way to sexy. She would be a competition for Ploes. That was never the intention.



Some poses and colortests in pencil and photoshop.



Defining the facial characteristics.



I Googeld a female body and fit the costume around it.



I did an inspirational sketch for her house and photoshopped it into a photo of a try-out for the musical.



These are the production-sheets I did for the costumemakers.






And here's te first photo of the costume. Hope you like her.

Prins and Ploes again.

In the Prins and Ploes story I did some visuals for a presentation. A shop in a shop. A small part of a big shop build around the characters. A way of working together with other companies in retail. Here are some examples of how I thougt it would look. I always like to do this kind of work. It's loose, it's free. You can do what you want. No style definition needed. Just an impression.

A crazy lady.

All sorts of crazy characters live in my head. Here's one that's popping up for years. She called herself Misses Pruts, after one of our two cats. She was a teacher once but was fired because she was tooooo crazy. The kids loved her of course. In her younger years she was a dancer in a ballet group and now she dedicates her live to protecting the environment. She loves trees. That's all I know. Maybe one day she'll tell me more.

How it all started.

It was the summer of 1981. I was 20 years old and dreaming of being a professional illustrator. I did every job I could find in this area and told everyone I knew about my ambition. Drawings in the leaflet for the sportsclub, publicitydrawings for the lokal comicshop, the school-newspaper, nothing was save. The road many young drawers go. I got payed in bottels of wine and comic-books and I was happy with it. But one day all the talking around worked out well. As grazy as it sounds, it realy happened. Someone came to my door to ask me if I wanted to do a complete comic book. I had done 10 pages so far and no idea what making a comic-book was about. But I said yes!
A little more than half a year I worked on it. Going to publicity-school at te same time. I did not sleep much in those days.
But it was worth it. My first book was published in 500 copys. Here's the foto on the back-cover. On the left Paul Spapens. He's the one that came to my door and the writer of the book. No photoshop-tricks in 1982. A combination of a photoprint on paper with handdrawings on a plastic sheet. Paul was chef-journalist of a local left wing door to door news-paper at the time and I was a student in publicity. The characters were called Nilles and Kiske. Two old names from Tilburg. The city where this all took place. The story was about going to America and discovering a city there that was a copy of the real Tilburg.




Here's page number 5. The page where the two main characters left the house. Sneaking out in the night. Paul Spapens was and is a journalist with a special interest in Tilburg and it's historie. The story came right from his hart. We could'nt realy go wrong there because of that. Working on it was a great experience. In the end everyone involved in Pauls newspaper helped to make the deadline for the printer. For the gray-scales we used these sorts of sticker materials bij companies like Mecanorma and Letraset. Know what I mean? Every piece of gray-scale was cut out with a little knife and put there by hand. Those were wonderfull saturday-mornings with a lot of black coffee. We were young and it was the eighties. Saturday-mornings were not favorit. But it was the only way. And everyone came to help.



Page number 8. Our hero's arrival in America. They have dressed up as cowboys and are on their way to start the adventure.



And the cover of the book to end this story with. My first work ever printed in full-color. For the good memories of 1982.

Monkey's in tie's and hats.

A new year. 2006.
Born in '61 I'll have to get used to the idea that I'm gonna be 45.
No problem, I still feel like 20. Sometimes.
Nothing new for the moment.
Here's an oldie in watercolours from one of my fun-projects.