A clean start.

I'm working on a new series of postcards. Birthday, baby, a new house, that sort of thing. 16 different designs. And of course there is a weddingcard. Is this couple havig a clean start?

Young talent.

When I was young many professional drawers made time for me. I visited them and send them drawings by mail. Old fashioned mail in an enveloppe. Not email. It was the eighties. They phoned me back to tell me my work was rubbisch. And they told me why. Now that I am a professional myself I try to do the same. At the moment I am working with the very talented 14-year old Jordy Knoop. ( Click the title of this post to go to his daily danger website.) We're doing a story about a bankrobery. With lots of cars. Cars are difficult and I try to push him to do difficult things. Doing easy things over and over again doesn't make you better. Here's a sketch for a car from him.



And this is my reply where I try to show him that he shouln't waste so much time on the details. It's more important to get a grip on the total shape so you can play with the car and put the camera where you want.

Pink and green.

Found this funny illusion in my email. Follow the moving dot with your eyes and it stays pink. Concentrate on the + in the center and the moving dot turns green. Concentrate on the + for a bit longer and the the pink dots disapear completely. Crazy brain we have.
;-)

Denzel and Jeppe.

Spend a sunny day at the swimmingpool yesterday. With my brother and sister and their boys. These boys realy are eachothers opposits. And not only in the way they look. A doodle with some photoshopcolors.




And here's a link for

more Denzel and Jeppe

Cereals.

For the package in my previous post I also did the main ingredients. It was fun to take a closer look at these small plants. You need realy good documentation. And when I see them in the fields now I remember this job. These plants are very important. The world feeds on them.

Wheat.


Rye.


Oats.


Rice.

No more rain.

Because I'll have my own umbrella soon.
Papabrella in fact because it will look like Papakraai.
Here's a picure of him.



And this is my design for the umbrella. Can't wait to see the real thing.

I'm singing in the rain.

And so is Grover. I think he likes it.

The World Cup is over.

Portugal was the better team.
And the referee was a pig. Orange is over. Pink is the new color.

I'm sorry.

Oh, oh, one of my three regular visitors complained. I should post more often.
Okay, okay, here's another Jan Kaman from the KNVB anual.

7,...6,...5,...4,...

Yesterdayevening the team under 21 wrote history. The first time a Dutch team under 21 reaches the final of a big tournament. And they won.
European Champion. Wauw, if that was a preview for the coming worldcup.
Young players grow up fast. As shown on the cover of the KNVB anual.

9...8....

Dutch soccer is doing great. Yesterday the team under 21 beat France and reached the final of the European Championship.
The big team played a testmatch against Mexico. And they won too. The orange dream is getting bigger and bigger.

10

The (sort of) logo we started with. Jan had a Turkisch father. That's where the black string of hair comes from.

11 nights to go.

Meanwhile the Dutch team under 21 is playing the European championship. Tonight they beat Italy 1-0 an they are through to the semi final. Let's cheer for them.

13.....12.

Yesterday the national team played a testmatch against Cameroon. And they won. First half was very good. The crowd was happy. For Jan Kaman I did a crowd once. Whenever there was a panel in a page that needed an audience I used a part of this.

14

Sketches for Jans girfriend. Girls are difficult. ;-)

15

Another sketch from development.

16

Jan Kaman. The way we worked.
This is how I got the text.



A thumbnail to give myself an idea what I'm working with. The size of this is 87/75 mm.



The photograph I used for the kitchen.



The pencilsketch.



A closer look at the lineart.



And the finished page.

17

A picture from development. Jan Kaman to the rescue.

18

Jan Kaman played in the national colors once. And he was send away that day. The occasion was the KNVB christmascard.

19

In 2001 the presentation of Jan Kaman was in the press-room of the Amsterdam arena. Louis van Gaal spoke about his masterplan. Questions were asked about the new competition. All very serious. After that Herman van Veen introduced Jan Kaman.



And I had the chance to shake hands with the genius himself. Yes, that is JC on the right.
:-)

20

Another illo for the KNVB anual. Soccer is for everybody.

21 nights to go.

More soccer pictures. For the 2002 KNVB anual I did a series of illos showing how Jan grows up. Here's his birth, Jan at 6 years, at 17 years and at 45.

3 weeks to go.

Tension is building up for the soccer world cup. A good moment to show you some of the work I did for the National Dutch Soccer association (KNVB). It was a comic called Jan Kaman and written by Herman van Veen. I did the first three years ( 8 pages a year) and in 2002 I did a series of illustrations for the associations annual.
Jans bedroom and his dream.

Back from Rome.

My excuses to my regular visitors for posting so little lately.
After some weeks of working like an idiot with many late nights behind my computer we decided to reload the battery with a few days in the Roman sun. Strange feeling this Rome. I had the idea a small dog was following us all the time. And when I saw myself in a shopwindow I was wearing an odd pair of throusers and a funny helmet. Something like this.



(Click the title of this post if you don't get the joke. You've probably never heard of Asterix and Obelix.)

Merchandising.

In the Prins and Ploes campagne we have all sorts of merchandising. Wooden toys, plastic stuff to play with on the beach, and different pupppets. This is all produced in China. Communication is not easy and it's hard to get what I want.
These are my notes on the Prins and Ploes puppets. We'll see what the Chinese make of it this time.

Illustration Friday: Fat.

Charactersketches for a villain. A fat one.
With hair.....



or without.



This newspaperphoto was my inspiration. It's Martin Fitzmaurice. The darts referee that's famous for his ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY calls.

The city theater.

Every 4 or 5 years the city theater asks me to illustrate the program. They're very nice and give me a lot of space to do more or less what I want. Today the program is in full-color. Years ago we only had black and one support color.
We chose red.

More city theater.

Villains are fun.

An oldie from my sketchbooks.

Another Fairy tale.

While working on the cover of the Fairy Tale book other drawers were asking for a Snowwhite in the nude. Did this one to shut them up. Oops, now this site contains nudity. Are you over 18?

Fairy tale cover.

A few posts ago I showed a sketch of a King. One panel in a page for a fairy tale comic book. This book will be a co-production of different drawers. And I am so proud to tell you that I have the honor of doing the cover. The book will come out on the first day of the Haarlem comic convention. It's the third of june. I can't wait. Specialy because the 4th of june is my birthday.
(Click the title of this post to go the conventions website.)



The book wil be published by

Senoeni

Great news.

About Prins and Ploes. The producer is working on a second musical for the 2007/2008 theaterseason. That's one year away. But he needs a picture for publicity already now. The farm is in trouble. Prins and Ploes to the rescue. Here's a sketch.

Frogfun.

Weatherreports say we're gonna have a nice weekend. Let's have some fun. Frogfun.

What a day.

I had a wonderfull day. Went to see a show with my own characters. Today we had the final of a competition for childrens choirs. The songs were about Prins and Ploes. And a 20 minute preview of the musical was shown. Here's a funny picture of the musical-cast. They're working on a nice set-up for a promotional photograph. Notice the half body of the horse. A horse on wheels.
This realy is a wonderfull group of people with a drive and a spirit you do not see often. Thank you all for bringing so much life to my drawings.



(Click the title of this post to go to the company's website.)

And this is my nephew being hugged by Prins. He is 3 years old and it was his first meeting with the real thing. He had been nervous for three days and he was not disappointed. Pfoe. Lucky me.

Fast sketches.

This sketch is one panel in a two page fairy-tale comic. I showed the complete pages in pencil on an internetforum for comic artists.



On this forum we like to play around with eachohters work and Pieter Hogenbirk (click the title of this post for his weblog) did this interpretation in Painter IX.



Why enter this post for Illustration Fridays topic speed? My sketch was done in 15 minutes and it took Pieter more or less the same to do the clean up. Is that speed or what?