A strange bird.

I designed this bird for the Prins and Ploes campagne. (see the link on the right) He play's a part in a musical. And we have merchandising dolls that should look like him. They DON'T!!! And I'm not gonna show you.
(I'm not the man in the picture)


Today I did two new sheets for the Chinese dollmakers.


Hope they're not gonna use bleu and purple again. GRRRR!!!!!

An oldie from my sketchbook.

This Lion keeps coming back in my head for years. In different versions and in different worlds. Here's a picture from his hippie-days. In markers and a bit of airbrush for the clouds. He wants me to tell his story I think.

Illustration Friday: Springfever.

Since Illustration Friday has SPRING for it's topic two things are going through my mind. The girls that come out when the sun starts to shine. And the way they are dressed. Just could'nt help doing this quickie in painter.
Hope you like.
;-)

Cartoons.

Over the years I've done hundreds of cartoons for all sorts of occasions. Most of them line-art in black and white. Fun stuff to play around with in painter now. Pimping my own work. These were about students in working situations.
One in watercolors.



And one in chalk.

She's called Trees.

Sometimes young drawers ask my advice. One of them is doing a story with a beautiful but sad lady. I did this sketch to try and show him how important facial characterics are in a design. I payed special attention to the lips and the eyes.

Spring in Love.

Spring is a time for new love. Birds, rabbits, butterflys, and even humans. Nothing can stop them. The show must go on. When a friend of mine got married I did a little book with the story of his life in pictures. This is the moment he asked his girl to marry him. Blink, blink, nudge, nudge, say no more. The third baby is on it's way.



Translation: SHE WANTS!

Layers

An illustration of a stack of books. Did it in illustrator and made an animated gif out of it to show you how the thing is build in layers. The pencilsketch under the layers as a reference.

Max and Mummmie comic

In 1997 I did one page of comic ervery week for the Veronica magazine. A tv-guide with a million readers. The main characters were two monsters. Max and Mummie. Text and idea Dick Briel. Click the title of this post for more info about him.


Mummie was uuuhm... a mummie. And Max was a fanatasy. Mummies fantasy in fact. In the end when Mummie went back to the piramides because he could't stand modern live Max just faded away. He could'nt live without his friend. Here they're still happy together. Did this picture as a gift to the publisher.



Some sketches from the beginning. They lived in an amusementpark with a horror/monster-theme. These ones where inspired by Tim Burtons Nightmare befor Christmas.



In the comic we sent them on trip around the globe. A new confrontation with the real world every week.



The cover of the album that came out on june 4 2000. My 39-th birthday. What a present.
:-)



And a sketch for a page where a cyclist took doping to keep up with the peleton. Just after that our friends crossed the streat. The cyclist ended up winning the race of course. But after that he was taken to a mental home. Was it the doping? Or was it the fact that he met Max and Mummie? Or was it both?

School 's out!

A few posts ago I showed a hospital entrance I did for a Get Well-card. And I had the idea to do a school entrance for a Graduation-card. Here it is.

IF: Spider-monster.

A few month ago my girlfriends father had a scary party. I did some decorations for the walls. Is this a monster or not? Maybe he lives under your bed. Sleep well.

Spring is in the air.

No spring in Holland yet. Cloudy, rainy, dark wether. No children playing outside, no cats stuck in trees. Saw a few small flowers in the garden this morning. Turning the heads in one direction, hoping for the sun.
Still playing around in Painter. This one is inspired by the superkalifragalisticexpéelladocious Fiep Westendorp. Click the title of this post to go to her website.

Art?

In 1992 I was in New York for ten days. Of course I visited every museum I could find. I spend a day at the Metropolitan, a day at the MOMA and a day at the Guggenheim. So much inspiration. One evening, lying tired on my hotelbed I did this picture in my sketchbook. Dancing couple. Soft pencil and eraser.

Count Count.

I did a lot of Sesame Street work. Count Count always gave me a bit of trouble. I had problems getting him "in character". This one worked out nice I think. How many bats are smiling? How many are crying?

Illustration Friday: Feet.

This Painter IX book (see my post below) realy helps. Hear me shout it out ?"PAINTER!!PAINTER!!PAINTER!!PAINTER!!PAINTER!!PAINTER!!"
(Click the image for a closer view.)

WOW!!!!!

No better way to discover your software than the WOW-books.
I received these two this morning. Gonna be a playfull weekend.
:-)

Hospital.

I'm working on a Get Well-card. For page three I needed a hospital entrance. So I took some photographs of the real thing and styled it to this in illustrator. My art-director likes the style and we're gona do more. For other categories as well. A graduation-card with the front door of a school maybe? Hey! That's a good idea.

How to draw.

As a child I drew all the famous characters from magazines. Mickey, Donald, Dombo, Luky Luke, the Dutch Tom Poes, Nijntje, Jip en Janneke, you name it.
I was always very happy when the Donald Duck magazine had a "How to draw" page. They showed you how a Disney character is build with cirkels.
Years and years later when I was doing a comic for the magazine of the National football association they wanted to give the comic some special attention. I proposed to do a drawing competition amongst the readers. And there was my chance to do a "How to draw" page with my own character.



We had 42 entrys from children with ages from 8 to 15. It's funny to have such a collection of drawings of my own character done by children I don't even know.

Illustration Friday: Tattoo

I have ideas for new comic-characters all the time. But where do I find the time to make them all come alive? John Lennons words are so true. "Live is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans". I'm not complaining. I love my work and I'm realy happy to make a living as an illustrator.

The drawing is an oldie. I put an extra effort in the background to give you some value for your visit.



Don't know what Illustration Friday is about? Click the link on the right.

Presentation for Brazil.

A client of mine was working on a big project in Brazil. A health-fitness and beauty complex for the rich and famous. He asked me to do some pictures to give his presentation a bit of a style. Like many big projects this one never came true. That's a pitty. He promised me a trip to Rio if everything worked out. And the whole styling of picto's, signs for directions and other grafic work that had to be done for the complex and it's publicity..
(:-(

40 years of fieldhockey.

I've played fieldhockey all my live. Being the only drawer in the club I always did the special t-shirts for tournaments, the illustrations for the club-magazine and posters for promotion. When we had the 40 years jubilee I was asked to do an illustration/logo for promotional purposes. It's clear what I wanted to show I think. We did play hockey for 40 years but there was always an important roll for what we call "the third half". Guess you understand what we mean.
;-)



All sorts of memorabilia were produced. A t-shirt with the logo on the back.



And we even had our own wine.

Great publicity for Prins and Ploes

Today in Het Algemeen Dagblad (one of the big national newspapers) a story about Prins and Ploes The Musical. Very positive and with a nice photograph. Not to mention the special attention for my name. Glow, glow. If you read Dutch click the image for a bigger version.

More Corel Painter IX.

This software is fantastic. Here's another try-out. Just started with some sketchlines to discover how the rotation of the canvas works. This came out.

Illustration Friday: Insects 2.

The insect (and the fact that I have a full version of painter now :-) inspired me. No story behind it. Just some quickies to get to know the tools a bit.







If you came here via Illustration Friday and you like to see more of my work click the title of this post and scroll down.
If you came here otherwise and you want to know what I.F. is about. Do the same and click the link in the list that comes up on the right.

Illustration Friday: Insect

What a wonderfull occasion to show you this work.



And tell you the story behind it.

In the part of Holland we call Limburg there is a long tradition of street-theater. In the summertime we have a wonderfull festival where theater-acts from all over the world come to do a show. It was somewhere in the nineties. A French group called Les Mallabar came to the festival. In those days I worked behind the bar of a theater and Les Mallabars used the dressing rooms and the stage of this theater to put on their costumes and make-up.



It took more than two hours and while they were busy a friend had the time to take some pictures. All I have are some bad prints. I tried to clean them a bit in photoshop.







The show was in the evening hours and involved a lot of light and fireworks. The audience was taken on a tour through it's own city. The guides where giant insects that were sometimes frightning, sometimes funny, sometimes sweet.
I even got a spiders-kiss on my forehead. A black one.
It was all very spectacular and the images stayed in my head. The next day I had to do a picture. More than ten years later it's my entry for Illustration Friday.
Hope you like it.

The Prins and Ploes campagne.

The start of a new job but already a funny picture. In the Prins and Ploes campagne (see previous posts) we're giving the oppportunty to collect 11 different handdolls. To show the dolls in the shops a hanging display will be used. 6 dolls on one side 5 on the other. Lots of white space to fill. :-)

More animation

I did these animated gifs for a website called DrShift.com. A website about finding jobs in the technological fields. It was a few years ago during the internet-hype. Big investors behind it and a lot of ambition. It does not exist anymore.