Sketch Dump III

I'm back from the Book Fair and it was awesome! I loved the networking and all the things I saw and heard were very inspiring. Including, of course, all the drawings, paintings, illustrations. Not only those in the exhibition, but also those on and in the books that the many, many publishers had on display.

I decided to follow up on that inspiration and once home I immediately bought some art materials I thought would be useful for expanding and improving my portfolio. So in the sketch dump below you see things I made to test my new acrylics (the ponies and, frankly, all the colored stuff) and at the very bottom I made a lino print. The black acrylic I used for that print didn't work out that well, so next time (or somewhere in the future) I'll use the right type of ink, but for now this will do. It's Aladdin, by the way, a modern version. I have one more sheet of lino and am thinking about making a follow-up to this running scene.

Children's Book Fair

That would be the Children's Book Fair in Bologna, Italy. Yes. (YES!). That's where I'll be from the 22nd to the 25th of this month. It's a fair for professionals in the whole process of children's books - writing, illustrating, publishing, translating, rights, etc. I'll be going there as illustrator and translator and see what my chances are.

Maybe nothing will happen and I'll continue this passion in my spare time.
Maybe something will happen and I'll get a tiny chance to translate a children's book.
Maybe something else will happen and I'll get a tiny chance to illustrate a children's book.
Maybe, just maybe, I'll get a tiny chance to do both.

I'm not pessimistic, I'm positively realistic. I know the chances are small and that there are many, many talented artists and translators out there, but that doesn't mean I won't go at all. I will try and do my best and I will have fun and who knows? A tiny chance is all I need...

For my portfolio to bring to Bologna I have worked/am working on a couple of pieces:

This is Lyra from Northern Lights / The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. Currently we are researching this novel as a class project at the university, so I thought it would be fun to illustrate it as well.



This is Sniff. His life consists of nothing but adventures. Every new smell, every exciting odor is a new adventure for him. It is a work in progress, so not quite finished yet.



This one I will not put into my portfolio. It's a failed attempt at a collage technique. I hate the composition and well, I just don't like the overall image. But the separate elements are all right. There's Sniff, a boy music maker, and Bo - a supergirl I once made up.

VW and Icecream

I finished my commission and got permission to post the results on my website, so here they are!

This is the leaflet the commissioner wanted. Trying for a rather retro/50s style and I think I succeeded quite well. The commissioner was very happy with it. Obviously, the commissioner sells icecream - from a retro Volkswagon! Yay! Since this commission I've come to appreciate retro vans and Volkswagons, lol, even though I'm more of a modern car type of person.



This is the van in color. It's a little different from the original painting, since I touched it up in photoshop (perspective, angle, some such stuff, lol). I'm happy with the way it came out. And, before anyone asks, I don't mind it being turned to black & white, I like that variant as well, plus it fits better into the whole of the leaflet.

IF expired ones

Well, I have been busy with school and things (one of which was a commission: design a leaflet with a VW van on it. I will post it as soon as my commissioner give the green light, lol). And anyway, I missed way too many IF deadlines, but I did them anyway and decided I'll still post them. So here they are!

This one was done for the topic Time and it is a fairy tale my father once told me. A princess (when isn't there one in a fairy tale?) is an impatient spoiled brat and she celebrates her birthday. From a fairy woman (or witch, I'm not sure) she receives a pirn and she tells the princess that when the thread is pulled, time will fly by very fast. As in, you'll jump into the (near) future. So the princess says 'thank you' and forgets all about it, until something bad happens (a dragon or something, undoubtedly) and she wants to speed up time to get the whole thing over with. That's when she understands the convenience of it all and starts to use the pirn for everything that sucks in life: eating vegetables, going to the dentist, doing the dishes, those annoying feminine parts of the month... to name just a few. Anyway, time flies by fast enough to have the princess wake up one day and discover she's an old lady, without having lived at all (no obvious moral in this one, eh?). So she learns her lesson, the fairy woman turns back time and all is well with the world. And here we are, the princess on her bed with her pirn and her old self as a reflection in the mirror (I just had to point that out, sorry).


And this one's topic was Celebrate. Not much to say about it. This just popped into my head. I like the result.

SGA comic no. 2

Well, this is the sequal to my previous SGA comic. I wanted to stick to the art/craft look and had a lot of fun with it, too. Plus, the whole thing is (supposed to be) funny, so I had my laughs while making this.

I know there are major stereotypes in there and I did not mean to offend anyone. I just saw Sheppard hangin' like that in my head and I had to draw it.

Did this with ink, colored ink, colored pencil, and collage. Enjoy!

SGA (c) MGM

IF: flawed

Here's my entry for IF's topic 'Flawed' for this week.

The idea came to me a while ago, actually. I was in the train, on my way to the university, and, not surprisingly in the Netherlands, it rained. The drops on the riding train made trails on the window and when the train slowed down and stopped, the trails dropped down, instead of going horizontally as they were doing while going at high speed. It was fascinating to look at and the pattern that occured was awesome. When confronted with the topic 'flawed' I wondered what to do and suddenly I remembered that rainy day in the train and this is the result.

Enjoy!

SGA comic

Fan comic for Stargate Atlantis (SGA). The characters you see here are Rodney McKay and John Sheppard.

It was actually quite funny, because I started with that pic of Sheppard lying down, hurt. More because I wanted to try that pose in this style than anything else (and gosh, it took me about 50 tries and there's still room for improvement..) and then I simply drew two squares above him lying there. So I worked from that central drawing on, without having a story or whatever in my mind. It's lots of fun doing it this way. From here I can work backwards or forward, whatever I want. Yay!

Also, I tried to make every frame a tiny piece of artwork, not only a comic frame. I did that for my own pleasure, but also as a tribute to the makers of the series, who make the final production such an awesome piece of art to look at.
Anyway, that's why there's some collage in there, as well as colored pencil and ink and different usage of lines. Oh, and a tiny bit of waterpaint for the stars in the first frame (though the scanner sort of killed those, but they're there, trust me. There's a lot of more stars to the sky than you think..).

So yeah, enjoy!

Stargate Atalantis (c) MGM

IF expired ones

Well, I was going to try and enter these for IF, but I didn't make the deadlines, so here they are:

This topic's was 'Pale' and I think the picture speaks for itself..



Here the topic was 'Contained' and the linguist in me wondered why that was written in the past tense. So an image sprang from that, a collage playing with the words contain, contains, container and, of cours, contained. Why the can is broken instead of spraying? I'm not sure, but it certainly is easier composition-wise... Lol.

IF: climbing

My first entry for Illustration Friday (IF). This weeks topic was 'climbing,' so here we go.

My brother is an expert in rock climbing and I'm sure he can find many, many things wrong with this picture (the position of the rope, the harness, the (lack of) knots, the position of the climber, the hook... and so on, lol), but I still dedicate this picture to him.

Here you are, Jan, this is (for) you :-P

Stargate Atlantis and Sketch Dump II

More drawings! Finally! That is to say, some sketches and a couple of drawings.
I'm currently re-viewing my Stargate Atlantis DVDs and I got inspired also by several cartoons on the telly and fellow artists on deviantArt. So, mix 'em all together and the following drawings/sketches are what you get! Lol.

I like how they all came out. Hope you enjoy them too!

Stargate Atlantis (c) MGM



All of these sketches are Daniel, my character from ARC.
Inspired by Pokémon and Danny Phantom, both of which I do not own (no clue who does, though).

2009 and Daniel again

Another update!
I just noticed that I updated once (!) in December. Shame on me! I suck, I know. But here we are, the start of a new month and even a new year! So happy new year to everyone! I hope everything will go well in 2009.

Anyway, I drew Daniel of ARC again. Sorry, I simply love him. That's the first time I've created a character that I like so much that I draw him all the time. Lol. Well, hopefully I won't neglect the others (too much), hehehe.

But yeah, enough blabbering, enjoy!

The line art! Not much to say, really. I got the pose from a fashion drawing book and the costume, which is from the 17th century, from a costume book (I love my reference library). Daniel usually doesn't wear this, mind you, this is more for my entertainment than his... *evil grin* I used black ink for this (duh).


The colored version! I used several techniques for this one: watercolors, black ink, colored pencils (Prisma) and scrapbook materials (plus glue, obviously). I like how it turned out!

Sketch Dump

Whooooo! I finally got around to do some drawing! And, since I finished my illustration course (finally), I get to draw what I want! Yay!
But no, in all fairness, that course was great. I made some pretty fun and cool things during that course, so I'll scan and show them in the near future.
Other than that, now that I've finished that part of my mandatory drawing process, I thought of setting myself some goals and assignments to keep drawing. As some of you know, I've collected quite some drawing books over the years. Now I plan to make at least one drawing from each book and save and collect all of those in a folder, like I did with my illustration course. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with myself. Lol.

But anyway, here are some drawings by me. It's a sketch dump and a couple of the sketches are of Daniel from ARC. I really like Daniel, which is a good thing, but also a bad thing, because I neglect the other characters. But oh well, I'll see to them soon enough. I have time now! Yay!

Creative with Photoshop

I'm baaaaack. From where? you might ask, well, from being busy and sick and, well, I'm still sick, but that's a good excuse to do some art. I have more to come, but wanted to post this first. So here it goes.

It's a tutorial from the magazine Photoshop Creative, because I want to learn the friggin' program and at the moment I suck at it. So there you are... Still, it might be wise to get the hang of it. I'm planning to do more of these tutorials, so this is just a warming-up.

Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that none of the materials presented in this picture are mine. I got them from the cd that came with the magazine. Even the idea isn't mine, except maybe for some elements. But oh well, I learned how to draw by tracing and drawing from other pictures as well, so who gives, right?

Enjoy!

A.R.C.

Meet Daniel, Aaron, and Michael of A.R.C.

You are now 500 years in the future, the year is 2508. Earth is pretty much dealing with the same problems as it is now: environment, overcrowdedness (is that a word?), politics, ethnics, ..., and accidents. However, all these problems happen on different levels now. Wait, accidents? Yes, accidents, just not on the ground, more so in the air and in space. Cars have been replaced by flying vehicles which can go in the air or in space and are very useful things. Except, of course, when you crash into one another...
A.R.C. stands for Aero Research Center. Aaron, Michael, and Daniel are part of a team which researches these accidents (or 'accidents') and tries to figure out what happened. Of course, they come across bad guys and other evilness, so they know their ways around guns and other sorts of fun stuff.

Daniel is based on a friend of mine and one of my favorite actors, Michael Shanks. He's your typical gay guy with lots of dry humor and sarcasm.

Aaron is an African American and old veteran. His past is troubled and he is determined to solve every accident out there, even if that means he has to do so at the expense of certain people.

Michael is a very cheerful young man and pilots the vehicle the team uses to visit the accident site/crime scenes. He is so cheerful, one wonders whether it's not just a mask he's wearing...

Atlantis All the Way!

Finally! Some drawings! Though I admit they are not much, it's always better than nothing. Here we go!

Of the three, I like this one best. Though it might be wise not to say this on the Internet, I made this during college... Sorry! It was fun though.
He, like the other two, is based on Ronon Dex from Stargate Atlantis.


The first of these three that I made. I know, the order in which I put them doesn't make sense, but oh well. I like this one least, but enough to put him up here. He, too, is based on Ronon.


This one was actually drawn with help of a reference picture of Ronon. He looks best in terms of looking like the actual character, but I see too many flaws with the picture (the pose is off, his vest is all wrong! Gah! I do like the pants though..) itself...

*Sigh*

Okay, this is, yet another, post without any pictures/drawings. I'm very ashamed to do it, but I figured I could no longer go without posting, but I don't have any drawings to go with it. So there, another post without a drawing.

I've been very busy the past few weeks. With university, for one, because my grades pretty much suck and I hate it when that happens, so I had to work hard and kick some asses, but it worked! That is, I got one good grade now, let's hope it's a continuing trend.

Other than that I've been busy around the house. Doing some very necessary chores like re-styling the downstairs toilet. It turned out pretty good, actually, and now I'm no longer afraid to go to the bathroom downstairs, in my own home, which I was before. Sad, eh? Oh well, it's fixed now. But yeah, that took a while and quite a chunk of my precious time.

So! Not much else to say. It's pretty boring over here now...

Backward Changes

Well, as you can see I changed my banner back into the old one. Not that I disliked the new one, but it wasn't really designed for this weblog. This blog is called Sjors, after all.

And as you can see as well, I added links to my blog and one of them is another blog. It is a Dutch one, just so you know, but for those who can read it, it should be fun. Lol. It has short columns on it; to improve my language skills and just for fun. So go check it out!

(Wow, I think this was my shortest post ever! It's more of an announcement, anyway)

Card and fashion design

Yay! I finally made some new things! I'm quite busy with college and everything, so drawing/creative moments are rare. However, they never disappear entirely, so here we go!


A card design for a baby of a friend of mine. She is expecting her second. For her first son I also designed the card (a sheep) and in this design he comes back as well. Big brother and everything, lol. Anyway, for the new baby they wanted a fish design, so here it is!


A card design for no one in particular. This one's a birthday card.


A card design for a 'With sympathy' card. I chose a butterfly because it symbolizes the spirit or soul.


And last but not least, a fashion illustration! Yay! This one was a lot of fun to do. I used a pose from a fashion book I have and made it my own. The shirt and skirt were cut from scrapbook paper I bought at a hobby store. I liked doing it and how it came out. More to come (hopefully, lol)!

Gina Huizinga (lol)

I did it! I started my own little company! I'm very happy with it and, despite the fact that most of it will be about translation, I hope that, in the long run, I can do some design as well. To emphasize that last point, I redesigned my own logo. For copyright reasons I was not allowed to use the name I had planned for my company, namely Sjors, as this weblog. I chose the savest one, my own name. So now I own a company called Gina Huizinga... Lol. Very exciting event with a very boring name, but it'll do. Anyway, I decided I needed to tweek my logo a little bit for that reason, plus the fact that I'm translating more than designing. So here it is, my new design! I'll see if I can reconfigure this site's banner as well... Would be good.

The text in this image refers to 'woord en beeld,' a common combination of words used in the Netherlands. Translated it means 'word and image,' hence the -image- of the rabbit, which in itself refers back to my original logo. Done in Adobe Illustrator.

Words

It is rare, I know, but this time I will post something without any drawings. Why? Because of my new discoveries about... the word.

I'm in my final year at the university now and decided to pursue translation as my master. It is a hard study, not only because of the level of difficulty, but also because it has absolutely nothing to do with drawing. Swallow and move on. Yes, but not without a certain amount of regret.
Still, I'm happy with what I'm learning. Translation has everything to do with language, and not just with English, my favorite foreign language, but also with Dutch, my mother's tongue. After my 16th year, I never appreciated Dutch enough. Now I'm finally getting back to finding the value of the language I learned when I was a child. And I like it. I will never stop thinking or writing or reading in English, but I will stop liking English over Dutch. The beauty of translating is a link between those two languages, and I love it.
I also love the fact that translation has everything to do with words and texts and communication. I'm simply falling in love with it.

I doesn't matter if you write them, type them, read them, or think them, words are beautiful things.