Category: Drawings

Draw Club Doodles

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Thomas | Drawings | Tags: , , |

Some random sketching from the last three Draw Club meetings. Part of my new plan to concentrate on drawing more. Which should allow for more experimenting. Have to get better at the basics anyways.

Even selling could be more fun. It’s not such a high hurdle for clients, and since I will have chance to do more art, I can test reactions… maybe get more stories in the pictures, or even draw after requests or so.

First step: I want to go to the Draw Club more. It’s a Mondayly meeting in Amsterdam of like-minded people who want to sit around and doodle. Everyone is welcome to join – has been good motivation so far.

fantasy machiya

Some fantasy machiya – ink and markers on paper

Random Sketch - Ink and markers

Random Sketch – Ink and markers on paper

Hand doodles - Ink and markers

Hand doodles – Ink and markers on paper

Murin-An Sketches

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Thomas | Drawings | Tags: , , , , |

Below are some sketches from a visit to a traditional Japanese garden. Has been very interesting – the leaves are turning red, which is a major event for the Japanese. And a heron came really close.
Anyways, I’m way too much in love with the Machiya to pay attention to any trees.

I’ll show the sketches in the exhibit too. And all the drawings for the paintings. They often show the signs of painting action (color splats) and weather (rain damage). Which adds to it.
I’m curious what people will say about those.

I have been updating on facebook, but left the blog a bit behind to save time for painting. Once the exhibition starts, the pressure will be a bit lower, and I’ll start to upload all the pictures – and the final paintings. Got 6 done, 2 to work in progress

Murin-An Sketch01 Heron

A heron…

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Murin-An Sketch02 Heron

…posing…

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Murin-An Sketch03 Heron

…and catching fish.

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Murin-An Sketch04 Waterfalls

Small water falls.

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Murin-An Sketch05 Roofs

View from a window of the park-museum.

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Murin-An Sketch Extra

Not at the park, but since I was at making pics of the sketchbook… A little scene in the neighborhood.

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Dutch Sketch Meet Fallout

Posted on September 18, 2012 by Thomas | Drawings | Tags: , , |

Some photos (courtesy of Garry) and my drawings of the Dutch Sketch Meeting two weeks ago. Was fun – we all plan to do this more often.

Dutch SketchMeet September 2012 Dutch SketchMeet September 2012

The drawings are concept markers and then pencil – inspired by the sketchbook of Janaschi.

Dutch Sketch Meet - Figure Drawing 01 Dutch Sketch Meet - Figure Drawing 02 Dutch Sketch Meet - Figure Drawing 03

Octohero!

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Thomas | Drawings | Tags: , , |

A pastel drawing from a recent sketch-session in Berlin:

Octo-hero! The walking octopus

Kneel down before Octo-Hero!

May it please our new eight-legged overlord! To whom this was a homage to.
I’m all serious! If the octopus from this clip is not the most heroic creature that ever walketh the earth…

…. and did you know they have brains in each of their arms?

Thanks to Heiko, Nadia and David for the fun drawing session, the idea aaaand the tip with the Puppet Warp tool in Photoshop. I didn’t even know it existed. If you ever have to animate an octopi, then try it – the tool was made for this job.

“Katia Kabanova” Costume Designs – Part II

Posted on February 11, 2012 by Thomas | Costumes,Drawings | Tags: , , , , |

Time to continue from the last post about the Opera costumes. Here are nine more designs for “Katia Kabanova” that was (playing at the Opera Zuid).

But first some photos of the production – here you can see the mud that covered the whole stage, which I had to preview on the designs also.

Opera Katja Kabanova

Opera Katja Kabanova

The costume of Varvara (left) is among the drawings below.

Opera Katja Kabanova

Kabanicha - the design is in the previous posting

Opera Katja Kabanova

Most of the characters in this play are from the higher class (of about 1860-80). I found it surprising how little their attire changes over the centuries and regions – the nobility of Russia differs little to that of England or the United States.
On the other hand, the lower or middle classes have so many interesting styles in comparison. When looking at German outfits of these times, you can find distinctive traditional dresses pretty much for each village. Much of which has disappeared until today – while the upper class nowadays still wears similar suits and coats as even in the middle of the 19th century.

Lets start then with some of the rich guys in the play:

Costume Norfolk Jacket (high class dress until 1900)

Boris Grigorjevic - Katia's secret lover. In a Norfolk Jacket (very popular high class dress until 1900)

Katia Kabanova (Kaja, Katija, Katya) - tichon, upper class men's costume ca. 1880

Tichon, the boring husband of Katia

Katia Kabanova (Kaja, Katija, Katya) - Men's coat (upper class dress, ca. 1880)

Tichon, with a coat (upper class dress, ca. 1880)

Costume high class dress

Dikoj - Boris' Uncle

Russian mens coat, hat - ca. 1880

Costume for the choir - a thick coat, and typical russian hat.

Katia Kabanova (Kaja, Katija, Katya) - upper class womans dress - ca. 1880

Varvara - the foster daughter in the family

Varvara - coat russian upper class - ca. 1880

Again Varvara, this time in a coat for the curch visit

Katia Kabanova (Kaja, Katija) - russian orthodox costume design - ca. 1880

"Feklusa" - russian orthodox costume

Katia Kabanova (Kaja, Katija, Katya) - peasant womens costume design - ca. 1880

Russian peasant women's costume - ca. 1880

Red Pencil Witch

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Thomas | Drawings | Tags: , , |

A little experiment with red pencils – thanks to David and Nadia for the tip. I think I overdid it a bit though … as usual. The paper got wavy from all the shading and going with white pencil over the red (even if erased) is impossible. Could be interesting to adjust my style to the material.

Cute Witch - 2012 - Red Pencil on Gray Paper

Cute Witch - 2012 - Red Pencil on Gray Paper

“Katia Kabanova” Costume Designs – Part I

Posted on December 15, 2011 by Thomas | Costumes,Drawings | Tags: , , , , |

Since the last post of some of my costume drawings, the Faust opera has been played in Paris. Here is an image and a video – I hope to get more good quality photos later.

Faust in Paris

"Faust in Paris"

In the meantime I have been working on more plays – drawing hundreds of costumes based on design instructions by Yan Tax. Time to show some more of them.

These below are for “Katia Kabanova“. The opera plays in Russia at the end of the 19th century (1860 in the original play, and 1890 in this version) – with more historically accurate designs. Never thought I would ever get interested in fashion… but researching this was fun. One excellent resource for costumes is the blog of the FIDM Cotume Museum. Full of high quality photos and detailed historical descriptions. So I tried to stay as accurate as possible, even on the details.

Katia Kabanova (Kaja, Katija) - womens costume design

The main role - Katia Kabanova (sometimes written Katja Kabanova or Katya Kabanova)

Katia Kabanova (Kaja, Katija) - womens costume design

Katia in a 19th century coat with veil

1890s, 1900s, turn of the century, clothing, vintage

Boris - Katia's secret lover. With a bit of a vain personality.

Katia Kabanova (Kaja, Katija) - womens costume design

Kabanicha - the matriarch dominating the family. In a black gown.

Katia Kabanova (Kaja, Katija) - womens costume design

Kabanicha - in a coat for the church visit.

Kudrjas, turn of the century, clothing

Kudrjas

Russian mens costume, turn of the century, clothing

Russian man in a coat (at the church procession).

Katia Kabanova (Kaja, Katija) - womens costume design

An choir woman - for the procession to the church.

Russian noble-man, turn of the century, clothing

Russian noble-man, in a coat (at the church procession).

“Faust in Paris” Costume Designs – Part II

Posted on July 9, 2011 by Thomas | Costumes,Drawings | Tags: , , , , |

Next bunch of the costume designs for the “Faust in Paris” piece (part I here). Coming from usually designing fantasy costumes for games where everything goes, this is a very interesting change. These things have to work in real life – I got very specific guidelines form the designer, and partly even cloth samples.

Also the presentation is different. The designs are most important – not characters itself of course. Although I still try to convey some of the personality.

And all the costumes had to be done very quick. So I decided against using the computer. One would think that having the flexibility of Photoshop would make the work faster – but traditional tools somehow turn out to be way more efficient. I have some suspicions why, but it is still a bit of a puzzle.

Faust in Paris - Bacchus

One of the side characters - some kind of gourmet aristocrats they have in France.

Faust in Paris - Gourmet

Faust in Paris - Gourmet

Faust in Paris - Fellini Clown

Faust in Paris - Concubines - Godesses

These are some of the godesses/concubine designs

“Faust in Paris” Costume Designs – Part I

Posted on June 14, 2011 by Thomas | Costumes,Drawings | Tags: , , , , , |

At the beginning of the year I made some costume designs for theater and film. Here are some for the play “Faust in Paris” – a twist on the good ol’ Faust story. The performance was supposed to be shown in Paris, I’ll try to get some information on how far that is, would be cool to see photos of the actual costumes.

Really fun job, interesting differences to doing fantasy costumes for games. A little more on that in the next part.

Faust in Paris - "Mephisto" in a bishops dress

First one of the cool guys: "Mephisto" in a bishop's dress

Faust in Paris - Gretchen Version

A farmers girl, and lead character - a "Gretchen" version who's fate does not seem to mean it all that well.

Faust in Paris - danceress in red dress

Beware those ladies in red dresses.

Faust in Paris - Various Male costume designs

Various costume designs for the unusual mix of characters in the piece.

Whitewalk – Drawing from a Fashion Event

Posted on September 29, 2010 by Thomas | Drawings | Tags: , , |

I started this at a fashion event in Amsterdam I was invited to. But the time was really really short, with the models only being there for a couple of seconds.

So I had to finish it at home, and used the chance to try a bit different style of penciling. Just by chance Gurney had a post about drawings, so I took some tricks. I like the structure the strokes create, and the vibrancy in it. I’ll just work a bit smaller from now on – and with less shading, as my thumb got blisters from filling up the whole sheet.

Whitewalk, Pencils on 32x42 cm Bristol Paper

Whitewalk, Pencils on 32x42 cm Bristol Paper

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