"The Butcher" digital painting

"The Butcher"

I had a self portrait go slightly wrong and it spiralled into this exploration into darker subject matter.

Happy Holidays!

Happy Easter!

And good luck in the egg hunt!

Uncle at last

A couple weeks ago I became an uncle, thus fulfilling the prophecy of countless elementary school yard wisecracks.

Welcome, Orson. You have been expected.

Love,
Your Uncle Sam

Finished watercolour sketchbook

It's always a grand moment when you finish a sketchbook, but especially a watercolour book. I tend to put a little more effort into the watercolours because the paper allows it.

These sketches were made between 2011 and 2014 into a Moleskine watercolour sketchbook. It doesn't have the best paper but the book is extremely well designed and portable. It has about 70 pages – not all are here, but quite a few. Some sketches were adapted from photos or tv, some from life.

Making these small paintings was a good way to take my mind off the series of flus I've had recently. While painting with a runny nose might be challenging – you need to make sure your nose is never directly above the painting – it is a good excercise and does not require two things that are missing when you're ill: a. brain activity , b. strength.

Protectors of the Realm 2 – Naga

Personal – Naga

I was inspired by the Harajuku Girls dance crew who toured with Gwen Stefani a few years ago and wanted to create a character who was cool and strong at the same time. That fit well into my Protectors of the Realm series.

I did the preliminary work on the iPad right up to the point I started to run into problems with the low resolution (about A5 at 300ppi). I then moved to Photoshop for the finish. Recently, I extended the image just a bit to make it more postcard-friendly and added the tattoos. I had planned to add tattoos from the beginning but left them out of the original version because the crop didn't leave much of them visible. The extended version has a lot more room, so I put them back in.

Naga – Work process

Towards Freedom

Maailman Kuvalehti – Vapaaksi

Maailman Kuvalehti gave me the task of illustrating an article about the struggle of Isoke Aikpitanyi out of forced prostitution for their 5th issue of 2013. She was smuggled from Nigeria to Europe with false promises of easy work. After two years she found a way out and became a fierce anti human trafficking activist. She is still helping people in the same situation she used to be in.

Because the article was very narrative, I approached it as I were illustrating a short story. The three images were a "cover" and two key moments in the story. The images were painted entirely in Photoshop.

You can find the original article on Maailman Kuvalehti's webpage (in Finnish).

Maailman Kuvalehti – Vapaaksi

Protectors of the Realm 1 – La Bruja

Personal – La Bruja

I wanted to create a character who was in charge and still open in some way. I don't like the word "vulnerable" in this context because it also comes with other connotations such as "weak" and "defenseless". That was not what I wanted.

So, I came up with a series of fantasy genre paintings, which depict protectors of different realms. I always like bringing fantasy elements into the modern age because there is more contrast between the magical elements and the surrounding very secular world. I do enjoy fantasy middle ages like in the Game of Thrones series, but personally I find that mixing fantasy with our familiar world intrigues me more as an artist.

I started on the iPad and took it as far as I could. This was the first time I came up against the resolution limit. The iPad's 2048 x 1536 px do not allow much in the way of small detail in a full shot of a character, not to mention the background. After I had struggled with the limitations for way too long, I switched to Photoshop and suddenly everything was smooth and easy.

The background research I did was pretty interesting, for example, I did not know dried llama heads were a magical item in parts of South America.

Kuluttaja – Cover 1/2013

On this cover I experimented a bit with combining watercolour and digital painting. I like the look quite a bit but it was a huge time consumer. Pure digital is much, much quicker as is pure watercolour.

The subject was VOD (Video On Demand) services like HBO and Netflix. "VOD storms the living room" was the headline.

Personal – Welcome Home! -iPad painting

My first full-scale iPad painting. I used an app called Sketch Club which is a very agile little thing with a pretty powerful brush engine.

I recorded the process as a timelapse and split it into three parts because of technical limitations. Here they are:

Wedding invitation

My own wedding invites. Most fun I've had making reference photos ever. I used watercolour for the most part but added the frame and ornaments in Illustrator.