Club Mad

School assignment poster for a fictive event at a real club.

New Shirt Available!

New shirt available on redbubble; "the King and I"

A young octopus lady meets up with the stubborn King Beneath the Waves, what manner of song and dance will come out of this we'll never know, but at least the moment of their first encounter has been immortalized on the finest fabric in all the seven seas!

http://www.redbubble.com/people/currylemon/works/10348080-the-king-and-i

Obviously available on a different background colour than dark blue should you wish it.

Takin' Off Our Shirts

Anybody feel like getting a new shirt?

http://www.redbubble.com/people/currylemon 

I won something!

There was a graphic competition in Utrecht last saturday, and I entered and won third prize! Whoo!

Me with said prize (well, the print and 100 euro's worth of printing at a printing press)

and my entry

Abadabingeh, abadaboomeh!

Voyager

It's a bit early to say farewell, but with what might be the last game in sight (LoS2 being planned for a release this very same year) I figured I'd make some fanart incorporating elements from the whole series, from the first on the NES, to the IGA titles for PS2 and DS to the Lords of Shadow games (though mostly the NES and LoS).

Can you spot the moai? It's easier to find than on the NES!

Edit: it seems blogspot shrunk the image a bit, it supposed to be bigger.

Self Portrait

Castlevania of Cagliostro

I don't usually make posts like this but this time I just couldn't resist, so here we go, I'm going to make a point about how studio Ghibli's Castle of Cagliostro (1979) served as a base for Castlevania (1986)!

Let's start with the most obvious one; level four, the Underground Caverns!

Water-filled skeleton-ridden cave? Check.

Shenanigans on the rooftops of the castle? Check.

A red-bricked route leading up to a chapel? Check!

Clocktower capering leading up to a final confrontation with the cloaked main villain?
Check!

Of course, I was thinking if anyone else noticed (I mean of course someone/everyone must have, but still) and someone (this guy http://tinycartridge.com/post/31536775930/scenes-from-castlevania-compared-with-the-castle) noticed some things I didn't. So here they are!

(Really, how could I have missed this one?)

So there you have it! Ghibli was instrumental in forming the first Castlevania into what it is or I'm a monkey's uncle!

Fantasy Zone

Third! I'm on a roll here!

I was feeling happy, does it show?

This one I made listening to the Katamari Damacy soundtracks (most notably I listened to Guru Guru Gravity). If the Space Jam one was done to YMO's Behind the Mask then the first one (Monster Party) was to the 1985 Vampire Hunter D soundtrack (Night of Monsters). Absolutely useless information.

Space Jam

Gods I love YMO  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY_SPVU-NMA

Anyway, more RBBW stuff.

More coming pending on reasonable ideas.

Monster Party

Back to playing around with black, white, red and blue. I made this in a day's time, will be printing it a few times tommorow, and selling the prints the day after. The punny title of this post is the idea of my dearest of  friends and the motivation to do something with this colour scheme again came from his girlfriend. 

Perhaps I will return to this style again, although I shouldn't think it'll be an orgy next time around.

Viking meets the Jellyman

 It's a comic I made with Tom van der Heiden (that guy from the Balkan inspired band, yes) with Jellyman.
Don't ask why the last two pages are huge.

More style tests (and Ripple Cracker Volley)

I figured I might try doing some stuff with just one colour, and some quick work later this is the result.
I didn't really use that much reference material for the skull which is why it's about as anatomically correct as a western 14 year old's attempt at a manga character.  

As for this, having some other ideas I wanted to try out and figuring I might as well make something for Joseph Joestar now that the anime has reached the second arc (and with no pencil sketch, which explains one or two things about the face amongst other things), so there you go.

Important realisation

I was watching "american horror story" and it made me feel like doing something small with monsters and a haunted house, nothing big.
But when I was thinking how to make it and about the style I should do it in I ran into a road block, the style I recently developed with the Rotterdam comic page isn't at all suited for something grim/dark/grimdark/spooky, it's too cartoony!
So I asked myself "well how should I do it?".
The thing with the black pools of shadow like I did in the Dracula book trailer was met by my teachers with unfavourable responses (the characters anyway, they liked the backgrounds and even those only in black and white). Maybe coloured lines? Nope, too soft for me, it feels suitable for something fantasy-like, but a haunted mansion? I'm sure someone else somewhere could pull it off, but it doesn't feel natural for me.
And then I was reminded of some of the more modern Castlevania artwork by the ever so awesome Ayame Kojima (like this here http://www.castlevaniadungeon.net/Images/Scans/CoD/codpostersmall.jpg ) and it kind struck me that if you're trying to go for a style to go with an illustration or whatever with a specific feel, you should try wherever/whenever possible to use materials that people associate with that feel.
For example, these castlevania games took place in lavish, gothic horror settings with castles, libraries, chapels etc so she used thick, heavy oil paint. The art for Vagrant Story used brown ink on yellow parchment-like background to invoke a feeling of antiquity and dusty old mysterious fantasy.
I guess the basic idea of this rant is that style should be in service to what you're trying to tell, and I guess the next step is trying to pinpoint what I want to invoke and what method best suits this end.
And I haven't been doing nothing, just nothing worth uploading.