Merry X-mas...

It's been pretty rough year. Hope the next one will be better.

Cheerio.

Ending a very, very long dry season...

Sorry

Been pretty stressed out (about work-related stuff) the last half a year, or so... and basically just shut down all extra things for awhile (like Odd).

But yesterday this image popped in my head, and just refused to go away.

So, I had to pick up the pencil and draw it out of my head.

Cheerio.


...and besides it's true, you know... Dave IS the greatest artist in the solar system.

Outh...

Muh mooth huuth...

theeio.

I have to go to the dentist...

... and I absolutely positively without any doubt fuckin' HATE it.

The mere knowledge that within 4 hours someone will stick his/her fingers and all kinds of pointy and sharpy and noisy steel things in my mouth sours the tea in my mug.

This day will suck.

Cheerio.

This movie looks GOOD!!!

It's called Moon.

Sam Rockwell is brilliant.

Over. And out.

Cheerio.

"Know thy enema!"

Was bored.

So, I took some sayings and phrases that had word "enemy" in them and replaced it with "enema" and posted the results on Twitter.

That was fun 10 minutes.

Cheerio.

Face...

First prize done...

So, Dan wanted me to do this really peculiar piece about "Bully the Bull" (that's a stuffed toy animal) in a STILLSUIT riding a SANDWORM (you know, from Dune books)... yup, that's pretty... ORIGINAL idea. ;-)

...and being a really cool guy, Dan wanted me to give it to a friend of his.

... so now you can see it in here.

Now... off to start sketching the second prize.

Cheerio.

Live and kickin'...

There has been few emails/notes/etc. from some nice people asking if everything is OK (since I've been rather quiet lately). So, for those and everybody else interested: I'm pretty much OK... however there are some worries caused by this economical depression -thingie, meaning I have to concentrate quite heavily on keeping my job and steady income.

So, I may continue keepin' pretty low profile for awhile.

But I will do the "prizes" for Dan and Erica (Dan's piece is almost finished)

And I will continue doing "Odd" as soon as I have some extra time and energy.

Thanks for caring.

Cheerio.

AND WE HAVE A WINNAH!

Yes, the contest is over. And the winner is...

(drum fill)

DAN GUY!

And the correct answer is: Im in a pool hall (some of you got this far) aiming the pool cue at the camera lens.

There was also quite a few near tea-snorty suggestions, and since I'm a really nice person, I'm going to give out a 2nd prize (let's say, A5-size illustration... that's half smaller than A4) to...

(drum fill)

ERICA!

It was the "No more cookies for you, mortal worm!" -part that really nailed the victory over the other tea-snorties.

Congratulations for the winners and thanks for all the participants.

Cheerio.

The Mighty Jouniac doing magick...

Well, hello there.

Let's do a little competition, shall we? Below you see a photograph of me doing some david-copperfieldish-ectoplasm-magick-stuff. The photo in not manipulated (Isn't that's what they always say, eh?) Now, the competition is to tell me what really happens in the picture.

The first one to get it right OR telling me something that makes me snort my tea, wins... umm... let's say A SIGNED A4-size (that's 210x297mm, and I have no idea what that is in inches) BLACK&WHITE ILLUSTRATION OF ANY SUBJECT YOU WANT!

This is how you participate: Once you've figured out what happens in the photo, check my profile page (on the right-hand side of this page, yes, with the tiny portrait of me... now go on, click the link next to it), click the email link and email me the answer with subject: The Mighty Jouniac is...

Now, if you're the lucky winner, I'll email you back and you can tell me what you want me to draw and where I can send it)

OK?


Cheerio.

Who watches the WATCHMEN...

Well... I did. Last night.

My biggest concern regarding the movie was always how much they would be forced to leave out of it. And the answer is... not much. Snyder has managed to stuff most of the key elements from the comic into the movie with amazing accuracy and style... and more importantly, still manages to make a great movie instead of just a collage of scenes. That bein' said there still is enough stuff missing to make me wait the ultimate-absolutely-final-and-long-as-hell-directors-cut version on DVD.

I'm sure there's people who say that the movie doesn't have this or that and it's not true to the original graphic novel because this or that was changed into something else, but I think it was a DAMN fine interpretation of one of the greatest and most complex comicbooks ever done...

The cast of the movie is also great. Naturally the two leading sosiopaths (the Comedian and Rorschach) steal the show, but the whole cast is pretty much spot-on. The only character I would've done little bit differently was Ozymandias. In the original comic Ozzy seemed very emotional and empathic (even too emotional) whereas the Adrian Veidt of the movie is very calm and stoic and almost expressionless.

The WATCMEN is a great superhero movie for adults. It has violence and nudity (I was happy to discover that even a superhero can have a penis... which usually doesn't seem to be the case. In fact at some point I humoured myself thinking that the main reason for all the frustrated violence in the comics world was because, despite all the muscles and sexy looks and tight outfits, the people didn't have genitals... I know I would be pissed off!) but also a deeper level that provokes thoughts (about Malin Akerman in high heels... NO! No, don't... concentrate... CONCENTRATE!) about the human psyche and moral (YES! That's more like it!)

Also the soundtrack deserves to be mentioned. It really nails the movie to the historical time frame, subtly reminding the audience when everything takes place.

I loved the movie.

Cheerio.

PS. There's no SPOILERS in the blog entry, but there's few in the comments, so consider yourself WARNED!!!!!!!!

It's good SOME people are creating...

...since I'm not. But I will get there... sooner or later.

This made me snort my tea. You can blame it on SPACEDLAW (who tweeted the link)... I sure will.

Cheerio.

I'm back...

Just roamed through the internet during my lunch hour and came across these movie trailers. If you're into weird movies, I think these might be worth checking out.

Severed Ways (movie about vikings finding America in 1007AD)

Big Man Japan (movie about... err... this very big dude... and some monsters?)

Especially Big Man Japan scored very highly on my "Err... (blink)... (blink)... What?... (blink)" scale.

Gone fishing...

Been kinda busy (and lazy) lately, which means there's no "Odd" updates this week. AND, since I'll spend most of next week bein' somewhere else, it's possible that there won't be updates that week either.

Sorry.

But I AM doing the groundwork all the time and I can't wait to get to chapter 3.

In the mean while this seemed interesting. I just don't understand what the hell Patrick Duffy has to do with it...

Cheerio.

About the future and the flu and stuff...

So no, I haven't done another page of "Odd" (but I'm working on it)

Instead I mean to write a piece about where the F**K is this world going to?

The flu for example. When I was a kid having the flu meant that you would have a sore throat and a runny nose for few days... MAYBE some fever too if you got it bad, right? Nowadays you don't have flu, you have bloody INFLUENZA, which means you're laying flat on your back for two weeks sick as a dog, puking your guts out and shitting your PJ's and generally just wishing somebody would come to put you out of your misery. Now, WHAT-THE-F**K-HAPPENED-TO-FLU?

When I fist time heard some sci-fi stuff about "superflu" wiping out large portions of humankind, the thought seemed slightly ridiculous. And the only way to die of flu would've been if you accidentally swallowed a kleenex while coughing! Now, the influenza is different... that shit really feels like it could kill you.

One thing hasn't changed, though. When you got the flu, doctors couldn't do shit about it. All they could say was: "Stay in bed, drink warm fluids and try not get bored." Now, when you get the influenza they say "Stay in bed, get some iv-fluids and try not to die."

I think that the only thing that can save us now is... the KLEENEX! Seriously, when you had the flu, you sneezed and wiped your nose with a kleenex (or nessu or serla or whatever) until your nostrils and upper lip ended up very irritated and red. I think that kleenex should step up and face this new nemesis! I think they should invest to nanotechnology in order to create a SUPERKLEENEX. Just think about it! When the superflu strikes, you just wipe your nose (or any... umm... hole, that is leaking) with superkleenex and the nanobots kick the crap out of the disease!

And all I want is 1% of the profits.

Cheerio.

Odd and the Frost Giants page 22 (chapter 2)

Made it in time! Whee!


Have nothing especially clever to say and feel a bit worn-out, so I leave you to watch the picture and bugger off myself.

Cheerio.

New "Odd" page... tomorrow...

I was flappin' my mouth over at Twitter that I would finish and post "Odd" page 22 today... should've known better and just keep my mouth shut.

Things came up and delayed the coloring a bit. But hopefully I can finish the page in question tomorrow... (knocking on wood)

But in the mean while, here's the bear from page 21 without outlines. I just happened to close the outline-layer in photoshop, looked at the picture for a moment and thought "there's something cool in that image"... cropped the cool bit and saved it as a jpg.

Here it is.


See you tomorrow (hopefully).

Cheerio.

Not quite a "ploughman's", but close...

I was given "a night off" by the rest of the family, so I went to see a movie ("Valkyrie" if you must know, not nessesarily my number 1 choice, but the options are quite limited in a small town like this. It was OK though. Bryan Singer is a good action/thriller director and Tom Cruise CAN actually act...)

After that I took my drawing gear and went to a nice pub, did some pencils and inks for "Odd" page 22, drank some really nice dark beer and ate some olives, cheese and toast. For some reason the situation reminded me a bit like the scene in "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar"... so I was probably grinning like an idiot by myself in that corner table... and some of the other clients DID look like they could've been relatives to Seth and Wilf.

Had a good ol' time.

Cheerio.

Where's my teaspoon?

Couldn't find it when I needed it the most. Hope this will taste more like Ceylon tea and not Indian ink.

Took a "day off" from "Odd" yesterday. Back on track today.

Also found a real cool blog-thingie about artbooks called Parka Blogs. Go see it. It's really neat.

Cheerio.

Odd and the Frost Giants page 21 (chapter 2)

I'm a man of my word. Page 21 and another animal.


Oh, and since I'm curious. Is there anyone reading this Odd-comics thingie, who hasn't read the actual book? If there is, please drop me a comment, or email, or Tweet or FaceBook comment or something... Just want to know if there's people who don't know what's going to happen next.

Had loads of fun doing this. I'm pretty surprised how much I enjoy drawing animals.

Cheerio.

Just wanted to pop in...

...to tell you that I'm inking "Odd" page 21, and it's going very nicely, thank you very much. If all goes well, I think I'll color it and post it tomorrow. Whee!!

Cheerio.

Odd and the Frost Giants page 20 (chapter 2)

Right. Continuing my romp through Neil Gaiman's "Odd and the Frost Giants". I'm quite pleased of the recent progress of this thingie.

Cheerio.

Neil Gaiman is happy too...

This is great news!

Cheerio.

Ian Gilman is happy...

Ian Gilman, the mastermind behind InfiniteCanvas, "A Funky Side Project from Microsoft Live Labs", emailed me that they have reached 35,000 hits and loads of positive feedback. Now go and do your own Scott McCloudish web comics. Shoo!

Cheerio.

Matchbox sketches...

I'm still sketching new "Odd" pages, so even though there's not anything new to show you, I could show you some old "matchbox sketches". Not interested? Well, I'll show them anyhow.


Yes, the blurred part is the next page.

Cheerio.

About vampires...

Right. What I'm about to say is my opinion of the matter. If you don't agree with me... that's just fine, OK?

When I saw the trailer of "Twilight" some time ago, my first (and second and even third for that matter) thought was "Oh, for chrissakes. Not AGAIN." I was seriously DONE with all that Hollywood vampire crap with pale teenage models with pale grey or green contacts and a push-up bra, wearing leather clothes and moping around about loving someone non-vampiric (maybe even lycantropic) high school student. And I was just about to declare the whole un-dead breed of teenage vampire movies... well, DEAD-dead, when I saw this. It's called "Let the Right One In"

It's an AMAZING Swedish vampire movie. It's bloody... and it's beautiful... and it's DIFFERENT.

It's honestly the best vampire flick I've seen since Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula.

Go see it.

Cheerio.

Man carrying a dog...

Read Neil's latest blog entry and damn nearly snorted my tea...

It was the photo. Go and look closely... now, is that an embarrassed dog or what! You can just hear him thinking "GOD, this is SO humiliating... bein' carried around like a DAMN poodle! I'm so glad my friends are not going to see this... they would piss themselves laughing... What? Aww, no way! No frigging way! Someone's taking a photo. That's just bloody marvelous..."

Poor Cabal. ;-)

Cheerio.

No "Odd" today, go see "Saucers" instead...

I'm taking few days off from doing "Odd" page 20. NOT because I'm tired or fed up with it though. Quite the opposite actually. You see, during these past two weeks I've been working so fast I ran out of sketched pages... so, during the next days I'll be rummaging through old sketches and doing new tiny "matchbox-sketches" of pages 21-35 or something like that.

In the meanwhile you can go to InfiniteCanvas which is, and I quote, "A funky side project from Microsoft Live Labs" and see "The Day the Saucers Came" in a whole new way. It's really cool!

Now, all you have to do is go to InfiniteCanvas and click... well, InfiniteCanvas. There's some fun things there (for example a piece from the great Scott McCloud).

Cheerio.

Odd and the Frost Giants page 19 (chapter 2)

As promised. Also re-colored page 18 a little bit. I think they're ok now.

Cheerio.

The pleasure and pain of seeing art...

Occasionally you see art that is... beyond great. The kind of stuff that on the other hand makes you happy just watching it but also makes you feel small and insignificant since you understand that nothing you have done yourself so far hasn't reached that level.

Dave McKean does that.

James Jean does that too.

And this man also does that. I've watched his art in DeviantArt and his latest piece just... well, just look at it! So simple, so pure... so LIVE. You can smell the ocean and feel the weight of the water in that picture. I wish I would possess HALF of that talent.

Sigh.

Cheerio.

Cool photobook...

I have mentioned about capoeira before, right?

(at least here)

Now, a photographer Jari Kivelä has taken amazing photos of the guys who teach at the "academia" and made a beautiful book of the stuff.

It can be found here. There's even a preview, so you can see some of the photos. The most amazing thing about the photos is that there's no "tricks" used in them, no wires etc. I've seen those guys doing the moves... The book is a really cool combination of unique artistic and physical skills.

Cheerio.

PS. I'm pretty sure I can post the next "Odd" page tomorrow!

Odd and the Frost Giants page 18 (chapter 2)

...the saga continues. And if everything else in life goes as nicely as "Odd" at the moment I may be able to do another page too during this week. That would be cool.

Cheerio.

Twittering idiot...

Caved in under pressure and got me a Twitter account. Now, for a person who is incredibly un-exciting and lives absolutely ordinary life, I've accumulated way too many accounts on various net-based social-interaction-group-hug-nonsence-thingies there is. Mostly I just get those to be able to read about people I know who have more eventful life than I do.

This is a good example how those things usually end up.

Cheerio.

PS. I'm currently inking page 18 of "Odd". Having fun.

Odd and the Frost Giants page 17 (chapter 2)

I have to admit that I really like this page. The new style is quicker, better and so much more fun to do.

Me happy.

Cheerio.

Past the peak.

It's been a crazy sort of fun month. Checked some of the statistics and found out that this blog of mine was visited 3334 times during the past month. Now that's kind of an improvement compared to 72 visits of the month before. But as these things go, now we're slowly getting back to normal... and much closer to the 72 monthly visits.

I'm currently inking page 17 of "Odd"... and I'm having way too much fun doing it.

Cheerio.

Odd and the Frost Giants page 16 (chapter 2)

So, this is the new beginning... in many ways. First, the REAL story of Odd starts here. Second, from now on I have to change the text (and even some minor things in the story) more, to make it fit better the comics format. And third, as you can see below (and perhaps have read earlier) I have to change the illustration style... meaning I got quite frustrated of using couple of hours doing the pencils and inks and then spending a week (or even weeks) trying to find time to color the page and even then having too little time to do it well... so, for now on I'm putting heavy emphasis on inks and the greys will only be used to spice the inks a bit.


Right. It will look more or less like this from now on.

I kinda like it... and feel more... comfortable with it. Hope you do too.

Cheerio.

Odd and the Frost Giants pages 14 and 15 (chapter 1)

Right. This wraps up chapter one.

The previous pages can be found here: page 1, pages 2-3, page 4, page 5, page 6, page 7, page 8, page 9, page 10, page 11, page 12, page 13.

See you in chapter 2... hope it doesn't take as long to finish (10 frigging monts! For 15 pages... Christ. That is so pathetic...)


Cheerio.

Where am I this time?

Since I summoned the god Ukko and promised to sacrifice honey and ale and warm pig's blood weekly for wealth and fame, my name has been popping up in strangest/coolest/weirdest places. This weeks coolest place is without any doubt Joe Hill's web page. He says very kind words about "Saucers". I thank thee Mr. Hill.

Cheerio.

Odd and the Frost Giants page 13 (chapter 1)

Making my way towards the end of chapter 1...

Cheerio.

New year... same job

... but I'm certainly not complaining. I'm havin' fun with "Odd" even though I haven't been able to do finished stuff as much as I wanted lately (read: "during last six to eight monts")

So, during the holidays we (my family) were on the road "up north" visiting relatives. No internet. No email. No Photoshop... it was nice for a change.

BUT... I DID have paper and pencils and ink... And Odd things in my mind. A frost giant, for example (and no, I don't think this is a spoiler... the story IS titled "Odd and the Frost Giants" after all).


...and here's another sketch.


...and now that I got back to office, I wanted to do some vector magic to this one...

Cheerio.

Post-X-Mas post

Been off-line for few days. X-mas was great. And New Year also. Will post some drawings soon.

Cheerio.