Jouni Koponen

Get some dead fish on your walls this Xmas...

2011-12-05T00:42:00.001-08:00

So. I made it to Neil's journal. If you like dead fish, you can buy the poster here (and while you're at it, go read the backround story and a slightly weird interview of me)

Cheerio.

Catch and release...

2011-11-14T23:42:00.001-08:00

"No. Don't do it. You'll just screw it up."

That was my first thought when Cat told me the story behind Neil Gaiman's poem Conjunctions. I realized that I had something very personal... something very emotional in my sticky little fingers. No, monsters... no light jokes... no easy way out.

That was friday, March 12th, 2010.

So, almost two years and at least three missed dead-lines (one marriage, one birthday and one christmas) later, the Conjunctions poster is done.

Now it's YOUR turn to decide whether I screwed up, or not.

Cheerio.

Old friend...

2011-09-27T05:07:00.000-07:00

He's not back... the truth is that he never left, not really. Things just got in the way.

I'll make no promises. But you can be sure I'm not done with him.

I like him too much to abandon him like that.

Cheerio.

Byproducts of life...

2011-09-26T03:43:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's been awhile... AGAIN. It seems I'm nowadays capable of updating my blog about 2-3 times a year. Biological network requires so much time that social network is left with few minutes here and there.

Saw Lars von Triers Melancholia last weekend and I must say I'm puzzled by the movie. If you would've asked me halfway through the film what I thought about it, I would probably said it's one of the most boring films I've EVER seen and the camera work made my head hurt... but if you would've asked the same thing after the movie, I would've said I'm not sure. And I'm still not sure what I think about it. But I DO know it gets pretty intense towards the end and the ending in itself is bloody AWESOME (I nearly pissed myself during the final scene)... and it lingered in my brain long after I left the theater with my wife.

Right. And here's a portrait of Amanda Palmer I just happened to do last week. The illustration was a byproduct of something else I'm doing right now and I thought it turned out pretty ok.

That's all for now folks.

Cheerio.

Still going samurai.

2011-08-18T05:53:00.000-07:00

I'm havin WAY too much fun with this.

Cheerio.

Not dead or anything.

2011-08-16T04:44:00.001-07:00

Arigato gozaimasu.

Something to share...

2011-05-16T23:32:00.000-07:00

Nearly pissed myself laughing when I saw this the first time (although it was more puzzling than funny when it really happened...)

This is a really cool piece of comic from the evilly clever and cleverly evil ninja-librarian Meredith Cobb. I'm the dude on the right with a ponytail and a goatee. And yes, it is (LOOSELY) based on something that actually happened at the House on the Rock event.

Cheerio.

Making a point...

2011-05-02T03:12:00.000-07:00

Disappointed in this so-called western civilization... again. I usually don't comment about wars or stuff happening in global politics because I'm just one of the little people and I really don't think my opinion changes anything, but this time I must make an exception. Bin-Laden's dead. That was inevitable (that's what you usually get when you plan something that kills thousands of innocent people). But the thing that bothers me isn't his death, but the reports of people celebrating his death in America and in Europe.

That is bloody disgusting. That's fucking caveman shit. Personally I wouldn't celebrate anyone's death... no matter who they were or what they had done.

Bin-Laden's death may be considered justice taking place, but it doesn't bring back anyone who died in the 9-11 attacks or make the pain go away for those who lost their loved ones... and most importantly it doesn't solve any problems.

Oh, and another thing. Bin-Laden wasn't an operative leader of the terrorists, so his killing doesn't prevent ANY terrorist attacks... it just makes him a martyr in the eyes of the fundamentalists.

So let's just raise toasts and wave those bloody flags... because the war will continue.

Beginnings part 2...

2011-03-08T11:07:00.000-08:00

Continuing the "Beginnings" project. Here's page 2.

Again, first the sketch...

...and the colored one.

Cheerio.

Beginnings...

2011-02-22T10:13:00.000-08:00

In a desperate attempt to revitalize my creativity I've decided to start a project I call "Beginnings".

I will explain the idea behind all this bit later, but right now... here's part one of the "Beginnings". Hope you like it.

Here's the sketch...

And here's the colored piece...

Cheerio.

Happy "Oh, shit! It was YESTERDAY!" -day

2011-02-14T22:46:00.000-08:00

Back from the land of the non-line to post a little piece I did some time ago to a friend.

Cheerio.

Happy birthday Monkey King...

2010-11-10T00:51:00.000-08:00

Some photos from the HotR trip...

2010-11-04T02:06:00.000-07:00

Right. It's been quite awhile since the last blog entry but I felt now was a good time to do some blogging...

So...

Here's few photos from my bloody amazing trip to the American Gods event at the House on the Rock. Photos by me or Cat.

Flying high over Greenland.

Neil checking out my sketches.

Neil signing and me fanboying.

A giant orange moose... right... don't ask.

Walking in spirals at the House on the Rock.

Old guns.

Mechanical violin.

Planes.

"A drunk havin' a really bad trip" -coin machine thingie.

Me just kinda awestruck.

Going to see the gods. This is the cafe where Shadow meets Nancy.

Angels above.

Next to the carousel.

The man speaks. Neil's Q&A.

A sketch.

Doing another sketch.

Saturday night costume party. Those "librarian gals" had pretty cool costumes.

Another amazing costume.

"The Gang"

All and all it was a bloody amazing trip and I want to thank Cat, Lorraine, Dan and of course Neil about... well, everything really. Those guys are absolutely the best.

Also want to thank everybody I met at the HotR. It was really cool to see some familiar faces and also a whole lot new ones.

Cheerio.

Ransom note...

2010-06-10T13:19:00.001-07:00

For further information. Go here.

Cheerio.

There's this boy...

2010-05-27T11:52:00.000-07:00

He's a crippled viking boy named Odd, and he refuses to leave my brain. I've known him for awhile and I though he looked different, but now he looks like this.Cheerio.

Should do more this stuff...

2010-05-18T04:25:00.001-07:00

Tried reminding myself that I USED TO draw things. This is what I came up. Know the guy?

Cheerio.

Farewell to Saucers...

2010-04-11T22:46:00.000-07:00

Just read that "The Day the Saucers Came" print is now sold out. It was the first (but not last, if I have anything to say about the matter) gaimanesque project I did with Cat and a one that I'm still very proud of.

Thanks to all who bought a print, and spread the word and said kind things about it. And thanks to Ian Gilman for doing the InfiniteCanvas version of it.

Cheerio.

Merry X-mas...

2009-12-22T05:38:00.000-08:00

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

Cheerio.

Ending a very, very long dry season...

2009-09-10T03:02:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-06-11T03:47:00.000-07:00

Muh mooth huuth...

theeio.

I have to go to the dentist...

2009-06-10T22:13:00.000-07:00

... 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!!!

2009-06-09T01:11:00.000-07:00

It's called Moon.

Sam Rockwell is brilliant.

Over. And out.

Cheerio.

"Know thy enema!"

2009-05-20T00:29:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-04-29T05:40:00.001-07:00

First prize done...

2009-04-14T02:31:00.000-07:00

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'...

2009-03-31T00:00:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-03-18T23:24:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-03-18T00:14:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-03-11T23:43:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-03-02T23:36:00.000-08:00

...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...

2009-02-26T02:36:00.000-08:00

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...

2009-02-20T00:35:00.000-08:00

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...

2009-02-18T22:25:00.000-08:00

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)

2009-02-13T03:31:00.001-08:00

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...

2009-02-12T04:58:00.000-08:00

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...

2009-02-09T00:41:00.000-08:00

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?

2009-02-05T23:53:00.000-08:00

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)

2009-02-04T02:18:00.000-08:00

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...

2009-02-03T00:19:00.000-08:00

...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)

2009-01-30T03:23:00.001-08:00

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...

2009-01-26T23:08:00.000-08:00

This is great news!

Cheerio.

Ian Gilman is happy...

2009-01-26T22:35:00.000-08:00

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...

2009-01-25T22:57:00.000-08:00

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...

2009-01-23T15:00:00.000-08:00

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...

2009-01-22T23:20:00.000-08:00

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...

2009-01-22T22:46:00.000-08:00

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)

2009-01-22T00:36:00.000-08:00

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

Cheerio.

The pleasure and pain of seeing art...

2009-01-21T23:18:00.000-08:00

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...

2009-01-21T02:29:00.000-08:00

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)

2009-01-19T04:49:00.001-08:00

...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...

2009-01-16T05:31:00.000-08:00

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)

2009-01-14T03:15:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-13T04:35:00.000-08:00

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)

2009-01-09T13:55:00.000-08:00

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)

2009-01-07T01:40:00.000-08:00

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?

2009-01-06T22:43:00.000-08:00

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)

2009-01-05T04:46:00.001-08:00

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

Cheerio.

New year... same job

2009-01-01T23:44:00.000-08:00

... 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

2009-01-01T09:33:00.000-08:00

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

Cheerio.

Merry X-mas 2008!

2008-12-21T23:19:00.000-08:00

So here's my on-line X-mas card for the year 2008 as promised. I've had this idea in my head for some time... and since it's 20th anniversary of The Sandman, I thought "Aw, what the hell! Let's do it." Hope you like it.

It's called: "His Master's Laundry"

Cheerio.

PS. I think I should also mention just for the record that The Sandman was created by Neil "Scary Trousers" Gaiman and Sam Kieth. And all the characters are trademarks of DC Comics and Warner Bros. Right.

I feel pretty. Oh, so pretty...

2008-12-18T23:24:00.000-08:00

Yes, I checked the Coraline-site.

Cheerio.

Countdown to X-mas...

2008-12-18T00:54:00.000-08:00

This year I promised myself that I won't waste time doing a X-mas card illustration...

...now, the problem was that I had this idea of a four panel (Sandman related) comic strip going around in my head for some time... and it kinda had this X-massy feelin' in it.

So I did it.

And I'm going to post it here on Monday 22nd.

In the mean while, here's my online-X-mas-card-thingie 2006.

I't called: "Mo(o)re* about the origin of Santa Claus"

*But seriously I love Alan and I really hope he'll be gentle upon me and doesn't turn me into anything cold and slimy if he happens to see this...

Now, if you don't understand any of this you might want to check out this video interview of Alan, but as far as the joke goes, I'm afraid it will be ruined for you... jokes don't work backwards (...like "Oh, THAT'S the reason why it's funny... hardy-har-har")... IF it was funny in the first place.

Cheerio.

Miyazaki can solve any problem...

2008-12-17T00:47:00.000-08:00

I once read from an interview of some Pixar-studio guys that whenever they have big problems in their animation projects, they gather to this auditorium and watch animations by Hayao Miyazaki... and they always find the answers they need.

I have quite similar thing myself. Whenever I'm stuck with an illustration, I sit down (usually on the living room floor) and read (or just leaf through) Miyazaki's amazing comic "Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind". Many times I find the answers I need... and sometimes it just makes me to forget the problem... but always it makes me feel happy.

If you don't believe me, try it.

Cheerio.

I'm still doing other things too, you know...

2008-12-17T00:25:00.000-08:00

Ok, there's awful lot of hype about the "Saucers" poster right now (and that is a very good thing indeed), but I'm still doing other things too... like "Odd" for example.

Now, while I'm stuggling to find time to color the remaining three pages of chapter 1, I'm also doing tests to find a illustrating style that would minimize the time needed for coloring (cause I'm still going to continue doing this online-Odd-thingie) and get me back on track with the story.

Here's one of those test-panels... now, as you can see, the style is bit more sketchy and the coloring is a lot more simple (basically just one shade of grey and white)... This might work. Any opinions?

Cheerio.

The truth is out there...

2008-12-14T23:36:00.000-08:00

OK, it's a bit lame joke, but I just couldn't resist it when I got a message from Cat saying that "The Saucers" poster thingie got linked in Gillian Anderson's site. That's cool.

Awful lot of links for such a short text.

Cheerio.

Stroll down memory lane... Babycakes from 2002

2008-12-13T12:22:00.000-08:00

When Neil mentioned in his blog that I have every now and again illustrated his stuff, I started thinking about the first time I did that. It was in early 2002. My wife had given birth to our first child the previous summer and I was learning how to be a father. Then I happened to read Neil's short story called "Babycakes"... and it hit me HARD. I had read it before and thought if was great story (in a really disturbing way)... but reading it as a father of a tiny baby, the creepiness took a whole different level... and I IMMEDIATELY decided that I wanted to do a comic of it... and I did.

That was also the first time I ended up in Neil's blog (April 10th and April 12th). Ah, those were the days. I also checked if the comic is still up... and guess what... it IS... thanks to Tara.

But in order to save you from some unnessessary clicking, I decided to show the comic HERE.

Hmm... Actually it's not that bad.

Cheerio.

"The Mystery Project" revealed...

2008-12-11T23:14:00.000-08:00

Finally.

I mentioned WAY BACK I was doing this "thing", and now it's finally out.

The story was that I fell in love with Neil Gaiman's poem "The Day the Saucers Came" and I got the idea of having this one picture in the beginning, and then just "zooming out" of it so that there's more and more stuff visible. I did couple of pictures and sent them to Neil and he really liked them. Then I did the rest of the pictures and was really happy with myself... and then Neil asked me what are we going to DO with the illustrations... and I had no idea.

We went back and forth with various ideas (basically anything and everything between... let's say from set of postcards to T-shirt printing to illustrated picturebook)... and then Neil was busy with stuff... and then I was busy with some other stuff... and then we forgot the whole damn thing for a little while... and then we remembered it again.

Now, at some point we added Cat Mihos from NeverWear to the "brainstorm" and we came up with an idea of a poster. So, I did a backround image and put the illustrations on it... and that was it. Everybody was happy.

Here's a picture of the poster.

Go buy it from here. It's a nice poster... and a great poem.

Cheerio.

Odd and the Frost Giants page 12 (chapter 1)

2008-11-27T03:12:00.000-08:00

See? It didn't take as long as the previous one... I told you.

The end of the year is coming pretty fast. About six months ago I thought that this point I would be doing chapter 3... but life has that tendency to take a perfectly good plan and screw it up totally and completely. Ah, well... that's good ol' life alright!

Right now the bottle-neck in this project is the coloring-thingie. I actually have two inked pages (and one pencilled) just waiting for the coloring, but the problem is that I currently have considerably less "computer-time" to do these fun projects. I'll try to figure out something... but in the mean while... if there's a colorist aching for a project with ABSOLUTELY NO money and VERY LITTLE publicity involved, email me, OK?

Cheerio.

Neil

2008-11-17T04:34:00.000-08:00

Here's a picture I sent to Neil as a birthday card. Cute, eh?

Cheerio.

Odd and the Frost Giants page 11 (chapter 1)

2008-10-21T02:06:00.000-07:00

Yup. It sure took it's time... but I promise the next page won't take so long.

Cheerio.

The Graveyard Book

2008-10-14T04:31:00.000-07:00

So, I've read (and listened at mousecircus.com) Neil's new book... and I loved it.

Once again Neil tells us stories filled with ghosts and ghouls and monsters. And once again those creatures are described with such accuracy and clarity that they seem more real, more HUMAN, than most of the empty-faced strangers that you'll see walking down the streets in the REAL world.

And once again the most powerfull parts of the stories are not the scary bits (and there are those too), but the more silent and gentle parts where you can almost taste the joy, or sadness, or longing, of the characters... and you can most certainly feel it.

Cheerio.

Blinking at the sunlight...

2008-10-08T04:32:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile (and certainly longer than I anticipated).

Right. The past six months have been pretty rough. Nothing dramatic though. More like a slow avalanche of work- and family-related stuff that really needed my attention. But at some point during that time I realized I was wearing myself out, and decided to put all the "extra-stuff" on hold for awhile. Now, few months later, I'm still not ready to go full-speed ahead with Odd, but the "itch" is slowly getting unbearable and I've even done some drawin' during the past couple of days.

So. I'm still not out from the woods (and neither is Odd), not really, but I'm getting there (and so will he). There's just too much cool stuff already sketched or visualized in my head to quit at this point.

Be seeing you.

Cheerio.

Odd page 11 inks

2008-06-04T00:40:00.000-07:00

YES, I'm still doing things you know...

Cheerio.

Be patient...

2008-06-03T02:35:00.000-07:00

(taking a slightly apologetic face)

Just wanted to drop by and tell you that I'm still kinda trying to catch my breath after last weeks disasters (computer breaking and both of my kids getting the chicken pox)...

Sorry.

Cheerio.

No updates this week I'm afraid...

2008-05-21T22:51:00.000-07:00

Two days back my office G5 rolled over and died (with a sharp SNAP!-sound and the smell of burning electronics stuff). Fortunately the hard disk was not damaged (so nothing was lost), but it meant that A) I'm currently working on a Macbook and I don't have access to the Odd files and B) instead of actually doing anything I'm paid to do, I've used many hours with mobile on one hand and a screwdriver on other, talking to a repairman and pulling things out of the deceased G5... which means I have shit-loads of things to do before I can even THINK about continuing Odd.

So, no updates this week. Sorry.

Odd and the Frost Giants page 10 (chapter 1)

2008-05-15T01:48:00.000-07:00

Here's page 10. I can feel the end of Chapter 1 (slowly) approaching... and it's a good feeling.

Cheerio.

Odd and the Frost Giants page 9 (chapter 1)

2008-05-08T22:35:00.001-07:00

And here's page 9. If it looks familiar, it's because I posted this page earlier without the text here. I fact this was the first inked page I did for this project... kind of a test page.

Cheerio.

Odd and the Frost Giants page 8 (chapter 1)

2008-05-08T03:00:00.001-07:00

Right. So... back to work.

Cheerio.

Odd and the Frost Giants page 7 (chapter 1)

2008-04-30T02:06:00.001-07:00

Finally had the time to finish this page. Woo-hoo!

Cheerio.

Let's try again: Odd page 7 inks...

2008-04-25T23:58:00.000-07:00

There. Finally Blogger managed to do it.

Cheerio.

Good news, bad news...

2008-04-25T08:26:00.000-07:00

Right.

The bad news is that I've had ridiculously busy week at work, so I haven't been able to finish the next page.

The good news however is that I've finished inks on page 7 and 8 and page 9 is almost finished (both inks and colors... I did it actually before page one as a test, and it only needs small modifications)

I would post the inks on page 7 here, but for some reason the Blogger is unable to upload the picture. I'll try again bit later.

Cheerio.

PS. Went to local movie theater to see Porco Rosso, and liked it enormously.

Page 6: baby steps

2008-04-20T22:37:00.000-07:00

Ok. As promised, here's some stuff about how I do the pages... First of all I naturally cut the story into page-size chunks (before I did a single page I had divided the whole chapter one, and I think I will continue doing this one chapter at a time). At the same time I do small "matchbox-sketches" of the pages to get some rough idea about the size of panels and overall composition of a spread (yes, even though I post these one page at a time, I'm designing them as spreads)

Then I start pencilling single pages. First I do the panel outlines and then place the textboxes (or speech bubbles) at this point I write the text by hand to get an idea about the size of the box. Then I do pencils. After that, in order to save time, I do inks on top of the pencils. (normally I would scan the pencils and change the lines to light blue... well, light cyan to be more exact... print the colored pencils on a heavy stock paper and ink on that... that way if I make a mistake with ink I can just print another copy and start over without screwing up the pencils)... sorry about the crappy photos. I took them with my phone.

After finishing the inks I scan the page, clean up the pencils and add contrast (all this in photoshop). Then I open the page in Illustrator and "trace" it to vector-format. I paste the vectorized page into Indesign where I type the texts and copy/paste the texts and the vectors back into Photoshop where I then do the colors... err greys.

Right. Someone might think that it sounds awfully complicated and why am I vectorizing the page... Well, in short, look the results below. The first panel is just scanned lineart (without any modifications), the second panel is cleaned up lineart and the last is vectorized lineart. As you can see vectorizing cleans up the ragged ink lines and makes the picture smoother... and I like that.

There. That's the way I do it.

Cheerio.

Odd and the Frost Giants page 6 (chapter 1)

2008-04-18T02:15:00.001-07:00

Right. I promised to Dan that I would say few words (and show some pictures) about the technique and the different steps from a sketch to a finished page... but when I managed to finish this page, I just wanted to post this as soon as possible. I'll show the steps in my next post. Promise.

Cheerio.

Odd and the Frost Giants page 5 (chapter 1)

2008-04-15T01:53:00.000-07:00

...and I'm currently finishing the pencils for page 6.

Cheerio.

Odd fonts

2008-04-09T23:37:00.000-07:00

I was asked about the lettering of Odd, and I think it's right and proper to tell this publicly....

From the beginning I wanted to have editable text so I can correct typos etc. more easily AND since I don't have Fontographer to create a font of my own (and my hand writing sucks pretty much anyhow) I took the easy way out and downloaded few free fonts from the net.

If you like fonts (like I do) you should REALLY visit...

http://www.dafont.com/

or

http://www.1001freefonts.com/

Cheerio.

Jouni

Odd and the Frost Giants page 4 (chapter 1)

2008-04-09T04:46:00.000-07:00

...and I'm inking page 5 as we speak.

Cheerio.

Odd and the Frost Giants pages 2-3 (chapter 1)

2008-04-02T11:47:00.000-07:00

There. First two pages.

Cheerio.

Odd and the Frost Giants

2008-04-01T12:28:00.000-07:00

Ahem...

So, ladies and gentlemen, this will be my new mystery project.

When I heard Neil Gaiman was writing another story obout Norse gods I got immediately interested... I've liked very much the way Neil has handled old gods like Odin and Thor and Loki in his past stories... and when I read the beginning of chapter three of Odd from Neil's journal, I knew I wanted to illustrate the story.

After reading the whole thing I started doing sketches and realized I was actually planning a COMIC and not just individual illustrations. The last time I had done anything in comics format was around 2002 (Neil's Babycakes), so I thought it was about time to try and sharpen my very rusty comics skills. I emailed few of the sketches to Neil and asked his permission to try this... and he said yes.

This Odd and the Frost Giants is my ADAPTATION of Neil's story. I try to change the text as little as possible, but since we're talking about two different mediums here, some things have to be changed. This is also MY adaptation of Neil's story and even though I'm trying to be true to the original story, it will be also my view of the story... and I'm sure there will be people who think that I'm getting something wrong or doing something wrong, but I also hope that there will be people who like what I'm doing'...

So. This is where it starts. I will post spreads/pages here as soon as I finish them. Unfortunately I'm doing this on my (very limited) "free time" and therefore I cannot guarrantee when I'll post the next page, but I try to post something new at least once a week (if not finished pages, then sketches or inks or thumbnails or something) furthermore I cannot even guarrantee that I'm able to do the whole story. I've estimated that Odd would take roughly 100 pages as a comic and thats quite a few pictures and quite a few hours. But one thing I can guarrantee: whether it's 10 or 50 or 150 pages I manage to do, I'll do them as well as I possibly can... and I'm going to enjoy every second of doing them.

Oh, by the way, I'll post pages 2 and 3 tomorrow. Hope to see you again then... and feel free to comment.

Cheerio.

Odd things coming...

2008-03-19T04:22:00.000-07:00

This is something from my new "mystery project "...

Let's see how this turns out.

;-)

Cheerio.

More quick doodles...

2008-03-04T23:25:00.000-08:00

Just amusing myself. This one's called "Floating Around"

Cheerio.

Just staff...

2008-02-28T23:50:00.000-08:00

Continued doing pencil-sketch thingies.

Couple days back I got my copy of Neil Gaiman's "Odd and the Frost Giants" and there's this staff mentioned in the story (and no, this is not a spoiler or anything) and I wanted to draw it. So...

Cheerio.

Bet ya thought I wasn't coming back, eh?

2008-02-25T00:31:00.000-08:00

Life seems to be too busy for blogging right at the moment, but hopefully things will ease up in the (near) future.

Meanwhile, here's a pencil-drawing-thingie I did couple days back. It's my younger son Julius.

Cheerio.

Capoeira X-mas

2007-12-21T02:45:00.000-08:00

So, it's been awhile, eh?

Been busy and all that...

But, Christmas is coming fast and a card has to be made.

The story behing this particular card is that my 6-year old son got REALLY interested about capoeira during last summer (Hämeenlinna is a small town, but we're lucky to have a real capoeira academia, thanks to Gharronne Silva and his friends) and at some point we (me and my wife) gave up and asked the capoeira people what they thought about it... and they said sure, of course he can come and train with the other kids (who are mostly from 8-10 years old). Now Joonas has been training for about four months, twice a week and he can do stuff (cartwheels, cartwheels with one hand, handstand, HEADstand, high kicks, rotating kicks etc.) I HAVE NEVER been able to do, and he just generally loves the whole thing. So, Joonas wanted to give his capoeira instructors a christmas card and I promised to design him one... and that's the picture you can see below.

Merry X-mas.

Cheerio.

Elfgirl

2007-09-10T22:24:00.000-07:00

I really like DeviantArt for three reasons:
1) It's a good (and free) place to store your pictures and show them to people
2)There's huge amount of amazingly talented artists and art to watch
3)There's loads of reference material (photos and illustrations) to go through

Take the drawing above for example. I wanted to try and do some traditional pencil drawing stuff and went browsing through the photos in DA. I stumbled across this photo and though to myself 'she's an elf' (not the high and noble Tolkien kind, but wild and pointy-eared Charles Vess -styled creature)

So I drew her...

Cheerio.

Yay to Sami...

2007-09-06T02:31:00.000-07:00

I know this illustrator-guy Sami Saramäki

He's very talented (and also very nice chap in general) so go see his stuff.

And here's his blog

Cheerio.

Still working...

2007-08-30T03:54:00.000-07:00

Here's couple more recent 'real work' thingies. POSTERS to be more exact...

First some 'vintage golf'...

...and then a theater poster.

Oh, and the 'mystery project' is still going on very nicely...

Cheerio.

Weird stuff by James Jean...

2007-08-30T03:46:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to drop by and ask if you have seen James Jean's blog?

Now, what kind of mind can produce that kind of images?

And more importantly... Where could I get one like that myself?

Cheerio.

Just couple more pictures...

2007-08-09T04:27:00.000-07:00

Just something I found from my hard drive. Tha'ss all.

"Troll"

And "Jack"

Cheerio.

Past Victories II: Shoggoth's Old Peculiar

2007-08-07T22:54:00.000-07:00

So, since I'm not going to tell you (at this point) more about... that thing... I mentioned earlier (well, other than it's coming along just fine, thank you)...

I thought it might be a good time to do a second part of my 'Past Victories' series.

Right. Before 'A Study In Emerald' poster thing we did a chapbook (we meaning me, Neil, Greg Ketter and Bob Garcia) of Neil's fabulous short story 'Shoggoth's Old Peculiar'. It was launched in the Fiddlers Green convention in Minneapolis in november 2004. It was loads of fun. I even did a signing with Neil and that was very much fun and VERY odd.

Anyways... here's some illustrations from the book.

... and here's a photo of the signing... umm right. (photo by Michelle Larson)

And I checked Dreamhaven website and found out they are still selling the book in here so go buy it... shoo!! And while you're at it, buy some other books too. Greg is a great chap and has a really cool comic/bookshop

Cheerio.

A sneak peek of... this thing

2007-07-13T04:14:00.000-07:00

Right. I'm currently doing... this thing, and I hope it will turn out something cool and if it WILL, then I'll tell more about it (that was informational, wasn't it)

Anyways, here's a sketch of... this thing that will be in... that thing.

Err... yes, right.

Cheerio.