Eyes closed in the London below...

Today I listened part 6/6 of Neil's Neverwhere radio play on BBC4. And I liked it. I liked it quite a bit, actually. The episodes were nice and crunchy half-hour bits (well, except the first episode, which is 1 hour), just perfect for lunch-hour soundtrack in the office. The story was streamlined very well and most of the good stuff from the book had made it to the play. I also liked the medium. It's been awhile when I last listened an audiobook... and it has been years, if not DECADES when I last listened a proper, honest-to-goodness-traditional radio play.

Of course it helps we're talking about Neil Gaiman's story... (you could say that when the genre of speculative fiction is concerned, Neil's name is pretty much a synonym for quality) but the quality here goes beyond the story. Sound effects are good and the cast is superb. James McAvoy does a great job as Richard (although he tends to chuckle quite a bit... there's amazed chuckle, relieved chuckle, panicked chuckle, incredulous chuckle, drunken chuckle and victorious chuckle, just to name a few), Natalie Dormer, David Harewood, Sophie Okonedo, Anthony Head and David Schofield do perfectly solid performances as the Lady Door, Marquis De Carabas, Hunter, Croup and Vandemar... Christopher Lee is spot-on as Earl of Earl's Court, Neil does a couple nice cameos... and Benedict Cumberbatch is bloody inhuman as Islington.

There's also the nostalgic aspect. I grew up listening radio plays and everything from the imaginative use of sound effects to the slightly awkward "Oh my god! The huge pink monster with claws and a banjo on his knee spotted us!"-lines (It's a frigging RADIO, you have to describe your surrounding in some way, right?) feel familiar and good. I'm just wondering how the kids of today will experience it? Most likely they just wonder what's wrong with this video-stream...

All in all, the whole act of listening a radio play takes me back down the memory lane, and when you have a story-teller such as Neil as your tour guide, it's a trip well worth taking.

Cheerio.

#JanTale finished

Finished, yes. Not entirely satisfied with the outcome (too little time to work with the piece), but there's couple of things I'm quite pleased with... the overall idea, and "the badge".

You can find this in Keep Moving -gallery, but since it's a lowres-version there, I decided to post a bigger version here. Hope you like it.

Cheerio.

#JanTale

Yes, I'm getting involved in Neil's Blackberry-saga. I'm currently working on a picture to the January tale. This is the pencil sketch.

Next. Inks&colors.

Cheerio.

The Endless Troupe...

Had this idea of all the Endless as members of a small theater company...

Cheerio.

About getting older and looking back...

In order to celebrate my last ten days as "thirty-something", I decided to look back into the history. (Certainly more fun than trying to figure out the future... or what's left of it anyhow... nah, just kidding.) I traced down MY FIRST EVER COMMENT on a internet social network of any kind. It was in alt.fan.neil-gaiman, and the date was August 10th 2000.

You can find it here.

Now, the tracing was quite simple actually... I just Googled "Jouniac" and "elephant spunk"

...yes, elephant spunk... it's a long story... oh, for crying out loud, read the comment thread if you're so interested!

Cheerio.

Coloring Meelo...

Here's the colored version of the little airbender. I wanted to have an "animated series"-feel to it, so I kept the colors very clear and simple. All and all, I think it turned out quite OK.

Here's also couple of details. I'm especially happy how the leaves turned out.

Hope you like it.

Cheerio.

Legend of Korra fan art...

My children (and me too) are huge fans of Avatar - The Last Airbender... the animated series... not the movie.

So, when the sequel, Legend of Korra started airing, I decided to celebrate the occation by making a fan art piece of Meelo, a little airbender boy. The piece is called Meelo Playing with Leaves. Hope you like it...

This was the first sketch I did (on a post-it note)... basically just wanted to nail down an idea that I had. Took me about 30 seconds.

After the kids went to sleep last night, I sat down and did the pencils.

...and here's the cleaned up inks I did today (during my lunch break... no, seriously). I did the inking entirely in photoshop... and that's VERY unusual for me. In fact, I think this was the first time. I'm rather excited about it.

I'll do the colors within few days. So, see you then, eh?

Cheerio.