Let's get to work!

The festival is over so I get to work on the comic. It were five amazing days. Met a lot of good and interesting people, I was amazed by the energy of the festival and had some real cool parties in the evenings.

So for today I was just working on the reportage. The people at the guest house are really hospitable and I can use the conference room as an office. Listening to all the interviews, making notes, mapping, categorizing and grouping information, organizing photo's and sketching.

I don't want to show to much allready, but it might be cool to explain. I made some smaller sketches and call them 'in betweens'. Those were those small things and details that I really pay attention to. Those kind of things that might just a few people notice or pay attention to, or cameo's. The in betweens will be assimilated into the main pictures. So you might have to look for them again!

I´ll give one away. 

You should have seen the crew walking around with the walkie-talkies whole day. I´ll never forget Travis Beard, the organiser of the festival, calling into the radio: "Qais! Qais! Where are you Qais!?". And of course Qais was running around all day being really busy. And that's a fact! 


Oh by the way! I haven't blogged a lot about the rest of my experiences in Kabul. But if you're interested you might like to check out my roommate's blog, Craigus Mcvegas from Australia. I do would like to share one thing. This evening me and Craig went out with the guy from the guesthouse, to withdraw some money at a cash machine. At one of the the supermarkets we went to, some militairy white trucks by with electronic jammers on the roof against electronic devices that might trigger bombs.

So we couldn't unlock the car because it has an infrared key. We had to wait untill they had passed by. But read the rest of it an Craigus's blog.

Stay tuned! And Turn it Up!

Rockin, drawin and interviewin in Kabul

So.. Yeah it's been quite a while since an update about any comic related items. A shame really because I'm working on a really cool project. Those of you who know about my work, are familliar with the graphic novel I'm working on about Dutch soldiers in Uruzgan, Afghanistan, and my interest in comics-journalism. And right now I'm in Kabul, Afghanistan in a guest house in the diplomatic area, writing a blog again.

Ok so, what I'm doing here is visiting and participating at the Sound Central Festival (YES! Check-out the link!) 2013 in Kabul. An alternative music festival where young people can freely express themselves. Everybody can do what they want. Rap, dance, rock, bang your head on psychedelic metal, puppetry, paint, graffiti, and so on, for boys and girls. And whatever they do, they're pretty good at it! (You should have seen the mosh-pit on the third day!!!) The first day was for the women only and at least 500 to 550 women and girls attended. That's about 350 more than last year. The other two days are for everybody to attent. The second day was more kinda like an arts day for the hippies and the third and last day was ROCK-day! And I'm here to make a reportage of it and do live sketching.
Since I find this a really special festival, I wanted the story also presented in a special form for a Dutch newspaper. And since I'm not such a great writer like a normal journalist, but I do draw quite well, I'll be presenting this story as a graphic report for the Dutch newspaper. And after that also offcourse in English.

I assume that there are not a lot of people who know about this festival. It's kinda hard to imagine perhaps that you held a festival in a 'war-zone'. But hey! Rockin all over the world. So for me, the first two days I did live sketching with indian-ink and watercolors,  wanted to do that on the last day as well, but it was just too crowded, so much to see, I did lot's of interviews, took pictures, so the third day was more my journalistic day. And NOW, I really must start working on the comic, filter all the ideas and impressions, listen back to the interviews (and one is really going to take long because another guy had to translate during that interview), sketch some ideas for the comic, make a rough scenario and map for the comic.. Ah no I better stop because I gotta get to work!

I'll get back to you soon, and I'll also give some impression about Kabul itself. Geeeezz the traffic here is suicide!! But more on that, party's, chillin with Afghani's at the guest house, security, guns, barbed wire and walls and police with AK-47, around next week.


Cheers and read your comics and graphic novels!

Booktrailer motion comic for CEL by Charles den Tex

Still of my latest motion comic for the thriller 'Cel' by Charles den Tex, produced by Submarine Channel.
To check the trailer click on the link:
http://vimeo.com/54595060

Beste Wensen voor 2013

Ondertussen in de studio:

Yeah! Painting again!

Almost forgot how relaxing painting really is. After all I hadn't done it anymore since 1,5 year.

There you're standing again.. In the studio, right in front of that painting you started 1,5 year ago. Quite an awesome piece in size (1.00 X 2.00 m) and an image of some kind of apocalyptic chaotic city in panic. What was it meant to become? Will it become whatever it was meant to become?.. I wasn't sure but since I wanted to finally start painting again. I began emptying some paint-tubes, meanwhile I decided to began working again on the sky and strengthen the contrast in the painting, and began blending colors. 

Oh by the way. Usually I post detective or comic related items on this blog. But besides comic artist, I'm also occasionally a painter. This is what I also like to do, so why not blog some about it?

I wanted to make the sky more sinister and ominous. Elements like airplanes were supposed to stay or come back if painted over. I short-studied some images and let the painting began. Contrast was strengthened and the sky began to become what I wanted. On the other hand it began to look also like some kind of tidal wave. Best part was I didn't had any sense of time. Just wasn't aware. Only the first half hour.

I returned a few days later with a bitter liquor with the mind set on: just continue and see where it goes. 

I liked, and still do, the idea of a tidal wave so that became the focus of the evening. 1,5 year back I placed some electricity poles in the image. They reinforce the depth because of the different sizes. When painting them over, they were being swallowed by the wave and not only reinforcing the depth but also the chaos and panic.After 3 hours of working it's a good moment to sit in a chair just in front of the painting and let the image do it's work. That's when start making plans for the next session. Leave the wave for now, continue with the anchorman in the middle, bring back the airplanes, detail the buildings, bring back the electricity poles, anyway more enough to work on.

But damn it feels good to paint again!

Detective Sunday #4: Det. Sgt. Westie

Again I didn't quite managed to take a day off during sundays. A new assignment I took, really takes a lot of time and it has a very short deadline. Even though, after a little time in between I was able to finish a detective. Detective Sergeant Westie is a character I created in style of the crime-noir comics-series Blacksad.

My mother's dog is a West-Highland White Terrier named Stefke. A very cool but quite stubborn dog. So the ideal basis for a character in the comic series. And since canids are most often police officers in the series, I thought of this one as well for a detective. I also took some inspiration from Martin Lawrence's appearance as ex-con Miles Logan and then posing as Detective Malone in the movie Bluestreak.

For the first time I watercolored the inked drawings. Never done it before and got the time to use watercolor for comics. I might give it a chance for a next time.

The characters of Blacksad are always well worked out. 'The animal for the character' as would I say. A German shepherd as a police commissioner, a orangutan as a blues musician or an arctic fox as a member of "Arctic Nation", a racist political organization similar to the Klu Klux Klan. Just to give a few examples.
If you get the chance, you should really check out the comics. Not just the artwork is awesome but the stories are very good as well.

That's it for this Detective Sunday. Not sure when the next one will be posted, but just check the blog to find out! So stay tuned!

Detective Sunday #a: Preparations

Finally got some time again to work on the Detective Sunday's. I'm about to start it of very soon, but for this one I'm taking some time to work on. Theme for the next Detecive Sunday is Blacksad. One of my favorite crime-noir comics. For this one I some kind of switch the rule. Instead of an existing character from literature to a comic impression, I'll give an impression of a created character into a comic. Blacksad in this case. So stay tuned!

For some more info and a review on the comics: http://comicattack.net/2012/07/dhr-blacksadsh/

Pencil sketch / design for Det. Sgt. Stefke "Westie"