Snow Village

Here's something I did for fun, inspired by all the snow we've been having here in Holland these last couple of days! :)

-Edwin

Pinocchio!

This started out as part of an illustration challenge over at cghub.com, a character re-design for Pinocchio.

As usual, I started out with doing some pensketches, searching for ideas to give the character, well, more character :) I realy liked nr 7, so I decided to do a colorpass on him. During coloring, it struck me that because I gave him a vest, he looked naked from the waste down. As I didn't want him to have too much clothing, next best thing was to give him painted pants, an idea i thought was preeettty clever....or so I tell myself :P

More stuff coming sooooon!

-Edwin

Windy Vilage - Development sketches

More painted stuff coming up soon, but in the meanwhile, here's some stuff from my sketchbook.
These pensketches were done as visual development for a village i'm currently designing, which is turning out to be alot of fun! Done with my 0.4 Micron inkpen, greyscales done in Photoshop as usual.

I hope to find time to follow up these thumbs with some colored versions soon, so stay tuned :)

Thanx for looking,
-Edwin

Speedpaints

As promised, here are 2 environment studies in color, done in photoshop CS3. Aprox. 3 hours per painting. Done as visual developent for a world filled with Vikings and dragons (I'll owe you that dragon for now) :).

More painted stuff coming soon, thanx for looking :)

-Edwin

Pen Layouts

After an awesome 3 week vacation in Mexico (hola amigos en Mexicoooo!), some hectic times at work, and a rather slimeybooger-ish flu (of which I'm still recovering *snort*), I'm finally back to show this blog some love again, as I've been neglecting it for way to long already.

Above the first batch of sketches to make up for the long leave of absence, done in my brandnew Moleskin sketchbook with my trusty 0.4 inkpen, with greyscales done in Photoshop.

Sketches like these are usually the first step in my workflow when starting development on a new idea for a story or project, as it allows me to get a 'feel' for the project as a whole real quick (these take aprox. 10-15 min per sketch). Goal was to go for epic and cinematic compositions, which hopefully shows through in the thumbnails.

I've also been doing alot of digital painting lately, so expect some speedpaints and other painted stuff up here in a couple of days aswell.

Thanx for looking, feedback much appreciated! Thanx! :)

-Edwin

Summer Sale!

I actually colored something, yay! :D I got the idea for this drawing while walking through a clothing store, where it was somewhat of a chaos due to the current summer sale !

As usual, any event that makes any kinda impact on me, I do a 10 minute pensketch to get it out of my system, put it on my cartoonblog , and be done with it. But, somehow I felt this idea was bigger then my cartoonblog, and needed proper treatment! :)

I worked out the layout in non repro bluepencil, did a tighter sketch on top of that with my HB technical pencil, and worked out the colored version in Photoshop.

Sidenote: A friend of mine suggested I should do a wallpaper sized drawing sometime (apparently desktops don't like the tall JPG dimensions I usually present my sketches in), so who am I to deny him a desktop full of shopping girls :P

-Edwin

2d Artist Magazine - Sketchbook Article!

I'm happy to announce that this months' 2D Artist magazine features an article about.......me! :D And what's even cooler, you can read it right here, FOR FREEEEEEE! YAY !

Click HERE to download the sketchbook article, or just click on the above image.
Ofcourse you can also purchase the complete magazine, which you can do so at http://www.2dartistmag.com/

More stuff on the way!

-Edwin

P.s. Just uploaded some new stuff to my cartoon blog pensketches.blogspot.com, be sure to check those out aswell!

Cowboy pensketches

Here's some stuff I've been working on, done for a little artcontest we've started up at work. Topic is 'SpaceCowboys', but as any interpretation is possible, I'm probably going to do something with aliens vs cowboys, an unlikely but fun combination I think :P

I'll post more stuff soon!

Environment Layouts

Greyscaled: Original sketches:
I can't watch tv anymore...they just cut me off! Damn you Ziggo! (= a crappy dutch cable tv provider) *shakes fist at the world*

But, having all this spare time now, did force me to do more sketchin' (thanx Ziggo! :D), so here's some stuff I've been working on.

Just to try something new, I thought I'd do something shocking, and play with..... *gasp* ....wide panels! This instead of the 16:9 format I usually tend to work in.

It allowed for some fun experimenting with layout and composition, kinda like animation backgrounds you sometimes see in artbooks.
I also just saw Princess and the Frog (a must buy!), which was the inspiration for some of the scenes here.

Done with a 0.3 inkpen, greyscaled in photoshop.

-Edwin

EDIT 08/06/10: Added the original linesketches for your viewing pleasure :)

Head sketches

I can't believe it's been over a month since my last update! Here's a small update with some head sketches done in pen, more stuff on the horizon! :)

-Edwin

P.s. In the meantime, take a look over at http://chetanrevankar.blogspot.com , the blog of Chetan Revankar, a 3D modeler crazy enough to create a 3D version of my Pirate Parade sketch! :D

Character pensketches

At last, I finally have some more characterwork for you guys! I just got back from a 5 day minivacation, which was really great! I got to relax, swim, read and ofcourse also spent some qualitytime sketching! :)

For each character I came up with a very short backstory and how they would tie in to the mainstory, and just started sketching from there. I did a couple of takes on a bum, thieves, kids and the grandma with the lightbulb, which is one of the main characters (more on her coming soon)

Sketches were done directly in pen as usual, taking aprox 5 to 10 minutes per sketch.
I also hope to do a color pass on some of these, so stay tuned :)

-Edwin

50s Stuff

Here are some rough sketches for a project I'm currently working on. It's set in the 50s, a very interesting area designwise.

To get into the right mindset, I started out with quick stylestudies of
50s furniture and tech. After that I started working on the look of my characters' (self invented) technology, which was alot of fun. My approach was to see how technology like a laptop, wacom tablet and internet would have looked like if it was invented in the 50s. :)

All sketches were done directly in ink with a 0.4 Mirco pen.

I'm working hard on developing the characters aswell, so more stuff coming soon :)

-Edwin

NEW BLOG!

I've never done much with comics, cartoons, or any other form of sequential storytelling.....so, as an experiment I started doing quick cartoons in pen about myself....... and it was SO MUCH FUN! :D

But, as i didn't want to flood this blog, I've set up a COMPLETELY NEW BLOG! YAY! :D

URL to bookmark: pensketches.blogspot.com

Ofcourse, I also had to do a cartoon about you, the readers and followers of my blog *evil laughter*:
I've done about 15 cartoons sofar, let me know what you think! GO GO GO GO! :D

-Edwin

P.s. Of course all my other work I'll keep posting right here at rhemdoodles! :D

Life happens when making other plans

Each day I go to work by subway, and as I exit the subway station I pass by this oddly located workspace, situated at the start of the escalator at subway station 'Spui', The Hague.

I didn't notice it for weeks, probably like most of the thousands ands thousands of commuters that pass by this guys office, day in, day out. As I took a peek through the blinds, I was overwhelmed with a feeling of sadness; a rather old man was sitting behind his tiny screen, boxed in by walls.

That feeling of sadness and isolation I've tried to capture in above 3 location visuals.

I added the palmtree poster to give it some more story ('life happens when making other plans' sorta speak), the empty planning board and yellow ticketbox were actually there IRL aswell. :)
A subtle visual joke are the vertical blinds, which I set up to resemble prisonbars, making him look like a captured animal in the zoo. :)

Dedicated to the man under the escalator!

-Edwin

Alias Sketchbook Pro

I've been experimenting with digital inking lately, which made me give Alias Sketchbook Pro another try. Though the interface I still really can't get used to, the brushcontrols are quite good, and perfect for doing tight lineart drawings. For the colors I switched back to Photoshop again.
I'm working on some similar characterdesigns in this style, so stay tuned. :)

-Edwin

Peter Pan

Here's a contribution I did for a comic project called 'Fairytales in the Future'. I could draw whatever I wanted, so I thought I'd do my take on a futuristic Peter Pan, where Hook seriously upgraded himself to finally catch Peter :)

Done with Photoshop and Painter.

Other work from artists contributing to this book can be found in this thread:
http://digitalwebbing.com/forums/showthread.php?t=145386

-Edwin

Imagine FX Cover Competition

Didn't think I'd make it, but I actually managed to make the deadline of the artcontest over at www.imaginefx.com, yay! :D

The challenge was to design your own cover image for their mag. It took me aprox 12 hours to paint the image, based on the Messy Monster sketch I did earlier.

I did change the initial sketch quite a bit, as I really wanted to convey the monster as 'creative chaos in action' :) I tried to keep the focus of the image around the monsters head, taking into account that at a later stage text & headlines could be added to the sides.

Fun stuff that's in there includes my laptop, wacom, a cat, mario and luigi hats (Nintendo nerds unite!), a box of crayons, a toilet seat, and some more stuff you'll have to find for yourself :)

Mainly done in photoshop, with a little touch of Painter's Chalk tool for the cool grain fx :)

-Edwin