Joking around

I made this post to make something about myself clear to everyone;

I have a somewhat odd sense of humor.

This means that I will often say things that I do not mean, it's not necessarily cynical remarks, more just ..untrue remarks. Or I might think up some persona, for instance: I can sound shallow and self-conceited very easily (too easily I'm afraid one day I'll actually turn into such a person!) or I can make obviously stupid remarks. (I can make stupid and naive remarks without it being a joke too though!) When I claim that something has not happened and ask my friend to back me up, because 'she was there when it happened', I'm simply admitting that, yes, it did happen.

That being said, I always assumed that anyone reading my blog would surely understand my jokes! That is of course, a wrong assumption, the proof of my wrong being here is my own mother. She was remarking that I sounded somewhat arrogant in my post about that poster I made. Because I made it sound as if I was granting people to spent time with me, and that they should be honoured. Of course that'd be silly! I'm a normal person (well, not really, even my humor is abnormal already), I'm in no way a celebrity. That would simply be a way for me to state that when we have to meet anyways, we could chat and drink coffee for a bit.

I guess it is also that I assumed most people reading my blog were my friends (hi Colin) and people in the same kind of scene as myself, thus, people who ..'get' me.

That is also a wrong assumption, as I KNOW my most frequent visitor MUST be my grandmother. (She is an avid user of social media and the likes, we are also facebook friends.)

A while ago, I was confronted by the fact that my humor really is a bit out of the ordinary, when I was working through a temp agency for a few days, leaving my room for a change and meeting new people. I was trying to keep our monotone work routine interesting by joking around and chatting, but I often got weird looks back. (There was this one girl who did get my jokes, she was delightfully cynical.) At one point I felt I should tell them 'I think you are taking me a bit too serious.. I was not really excited by the boxes, that's just me joking around.'. (I got the reply 'oh.. okay.')

Well, I believe I've typed a big enough wall of text for now, I'm sorry for being so long-winded and I do hope SOMEONE (besides my grandmother and Colin) has read it, otherwise my message would be lost and those who think I'm weird will STILL think I'm weird. (although, those who did read it all, might think so too.)

Please give me some feedback because I wonder if my writing is in any way readable and I would love to improve it for the sake of this blog's visitors!

Now enjoy these comics about me joking around, you deserved it (if you did read the text, if not, read it, please?).

(this one works better in Dutch though.. 'in de war' instead of 'confused')

wait for it...

I actually made this a while ago, but wanted to post some other stuff before. the other stuff has been made and will be scanned.. wooh!

Posters

A while ago I had posted a certain drawing on my facebook and got quite positive feedback;

the drawing was deemed poster-worthy!

~That is why, I will be selling it as an A2 poster for the small price of 10euros!~

Also, after hearing about this poster, a friend of mine requested me to make him a poster of another illustration. If I can get at least 15 people willing to buy one of those, I can print that one as well. (well, I can anyways, but then it'd cost me money or the quality will be less.)

shipping costs are for the buyer, but if possible I will try to simply give it to you myself, and at the same time providing you ANOTHER great deal: if you buy me a coffee/tea/bubble-tea/amaretto/bagel/book/cd/piece of clothing, you also get to spent half an hour with me! (and an autograph and if I happen to look good that day, a mobile picture.)

since it contains nudity, you can only see it by clicking on 'see more'. And I hope all the underage kids have been too put off by my writing already to continue reading and finding out about the nudity. But if they did come this far.. shoo! don't read this post, kids, not for kids, don't look!

Mike misses movienights

Poor Mike.

These days, we mostly spent time together for work. But it's just that we grew apart as friends.. we have different taste in music (Mike simply skips songs he doesn't like after hearing the first minute, who needs a minute to decide he doesn't wanna listen to a song??), disagree on what apps to use (he doesn't like After Effects so he just stopped running it properly). And it's such a hassle to supply him with USB sticks! (I prefer Lychee's ports on the side, instead of behind.. Mike, you is big, it's inconvenient!)

But actually, Mike and I have been spending time together more often again lately. I see him more than I see Lychee! But it's okay, she likes her sleep and movies and series are still our special activity. ;)

How to make a card more personal

It's been a while since New Year's but I still had some cards to hand out, last week, David finally got his. But his reaction was quite rude..! Haha, how silly.

I did this to multiple people, I'm afraid.

Help Lae

Ik ben van plan om mee te doen aan de Zomerexpo en wil hiervoor nieuw werk maken.
Het thema is Licht en mijn idee is het volgende;

ik wil portretten maken van mensen samen met degenen die hun leven 'verlichten'.
Niet verlichten in de betekenis het leven dragelijker te maken, maar simpelweg het leven leuker te maken, op te fleuren.

Denk hierbij aan familieleden en vrienden.
Ben je bereid me te helpen, beantwoord dan ajb de volgende vragen:

• Wie verlicht(en) jouw leven?

• Leg uit hoe deze persoon(/personen) jouw leven verlichten.

• Schrijf een kort handgeschreven briefje waarom/hoe deze persoon je leven verlicht, het kan in iedere taal, het liefste jouw moedertaal. (ik hoef het niet te kunnen begrijpen maar een vertaling zou leuk zijn.)

• En stuur mij foto's van jullie, het kan een foto samen zijn of aparte foto's (zolang ze herkenbaar zijn en qua belichting niet teveel verschillen).

hier wat voorbeeldjes.

Dat is alles!

• Wat gebeurt er verder?

Ik maak een schilderij/tekening van jullie en als ik de expo haal, wordt het werk te koop gesteld. Ik kan het dus niet aan de geportretteerden geven.

• Waarom zou je mij helpen?

Mijn dankbaarheid is erg gewild. Ik zal proberen kleine portretjes te maken voor degenen die me helpen.

De reden dat ik dit op deze manier vraag is dat ik geïnteresseerd ben in de echte verhalen en relaties van mensen. En ik hoop op deze manier anderen blij te maken.

Help Lae out

I want to enter a competition to get exhibited and sell my work, and for this exhibition, I want to make some new work.
The theme is light and my idea is the following;

I want to make portraits of people and those that light up their life.
Think about your siblings, parents, other family members, friends, or just anyone (who you actually know, celebrities do not count).
Of course, if you have a girlfriend/boyfriend, that person will be special to you but I prefer to not go in that romantic direction. Not that I doubt the strength of your relationship or am jealous (I'm not! be happy!) but I feel it might be somewhat cliche and you might break up. Non-romantic relationships tend to last longer. But feel free to still choose to go with your partner.

If you want to help me, then please answer these questions:

• Who light(s) up your life?

• Please explain why that person (/those people) is special to you, what he/she/they mean to you.

• Now if you could send me a handwritten note explaining very briefly why they light your life. Preferably your mother tongue. (yes, even Japanese, Finnish, Spanish, Kroatian, Korean, whatever, I don't need to be able to read it.. though, it'd be nice to also have a translation.)

• And please send me a picture of you together, or pictures of each of you. It doesn't matter too much, as long as the photos are clear and not too different in terms of lightning.

any picture like the boxes in this crude drawing is okay. Not facing the camera is totally fine, but your face should be visible.

That's it!

• What will I do with all this?

make a painting/drawing of you and those special to you. If I do get in, it will be for sale so I cannot give it to you.

• What is in it for you?

you get drawn by me! and I will be grateful towards you, so I shall try, as a token, to make you and the people you talked about, a small portrait.

The reason I am asking it like this is because I am interested in people's own, real stories and relationships. I hope that this project will make people happy! :)

creatures

Since I'm mostly drawing people and such, I wanted to try something else for a change, so I started drawing fantasy creatures.

The dragon has a tattoo of an octopus, based on a drawing by Lienke Raben.

Thoug.. they soon became more like actual animals, that creature resting in a weird position on a tree branch looks totally like a Koala in the wrong colorscheme.

So then I drew a fox. I was way too happy about the shape of his head.

Here's the koala-thingie again, because I liked it.

oh, and this is not an animal. but since I'm posting doodles here anyways; here's

Meet Mike

Mike's my iMac.

Meet my brother

Here's a drawing I made for my brother a while ago (if you know my brother, you can estimate roughly when) for his.. you guessed it, (you did, didn't you, if not.. well, you did,) 21st birthday!

I wanted to do it a bit in Frank Miller's style, because I gave my brother a Sin City book as a present, what'd y'all think? is it okay enough.

Also I wanted to draw a party in the background, but really that party became weeeeiiird, I mean, look at the people on the far left, what is even happening? Is there an octopus person? or just too many people on one spot?
also, I drew lines that were supposed to become spotlights but then I decided not to because that would cost me too much ink.. not be as cool as my brother deserves this drawing to be! but I didn't erase them, oops.

I also wanted to talk about how I drew my brother, see his shoulders? they seem a bit off..? no no no no no, you did not think that through, where is my brother? yess! he is at a party showing his awesome shoulder dance!!! and that while maintaining his cool pokerface.. my brother rules.

One last thing, I was wondering.. does anyone ever read my blog posts?

(if so.. maybe.. leave a comment? I feel like I'm ranting on and on to an audience that doesn't want to listen, kinda like in real life, *Max, we all know it when you're not listening but that's okay since at those times I'm mostly talking nonsense*)

Lychee, Lae and friends

so I took Lychee to The Hague to have coffee with my friends and me.

I wanted to do this in somewhat coffee-related colors but I accidentally took out too strong yellows.. which is why Jacky and I (especially Jacky) look pretty yellow now... oops.

portraits of a couple

I had made these two portraits around the same time I made one for uncle Sjoerd, but I didn't have the scans anymore (Mike's hard disk died*).

luckily the portrayed sent me these pictures for me to post! I like how they put used the background, creating a nice composition and the portraits seem to have a stronger connection by using the same background.

(*stay tuned to find out who Mike is!)

Meet Lychee

So.. I named my MacBook Lychee, after my most favorite fruit. Both are small and cute!

Let me introduce her to you all by sharing an insight in our relationship; these are some of the fun things I've done with Lychee.

We have ridden the train together many times...

spent time in my bed, watching movies, chatting, reading webcomics...

drawing and coloring Progress

I was testing out some coloring styles and I like this portrait I was doing. So I scanned it so, even if the coloring didn't turn out in a way I liked, I'd still have a scan of it before coloring.

oops, I didn't make a scan of the first simple outlines, that would've been fun to see.

Godiva

I present to you my good friend Godiva.