WORK IN PROGRESS
Season’s greetings

So, it’s already 2011? I was just getting comfortable with 2010!

Every year around August I get nightmares. It’s about coming up with an idea for a christmascard and I wake up and it’s already Easter.

So, I bought some glühwein in July, opened the freezer, dressed properly, closed the curtains, listened to my favourite christmas cd ever (on repeat), and started working…

I’m very happy with the results, I hope you’ll be happy in 2011!
See below for the ‘making of’ if you’re curious…

I decided to do a portrait of myself. So, first I took lots of digital pictures. Because there’s never a shot that has everything right (hands, clothes, lighting etc.), I start to cut things up, paste it together again untill I’m happy. Which took a long time…

I still use paper and pencils and get my hands dirty. I traced the photoprints on paper with ordinairy pencil. Again, cut things up to more precise positioning of some elements (head and shoes). No need to use tablets here. Later!

Usually, I like to ink by hand. For this, I used Artrage to do some digital inking. Forget Adobe Illustrator (too clean), forget Corel Painter (too complicated, too many buttons). Artrage does it better than anything. All the inks are on one layer, so I can get to the good stuff: painting! Digitally on a Wacom-tablet. It doesn’t work faster than real paint: it works more precise. And you can undo anything in the process. And add anything on separate layers. Total freedom!

Adding details with a fine line on fabrics and hair. I did not use this version and it took a while to be satisfied.

This is a more or less finished version, consisting of maybe 10 different layers for each part of the body and clothes. I exported it all to Photoshop, which has more precise controls in the details. All I have to do now is remove all the color outside the lines and do some color correction.

I make eyeballs in Photoshop and paste them into the picture. Tough job. I do a lot of distorting the eyeball, so it doesn’t look like you’re a dead Ken or Barbie.

Finished! Now for the other artwork…

I used Google Sketchup and found a model of an old Mustang-plane. Drawing planes, cars, ships etc. is always a hard thing to do: the 3D-modeling features of Google Sketchup saved me some hard, good oldfashioned labour with photo-research, rulers and perspective.

The big idea: “This year I felt like Cary Grant in ‘North by Northwest’ “
Every year in December people are making plans for the new year. I have too many plans and ideas and too little time to work it all out. So, at the end of the year, there is still an extensive list of TO DO’s, I MUST’s, I SHOULD’s etc. that’s still under my christmas tree.

Inbetween all the different elements, I wrote all the stuff (Photoshop and Artrage) that’s still in my head (David Allen, are you listening?).