Happy holidays

I know, I know: it's being a while I don't write here, but I am a bit in a period of crisis, so I'm not so much in the mood for update the blog, I'm sorry.

But today is Christmas and here in Europe the horrible Christmas sweater trend is spreading and who am I to fight against this?

So, that's the way I'll send to you all my best wishes for this holiday season, I am sharing with you a little illustration about Christmas sweaters and a character made by me and Sara. 

Please let me introduce you Sébastien, a poor guy who is dealing with is first homemade horrible Christmas sweater - and that is terribly unfair considering the poor guy lives in the hot and sunny Toamasina, Madagascar.

Pencil version and colours by me, ink lineart by Sara Cappoli.

This illustration has been made for a nice facebook event, you can see other people's original characters and orrible sweaters here https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=162053340817430&fref=ts.

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As I stare at the Ocean

I am in a bit of a confusion lately: I would like to try to make a graphic novel version of a book, but I can't choose the book: too many good plots in literature.

So, while I am trying to tidy up my mind, I share with you  the first part of the first page of a project I will not finish. But I am happy all the same: I have been able to paint water that is quite of a challenge to me.

Medusa's bad hair day

This month theme for the Character Design Challenge on Facebook is "Olympian Gods", and, yes, I know Medusa is not a god, but, at the moment, it's the only idea that came up in my brain. So I made the illustration even if I can't apply with it.

Here there is what happens when Medusahahs one of that bad hair days.

Orphaned Land

The second fan art of my entire life. This time it's up to Orphaned Land a oriental metal band from Israel. More info here.

Al

I go on with my "jungle series" of portraits.

This time it's up to Al.
More info will come soon.

Joel

Here there is a portrait of a character of us. Sara and I hope to have the possibility to introduce him and his friends to you very soon.

Dia de los muertos...

... because Halloween is too main stream!

No, I'm just joking: Dia de los muertos is a sort of Mexican Halloween ) you can have more pieces of information here), and it is also the theme of this month Character Design Challenge on Facebook.

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Stay drunk, stay pirate.

Ahoy mateys,
today it's the International Talk Like A Pirate Day (more info here).
Let's celebrate with a pint of rum and, of course a themed illustration.

Miss Henrietta Stone

Miss Henrietta Stone is a nosy, annoying old woman, but she is also the best private detective in town, maybe because she can irritate every criminal untill he (or she) comes clean.
And yes, she is also my chatacter for this month Cahracter Design Challenge on Facebook, themed Private Detective.

Keeping on training

I'm trying to keep on training with quick sketches and digital colours.
Here there is the latest one, she is just a random girl: no planned characters this time.
Enjoy:

Portrait of a younger self

Some days ago in a forum for illustrators someone had the idea of drawing ourself as if we were attending an high-school in US. So here there is a sort of self portrait of how I could be if I was at highschool now. 

I don't like to make selfportraits, well... I hate it! But sooner or later I have to get used to, so this is the first of a serie (I hope).

Note: I have some blue hair now, but I think my parents would have killed me if I had had it during high-school.

Juggler

This month theme in the Character Design Challenge on Facebook is Travelling Circus.
So here there is my entry for this month, this time with a short character's description:

"Li Wu is a pretty talented juggler born and raised in a travelling circus. But she always regret she didn't follow her childhood dream of running away with a family of bookkeepers."

Actually, this is my second choice: I had another idea at first but it's against the contest rules since it included two characters. I'll make it all the same in my spare time :)

Digital colour experiment #1

Busy period again and I've been away from blogspot for a while. But sometime I manage to find the time to spring out again.

This time I tried a mix of techniques, this is the first attempt and I am quite satisfied with the result, but not enough satisfied to make a step by step post: let me refine the techniques and I'll provide you a proper explanation for every step.

Since I was mostly experimenting I had to look for a not too elaborate draw to work with, so I picked up the old sketch for a character you still don't know, but I hope I'll introduce you very soon: in these months things are going on and I hope to share with you some good news soon (fingers crossed).

In the meanwhile here there is my little experiment.

Rabbit stew

My entry for the Character Design Challenge on Facebook, this month theme was "Masterchef".

Too cool for school

It's being a very very hot summer so far in Italy, so it's hard to sleep at night with cicadas singing and temperature at  30°C. So, last night I made some scketches, one of those has become an illustration in the last few hours.
So here there is:

She is a pirate!

A very quick sketch done for a friend during a hard work night.
The woman in the portrait is Marika, she is a wonderful friend, a very good illustrator (you can see here her artworks) and well... a pirate! She has been my inspiration for my original chatacter Marie too.

This, that or the other one?

And here there is the final version of my sketch from the last post. Well, the three final versions since I am not able to choose which one I do prefer. So... have you any preference?

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Saturday night break

It's being a very very busy time lately, I am working on two project and I hope I'll share soon with you some good news and some pieces of information about what I am working on, but for the moment I'll be quiet.

But yesterday night I was a bit in a bad mood so I decided to take a break from work and draw just for myself. This is the result: I'll try to finish it a bit a time in my spare time so I'll think I'll do another wip-post.

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Postapocalyptic survivor

Here there is my entry for this month character design challenge themed "Postapocalyptic survivor". I am currently very very busy (as you could maybe spot) but, men, I am a doughter of 80s, how could I miss this theme?

So here there is my quick sketch for the challenge:

Lappish Witch

Some weeks ago I decided to take part in the Character Design Challenge on facebook. It's just a game: an excuse to draw something not related to my job and it works this way: they give a theme and you have to draw a character according to that theme and post it on their page. It's so incredibly nice to look at how many different ways a theme can be interpreted.

This month theme is Wizards and Witches and this is my entry:

If you want to take part  in the Character Design Challenge you are welcome: this is the official page this one.

Lemurs

I know, I know... I've been not posting for a long while, but lately I'm having a very very busy time. I hope I'll update you soon with some news, in the meanwhile here there is a sketch made in bic pen, brush-tip pen and automatic-pencil.

Greyscale VS Full Colour

Some days ago I was practicing with digital colour, so I tryed some new tecnics: I worked on this portrait in greyscale and then added the colours. I'm not still completely satisfied with the final results but it's a first attempt, so I supposte it's ok.
By the way, which one do you prefer? The Grayscale or the Full Colour version?

Gun WIP

And there we are with the step by step process for the Girl with a Gun I posted some days ago.
 

1) as usual the start point is the pencil drawing on common print paper.

2) Cleaning up the illustration: after I scanned it and opened the file with adobe photoshop I start ereasing all the pencil line in excess and all the grey shadows. I'm afraid I forgot to take a screenshot of the final result after the clean up, but you should easily imagine it, it's like the image above but more tidy ;)

3) The flat colour part. It's when I choose what palette I'll use to create the atmosphere I had in my mind while I was designing. I simply fill up the different areas with a colour shade that will be a sort of halfway between the darkest colour I'll use for the shades and the lighter colour I'll use for the birght points.

4) Colouring the lineart. I simply change the colour of the whole lineart making it more similar to the base colour of the area. It's a little detail but the image looks quite different.

5) Volumes time: with a soft brush I try to armonize the lineart with the base flat colour and, while doing it, I try to make the image a bit more tridimensional casting shadows according to the volumes as the figure was under a neutral light source.

6) Shadows. I simply paint the shadows according to the lightsource I chose. I usually paint the shadow with a colour (dark green-brown in this case) to suggest the idea of the kind of light is shining in the picture. After I painted the shadows I set the layer on 'multiply' and low the opacity.

7) Light. Now it's time to add some light spots, I go on using the soft brush and paint with a bright colour the spots where the light goes, I try to be consistent with the different materials (i.e. the light has a different effect on humas skin than on the fabric) but I don't always suceed.

8) Final atmosphere. That's the final part of my work: I simply add some detalis like the wallpaper and give a stronger light.

I hope you enjoyed the work in progess process :)

Disclaimer: I summarised a lot, but I usually work the steps 5, 6 and 7 on an area at time, starting a new area once the previous one is complete but it was simpler to explain this way.

Gun colour

This is the final result, in the next days I'll post the wip :)

Gun

Working on a new illustration which I will share the work in progress of.
This is the first step: pencil on common paper.

Two external inspirations this time: I took the ideas of hat and hairdressing here : https://it.pinterest.com/pin/505880970619728007/ while the gun looks a bit like the wonderful steampunk gun Luca made for me some yeras ago.

Some sketches again

And here there are some sketches again. Characters will come soon, very soon, and pieces of information will come with them, but now it's still time for some background preparatory work.

Hut -sketch

Hi there!
It's a very hard working time here at Fedzeppelin's place, I and Sara are working on a new steampunk project. You'll have some detalils and some new characters soon but in the meanwhile here there is a sketch for one of the backgrounds.
I hope you enjoy.

Page 27 WIP 2: pencil

Very busy period at Fedzeppelin's place. I've just the time to drop here the second part of the WIP.
As you can see, something has changed from the layout page and I can assure you: it always happens.
Hope you enjoy.

Page 27 WIP: layout

Here I go again, after a very long time.
I'm sorry but it took a while to recover and I've got a bit of flu still. Anyway here I am back to work and to this blog. I'll update you all about what happened in France, as soon as I have some proper news to share, in the meanwhile I'm back to the steampunk project. I've to draw a couple of pages, so I thought it would be nice to show the whole creative process.
Are you ready?
Very well: here there is Page 27 Layout.

The layout is the first step a drawer makes when he (or she) have to project a page.

Of course, before there is a script: a page where the author writes what will happen in every panel of the page. Sara wrote the script for me with all the datas and reccommendations and dialogues, but I'll not share it because it's in Italian (and somehow in a sort of 'code language') and it would take a long time to translate it.

Anyway here there is the layout. You can see that at this point the draw is not so accurate, somewhere not even proper, that's because it's a sort of quick sketch of the page, it's useful to see how the page will look like at the end of the work, and to decide how the areas will be filled.

Mission Angoulême

Hi everyone and sorry for not being so active on blogspot lately.
Tomorrow I'll leave to the Festival international de la bande dessinée in Angoulême where Sara and I will be chasing a publisher for our projects so, please, wish us well.
I'll be back next week with some other artworks.
In the meanwhile have some nice days! ;)

New Year, New Project part 3: the supernatural beings

And here there are the last character for this project.
I wish I could tell you something about it very soon, but at the moment we are still working on it, so things are changing fast.
Anyway I hope you enjoy :)

New Year, New Project part 2: Friends and neighbors

Here there is a bunch of characters again:

A new project for a new year

Always busy here at Fedzeppelin's place, Sara and I are currently working on a new projet to be showed at the next Festival de la Bande-Dessinnée d'Angoulême hoping we will find a publisher.
At the moment I can't reveal a lot since the project subject is still top-secret, but I can show you at least the characters, so you can tell us if you like'em.
Here we go with the 4 main characters, they will be room-mates in a shared flat somewhere.