Robots, Monsters and Gnomes, Oh My!

Hisssss

2011-12-10T22:30:00.001-08:00

I'm getting old.

2011-12-08T17:59:00.001-08:00

I'm old. I like old music. I'm ok with this.

From The Sketchbook

2011-09-20T11:33:00.001-07:00

Just another Monster

2011-09-09T15:02:00.000-07:00

Hey Gnome! Check out my Hands!

2011-08-28T13:48:00.000-07:00

Hey Look!!! I'm on the Internet!!

2011-08-27T12:46:00.000-07:00

Check it out. The fine folks at CreatureMag put a one minute drawing of mine up. Thanks guys!

Earths Collide Logo

2011-08-12T18:02:00.000-07:00

I made a logo for my friend's band, Earths Collide. This is it.

Hands: Day One

2011-03-29T17:34:00.000-07:00

Do you like drawings of hands? Well you're in luck! I downloaded a reference file of hands drawn by the masters of old school Disney animation and practiced drawing them. This is the first of several pages of hands that I drew. I think that the practice helped. And I needed help. Now all I need is a reference sheet that shows me how to draw feets.

Zombie Mules

2011-03-28T20:39:00.000-07:00

Zombie Mules. Drawn in my sketchbook, coloured in Gimp.

I Got A Haircut......

2011-03-24T20:14:00.000-07:00

....Like 6 months ago. And yeah. The wife did cut me.

Another Page...With Photoshop!!!

2011-03-14T20:00:00.001-07:00

Actually not Photoshop. Gimp, the freeware version of Photoshop. It's OK. The price is right. I just wish I had a Tablet so that I could use it a bit better. Ah, well.

BIG Sketchbook

2011-03-10T19:12:00.000-08:00

I love my big sketchbook. It's bigger than any other I've owned before so it was a bit intimidating.

Sketchbook Number Five

2011-03-07T17:33:00.000-08:00

India Part Two

2011-02-15T19:08:00.000-08:00

Ok. Here is part two of two: My Trip To India.

My sketches get more random and scattered. Also they are without colour. I was getting overwhelmed by the country a lot of the time and barely had the time or energy to see and think about the things around me let alone draw them. So I have no drawings of some of my favorite things. No drawings of Udaipur, Jodhpur Fort, Jodhpur Style Rickshaws, etc. These things exist in my memories and in the photos that Erin took. Here are the few things I managed to scribble down.

Another drawing of a Pavement Dwelling. You will notice the satellite dish on the roof. It was a strange thing to see, this permanent temporary shelter that houses a family on the sidewalk. You'd think it was squalor, but if you put aside your own ideals of living you would see that most of them were relatively clean, neat and most had TVs. I don't mean to go on about these things but they, obviously, fascinated me.

Garbage. It is ever-present. Through my travels, to Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, I have come to associate the sight and smell of garbage with the "Third world". Phnom Phen in the morning has a haze of burnt plastic smoke, out the window of the trains and cars I rode on the island of Java I didn't see one bit of water that wasn't swimming with trash, but nothing prepared me for Mumbai. India is regarded as a developed country according to most of the measures and yet Mumbai seems like towers rising out of a garbage dump. If you take a billion people, mix them with a shaky at best infrastructure; you get the garbage problems of Mumbai. It was shocking.

I did see some interesting things. We toured one of the slums where most of the cities recycling took place. The streets teem with people who's job it is to gather the garbage and sell it and most goes there to be reused. In the city of Udaipur there wasn't too much trash and apparently that is because someone had the good idea of making garbage cleanup a high paying job for low-income women. But there is just soooooo much.

Another thing to remember is that a lot of the trash there is ours. We ship tons of our garbage that we don't want to deal with to places around the world, including India. In the recycling depots in the slum I saw Western fridges, toys, and computers.

The garbage was amazing, but that being said, I would return to Mumbai any time. The city was so alive and vibrant and exciting that even the drifts of trash couldn't disenchant me.

After Mumbai we headed north to Rajasthan.

Rajasthan was like a fairytale world. When you think of exotic India of deserts, Awesome Spirally Mustaches, Towering Forts, Camels, Turbans, The Silk Road, Flat Topped 700 year old homes you are thinking of Rajasthan.

We took a camel ride into the desert. It was interesting, beautiful, and way too long. I was sore, cold and apparently allergic to camels. I will never do it again, but every terrible travel experience turns into a good travel story.

I drank a lot of Chai. A lot. It is a hot, tasty mix of black tea, garam masala, fresh ginger, boiled milk, and sugar. Every place had it's own recipe. Some were great, some so-so, but I pretty much lived off of it.
Erin got some Henna done. It looked pretty darn cool.

This is not actually something I saw.

I am a narcissistic bastard. I know. I draw myself all the time.

Sometimes as a Rajastani.

This isn't a drawing of me.
Sometimes I just need to draw monsters.

We saw an actual snake charmer. Honestly I would have been disappointed if I had gone to India and not seen a snake charmer. I gave him a few rupees even though I knew that you shouldn't encourage them. He wanted more but a nice Indian fellow told him he was being greedy and to leave us alone

The Gnome gets around.

Erin and I were unimpressed by the Taj Mahal. I dunno. Maybe we were in a bad mood. Maybe because it was gloomy it didn't shine like it's supposed to. All I know was that I had seen other things in India that blew me away much more than this place. Everyone else loved it so I guess we could be wrong.

I was starting to feel a bit worn out by this point.

I finally got sick on the train from Agra to Varanasi. It was not fun. I spent two days in bed and missed most of the city. We left a day early and got onto our only first class train.

Fog was so thick that our 12 hour train trip turned into a 22 hour train trip. We had a private first class cabin and the train had a canteen car so it was better than it could have been. We met a girl who was travelling in 3rd class and I can't imagine her experience. Still, by the end I was pretty stinky.

Everyone had warned us that Delhi was going to be the worst place on the trip. The touts would be the worst, the prices the highest, the city the dirtiest. I dunno. It was cool by me. I like big cities. Also, I think we may have been getting a bit desensitized to India. Regardless I kind of liked Delhi.

Our last hotel was the Tara Palace. It was relatively clean, in a convenient location, and pretty expensive compared to what we had been paying. It was a good end to the trip. We didn't see as much of Delhi as we could have. We didn't have the energy to run around the city in a mad scramble to see everything, but we did watch a lot of old movies on the movie channel.

And that was our trip. It was the most stressful, exhausting, infuriating, amazing, beautiful, and breathtaking trip we've been on. I'd go back in a heartbeat.

India part one

2011-02-09T18:24:00.000-08:00

Recently My wife and I went to India. It was an overwhelming, exciting, exhausting, infurriating, and wonderful experience. I took along a lined, Moleskine notebook. At first I tried to keep a diary, but within days I had fallen behind and realized that I am not really able to keep a diary. Instead I sketched impressions that I got on the way.

Very rarely was I sketching from life. I don't really sketch from life, but I draw what I remember, dredging up images and dragging them through my mind on the way to the paper.

Above is a street view. If you can't tell with the messy scribbles, in the background are pavement dweller's houses. Rickety homes built of plywood and tarps, discarded corregated steel and cardboard. These line many of the streets of Bombay and house full families in thier small spaces.

The funny thing about the pavement dwellers or slum dwellers is that most of them have jobs. They aren't homeless beggars prowling the streets demanding money from the more fortunate. Of course there are beggars. Often we would be approached by people asking for handouts, for "Milk Powder in the Morning", but as far as I could tell, for the most part these weren't the same people living in the slums.

In pretty much every city we went to the fastest, cheapest and funnest way to travel was by Auto-Rickshaw. I love rickshaws. I wish that every city in the world had them. Zooming through traffic, recklessly weaving into the oncoming lanes, and squeezing between trucks. It is an exhillerating way to travel. Below is a Mumbai-Style rickshaw.

The only downside of Ricshaw Travel is dealing with the drivers. I understand that they have a tough life. It can't be easy going through that traffic day after day, but I'm not sure that that is an excuse for becoming an invennerate liar. Don't belive a Rickshaw driver. He tells you lies.

Erin fell in love with the stray dogs. She always wanted to touch them. She would look at a ratty, scabby flea-crawling mongrel and would be compelled to put her hands on it. I was the voice of reason forbidding such rash actions.

The dogs were everyhwere. On every street, in every public building. The train station had dogs in it. The parks had dogs. The monuments had dogs. Everywhere.

My impression of Indian men was that Indian men know how to be men. They are big. They have strong hands and wear serviceable clothes. And most of all, they have mustaches. I saw many kinds of mustaches on my trip. Here are a few that I classified.

The Almost Handlebar

The Almost Handle Bar (or AHB) is a man's mustache. The wearer of an AHB is big. He is tough. He will wreck your shit if you get in his way. Don't mess with the wearer of an AHB.

The Work-a-Day

The Work-a-Day (WD) is the most common mustache in India. It is the one that every office worker, dad, rickshaw driver, cook, or politition wears. It is respectable, reliable, not too much work to groom, yet dignified.

The Whispy-Whisp

The Whispy-Whisp (WW) can be viewed in two ways. In one way it is a sad, feeble attempt at a mustache. It is no different than the one on your goofy buddy's lip in 10th grade. The one you mocked and pulled at in the hopes that he'd get it and just shave it off. But if you look at the WW in another way, you could see that it is a defiant action. A WW owner doesn't care that he can't grow a manly AHB. He would rather have a thin, weak mustache than none at all like a lady. He is content to grow his few lip hairs, in the hopes that more and stronger will come. We could all learn a thing or two from a WW owner.

The Spiral of Awesome

Most Spirals of Awesome (SoA) I saw were grown in Rajastan. The men who wore them looked like mighty warriors from a long ago time. These men knew what a mustache was for and what to do to make them awesome. Hooray for the spiral of awesome and the awesome men who sport them!

And that's it for now. More India sketches and thoughts will come.

2010-11-01T16:57:00.000-07:00

I Want To Rebel

2010-10-20T19:26:00.000-07:00

Cup of Coffee

2010-10-19T16:58:00.000-07:00

I like coffee. I drink obscene amounts of it. It deserves at least a page of my sketchbook devoted to it.

Goblins!

2010-10-18T16:41:00.000-07:00

Facial Hair

2010-10-17T19:13:00.001-07:00

Escape!

2010-10-14T19:37:00.000-07:00

Monster

2010-10-12T20:58:00.000-07:00

porthus again

2010-10-05T17:01:00.000-07:00

porthus

2010-10-04T20:03:00.000-07:00

cyclops

2010-10-03T17:30:00.000-07:00

Creepy Guy

2010-09-30T19:30:00.000-07:00

Nice View Near Jamsil

2010-09-29T18:35:00.000-07:00

Homeless Russian

2010-09-28T20:00:00.000-07:00

I Painted this based on a photograph in the August 2008 National Geographic Magazine. The original photo was taken by Gerd Ludwig.

Targos

2010-09-26T17:07:00.000-07:00

Targos is Lord of Ghosts. But don't get starstruck. It's really only a patronage appointment from his brother Bargos Emperor of Zombies. Ghost don't really do anything but hang around and moan.

Robo-Vomit

2010-09-24T20:16:00.000-07:00

Robot Vomit is the worst kind of vomit. Its full of oil and bolts.

PugHead

2010-09-23T22:51:00.000-07:00

Marty Borgerson

2010-09-20T22:11:00.000-07:00

Alien.

2010-09-19T17:14:00.000-07:00

"Hello there," said the Alien.

"Hello to you," I said.

Homeless People

2010-09-16T17:35:00.000-07:00

These people are without homes.

hobo john

2010-09-15T17:51:00.000-07:00

High People.

2010-09-14T20:44:00.000-07:00

I guess the gnome doesn't like my lettering. I was getting a bit sick of it myself.

Face

2010-09-13T17:25:00.000-07:00

I like thick ink. Ink that has been sitting in the dish for too long. It's shiny, black and thick. I actually tend to like the stuff I do with the leftover ink more than i ever like the original piece.

Fish-Man

2010-09-12T16:33:00.000-07:00

Hello to you too, Fish-Man.

Doodles.

2010-09-09T18:02:00.000-07:00

We Are Fucking Angry

2010-09-06T19:13:00.000-07:00

For a while I was drawing lots of pictures of protesters. I found most of the images through google image search. Also I was using my fancy brush pen.

New Headphones.

2010-09-05T16:32:00.000-07:00

I bought some new headphones. Here is a comic about that fascinating event.

Rhino

2010-09-02T16:35:00.000-07:00

This is the first stand alone piece of art that I've done just for art's sake in a long time. Watercolour painting over an ink drawing.

Hulk Smash

2010-09-01T18:19:00.000-07:00

Playing with my new brush pen. I likes it very much. I don't know why I like to paint the Hulk. I never really read his comics, though I did read the recent Planet Hulk and World War Hulk series. But it is fun to draw him.

NameSkull

2010-08-31T17:27:00.000-07:00

That is my name shaped into a skull. My full name, in case you are wondering is Jeffry Haldor Helgi Fridfinnson.

Ink Painting

2010-08-30T16:22:00.000-07:00

Some of the favorite things I draw seem to be doodles I make when using up ink left over from other projects. This was done over some doodles on a scrap piece of lined paper.

Hell Yes

2010-08-29T18:12:00.000-07:00

Birdmen and water colours

2010-08-26T17:15:00.000-07:00

Two posts in two days!!! Wow. I haven't pulled that off in a while. This is just some brush work from my sketch book. And some water colours. I need to look into my scanner settings. The face is much darker here than it actually is in my book. I guess i need to spend a bit of time colour corecting after I scan. But, if I'm honest, I'm not sure that I will.

Angry Eyes Redux

2010-08-25T19:23:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure that I put a different drawing of angry eyes up here a long time ago. This is a new, and in my opinion, better drawing of the same thing.

Hello.

2010-08-17T17:02:00.000-07:00

I am back from Vacation. This is a spaceman.

Porthus Page II

2010-07-22T17:54:00.000-07:00

Partially coloured. I make no excuses for my laziness.

Alphabet

2010-07-19T18:17:00.000-07:00

Another alphabet. Also some pencil drawings (thats why they are so faint), some ink and ink wash stuff, and also, apparently I was channeling Keith Haring for a minute there. Odd, since I'm not even that big a fan of his stuff...

Grank and Splork.

2010-07-18T19:11:00.000-07:00

2010-07-15T18:48:00.000-07:00

Alphabet

2010-07-14T19:24:00.000-07:00

Just another Doodle page from the Sketchbook

2010-07-13T18:44:00.000-07:00

Watch Mouth

2010-07-12T18:17:00.000-07:00

This started as a drawing of pieces of a watch, then I lost the photo reference, so I drew the monster face, then I started to colour the background then I got bored with that so it is what you see.

Shoes are Dumb

2010-07-11T14:37:00.000-07:00

ugly people

2010-07-09T04:24:00.000-07:00

Spiderman

2010-07-07T17:42:00.000-07:00

...and a reindeer. And some kind of rabbit pirate.

drawrings

2010-07-04T20:09:00.000-07:00

blue/red pencil

2010-07-01T19:06:00.000-07:00

Brush Work

2010-06-30T17:17:00.000-07:00

Cleaning the ink off of my brushes and out of my.....ink holder....(it is a small shallow dish for soy sauce that I have re-purposed to hold ink). Ink washes as well, but those don't seem to scan as well, maybe because I am scanning at a lower resolution.

Skulls

2010-06-29T18:33:00.000-07:00

Sleeping Bulldog

2010-06-28T18:45:00.000-07:00

Well, actually a Bulldog/Boxer cross. She is very lovable. Especially when she is sleeping.

Doodely-Doodely-Doo

2010-06-27T18:58:00.001-07:00

Never Trust a Panda

2010-06-24T14:28:00.000-07:00

Never trust a panda. As soon as your back is turned..........KABLAMO!!!!!!! You get a grenade all up in your grill.

Bang!

2010-06-23T18:08:00.000-07:00

Faces.

2010-06-22T20:24:00.000-07:00

Ugly Hands

2010-06-21T17:18:00.000-07:00

Gustav

2010-06-20T18:34:00.000-07:00

Bird Rider

2010-06-17T18:51:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure why, but this scanned really pale. I think it may be because it's watercolours. I dunno.

Porthus

2010-06-16T20:34:00.000-07:00

This is a little comic I've been doing in my sketchbook. This is the first page. More to come.

The Cove

2010-06-10T17:48:00.000-07:00

Click the image to see a larger one

I watched The Cove quite a while ago and made this comic about it. I felt that I had to say something about how terrible and gut wrenched I felt. It is an amazing movie, and the issue is a ridiculous one. There is no reason for those people to be killing the dolphins. Yet they do and it pisses me off.

The Monster

2010-06-09T17:41:00.000-07:00

It is rare these days That I draw anything that isn't in my sketch book or a page for my ongoing comic Something Terrible Has Happened that i do with my friend Matt VanHellen. But The other day I wanted to practice my crosshatching. And for some reason I felt the urge to draw Frankenstein's Monster. And For the background I wondered what might be going through his head.

Incomplete

2010-06-08T18:49:00.000-07:00

Something Terrible Came From The Hole

2010-06-07T17:11:00.000-07:00

BabyHat

2010-06-03T18:53:00.000-07:00

Random Page

2010-06-02T19:27:00.000-07:00

I often paste drawings into my sketchbook that I doodle on random scraps of paper.

Just another one of these

2010-05-31T19:22:00.000-07:00

Zombie

2010-05-30T20:43:00.000-07:00

Zombot

2010-05-27T17:17:00.000-07:00

Zombot. I really like how this came out. But, since I used Sharpies (and I love sharpies) the colour all bled through to the next page. So you get this:

One of these.

2010-05-26T19:52:00.000-07:00

F*** This Drawing

2010-05-25T18:57:00.000-07:00

For a while I was having trouble with my sketchbook. Just with the shape of it. It wasn't inspiring me to draw cool stuff. Look at me. Blaming the book. Loooooser. Anyways I was having a problem, especially with the drawing that started this comic. I was literally saying "Fuck this Drawing" to myself. But it inspired me to draw this comic, which I actually like.

Space Gun

2010-05-25T01:17:00.000-07:00

Yes. This is a space gun. And just in case you didn't get that I wrote "Space Gun" beneath it.

Sigh.

2010-05-23T19:47:00.000-07:00

Again with the theme of monsters with ennui. Also some sort of creature with black stuff shooting out it's ass. I'm pretty sure when i drew it I was thinking poison or acid or lava, but now that I look at it again...it looks like he's...sick.

What now?

2010-05-20T18:35:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder, If I was a horrible robot powered by the brain of an insane misanthropic scientist, and I had finally succeeded in destroying the entire human race, how would I feel. Kind of lost, i think.

Totoro

2010-05-19T18:53:00.000-07:00

I like Totoro.

Visit to the Aquarium

2010-05-18T18:26:00.000-07:00

The wife and I went to the Aquarium in CoEx Mall a while ago. It was a good one. The tanks weren't too small, there weren't too many people, and there was a pretty good variety of fishes. And other things. Including a Freaking Two-headed turtle!

You've been Served

2010-05-17T17:52:00.000-07:00

If I was to give myself a letter grade for the perspective in this drawing it would have to be a "F".

Bot Cops

2010-05-16T19:00:00.000-07:00

Maybe the "Electro-donut" was in poor taste. But here are the BotCops

Osaka Bath

2010-05-13T19:01:00.000-07:00

While in Osaka we stayed in a capsule hotel. It was very cool. It was like the future as seen from 1994. This Capsule hotel had a sauna-like bathing area. It was interesting, and besides the showers at public pools or gyms my first experience in public bathing. I kind of liked it. Except my heart almost stopped.

Bad Guys

2010-05-12T19:40:00.000-07:00

I love some of the conversations I had with my young friend Edward.

More Airport faces

2010-05-06T18:23:00.000-07:00

Faces

2010-05-05T17:55:00.000-07:00

Japanese Brushpens

2010-05-05T01:06:00.000-07:00

I bought some brushpens at a Japanese dollar store. just trying them out.

Capsule Hotel

2010-05-03T21:21:00.000-07:00

A while ago my wife and I went to Osaka Japan and we stayed in a capsule hotel. This is a quick sketch i did from inside of it.

Tim Gunbot

2010-05-02T18:17:00.000-07:00

Pug on a Pillow.

2010-04-29T20:49:00.000-07:00

If you own a pug and like to draw, it seems you draw the stupid thing all the time. Oh well.

Open Your Mind.

2010-04-28T17:05:00.000-07:00

Brush pen coloured with watercolour pencils. I am referring to meditation and self examination, not drug use, of course.

hello again

2010-04-27T00:06:00.001-07:00

This was just me trying out my Faber Castle Brush Pen. I like them a lot, but I don't know if I'm doing something wrong with them, but I find that the tips go blunt too quickly to really make them cost effective.