Long time, no see!

Oh hey there! Its been awhile since i last posted on here. A looooonnnng while. Anyways, for those interested I keep up to date with facebook/deviantart nowadays.

https://www.facebook.com/mike.vriens.9

The blog will stay idle until further notice. Please use the links to visit, thank you!

Monsterizing the Alphabet

Was doodling random shapes and things outside on the porch today to get back into drawing again. While drawing, a certain image caught my eye looking like a mangled form of a letter, so I decided that I should spell out the word 'monsters' with that idea in mind. Nothing terribly original here but it's a fun little boredom-buster exercise to do. I think it might be fun to make something like this into a series. I dunno though.

And yes, I love the Pixar movie as well.

Old Schtuff

Looking back on old OLD sketchbooks never gets old.

I've scanned these drawings in a long time ago for a totally different intention. Part of it being that I wanted to redraw it over again to update it to sell as merchandise, but ah, eff it man. It's been molding in my hard drive for awhile now so I figured I should just let them out already. It sucks to withold pure, unadulterated JOY for so long. =P And the other part being so secret that no one will ever know the -real- reason behind it. EVER! Ok, not really =P but here it is.

The first drawing is actually unintentional fan-art for Golden Axe. You know those little sneaky devils that come in and steal your potions while your characters are asleep? Then your characters wake up and you abuse the ever living crap out of them to get your potions back?  Damn those little buggers. =P 

As for the rest? Enjoy~

And a heaven in a wild flower

"To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour."

Do you see heaven in that flower? I do. It looks like a galaxy/the milky way to me. I wonder if this is what Blake saw when he wrote that line?

( Psst, it might work better if you see it far away, or at a thumbnail size.)

Late night doodle

Ah, these guys kept me up past my bed time. Usually they want me (and everyone else) asleep! How else are they gonna feed on our slothful energies? Ah well, at least it was fun zombifying through it.

I dunno about those tentacles or "feelers" draping off its snout, though.

Watch out for the Pufflyrump!

A devious little critter that takes advantage of Nature's charms by looking cute.

When hungry, a Pufflyrump will scamper around looking for potential targets, usually any person or animal that is old enough to take care of the young or old. It stealthily creeps up to the target as to avoid detection (because it really isn't a helpless looking thing afterall) and when close enough it shows up by plopping itself down right in front of the target. It feigns helplessness by flapping around in circles and chirping noisily (albeit very loud too) in the hopes to garner affection from the target. If the target doesn't respond, then the Pufflyrump will pull in its outer body and retract its legs and use its mesmerising stare ability to weaken the target's will. If the target shows even the slightest resistance, then the Puffyrump will impose its will even harder as evidenced by the bulging eyes and puffed up appearance. It will not stop until the target succumbs to its mesmerising stare. Failure to do so will really deflate its ego, and loss of appetite will follow.

Dragon Warrior Drags on and on

Gah. I hate writing something up for the blog. I just never know what to write.

Ok, here's a dragon warrior on guard. Guarding what? Some tyrant of a king? Some enchanted treasure? A magical fruit stand? All of the above? I dunno. Just looking tough, I guess. He's paid to look that way. Kinda like a bouncer.

Bald Headed Cluckerbuck

This drawing took about 2 hours total from drawing to finish. Trying to go for speed here since I have a brand new schedule going and there's not enough time in a day to do everything I want to do. But it's working good so far. Tons of work overall but fun.

Year of the Dragon

To those born in the year of the dragon. This is your year!

Finally got a new monitor. Now I can see things the way they're meant to be seen!

Try-hard-atops

Scrying/Pareidolia.

Yesterday night while laying in bed with the night light on, I see this guy casually glancing over in my direction in the hallway. It's actually coming from a pile of cloth folded up and stacked on top of a little table neatly tucked away into the corner. It'll make sense to you if you consider how blind as a bat I am without my glasses so the pile of clothes blur into something else with the way the night light was shining on it. I wanted to get up and draw him down right away, but since I just got into bed, I was in no mood to get up. I was way too tired so I just forced myself to memorise what I can by breaking it down the shapes into colours, the shape of the creature and by using image associations (looks like this, looks like that..) to help me remember. I paid more emphasis on the colours and the lighting than the actual creature.

I'd say it came out kinda close.

Sketch Dump

Some more randomness.

Slugclops

I think it's missing a monocle and a moustache.

Warm ups

Julia Cameron "The creative process is a process of surrender, not control. "

It looks like my inner demons are trying to come out. I think I'm going to start doing dark to lights on Photoshop first to warm up before drawing with pen on paper instead of the other way around. It seems to be less frustrating this way.

WIP Update

Been working on a WIP from before. It can be found HERE.

Monster of the Day

I feel so much better. This totally made up for my painting yesterday which left me quite frustrated.

Parts of the skeleton looks pretty mangled up but you get the idea.

And yet another Snailien

Blah, just blah... Feels like I have a long ways to go before this guy is actually finished. But I'm so sick of it at this point that I'm calling it done. So there!

Follow your Bliss -- Joseph Campbell

Dump'em-ber (december dump) Sketches

Drawing is soooo much more enjoyable if you're not fixated on the outcome!

Heck, I didn't even like these drawings too much, but I felt better when I digitally fixed up one of them. It's forcing me to keep pushing through instead of saying "Ah, good enough." I can keep going but I caved in to the path of least resistance already. Tsk tsk...

Looking at it again, I can see every sketch above as a potential digital fixer upper. I tend to think of every sketch as "final" without touching it up any further.

December Dumpage

And some more dRAWRings...

December Sketch Dump

Scrap collection of various doodles drawn on envelopes with some minor alterations on Pshop.