Julien's

One day as I was working late, I turned my head to the right and saw the Oli’s machine in action. It made me think. But it’s cool I love this music :)

This mouth can’t speak.

If it does he will crunch the beauty inside.

This ear can’t hear.

If it does he will swallow the beauty outside.

This head can’t think.

And I can’t write.

The idea of mashing up my passions for both Gypsy Jazz and illustration could have been obvious but only popup in my mind a couple of weeks ago. It didn’t take me long to let myself inspired by Mr Django Reinhardt for a sketch I started last Sunday. more…

The last few weeks have been very exciting for my little illustration world. I pushed myself a bit more than usual in order to trigger my main 2010′s resolution: showing off my work further than my bedroom, family & friends.

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Well, I fooled myself on this one: it was late and I mix up the french idiomatic expression “faire un paté” (means to vomit) with “faire un flan” which means making a big deal out of something insignificant. So this guy’s been a bit sick and generate a proper “Flamby“… I know, it doesn’t make any sense, but it’s been another reason to draw something and there might be some hidden meaning in there… who knows…

…during my 1h15 daily commute to work was difficult until I realized that as far as I can get a sit on the train I can use this time to… well… sketch. And my little DS with Colors! is actually the best tool for that. So here is a new fully digital sketch done in two commute sessions; I’m about to get addicted to this thing again!

As a start for the most exciting year of all time (until next year) I’ve been walking in Greenwich park and, suddendly, I overheard a mum “optimising” her kids resistance to the artic cold by giving them orders like “put your hood”, “close you coat”, etc… How funny! My mum still tell me the same! But I’m not a kid anymore, except for mum.

So I draw, and here, it is. Happy new year.

Here’s my Illustration Friday submission of the week (I’ve said that before but I’m going to try to submit every week from… now… hopefully) for: Crunchy!

With 2009 nearly done I illustrated what has been the crunchiest topic of the year: the credit (crunch, yes). I initiated a style a bit more realistic this time and not as colourful as usual with, eventually, something a bit more meaningful.

After I had fun drawing faces from biscuits’ fat stains on my note book, I draw several random shapes and let me inspired by them to get the result above.

For adding the colours I experimented the use of vectors instead of my standard bitmap approach. I don’t understand why I haven’t done this before as it’s fast, clean, flexible and fun to play with.

Of course this is still a weirdo illustration of nothing in particular but it’s cool to me, I love exprimentation!

Here’s a 1am inspiration triggered by Illustration Friday‘s topic of the week: “Entangled” or the art of making things complicated. Sounds like an universal topic to me.

I always been obsessed by sketching hairs but certainly too lazy to spend much time on it. For once I pushed my boundaries and spend time sharpening what is the weirdest hair-cut I’ve ever draw. I had a good time.

It just raised a question to myself: Is that green to use an hair-dryer? Problably not, use a bonnet.

I recently had the pleasant surprise to be asked to illustrate a Christmas card for BT at my current workplace, SAS where I officialy work as a developer. more…

One of the funniest part of my last illustration course was to sketch different type of moods. At the time I’ve been pleased with what I’ve ended up with; apparently too much as I never really spend time to give life to these sketches other than by dirty photoshoping them on the fly.

Finally, I’m getting back to it and this is the first of an eventual serie of five. The edge cut out appeared pretty much accidentaly after I’ve traced a rough mask to clean up the white page and change the background colour to emphasize the character. I wasn’t sure about it but it gives an interesting paper feeling remembering me a full of monkey children’s book I browsed during the course.

To end my holidays’ sketching serie, here is what happen when I really don’t know where I’m going. I know this is weird but it was fun to do and I like weird stuff so I’m happy. Special thanks to my mother to show me her ear as I always forget how it’s shaped (don’t worry mum your ears look much better).

Here is the second illustration of my last holidays’ sketching madness. I’m not use to draw naked body but I just found out that this is actually pretty handy for painting.

I used exactly the same digital painting method as for the first one. Just one layer for the character colours, one for the background and a couples for pimping up the original sketch. Simple, quick and effective. In the past I spent hours adding a large number of layers, but now I understand why it’s useless and won’t save a failed drawing anyway.

I like this one so it’s all good I’m going to carry on :). Self motivation? Oui.