I quit Abunai 2 weeks ago. I've illustrated for them for almost 7 years now(actually longer but the Abunai convention itself didn't exist back then ;). There was fun, frustration, laughs and deadlines. I've learned a lot. But I have to move on. Now I just have to figure out what to do with the extra time. Maybe start my own comic?

Whatever I do, I have to keep drawing. There is still so much to learn!

My biological rhythm has been out of whack for over two months now, ever since I got a new drawing assignment (have to draw a calender in 12 different styles). The hour they "took" last Sunday makes me go to bed at 4 o clock in the morning instead of 3. I have tried a few times to be creative in the morning, but I ended up staring at the computer screen cross-eyed and my mind comes up blank. The best ideas I get in bed, sometimes I get up just to sketch it before the morning-monster comes and takes it away.

I enjoy drawing and I haven't drawn this much in so many different styles since... Well since my I studied illustration for 2 years. I've drawn a lot in manga style, because that's what I am asked to do, but I needed to show (to the teacher and to myself) I can do more then that.

It is taking its toll on me though, I can feel it. I'm so tired. My hands get cramped more often and my eyes are dry and red. All this and new deadlines are looming on the horizon. I'm still illustrating for the Abunai convention and I have so much to do. But it's hard to find the energy when you're just not feeling it. I think it's because I have to do it all alone. I miss it that I can't bounce back crazy sketches to someone in the middle of the night. At least An checks in on me and comments on the process when she walks past my room, I think I really need that. I sometimes mail Kageki and Kees my progress on various drawings. Hope you're not getting sick and tired of me ;) I appreciate it that I can spam your mailboxes a bit. But yeah, I feel like a lonely drawing-person in Abunai right now.

Dalek found in pond

I cannot help but be reminded of those tar pits :)

Just kidding! Merry Christmas to all! :)

I didn't have the UFO radio interview, but I had a valid reason since I was at the cinema. Truly a valid reason! So sorry that I didn't enlighten the world with my view of the truth out there ;)

The Dutch holiday called Sinterklaas was yesterday, but I got a present today from An which was the Hancock dvd and included the cap. Of course this requires a photo as proof! I'm still wearing it, it is pretty cozy and it goes well with my scarf. I also gave myself a gift recently in the form of a new drawing tablet, financed by a money-return from the government. It's money well spend, even though it was a lot of money to spend! I now have the pleasure of owning a Wacom Intuos3 A5 widescreen. It's so shiny! I spend the last 2 days drawing my first picture on it. The sensitivity and smoothness of the tablet and pen are awesome. I don't think I could ever go back to work on my ancient less-then-A6 Graphire :)

Okay, so I was out late one night, the sky was clear. I'm a big fan of stars, I like to spot satellites, I know what airplanes look like, I enjoy watching the occasional lasershow and I've seen weatherbaloons. But what was this?! It moved really fast and it seemed really close.

Okay, so me being the nerd that I am I reported my uh..sighting on a UFO website. Now, a few weeks later I get a mail saying they want to contact me for a radio show, they want to talk to me by phone. If there are any aliens out there, please come and take me away because I'll be too embarrassed to talk on a show!

An:
"Co?"

"Are you making strange sounds?"
"Are you listening to strange sounds?"
"I thought I heard the cats mewling outside"

Co:
"I'm listening to Kate Bush actually.."

An:
Bwhahahaha haha!

Co:
XD

Thanks to generous help from Tsudeki, my comment/nag system works again :D Let's hope the spammers won't find out ;)

Abunai is pretty close and I'm working away on the t-shirt design. Drawing something in illustrator can be a challenge, especially when you're stuck with only one color (white on dark t-shirt). It's pretty tricky to get it to look right. I can't show the result untill after the convention. But I can show you the poster I finished much earlier :). Many many (nearly) sleepless nights were spend on finishing it.

When I start drawing I turn into a total slob. Plates and cups were stacked for miles on my desk, week old laundry tried to start a revolution by assaulting my bed. Dustclouds resembled thumbleweed in size and movement. If I had the time and the uh.. stamina I probably would have added more detail, but working on a A6 sized tablet for an A3 sized poster, it isn't very friendly for my hands. Unfortunately there was no time to do a proof(print) of the poster and the printed version turned out with a significant lack of contrast. I was pretty disappointed :( Nothing to be done about it now. It does work pretty well as a wallpaper though ;). If you want you can try to name the legendary creatures that you see.

Drawing-mode is over for today, time to do the laundry before it stages a coup!

I'm not usually into shoes, I usually go for comfortable versus looks, but this is beautiful torture for only 29 euro's ;)! Must show the girly superficial me to the world!

Strike a pose! Skirts! Summer! Here I come! I so badly want to go on vacation. I desperately long for beaches and clear water.

It's been so long, I think it's time for an update on my life. Bad and good stuff happened, it's... life. My grandmother passed away last week and was buried last tuesday, she is/was a great person who was always up-to-date with the latest news. Even though she had difficulty typing because of her severe rheumatoid arthritis, she was quite internet-savvy. She managed to type e-mails by using the back end of a pencil. But in the end she couldn't do anything anymore due to her illness and she just wasted away, unable to move, difficult to talk. I'll miss her so much.

Good news comes in the form of succesfully finishing my 5 month internship at Catnip Games (a small computer games company). I had a lot of fun composing music and designing sound effects for the main project. Even though the last days were extremely stressfull with knowning that my grandmother would soon leave us, the official condolences and the burial. I still managed to finish up my internship report last week and did my internship presentation today. I only had one day of preparing myself for the presentation and getting an 8 out of 10 isn't bad at all :) I've never been so nervous for a presentation in my life, I thought I'd throw up (having my monthly didn't help D:

I rewarded myself today by buying some candy and a manga, I even did the dishes!

Bye Arthur C. Clarke, thank you for introducing me to the wonderful world of Science Fiction :) The Songs of Distant Earth Has always been my favourite book. "Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering."

Merry 2nd Christmas day! I'm absolutely stuffed, did nothing but cook all day and lie on the couch afterwards attempting to watch 3 christmas movies at the same time :D No fancy dressing-up for dinners. Just me, my dad, food, tv and a blanket.

Stop! It's Hair time!

In my quest for femme fatale, film noir style hair, I've tried rag curls (goodbye old t-shirts), pincurls (death to bobby pins), a curling iron (what's that smell?). Now I have discovered what you have to go through to get the perfect curls! No. Sleep. At. All. Witness the tools of the trade And the truly horrible before picture. Sleeping with these is a tiny hell on earth (Lot's of proverbs about pain and suffering go here). But behold, I have found the holy grail of curling!

Now the only thing I need is a different head, big eyelashes and a detective who suspects me of some heinous (thanks for that word An) crime. Oh, I should not forget the film noir style picture!.

The meeting was nice, it's often fun and when we got in the car to head back to the station around eleven, little did I know the night would end like this. Even though multiple cars where involved, nobody was (seriously) hurt. I think we were lucky. Now I'm just a bit sore all over and glad I wore my seatbelt on the backseat. Making weird jokes afterwards is the best way to get over it :)

removes layer of dust that has gathered

I'm attempting to make preparations for my vacation in France, I'll be leaving coming Sunday early in the morning by car. Going with a good friend of mine and since I can't drive, she's driving and I'll attempt the fine art of map reading (highly possible we'll end up in Finland instead)! Since we'll be sandwiched in the car like Oprah and Gayle I'm currently trying to gather music that won't have her swerving off the road and kill us on purpose. I'm hoping classic rock and (some) pop is a safe bet? You can't go wrong with Dire Straits and The Kinks right?

My ultimate road song is Driver's seat (not about driving really, but who cares!) I have to fill up my playlist quota so...

What's your ultimate road song?

Ever wanted to make a trip to North Korea? Well now you can! The country fascinates and scares me at the same time. A maximum of 30 people allowed. Be sure to read the pdf on the website...

"Articles not allowed in the DPRK: Video-Camera, Plants, animals, drugs, explosives, weapons, any kind of pornography, mass printed propaganda, radio, wireless or satellite communicator (GPS), mobile phone (can be left at airport locker)."

Went to the Animecon this past weekend, mostly to promote Abunai, but I really enjoyed it. Got to talk to lot's of people, met up with Kees, Kageki, (who draws much better then those other manga competition entries!) Dama, the Abunai crew and plenty more people and I got to dress up as a film noir femme fatale, to promote the Abunai theme! I think I must have scared some people, some even thought I was attending a funeral (have they no film noir knowledge? I'm sure tisfolly would have placed me in the correct year :)

My green boob project is slowly moving along. Other then that I really need to make some new appointments to get college rolling again. Since that's been set on an awful long pause :(

It's pretty plain and it's not done yet, but at least I now have a place I can easily upload my illustrations to. Witness the birth (ew ;) of Afterhorizon Art!. I hope this will give me some incentive to draw more then I do right now. Or at least finish what I've drawn. Now I hope it won't be invaded by spam bots! Non spam comments are very welcome ;D

Any work I do for Abunai will also be present there... except some stuff will be visible after the convention, for security reasons (wouldn't want people to print out badges ;)

This past week I've been working on the 'top secret' Abunai! poster. I managed to put more then 70 hours of my time into it, because I had the crazy idea to draw it in Photoshop in high resolution (instead of Illustrator). Hunched over my tiny (a6 argh!) drawingpad for nights on end is really not good for your back. I may or may not show it when the bigwigs in Abunai approve the design. If they don't I'll just complain untill they do ;)

The Netherlands need more blossom tree's! I love it when there's pink and white blossom's floating all over the place. Also: Kitten and blossom is love! (You asked for it Kees!)

Now that I'm 25, and suddenly all mature and such. I feel like I have to do the "this year will be different!" thing. But since I'm extremely lazy (can sleeping be a hobby?) I won't!

I am pondering about where I want to take this blog. I post so little. Maybe I should tackle some sort of subject every week or two, not sure. It's something to think about anyway.

I think layouts have to be more content friendly in general (is this a blog overhaul warning?) First thing that chases me away is when people try to be "artsy" (hate to use that word) by using light colored pastel letters on a light colored pastel background with a light colored pastel link-over. Or when they use menu's you have to hover over to find out where it goes too. Or horizontal scrolling menu's where you have to "click before it goes awaaaaay!" Please feel free to share your frustrations with me ;)

Say you'll play agaaaain, undo this hurt that you caused when you went through the door and arrived at my house.

So mr/mrs/miss mailman, when it says "handle with care", please handle with care! Now I will never find out what was on this cd! Music? Illegal movies? Indecent proposal? I will never find out! I'm traumatised for life, valentine will never be the same. :(

My dad has been plagued by creditors pretty much all his life, he has no internet so he wanted me to find out about a creditor who has been stalking his bankaccount every month. I was somehow pleased with finding out their contact adress: By all means click on me!

XD

Of course I expect suitable replies on this post ;)

Well, it's official I quit my job!

I'm happy and very relieved :) Let's start this new year with a dose of College.

I want to go home! I'm at work till the lousy time of 21:00. Please people go sleep, eat, have sex, whatever, don't call the helpdesk! Who's idea was it to have a helpdesk open till 22:00? And I'm hungry too. Forgot to bring sandwiches. Okay I lie, I tried to sleep out till the last possible moment so I wouldn't have time to make sandwiches! These dry sultana crackers don't make a decent meal.

Do you think my supervisor would notice if I tried to watch youtube during phonecalls? Perhaps reading fanfiction is less inconspicuous (sp)? Perhaps I should just sit under the table and pretend I'm not here? Atleast I still have the internets!

I'm off to see the wiza..erm I mean my dad. I managed to splice up workdays so I'll have a blissfull long weekend from now untill monday. Flexible helpdesk work hooray! Work is going along okay. Starting to wonder why I haven't been kicked out yet, because my "calltimes" are incredible bad. But my customer friendlyness seems to be on the plus side and I'm still learning.

I bought (look I bought something!!11!one!) Gitaroo man for the PSP for the bargain price of 30 euros! It's not even out yet in the US, usually we Europeans are behind in the new games, but in the PSP area it seems not to be so! I love you PSP even though the amount of games that are available on your system are 80% suck. But your WLAN capabilites make up for it. Fanfiction hooray! I haven't read so much fanfiction since..ever! The crispy screen makes for excellent reading. Maybe I should convert a few tv series to psp format so I can watch them on the train.

Saw Zwartboek in theathers with my mom yesterday, it was pretty good. Wasn't able to spot myself though :)

I've been working for a month now and it's..different. I can't say it's fun, becuase fun doesn't often involve work. I often find myself watching the clock waiting till the day is over. But as far as jobs go this one isn't so bad and the money is very nice. Too bad some people who call my helpdesk are not very nice. No sir it's physically impossible to put you through to the multiplay helpdesk, asking for my chef will not change a damn thing! Why call me a moron when some things simply cannot be done? My first angry customer call left me out of my wits, but i'm slowly getting used to them. Oh no, does this mean I'm desensitising?

16 hours to go till Abunai! and I'm not finished yet. The intromovie-thingiemajig isn't done yet, but I doubt it will be as pathetic as last year XD. If only Abunai paid me, that would be a nice job.

I've never had a proper paid job in my life (it was always school, college etc). But my financial situation is currently so extremely bad, I have to work if I want to keep attending college. Now I finally took the plunge and am starting work next monday. First 2 weeks are full time, and after that it's 20/26 hours a week. I'm a bit scared, but also excited. I cannot imagine myself having no worries about money.

Cats rock and our new kitten Saartje not only rocks but is a really mischievous (and cute)little kitten. Our older cat doesn't know what to think of it yet.

Having your period in 2006 is not so bad!

"There were also special portable burners available as early as the 1890s in England specifically to burn menstrual pads!"

It's that time of the month ;D

Support the wonderful, beautiful and talented singer Priscilla Hernandez!

Back (so soon) from a very rainy vacation in Vlieland. It was supposed to last till saturday, but heavy rains spoiled the fun and the tent (there's only so many cardgames you can play before it gets dull). Thus major tent leakage (damn you Nomad tent!) and sad faces. Hooray for computer time though. Missed it awfully!

Ursula K Le Guin`s "Earthsea" books, which have been made into an awfull (tv) miniseries (see An's wonderfull review here), will be made into an Anime movie. This anime will be directed by none other then Hayao Miyazaki's...son! And will be made by studio Ghibli (atleast this ensures of pretty pictures and more then 2 frames per sec ;) Ghibli will have the lovely job to erase the memory of who ever saw the miniseries and lived to tell about it. Goro Miyazaki certainly has a big name to live up to.

Ged Senki, Tales of Earth Sea Well the music is certainly pretty! A boy protagonist in a ghibli film.. very rare! How true they will be to the books is a mystery to me. I could always watch it for pretty pictures and music ;)

A small update from yours truly.

Looking forward to the 6th of August, when I'll be going to Vlieland with Kageki and Mo for some genuine relaxing. It's only for one week. But I'll enjoy every single moment!

I will start at my 'manga' this vacation! I got all sorts of ideas floating in my head and they need to get out. I was thinking greek (epic?) romance (it's less weird then it sounds, really!) I don't trust my drawing skills at all, but it'll be good to practise while I attempt to get some sort of story out. Even if it's a sketchy version only.

College-wise the road is bumpy but with no traffic jams.

Stargate sg1/atlantis season has begun.. Oh how I missed you dear sci-fi. 4400, though a hmm.. interesting show is not enough to quench my sci-fi thirst. Watching the reruns of Voyager on dutch tv also reminded me how much me and An miss another Star Trek installment. (imho Enterprise was just a freaky alternate universe fluke)

Kittie(s)!

This is the first year in all these wonderfull anime-infested years I'm not going to the Animecon. I had the opportunity to go, but I did not take it (the opportunity I'm speaking about will remain an epic mystery) Kageki will be going and she'll be standing in the dealerroom promoting Abunai If you see her, say hi to her for me :) There's a little voice in me saying, 'wish I was there!' But money is tight and the weekend even more so. My mom's celebrating her birthday sunday and I promised to help out.

We'll be having a couple of guests sleeping over and since I'll be away for tomorrow and sunday, try not to make it too hard on An ;) In the meanwhile I'm going to be working on my secret project! Creativity hooray!

Did some very nice lasergaming today! The thrill and adrenaline is especially fun, a nice soundtrack and lot's of nooks and cranny's to hide in complete the fun. On the first round I was third (but with highest accuracy) on the last round I was last (mostly due to my gun that stopped working halfway) I was slightly annoyed by the bulkyness of the outfit and the gun (heavy and not very ergonomic) The 'armor' thing almost reached to my knees :O (Hey, there's small people too!) I want to try out paintball now!

Too bad wars can't be fought this way

Got this link from Marysiak, It's hilarious and heywhaddayaknow informative too!

A Brief Brief History of Time (warning some internet speakage involved)

Progress?

I made this picture a little more then a year ago. While hiking through several folders on my harddrive I managed to find it again. Looking at it again I noticed several things that didn't seem correct or were either weird or just hmm..bland. I know I didn't really notice those things a year ago. I just had to go back to the drawingboard :D

before:

after:

Some things remained the same, in particular the nose and the mouth, there was really nothing (much) wrong with those. It was a simple picture and it still is (I didn't bother with any background or clothing) I wonder how I'll look at this picture one year from now :O

A snail moves at warpspeed compared to the speed of my College work. I really need to make another appointment with the erm.. school people and attempt to lay of the WoW in the middle of the night. My sleeping pattern is totally off and pretty unhealthy! My addiction to fanfiction and other random sci-fi/fantasy fiction doesn't help one bit. It's always so easy to lose yourself in another (written) world, when stuff outside is working against you.

In other news, The Abunai convention (An Anime convention revolving around fun, games, Asian stuff and anime! Also for me lack of sleep ;) Has opened up preregistration, if you register before 3rd of July you'll get the cheapest price (23 euro's not including foodstuffs and accommodation, woot!) Do I sound like a commercial now? Yes I do! But I am (and others ;) doing my very best for the convention, and I hope people will come and have fun :D Yay!

New, fresh layout done. I do believe it's a tad bit messy, but it's so nice and shiney. Images courtesy of Dreamfall Yeah the game mentioned in my previous posr really inspired me so much! Oh, look at the stars in the top image. Can you see it?