Sketching with a cintiq!

So finally i got a Wacom cintiq 22hd, i have been dreaming about it for six years but now the dream is real. I arrived last friday but i wasn't home, so i had to wait until today to go and get it at the mail office. Believe mr it was a long way from the to my place, a huge box, almost impossible to grab, 
weight 20 kg, and like if that was not enough during the weekend we had a snowstorm, so all the streets are filled with snow making it really difficult to walk around with a cintiq on your arms, but i made it. I used a lot of time to instal it and customize it to the way i think it should work, but this is an all other world and i have to get use to it. But of course i hat to try it and so here is a quick colour version of the sketch i made like a month ago, the skull and the bird.
 Hope you guys are doing well out there!

Sketching Fenrir!

A couple of days ago a friend asked me if i could sketch a tattoo design for him. "Of course!" I said, "And what would that be?"
 "A Fenrir." he told me, i have to be honest i had no idea what a Fenrir was, the only Fenrir i knew was Fenrir Greyback, a werwolf character from the Harry Potter series. Well as it is, i was not that far away from the truth, a Fenrir is a Wolf.
 

From the Norse mithology, Fenrir is a big bad wolf, "the monster of the river Ván",due to the gods' knowledge of prophecies foretelling great trouble from Fenrir and his rapid growth, the gods bound him, and as a result Fenrir bit off the right hand of the god Tyr.

How could i not know about this fantastic creature?? Thanks to my friend Palle i now am a fan of Fenrir, and so i made two sketches of the beast, one more realistic and one more cartoonish, now i just hope that Palle gets one of them as a inked sketch :)

Behind the masks!!

Why do people hide behind masks? Why do StreetArtists hide behind masks??
 When i was a kid, there where two kind of people that used to hide behind masks, criminals and superheroes. Well street artists ain't no superhero, but are they criminals??
I keep seeing graffiti everywhere saying that "Graffiti is Art, not Crime" well i could not agree more, but then let me tell you something, artists dont hide behind masks, hoodies and scarfs. No one loves street art more than i do, but i don't see the point on hiding, i dont see the point on hiding behind a tag or a mask. And now all of you graffiti lovers will point the finger and say, "that is what graffiti is about, it has always been like that. They think we are criminals and therefore we need to hide." You know what? You might just be right, but i also see it like this: "You hide and so they think you are criminals." Vendettas masks will never change the world, that is just a bunch of kids playing revolution, the real revolutionaries are the ones that show their faces and stand by what they believe, no shame, no fear... 

I you do it cause you think you look cool, then let me break it to you, there is only one and only one that can wear a mask and look cool at the same time, his name is Vader.

When i was a Kid!!

Tell me my friend, do you remember when you were an artist?
 Do you remember when it was so easy to draw? When we were kids we could draw all that it came to our mind, distant planets, aliens, monsters, cars, happy families, there were no boundaries, no limits, and we all loved to draw in walls back then!  
 Then something happened with our eyes, we stop seeing the world with no boundaries and start watching it like everyone else did. Things had one color and only one, no more the cows would be green nor the sky would be purple, now we would call pink people as "no sense", and  we were artists no more. We stop seeing the fun in creating, and are yelling at our kids "DO NOT PAINT ON THE WALL!"
 It's a wall for folk's sake, a white wall screaming for some art on it!
When i was a kid i loved to paint on walls... I still do!

Solitude!

What are you afraid of?
Tell me are you afraid of not succeeding with your career?
Are you afraid of not making money enough? Not getting the house you dream of? The car? The society's acknowledgment  of you being successful, a good citizen? 
 You know what i am afraid of? 
To end alone!!
Solitude is my biggest fear...
 Do you remember that rubber duck that you once loved, but that you forgot on the beach one day and never saw again?? That is what i am afraid of, of becoming the rubber duck! I don't want to focus on the wrong things, i don't want to focus on money, success and all the rest, i want to to focus on being happy with what i got, with myself as i am and not a society wants me to be, but is not easy!
 I want to keep the people i love close to me, and in that i am failing already, i've got them all spread around the world, making the objective of being with everyone impossible. But i am doing my best to keep them close, they are the most important, the antidote to my fear, friends and family are all. In the end we all come to this conclusion. In the end we all come to the hard truth that money, car, house, career... they are all empty concepts that we invented, the are not essential, but love is.  
I don't want to wake up one day, old and lonely!  I want to have people laughing around me all the time, i want to share the little i have with them, and die with no regrets, probably poor and unknown, but happy!!

The Rhino and the Bird!

Once upon a time, a rhino called Bruce that was best friends with  a little bird called Boyle. Bruce and Boyle knew each other for ages, Boyle use to eat all the ticks on Bruce's back, and so that way the rhino was free of the little bloodsuckers and the bird had a meal everyday. One day while in the heat of the savanna Bruce said:
 (Please imagine a really  deep and kind of dumb voice :D )
" Hey Boyle, you are a bird right?"
" Ahhh... Yeah, what kind of question is that?"
"Well you know i was thinking, birds are pretty good at singing, aren't you??"
"Well, almost all of us. There is the crows and ravens with their Heavy Metal bullshit, and the chickens with their hip hop, and the peacocks with their "Pop shit look at me i look good, i don't need to be a good singer"... but in general yes, we are pretty good at singing." - said the little bird.
"Well..."- said the rhino,  "I would like to show you something. You see i always had the dream of becoming a singer, and my mother always said that i was an amazing singer, but i would like to hear your opinion."
Not knowing what to say, Boyle just said, "Ok! Go ahead!"
And so the rhino start to sing, if you can call that singing! It sounded like... wel there is no description. All the bird's feathers were up, he felt like his ears were going to explode, but still he faked a little smile, like he was hearing something incredible pleasant. He did not know why he was doing it, why he was lying, Bruce was his best friend, it should be possible for him to be honest and tell him that he sucked at singing! But he didn't, he lied, and when bruce was done the bird just said... "Wow, that was incredible! Man you are amazing!" it was a lie, but it was a lie so not to hurt hes friends feelings. 
And then everything happens to fast, the rhino was running towards the t.v. show "Jungle Idols" and before the bird could say something, Bruce was standing there, in front of a thousand animals and the Jury. The Jury was a Lion a Elephant and a Panther...a black one... in this shows there is alway political correct to have a female as jury, and black if possible. 
 And when Bruce started to sing for them everyone was laughing and buh him, and the judges were like "Dude you suck!" and "You should try the Cirkus!" and he could not take it any more, and he was crying, and running, running like a train trough the jungle, and then he saw a cliff, and then he jumped, and then... and then he was falling.
Falling.
Falling into the dark!
Falling into nothingness!
Falling!


Moral of the story: Rhinos can't fly.


Note: This story is totally fiction, there is no t.v. show like "Jungle Idols" watched by thousands of animals, and of course there is no bad friends as the bird, that would lie to his best friend and let him expose himself like that. This is totally FICTION!

Sketching Jason!

It is not Friday, not even the 13th, but Jason is coming home anyways!
 Ana a friend of mine, suggested to me that i made a "Jason illustration", maybe something like: "The man behind the mask" I found the idea really interesting and started to work on it right away, the problem was that i could not see the man behind the mask.
 I don't think that it is a man behind the mask. Jason is the mask. Or the mask is Jason? I think that sometimes the mask is the real you. But then is that a mask? 
OMG i better stop with this cheap philosophy and show you the sketch i made.


Jason is coming home, on a Sunday :D


Peace!

Denmark or Cantmark??

Some days ago i read in a Danish newspaper  that they are looking for a date to stop the act of smoking in Denmark, as they already did in other countries like Finland if i remember right. They simply want to make it a crime, so get ready smokers you are going to get to be on the top of "Most Wanted" just after Hells Angels! 
 How can this be possible?? I am a non smoker, but i was a smoker for not long time ago, i stopped cause i choose to, not because someone told me to. The smoke policy implanted for some year ago, i can understand, and never was against it, but go as far a make it illegal?? When i moved to Denmark i remember i saw this land as a land of freedom. Denmark was known where people had rights, the land where people choose what to be, how to be it, and when! I know that rules are necessary, and is not that that we are discussing here, the thing is that in the past few years more and more laws appear to tell me what to do, what to eat, what to drink, etc... What is coming next??
 We cant be fat anymore, we cant be thin either, are they soon going to decide how tall we can be too? The color of my eyes and hair? Wait a moment, i have seen this somewhere, Oh! i know where, it was not this kind of idea, that that little psycho that they called Adolf, had in mind like not that long ago? No? Sorry, i might be getting confused here!
 Well i hope i die before the day that we all look the same, walk the same way, and have to ask permission to go and have a shit!




Peace!

Sketching Kira!

Kira was  Lara's marionette doll.
 They used to play together all day, they even slept together at night, they were like best friends, like sisters.  The problem is that girls they grow up but dolls they don't, so with time Lara grew into a young woman, and the doll was forgotten, she became a simple piece of furniture, a nonliving being, a ornament, and after some years not even that. 
She is now a forgotten toy living in the darkness of a box, waiting, whispering... 

Sketching a Cap!!

Sunday afternoon, everyone left to see Giro d'Italia! 
 I am alone bored and have a blank cap and a bunch of Posca markers. What to Do? What to Do?


Have a nice Sunday my Friends!!

Sketching scary Stuff!!

Hey there!!
Jus a sketch of some skulls, like the day after the Armageddon or something, and a illustration of a Vamp Girl. Some would call it scary stuff i personally think that the vampire is kind of sexy, and secretly i wish she would bite me!! 
 Take care out there!! 

Sketching Chuck Norris

I have been trying to sketch Chuck Norris for almost two pencils now... but every time i try to make a line my pencil breaks ... Well i just learn something new today; 


"There is no pencil hard enough to sketch Chuck Norris!!!


Happy Sunday to you all!!

Sketching on Twitter!

Well i have made a sketch for my blogspot background, for my facebook timeline and now was Twitter's time!
 I kind of start to understand facebook nerds that keep changing the page visual, cause it is  a fun thing to do, and when you are finally done, you are kind of ready to start again and make a new one.
I guess that means that i am going to do a new one soon again, but for now you can see my Twitter background if you follow me, or just right here on this screen shot.


Love!

Sketching Pank!

I have decided for a longtime to not have Idols, my last idol blowed his own head with a shotgun!
 So i don't have idols but i still have some people that i admire very much. Some time ago i came across a piece of art on Platform 4's wall, it was from this danish artist called Lars Pank and it was really good, really really good. There was something special on his work, something that i love in art, i knew that from that day on i would recognize any piece of art that was Pank's work, not because he keeps making the same character or recreating it, like some artists love to do.No! Pank he creates new lines and forms in every work he does, but still his style is unmistakable, it's PANK STYLE!
 I started to follow his work pretty close, and sometimes even drove some km, just to take some pics of some piece i knew he did somewhere, later on i had the pleasure to meet Lars in person, and if i admire is work before, now i admire him also as a person! We had some healthy discussions about art and feelings around it, about street art, what it means? why to do it? why not? He has really interesting points of view, and can inspire with a simply conversation, that man his a real Artist.



That is why i had to sketch him, cause he deserves all the attention from art lovers, and Mendes Sketchbook is going to give him and his art a sketch and a blog entry :) My sketch is poor compared to what Pank is capable of, but this is more like a Thanks!
 Thanks Lars for making Aalborg and the world more colorful, for showing people that street art is not just about tags and criminals, and for bringing that same art a level up in our little big city Aalborg.


Peace!

Bullying a Superhero!!

Superman, real name Clark Kent, talks about his and other heroes childhood.


" Well our childhood was nothing funny and great as many would think it was. We where not that good accepted in school, you see mine and Bruce parents where kind of good friends, and they had this weird idea of fashion, so my mum did my hair everyday before i went to school, so i had to go with this little curl on my forehead, so did Bruce's mom but he bought this mask and used it to hide it as soon as he was away from her. And as if it was not enough, they made us walk around with this kind of underwear over our pants and capes. 


Bruce was all into computers and technology, and back then, if you where like that, people would call you a nerd. There were three kids more; Bob was huge and green, and he could not talk, he always made the same sound, something like "hulk". He was a really good kid, but he had big problems with his temper and when he lost it... oh man! He would break everything around him. Then there was Anung Un Rama, he came from another country - and we just called him Rama. He was all red, had a tale and horns, he used to cut them because he was tired of people saying he came from hell. And the last one was Pete, he was an orphan and lived with his uncle and aunt. They were poor and could not afford much, so his aunt used to sew his cloths.

 Well we were all different for different reasons, but the kids at school could not understand it, so they called us all kinds of names, they put us appart, we could never play with them, in sports we were always the last to be picked for the football teams and sometimes they even beat us. It was really sad.

 When we came of age, we decided to use our "difference" to make "The difference", and so we started to haunt down bullies and bad people to help the cops. Hulk had a difficult time, cause sometimes he lost his nerves and destroyed more than he helped, but we were always there to help him calm down and later he gained control.  Most of the bad guys that we found were the bullies from school, the ones that had beaten us up and made our life miserable. They had grown to become criminals and loosers. Suddenly we were all famous, people wanted to be like us, they dressed like us, some even made plastics to get horns like "Hell Boy" or painted their bodies green. We could not believe it, us; the kids no one liked, the uncool ones were now heroes and the coolest ones in the World. We even inspired some people to start a special school something called "X-Man" or something like that.


 But the hard times we had at school we will never forget. So a message to the bullies out there; "Behave, or we are coming after you!"

Super Bowl

So Last night was Super Bowl night!! this is what i got out of it...
 Have a nice day!

Sketching Manson

A friend of mine just posted a youtube clip of Manson in 97 in a Portuguese festival called Sudoeste.
 I was there, together with a bunch of amazing good friends, one of them, and probably the bigest Manson fan of our group, is not with us anymore.
So Luis wherever you are... this post is for you.
This was the best concert of our life and we were together!!
I miss you!

Waiting for Prince Charming!

Name : Hilda
Age: 82
Occupation: Waiter
Sex: No Sex


"Hello everyone!
My name is Hilda and I am 82 years old. When I was a little girl everyone used to tell me that I looked like a princess, and I did actually. I  had this blond curly hair, and my mother made me all kinds of nice dresses, i was beautiful. When i grew up a little, my mother started to tell me some stories; "The world is full of bad people Hilda, specially young men. They will all come to you cause you are so beautiful, but they will not love you, they're all the same and just want one thing. You have to wait my little princess, be patient and one day the right one will come, your Prince Charming!"
 And so, my dear friends I waited, a lot of beautiful boys came as my mum said they would, but none of them were "the right one", and so as I saw them come I saw them go too, I watched all my friends getting married, some of them would be happy forever, some not so happy, and sometimes i felt really lonely, but i stil had my mother, and she insisted that "Charming" would come one day.
 As the years passed, fewer and fewer men came to visit me, and the day came when no one came anymore and i got old, i lost my mother to the flu, but before she died she made me promisse to keep waiting for the right one, and that was 40 years ago.
 Then last week, late afternoon I heard someone knocking on my front door, it took me sometime to get there, "This house is to big for a lonely old lady, I should have moved years ago!" those were my thoughts as i walked slowly to open the door. And what a surprise i got , standing there on my door step, was a beautiful man, blond hair and blue eyes, tall  and strong and he had a box in his hands, "A present!" I thought, at last my Prince Charming! 
 He smiled to me, his teeth perfect and white, and he said something. First i did not understand what he said, cause i was so amazed and happy, and then he said it again, a bit louder, maybe he thought that i could not hear that good, "Excuse me Mam! Did you ordered a Pizza?" 

Gorillaz!

Here are some illustrations of some Gorillas!!
I started by making a gorilla eating a banana, but i found out that Gorillas do not eat bananas!
 Hope that you guys like it!

28 Months later!

Imagine this:


You just woke up from a coma, but something is really strange- there is no one around.
You go out to the streets, but the world is empty. It looks like a battlefield; only there are no dead bodies, you are really confused and wonder around town for a while; then suddenly you start to hear people screaming at you- they are waving and saying "Ruuun! Run! Hurry up!". 
"That is strange!"; you think, why do they want me to run? but while you are pondering on this strange behaviour, another sound catches your attention. You turn slowly to find the source of it, and what you see is terrifying. A large group of people are walking towards you, but they walk in a strange way- there is blood all over them, and some of them are missing some body parts and certainly they do not look like they are friendly. A rush of danger washes over you, and not knowing why, you are running away from them to the other 3 people that keep screaming like crazy, "RUUUUN!".
 You get into a safe place and they explain to you that the world has been taken by a virus, and everyone turn into "walking dead", and they eat other human beings. 
 So you 4 have to try to survive, you know that it probably will be some casualties and that probably the "hot" blond girl or the black guy will die, maybe even both of them, the other girl is not the prettiest but she is tough and probably you will fall in love with each other... 


Wait a minute! Someone is telling me that this idea has been already used, in like about all the Zombie movies that have been made, oh! and that is a new one coming up, something like "28 Days later", but this one is called "28 Months Later"  
Ok... just forget the story and enjoy the sketch then!
Peace