This year I learned that May is apparently mermaid month, in the sense that everyone draws a mermaid every day. Some people uploaded really spectacular ladies (and gents) of the ocean, do check out the hashtags!
I only managed a few at the beginning (some of them might seem somewhat familiar) and one for the last day, which also happily coincided with World Otter Day.
I’ve started a new illustration project a few months ago, once again fanart-based and following the ABC. It’s a good frame to get me drawing: serialised, with a clear end point, and otherwise completely open; which is why I always add another “rule” or two to get some more focus. In the last one it was two characters per letter, with a secret connection between each following couple. This time it’s a character, a verb, and a giant-sized food item, all starting with the same letter. It’s strange up in my head, but also very organised.
Here are the first five. In days long past I would upload each one in its own blog post, but today, with so many quick channels for sharing things, it feels more cumbersome than ever to start a new post for every single piece. That’s my long-winded way of inviting you to follow my Facebook page if you want to stay up to date.
Let’s see, what else is new…
We’re just starting a new story arc over at Up to Four Players. It’s one about conventions, fandoms, cosplay and family, and it has a lot of colourful hoops. Like, A LOT. Many more than I would have put there had I given some thought to how long it’s going to take to draw all of them in every single panel. But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, or at least slightly averse to the colour magenta.
James and Kat, from the podcasts One Shot and Campaign that I must have mentioned before, are in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign for their new game NPC – Noisy Person Cards, a party game for improving your character voice acting. We at Up to Four Players tried the beta version (see us on the Tube) and it’s super fun, so I’m really looking forward to the final product, which will include a lot more illustrated cards from various artists, myself included. Check out their Kickstarter page, and if it sounds like something you might enjoy, consider backing!
Completely unrelated to their game, I’ve also done some more fanart of their Edge of the Empire party on the Campaign podcast, with clear Zootropolis influences. How awesome was that movie?
See ya in…a few months, evidently!
Aviv
It’s customary to upload all holiday-related content before the actual day of Christmas, but this is a whole day when no one works, everything is shut down, and the chance of rain is too high to risk going out for a walk (also, that would involve getting up and going out for a walk), so what better time to compile some recent artwork into a festive blog post?
So first with the Christmas-y stuff: this is a pack I designed and was released for free on Viber as a holiday gift to our users (you can download it now if you have Viber). The idea was to steer away from the usual sugary, kitsch Christmas stickers, and show both sides of the holiday: the annoyingly enthusiastic and the bitterly cynical. I don’t even really celebrate Christmas, but having had my fair share of family dinners, long holidays and festive atmospheres, I could absolutely relate to both.
Speaking of festive atmospheres, our two recent posts in Up to Four Players are all about Christmas, from the (quite autobiographical) point of view of foreigners coming into this strange wonderland. I’ve spent three Christmasses here, and I’m still discovering new things; for example, how many times a person can hear the same Christmas song before losing their mind. (Clicking the thumbnails will take you to the full-size strips in Up to Four Players.)
Speaking of players, next Saturday will join several of them, in a 12-hour-long roleplaying marathon for charity. It’s in Hebrew, so if you’re into that sort of language, do check it out. Eran will be running a victorian monster-hunting adventure in the Savage Worlds system, with 3 brave heroes who’ll stick by him throughout the day, and several guest players who’ll pop by for a spell (me included!). I drew portraits of all our characters.
Speaking of guest-appearances, I made one in Leigh Lahav’s recent video about Star Wars’ rising star, BB-8 the robot. I also helped her design some of the characters, but I’m much more excited about my small voice-acting role. See if you can guess which one it is.
Speaking of…umm…roles, I recently sketched the characters from our ongoing roleplaying campaign in the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying system. These are, in order: Evyatar’s character Brioche, the slightly crazy religious fanatic; Dassi’s character Marion, the slightly mysterious gold order wizard; and my character Agnes, the slightly criminal apothecary.
I think these are all the segues I can come up with this morning. Have yourselves any kind of very merry holiday that you’re prone to celebrating this time of year, and if perchance I fail to write my “End of 2015” post before the end of 2015, a very happy new year!
Aviv
I’ve mentioned it briefly before, and now it’s up: Eran Aviram and my new webcomics, Up to 4 Players.
You can read the first three strips here: www.uptofourplayers.com
and for our Israeli readers, we have a Hebrew version: www.uptofourplayers.co.il
Follow us on Facebook and on Twitter to get updates, and I will greatly appreciate any comments, Likes, Retweets, Shares and any other buzzword that will help spread the word, because in addition to the satisfaction of creating new content, knowing there’s an audience to consume it gives us loads of motivation.
Let’s hope this is the beginning of a long, wonderful and funny journey.
Aviv
Ah, New Year’s Eve. That magical time of the year when I remember I have a blog, and it might be a good idea to update it every once in a while, even if it does take more effort than just throwing images on my Facebook Page (which I recommend following for more frequent – if less verbose – updates).
Lots of things happened in 2014, but everything also stayed the same. Like every year. I started a job, left a job, started a new one; made new friends, drank new beers, made cupcakes; we got used to our flat, found a new one, learned to despise one specific UK gas and electricity supplier; got married. Same as always.
And like always, work and every-day life tried to steal away my time and energy, but occasionally I showed ’em and managed to draw something, and this year several “support” groups helped.
I’ve mentioned Sketch Dailies before, and here are a few more drawings this group pulled out of me in recent months:
The Israeli Daily Speed Sketch group lets its members pick from three different subjects (or combine them) every day, but the twist is that you have a time limit of 30 minutes, and must draw on actual paper, like in the days of yore. It’s a cool challenge, and even if you don’t read Hebrew it’s nice to see some of the interpretations – and try to work out what the daily subjects are. I haven’t been very good with keeping up and had to scroll way back to find these three sketches of mine from the group’s page…which, curiously, all feature birds.
But what made me draw on paper most – and even get a new set of inking pens – was INKtober, a whole month (guess which) where you draw a small piece every day, using only inks. The only prize is feeling part of an internet-wide art project and flexing those inking muscles; and it’s apparently enough, because people created some gorgeous stuff, some of which can be found in INKtober’s Facebook Page. With superhuman efforts, I managed to ink about half the days of the month, and you can see the results in a dedicated album on my Facebook Page. Here’s a small selection:
Not sure if I mentioned on the English version of the blog, but good friends of mine are running an Israeli podcast about roleplaying games (“On the Shoulders of Dwarves” for you Hebrew speakers), and they recently ran a very successful crowd funding campaign. I donated two character portraits based on supporters’ descriptions, and here are the results, Connie and “Gentle” Gorthang:
One of the stretch goals of said campaign was for me and Eran Aviram, one of the podcast hosts, a good friend and long-time creative partner, to start a webcomics about gaming and gamers. It’s been brewing in the background for some time, and will go live in a couple of weeks. Here’s a small sneak preview:
The webcomics is called “Up to Four Players” and will be updated weekly in both Hebrew and English. More details coming very soon!
Have a wonderful and creative 2015, and here’s to updating more!
Aviv
Hebrew
