Meanwhile: Horrible Histories

Keeping the balance between projects and a few short breaks brings us to find small pearls that keep us functional and what’s better than being entertained? Well, to share it, of course!

We came across a Youtube channel named Horrible Histories which is not only entertaining but also brings you snippets of history in a fun way.
Yes, we are aware that their target is a younger audience, but some parts of the show are quite well achieved in a “Monty Python”-ny kind of comedy.

At the moment Cleopatra’s song and “Wife swaps” (shared below) are on the top list in making us chuckle – chuckle or at least exhaling from the nose, which still fits in the entertained category, so it works.

Hopefully it brightens your day a little and entertains you with not only comedy but also facts about history (while demystifying others).

★stay safe and stay inspired★

Chanson d’Olympia ~ Inking Video

Art by StarTwo

From drawing the sketch traditionally to inking digitally, we bring you the beginning process of the illustration “Chanson d’Olympia”.

The charming performance of the soprano the soprano Patricia Janečková added a personality to the character Olympia that we couldn’t resist to portray.

Check the lines post to know more about the character from Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann and to see a video of the performance that inspired us!

Click here to know more about “Chanson d’Olympia”

★stay safe and stay inspired★

Sleepless ~ Inking Video

Art by StarTwo

We’ve shared the inking and the full version, and now we bring you the inking video of the original illustration “Sleepless” from traditional sketch to digital ink.

If you haven’t seen the illustration versions here you go:

Click here to check the linework of “Sleepless”

and here to check the full colour of “Sleepless”

★sleep well and stay inspired★

Fight or Flight – And the piano sings

Royally forked…

Today’s post is a bit different. It’s about something that we feel needs to be shared, and who knows, maybe it will give you courage and strength for one of those days when it all seems too trying.

Fight or flight, as defined on wikipedia, is a physiological reaction that occurs in response to a perceived harmful event, attack or threat to survival.
What wasn’t explained to us when young, was that embarrassment also generates these types of reactions to which we would also add petrification as a third response, followed by an attempt to flop down and play dead.

It was during lunch, juggling ingredients over a home style swiss raclette , that the subject came up over an unbelievable and miraculous story, an article by Dr. Carla Rebelo published on the Expresso newspaper named “Liderança Antichoque” (Shockproof Leadership). A great insight to spotting the two heroes of this situation.

Hand Warm up speed-drawing

Ideally every time you start working on a drawing, you should warm up first.
We bring you a small speed-drawing of what we sometimes do with straight to pen sketches, skipping the stage of penciling the sketch as a start.
(The original video at normal speed is 5 minutes)

This was also to get the feeling of the pen as it was the first time to use it. It’s a V SignPen from Pilot, it has a medium sized stroke with a dense black colour.

Have you used this pen before? It felt really nice to draw with it. It has a nice flow and the deepness of the black was a nice surprise, there was no washed out ink at all.
It’s not a tool to work on details, obviously. But it delivers very well on the boldness when its needed.

Don’t forget to warm up and have a great week!★★

The music is from http://www.bensound.com and the hand is from the cat (Sara).