Moustaches: Little Wings For Your Nose

Living and working in the beautiful city centre of Leuven has its perks. There is always an opportunity to try out the newest sushi bars, ice cream parlours, and coffee houses! :) When I first came to Leuven six years ago, there were only two or three coffee houses that I knew of. I used to go there once or twice a week, but those places were usually very crowded (Just imagine a city with over 30,000 students that are in desperate need of some caffeine, and you get the picture!). Luckily, more and more coffee houses started appearing over the years, and Leuven's most recent addition is Le Mustache. They serve mind-blowing Lattes (Cookies Mookies Latte!), Turkish specialities, and delicious bagels at great prices. The owner, Mutlu, has an adorable daughter who turned out to be crazy about Disney's Frozen (She showed all her Frozen goodies to me!). That's why I decided to draw princess Elsa for her. And her father couldn't be more excited! :)

Mutlu then asked me to join a big project, which would require me to design eight digital paintings, two for each season of the year. All paintings would, of course, feature a beautiful moustache. I happily agreed to give it a try. And this is the result! :D My Spring Moustaches are now displayed in Le Mustache. I am very thankful for this great opportunity and I plan on finishing my Summer Moustaches by the end of this week, so we are ready to welcome the new season on June 21.

Thanks to Mutlu, I've got another great project coming up! You will probably hear more about it in a few weeks. :) Until then, you should really go drink a few cups of coffee at Le Mustache (Tiensestraat 129, 3000 Leuven). Nom nom nom! See you there?

Leen

Spring Moustaches, May 2015

Paint Tool Sai

#BoJackIsBack

Do you know that feeling when you discover an amazing TV show and you just want the whole world to know how much you adore the story and the characters? ❤ This is basically what happened to me a little while ago, when Netflix suggested me to watch the animated series "BoJack Horseman". BoJack tells the story of an anthropomorphic horse who used to be the big star of a 1990s sitcom. He's grown very bitter over the years, but eventually decides to plan his big return with a biography that he dictates to his ghostwriter. The first three episodes are not particularly funny, and I actually had strong doubts about the series' originality. But I was very surprised to discover that the characters aren't as "flat" as they initially seemed. On the contrary, the plot is incredibly deep, and some events left me literally quiet for a few minutes (And believe me, that doesn't happen a lot!). Needless to say, I was overly excited when the second season was announced earlier this week. #BoJackIsBack on July 17! Hooray!

Many of BoJack Horseman's characters are animals, which often reminded me of the amazing "Blacksad" universe. I'm a very big fan of anthropomorphism! One of my favourite characters is Charlotte the deer, with whom BoJack was once in love. At one point in the series, BoJack imagines an alternate life where, instead of becoming a television star, he moves to Maine with Charlotte. It is probably one of my favourite scenes in the whole series. Charlotte's design is simply stunning, and it's rather sad that she is "just" a minor character.

In any case, this is my tribute to BoJack Horseman! :D I really love art nouveau, so I did another attempt at mimicking Alphonse Mucha's style (He is still one of my favourite artists ever!). I really hope you like the result.

See you soon!

Leen

Charlotte the Deer, May 2015
Paint Tool Sai

Forest Friends

Four years ago, Celesse became part of our family. She's a Ragdoll cat, meaning that she has no survival instinct whatsoever (This includes: sliding off trees, eating nasty bugs, and saying hello to strangers), and always has to be kept indoors. But we often take her out for leash-walks in the garden! :) Since she likes to spend hours and hours in front of our big window, the animals that live in our backyard already know that she means no harm. Our squirrels and birds don't mind getting very close to Celesse to collect some seeds or nuts, and she clearly enjoys being surrounded by friendly forest animals! 

This drawing was slightly inspired by Alphonse Mucha, one of my favourite artists of all time. You can probably tell by the thick outlines. I apologize in advance for using autumn colours (Yes, it's Spring, I am aware of that!), but I decided to go with a complementary palette. I had a lot of fun with this. :D If you have any suggestions, feel free to leave me a comment!

See you soon,

Leen

Forest Friends, May 2015

Paint Tool Sai

Don't Blame It On The Sunshine

Sunshine. It's all fun and games until you're trapped inside your office. :( When I came home from work yesterday, I certainly did not feel like staring at a computer screen again! I opened my window, put my pajamas on (I'm not ashamed to admit that it was only 7 p.m.), grabbed my sketchbook and sat down on my comfy chair for more than two hours. :D I made a total of four sketches, using my favourite pencil (A Totoro pencil! Squeee!). Two of them were inspired by my friends' Final Fantasy XIV characters, one by the 10th Doctor, and the last one by... nobody in particular. :) As you can see, it was a very productive evening! I hope you like the result.

See you around!

Leen

Thendra Gun (Final Fantasy XIV), May 2015

Pencil on paper 

Fabled Fox and Final Freak (Final Fantasy XIV), May 2015

Pencil on paper

Humanoid, May 2015

Pencil on paper

The 10th Doctor (Doctor Who), May 2015

Pencil on paper

Poster Girl

Did you know that posters are actually of great importance within the academic world? Well, neither did I, but it was a pleasant surprise for me! :D Basically, when your paper gets accepted for a conference, you will either have to give a lecture on the topic of your paper, or design a poster and stand next to it for a little while. It gives you the opportunity to talk to people about your research. Not only do I enjoy being able to speak face-to-face to other researchers, designing the actual poster is such a fun thing to do! Although not everybody agrees on that, of course. ;) Below, you can find one of my recent posters, which I presented at the CLIN conference in Antwerp. It does not contain a lot of text, since I would also be giving a presentation on the same topic afterwards. Personally, I am very fond of the combination of blue-grey (Fun fact of the day: another name for this colour is "livid"!) and flashy colours.

  

Poster "Text2Picto" for CLIN, Antwerp, February 2015

Paint Tool Sai (drawing) and Adobe Photoshop CS

Say what? There is a person in our faculty that actually likes to design posters? Holy guacamole! Shortly after CLIN, and thanks to my co-promotor, I was asked to design the official poster for "Dag van het Onderzoek", also known as "Research Day". Research Day is a yearly event hosted by the Linguistics department of the Arts faculty. It consists of a series of lectures, and this year's theme is "Linguistic Theories", concerning the confrontation and reconciliation between alternative theories in different linguistic domains. Indeed, that sounded like the perfect opportunity to draw a lightsaber battle-inspired poster! The illustration shows two young researchers who are playfully crossing their pencils. The pencils represent different linguistic theories. 

Poster "Dag van het Onderzoek" for KU Leuven, April 2015

Paint Tool Sai (drawing) and Adobe Photoshop CS

This is probably the most violent poster in our department's history. I'm very proud to have contributed to that fact. Wait, what? Maybe I should just be happy that my university allows me to draw Star Wars-inspired posters for official events. :)

See you next time!

Leen

A Sketch A Day Keeps The Dullness Away

Waiting for your programs to load, waiting for your programs to crash, taking 15-minute breaks, or trying to find a solution for a difficult problem. My sketchbook is my saviour. While I love digital art more than anything in the world, a pencil and a piece of paper is all I need to get through any of these "empty" moments. My course notes always used to be a complete mess. ;) And although some of my professors certainly didn't enjoy the fact that a girl would be drawing silly things during their lectures rather than taking actual notes, sketching always helped me to improve my concentration when things were getting waaaay too boring. It was, however, not always very beneficial for my friends' concentration. Sowwy.

These are some of my more recent sketches. I don't really use any fancy material for them. Usually just some free pencils, markers and pens that I found somewhere in a dusty drawer. :D The Bohemian Girl is probably my personal favourite. I don't know what her story is, but my friend Eva suggested that she is a flying cow who was turned into a young girl by an evil witch. She tied the feathers to her earrings, hoping she could someday become a flying cow again. Works for me. 

Have a nice weekend! 

Leen

Benedict Cumberbatch, Early 2015

Black pen on paper

Coeurl, Early 2015

Pencil on paper

Sketches at work, Late 2014

Blue pen on paper

Bohemian Girl, Early 2015

Blue pen on paper

The 9th Doctor (Doctor Who), Early 2015

Black pen on paper

Ohana

"Lilo & Stitch" is probably one of my favourite Disney movies of all time. I remember watching the video over and over again, and I also bought tons of Stitch goodies in Disneyland when the movie came out. Needless to say, I don't ever plan on throwing those goodies away. :) About half a year ago, Niels even managed to get me an adorable Stitch stuffed animal from a Luna Park in Leuven. He hasn't moved from my bed ever since (Oh, those silly pronouns and their ambiguity)! Although I have to admit that "Lilo & Stitch" does not have an earth-shaking plot, it tells a beautiful story about friendship, family and self-acceptance.

Drawing Stitch turned out to be quite difficult when I was younger. This is probably my first attempt in years, and it took me about 3 hours to finish the drawing. I actually gave Stitch a bit of a personal touch: his face is much rounder, and his eyes are much bigger. I am aware of that, but I think it looks pretty cute on him! :D Similar to the "Vivi Ornitier" that I drew earlier this month, I used big, rough brushes, and an absolute minimum of sharp lines. I'm still not used to drawing backgrounds, but reference pictures are really a big help. I honestly think I never looked at plants this way before! Backgrounds used to be my biggest enemy, but I think I am finally becoming a bit more patient. I hope you like the result. :)

Have a nice week!

Leen

Ohana, April 2015

Paint Tool Sai

"Dromeria: Lode" Fell Out Of The Sky

Yesterday was a big day for me! It was the official release date of "Dromeria: Lode", the second "big" Dromeria adventure. The text was written by Marc Geyens, and I brought the story to life by taking care of the illustrations. The book took me more than 150 hours to finish, so I was very excited to see the final product (I think the picture speaks for itself). :D

Presenting "Dromeria: Lode" at a book fair in Leuven, April 2015

Our publisher, Uitgeverij Het Punt, hosted a book fair in Leuven. More than 25 authors showed up to present their work. I've met some wonderful people (make sure to check out Sofie's poetry blog!), including several authors and illustrators that I had not seen for more than a year (Christina Guirlande, Sandrine Lambert, Mirte Wolfs, and Kirsten Oppalfens), and I had a lovely chat with some of the visitors, who told me that my drawings looked very appealing. :D Friends and family members even showed up to surprise me. It was a fantastic day!

The three Dromeria books: a friendship book, "Dromeria: Lode", and "Dromeria: Biggie"

"Dromeria: Lode" tells the story of Lode, a rhyming mailman. Biggie the pig wants Lode to deliver a letter, but the ever-confused stork gets distracted, and returns to Dromeria without delivering the message at all. The book contains a total of 41 drawings (20 big illustrations, 20 small illustrations, and the cover art), and features many of my friends' real-life pets, such as Clio the cat, Choco the guinea pig, and Zita the sighthound. This time, I decided to use thinner lines, so I could cover more details (Seriously, so many feathers!). And since many of the scenes are located in the sky, I spent a lot of time figuring out some nice colour patterns. :D I really hope that people can tell the difference.

One of the 20 big story-related illustrations in "Dromeria: Lode", February 2015

Paint Tool Sai

If you would like to order the book, please send me a message. "Dromeria: Lode" will also be available for purchase on De Leeswinkel, and in several Belgian bookstores. Again, I would like to thank everyone for their support. I couldn't do it without you, guys!

See you soon. :)

Leen

RedditGetsDrawn: Could You Draw Me?

About one year ago, I joined a Subreddit named RedditGetsDrawn (RGD). Reddit is an entertainment, social networking, and news website, where registered community members can submit content (Thanks, Wikipedia!). RGD, more specifically, is a page where people can post a picture of themselves or a loved one. The whole idea behind RGD is that Redditors can browse the picture database, choose one that they like, and make a nice drawing of that person, without asking anything in return.

These are some of the drawings that I made for random people on RGD. All of them were very happy with the result. :D I'm also posting the original picture of the person who wanted to get drawn, as a matter of comparison. These pictures were already made public by the users themselves. Most drawings were made with Paint Tool Sai and took me about 1.5 hours to finish.

Have a great day!

Leen

Buttons_arent_toys, January 2014
Paint Tool Sai

TheJester190, January 2014

Paint Tool Sai

Houseboatbabies, January 2014

Paint Tool Sai

Katilynberg, January 2014

Paint Tool Sai

Tyko, January 2014

Paint Tool Sai

EvilDeceiver, February 2014

Paint Tool Sai

Jayzeed_666, March 2014

Pencil

Blubbership4, May 2014

Paint Tool Sai

Gon x Killua

I love anime, but I often find it hard to keep up with the constant flood of episodes. However, my dear friend Netflix suggested me to watch "Hunter x Hunter", a Japanese series that was given an outstanding score on the IMDB website (A whopping average of 9.1/10 at this very moment). And that's exactly what I did. Hunter x Hunter is surprisingly funny and the character design is simply excellent. Gon and Killua are the youngest Hunters, but it seems like they are also the strongest and most ambitious ones. Gon uses a fishing rod to attack his enemies, while Killua (who looks simply adorable most of the time, squee) is a professional assassin. It's pretty funny how my good friend Sarah recently recommended the series to me, without knowing that I had already started watching it. :) Thumbs up!

I used a somewhat different style for this drawing, similar to the Vivi I drew two weeks ago. In the end, it didn't really turn out like a digital painting, because everything still seems a bit too clean. I'm not too happy about the fact that I had to use "sharp" lines to deal with all the little details. But I think this could pass as a regular manga drawing, and in that case, it is probably one of my best attempts so far. It took me about 6 hours to finish. 

Happy Easter. :D Go eat some delicious eggs!

Leen

Hunter x Hunter, April 2015

Paint Tool Sai