O HAI 2010

First of all I want to ask for some votes cause I got this new DBH submission...

http://www.designbyhumans.com/vote/detail/66891?page=1

...okay, you voted for me? Thanks, now you can read the rest of the blog.

This year is coming to an end and it featured some really cool projects for me. I did some work for bands like Suicide Silence, In Fear and Faith and The White Tie Affair which was awesome. Getting hired by some guy from Sony BMG was a big thing, never saw that one coming. But the best client 09 has to be Cherry Sauce Clothing. I really enjoyed working on ideas with them. They had some great ones and were open to my ideas as well. They even sent me a shirt, which is always nice. I also enjoyed working with Party Smartie. The design I did for them changed so much during the process but I think in the end it turned out awesome. They have yet to release their new line I guess but I know it's gonna be a kick-ass second line.

I don't think I have to tell you a fifth time abot album art and shoe designs but those projects were really sweet, too. And I started my "New Day, New Canvas" project which turned out to be a really good idea in general. I could talk about this project forever I guess. One day I'll make my own documentary about it... 4 hours of me talking while drawing on ikea lamps.

Looking back on this year, I know one thing for sure. I will always keep this last summer in mind as one of the best chapters of my life. THE best so far. So thanks to everyone who was a part of that summer. I hope you know who you are and how big of a "thank you" this is. In one case it's the biggest thank you of all time. I could write so much more but let's keep this short and sweet. And to my brothers: next year I will be the master of miniature golf. It's on!! I so hope that Henrys Welcoming party will be as awesome as his farewell party. One word: Osborne! Bandmates, I'm ready to shred with you on the 16th!

One of the things that really sucked this year: good bands seem to avoid my area now. There were only a couple of good concerts this year. Some highlights were The Devil Wears Prada, Arsonists Get All The Girls and of course Vainstream Rockfest which is also a big part of my awesome summer. Those Waterthrowers, those awesome bands, R.I.P. Have Heart, R.I.P. Feline (our cat that died that weekend)

I already made a list with my favorite albums and posted it on emptees, here it is again:

1. Converge - Axe To Fall

2. Cage - Depart From Me

3. Stray From The Path - Make Your Own History

4. This Is Hell - Warbirds

5. Arsonists Get All The Girls - Portals

6. Alexisonfire - Old Crows/Young Cardinals

7. Ace Enders And A Million Different People - When I Hit The Ground

8. Architects - Hollow Crown

9. Gallows - Grey Britain

10. Enter Shikari - Common Dreads

Homesick and the new Set Your Goals realy blew my mind at the time they came out but then I kinda stopped listening to them. I also enjoyed the new tunes by Vanna, Suicide Silence, Burden Of A Day and TDWP. Felt3 came out too late to make this list. Slug + Murs + Aesop Rock = Epic Win, it's really that simple.

I could finish this with some resolutions. But honestly, I don't get it. I just think it's best to change things right away if possible. Why wait for a new year? Doesn't make sense to me. I just hope next year sees me as a better artist living in a different place. We'll see what else the new year brings.

Cheers and "Guten Rutsch!" ^_^

"Another punk rock summer came and went"

Yeah, so I decided to write down some stuff. I think my last blog is almost a month old. I blogged about the new "Make something cool every day"-stuff I started. And I'm still doing daily projects. Sometimes it's hard to start these drawings but it would be way harder for me to let this die. I'm very happy about the amount of views and positive feedback. I made longcat coasters and they reached 200 views on flickr which is unbelievable. I'm constantly working on new concepts and there are so many things that I want to try. Drawing certainly doesn't feel like work anymore.

I also started a new painting. No photoshop this time, acrylics are the new way to go. Drawing with colored pens insted of coloring black lines is so much fun. Besides that I want to get back into shirt design. I started a new drawing and I think about starting another one already... just to keep me busy and distracted.

And I came up with a new comic-story concept. It's not my first one. I usually come up with stories and characters and stop working on the comic. But maybe this time I'll put some more work into it. It could just be a short story to check if people are interested. I don't want to give away too much of it yet. You'll see...

The weirdest thing that happened in the meantime is the changing of my sleeping schedule. I usually go to bed at 7AM and get up at 1 or 2 PM. It kinda happened by accident butI got used to it and it has it's benefits. In fact I don't see any downsides to it. Having to change it again will be hard though. But as long as I don't have a dayjob I'll keep on living this vampire-like lifestyle.

The best thing that happened in the meantime: I did pig squeals on stage for a band that I'm friends with. It was on their halloween show and the night before we just talked about the jokes we could pull off. One guy had a wig and an ugly hat, one guy pulled out a dildo and yeah, I did pig squeals during one of their breakdowns. It was my first time on stage and it felt awesome. Kinda new and weird but still pretty awesome. And I got some applause and thumbs up. Pretty cool. Kinda makes me want to put more effort into my stupid e-grind band. We promised our 5 fans to release our first album by January 09... I could just record some filler songs by myself or with friends... I don't know...

So... yeah, some new stuff coming up. My new project is still my main focus. Music might become more important. I'm constantly working to keep myself from reminiscing too much. A lot of crappy things happened this autumn. I'm far away from being as happy as I was back in summer when I was basicly having the time of my life. Despite that there are moments of joy that make me think I'm walking the right paths. I might be on the right way out of this

New Project

I started a new project on my flickr. Basically it's about picking up andom objects and drawing on them everyday. I'm trying to do something original everyday. You'll get the whole story on my flickr. I keep talking so much about flickr lately because I love flickr. There's so much to see and to do. My carbonmade portfolio is already full, I can't upload anything new unless I delete old stuff. I think I'll keep it to sum up some highlights and tell everyone to check out my flickr for more content. And I've been thinking about getting a twitter account allthough I think it's stupid. I'm close to giving in.

Anyways, check out my new project on flickr!

It's going great so far. My first post was about a lamp I drew on. My profile views almost doubled up that day and I got a lot of views and comments. Some friends want me to draw on their stuff now and be a part of this project. I'm looking forward to seeing this project grow.

Sorry for the rant

I just finished some stuff, still working on this nautical mess. My mood is getting a little bit better while my sleep schedule still sucks. Living life like a zombie is weird we... yeah, weird, you see. I keep my pens in a Duff beer can now, which looks pretty rad. The can is a souvenier I bought at the Universal Studios in July. Good times! Oh and I came up with a solution to some of my art-related problems I guess. I'll start a new exciting project as soon as I'm done with this design. No furher details yet, keep checking back.

The first year

I recently realized I'm doing this stuff for a full year now. I sold my first design at the end of august 08. A few weeks passed and I moved away from vector stuff onto traditional drawing and took it more serious. And according to emptees I uploaded 30 shirt designs this year. I still have some stuff that I couldn't show yet and did an album cover and shoes. So I think my output might be 40 designs a year. I could remove weeks due to vacations, exams and stuff but I can't cover up the fact that I did less than one design a week. I don't know about other designers and their output. But for me, this isn't the way it should be.

I improved over this year and did some stuff for really good bands and working on shoes has been an interesting project. I'm still glad that I was given this opportunity. I think I found my own style. But I'm getting more and more tired of the same e-mails and the people who refuse to answer me. I still want to do work for bigger bands that I enjoy listening to. I want to win contest and stuff. But I realized that I'm still far away from a point I wanted to reach. There's this half-finished piece lying to my left right now. But I don't have the motivation to finish it. Drawing used to be a form of escapism for me. This year kinda changed that.

Flickr, Buttons and Frogs

I finished the frog-design. I did it for fun so yeah, it's for sale. Contact me if you are interested.

Today my mailman saved my day. He brought me my new custom buttons, the Keyboard Cat shirt I ordered from Threadlass last month and halloween-themed table-fireworks. I love halloween even though there are no big celebrations over here. The buttons turned out really good. Purebuttons did a great job. I did a photo of them and they feautered me on their blog. Have a look:

http://www.purebuttons.com/thebuttonpost/showcase/nv-buttons-great-photo/

Last weekend I put up a Flickr account for my work. It showcases a little bit more than my normal portfolio. Go check it out:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nvasion/

My hat is a frog, your argument is invalid

I recently finished a new design and now I'm waiting for approval. I'm waiting for some other business-related mails as well, which sucks. In the meantime I had the urge to draw something ugly again. Yeah, random stupidity! Hopefully I can finish it today.

Oh yeah, I had a blog...

... I forgot. Sorry to the 3 subscribers. So what happened after my last update? I had a great time in the states, I've been to so many awesome places like the Universal Studios, Las Vegas and New York. Hawaii was boring though. Mainly because I'm not that relaxing-at-the-beach-guy. I did some nice photos here and there and I still think I'm going to edit the best ones a little bit.

Luckily my brother packed his iPhone. Most of the hotels had free Wi-Fi so we were able to get some internet access. Online time was prety limited though. But at least I could talk to Jasmin, an awesome girl I met online before my vacation started. I visited her in Berlin the first weekend after I got home. We instantly fell in love and now she's my girlfriend! ^_^

Design-wise it has been a good summer, too. Cherry Sauce launched their first line which features two of my designs. I did some shoe designs for kingsofneon.com which was a very exiting project. A talented local band called Comander Keen has a new album coming out and the cover art was made public earlier this month. I designed it and the reactions have been pretty good so far. I did a piece for the new Party Smartie line that will be released soon I guess. Last saturday I did some concert photography for the first time. I took some shots of my friends in aimforthehead and I had a lot of fun. They loved the photos and I hope I can do stuff like that more often. And you see that Pure Buttons link to the right? They'll produce some buttons for me. I will hand them out to friends as a little thank-you-note for supporting me.

Yep, shoes, buttons, photography, shirts, CD art... I still don't have a day-job and designing has become a full-time-gig. Honestly I've been kinda lazy lately. But I plan on working my ass off again and get more into the networking-part of being an illustrator. Gotta step up my game.

On Vacation

Yeah, as off tomorrow I'll be travelling through the U, S and A. Really stoked about that. We are going to see New York, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Hawaii, the Grand Canyon, the Niagara Falls and some other parts of California and Nevada. It's gonna be awesome. I didn't find the time to post all the latest designs here but I guess that's not a big deal.

I was at the Vainstream Rockfest this weekend which was pretty awesome. We saw some amazing bands and got dripping wet which was fun as well. Best bands were Walls Of Jericho, Have Heart (one of their last shows), Architects, August Burns Red, Despised Icon and suprisingly K.I.Z. were amazing, too. Just hilarious, good times. It was also really cool to see Parkway Drive, Heaven Shall Burn, Terror, God Forbid and... The Dillinger Escape Plan. The security guys were much more worried about the band's health than the crowd's during their show.

Craziest thing was that guy who recognized me and he was like "You are that NVasion guy from myspace right? You do shirts and stuff?" Weird... just weird...

Anyways, the picture above is the newest design I finished for the ABT loves Nerdcore contest. I love Nerdcore, too. I love Nintendo games but I always hated the Hammer Bros. so I made this design... vote for it, it means a lot to me and I'll be forever thankful ^^

http://www.a-better-tomorrow.com/contributor/show_design/3458-super-smashed-brothers

I'll be back in August. Meanwhile you should keep an eye out for Cherry Sauce Clothing and Roxxilla Clothing. They'll release some cool shirts and I did some designs for them.

See you soon!

Most Random Sketch Ever

Yeah, this is pretty messed up. Consists of 6 different sketches I guess. Some parts are almost finished and some are really rough. I'll ligthen it up, print it and draw on it. It's not my usual workflow but I'll see if it works out...

Photography and Digital Paintings

Another random post. I hope you like these, I just did them for fun. I love playing around with long time exposure. Oh and I still do shirt designs, I'll post a bunch of new designs soon, meanwhile they can be seen on emptees or myspace.

I Miss My Mondo Gecko

My day stared pretty bad. Somehow my body thought going to bed at 3AM and waking up at 8 AM would work fine. It didn't work for my eyes. After breakfast I decided to draw a little bit but my eyes started to hurt. So I needed something to do that doesn't involve a computer screen or bright light.

I messed around with watercolors but then I came up with the idea of going on a journey through our attic. I wanted to get my old Mondo Gecko back but I only found his skateboard. Damn! That lizard punk was my best toy ever.  I might have to search again but for now I found something a little less awesome. My old Chupa Caps! This is a picture of the cans and Mondo Geckos board. The cans were all filled with Chupa Caps, Pogs, Slammers, even some Disney Caps and Power Rangers stuff.

The best part about this game are those rare caps with this effect that lets you see 2 different images depending on the angle of your view. I found 20 of them, I guess thats 20 out of 30. I loved them so much! Cartoon violence full of gore and awsomeness. I think those caps really influenced me and my art. It's hard to take photos of them, I tried scanning them...

So let's hang out and play with caps again! I'm bringin' it back! I also found some other toys. The toilet is from Ghostbusters and the other guys are from that Bucky O Hara show I guess. I found some Batmans and Turtles, too but still no Mondo Gecko. After that I ran around the house and took some random photos some turned out pretty good, I might upload them sometimes. 

Previews

I didn't post any blogs lately but that doesn't mean I'm lazy. My final exams are over and designing is kind of a full-time gig now. Here are some previews of things to come....

My Collab With Gaunty

I recently did a collab with Gaunty. If you don't know about him, you should check out his designs. It was his idea, he also did the sketch and I inked it. We decided to go with purple. I colored it and Gaunty finished it with some halftones and most of the shading. I really had a lot of fun working with him. You can vote for it on ShirtFight.... click here!

Photography

I am done with editing some pictures from my first photoshoot. I did some photos for my friends in aimforthehead. These are some of my favorites. Check out their myspace for more photos.

New stuff

These are some new designs. The first two designs are for sale. Sorry for the lack of updates, school kept me pretty busy. But it's almost over. June 3rd is the day I'm looking forward to.

I also tried getting into photography. I did some photos for a band called aimforthehead yesterday. Friends of mine, so check them out. I still have to edit them and then I'll post them.

We Love Candy

this drawing is a few weeks old now and I never finished coloring it. Some other projects were more important and this was just for fun. I already colored some parts but the highlights are still missing. I'll do that today. I just finished a shirt for Sonny Bonoho, a really good hip hop artist. I'm waiting for final approval and then I'll make that one public. He loved my joke-glasses-monster so much that he wanted to become a four-armed monster. And I helped to make his dream come true.

We Love Art

This is my submission for the A Better Tomorrow meets Art Bastard contest. Click on it to see more. The theme was "We love art" Art has so many faces and this design shows a few of them. One corner describes my own style while other characters resemble my influences, great artists and different forms of art. I had a lot of fun trying out some new styles. Most of it was handdrawn as a single piece. Go vote for it at www.abettertomorrow.com if you like it, it should be in the voting soon.

My album cover is close to getting finished, just a few more textures and I'm done.

Skulls and eyeballs

Everyone loves them! So I put them on an album cover. I think I'm done with the linework and it took like forever. Now I'll add some colors and textures. You have to click the image if you want to see more.

Nom Nom Nom

This is my newest design. The band loved it and told me to get in touch with their management. They liked it but I didn't get an approval so far. I'm still waiting for a final answer. Idrew random stuff at school and ended up with the sketch for this one. Like I said before it's a little bit cleaner than usual.

Today was a pretty good day so far. I didn't go to school so I could sleep a little bit longer. Other schools have an easter break right now so we can stay at home if we want to. So right now I'm pretending that I'm learning at home and I'm working on an album cover for a local band. I think I'm about halfway done with the linework. I'll go to their show tonight. We Butter The Bread With Butter will also be there. I hope they are going to sell their new panda shirts so I can buy one. I'm looking forward to that show.

There's a compliment thread on emptees right now. You have to write something nice about the person the person that posted above you. And this is what Chad Lenjer wrote about me:

Nils has been such a cool guy ever since I’ve joined. Definitely a dude to look out for, I love his persistence in taking his work to the next level

That really made my day and means a lot to me ^_^

Plans for April

I'm still working on that design wit the fish and the strawberry. I feel like I still need to learn a lot about light and shadow. Maybe I'll take some art classes in June.

Today I updated my little Myspace gallery. New close-ups with new frames. And the quality is better because I used PNG files instead of JPEGs.

A friend of mine wants to print some shirts this summer. He'll get one of my old designs but I still have to edit it.

I'll start working on a new project soon. My first album cover! Yay! It's a really cool opportunity. It's for a local band and I'm sure it will be awesome.

I still have to do some tatoos for friends. A lot of plans but too little time.

Clean / Dirty

I tried to use a cleaner classic cartoon style for this one. It's not finished though. I'll add some more details soon. Fishscales and those dots that strawberrys have. Just wanted to save it as it is now and show it.

I recently did this. I'm still experimenting with different styles and other things. And I wanted to draw dirty pigs! A random fact about me: I can actualy do some pretty good pig squeals. I don't know what I'll do with this one. Maybe I'll change the background. Ben Lande suggested that on emptees so I'll test something else. Anyways... contact me if you want to buy the artwork.

Artists get all the girls

my newest shirt design. Tried to do something for my favorite band. I haven't heard back from them so it's for sale.

Something new

This is my first digital painting. I plan on doing more of these. I already have a couple of ideas that I want to use for that. This was done with ink and watercolor on paper. I pieced it together and edited it with Photoshop. I had a lot of fun doing this.

I recently updated my portfolio. There are a lot of new designs online now. I sold a design to Rushmore today. Remember that name because they'll release some cool shirts soon.

Monkeys vs. Aliens

This  little alien design finally found a good home. Circa Survive didn't want it but it got picked up by In Fear and Faith. Working with them was really great. And it's an awesome band by the way so check them out. And buy their shirts ^^

I posted the linework for this one a few weeks ago. And this is the final product. My new submission for A Better Tomorrow. I'll upload it soon and I'll post a link later.

New Stuff

The last update is already a few weeks old. But of course I'm working on new stuff. I finished the linework for this one yesterday...

yep, a lot of details, feathers, tentacles, monsters and aliens. I drew like 10 different bird-heads and ended up using this one.

The scoring for my ABT contest design ends tomorrow. The last average rating was something like 3,7 out of 6 and now it's hidden. Could get printed I guess, I have to wait for two weeks. And then I'll submit a new design.

I also have new sheets of paper that I want to test. And I bought a moleskine for my ideas and sketches. I have a new key which was a gift from my mom. I used to have a green one but now I have a black one with a mummy on it. It's the best key ever, I'll take pictures of it soon.

A Better Tomorrow <3

I uploaded my first contest design or the A Better Tomorrow contest. I really like this website so far. The people there are cool and gave me a nice welcome. My current design has a pretty good rating now and I didn't expect that. It's an old design but I will submit new ones soon. If you want to take a look at it, click here. Vote for it if you like it. And if you want to sign up, you can use this link and give me some credits. I'm always thankful for any kind of support. Right now I feel like everytime I start a new project I'm getting better and better. And I love that feeling. I'm getting more and more confident with my art. It hasn't always been this way.

Ready For The Competition

Today I signed up at three contest sites. I hate getting new accounts and caring about all those preferences and avatar settings. But I think this might be another step towards my goals, because a lot of people look at those sites. I'll upload one design to each site soon and I already have some ideas. I hope there will be some people who vote for me. We'll see. For now you can take a look at three new empty profils of mine.

Design By Humans

A Better Tomorrow

Threadless

I'll post a blog once my first designs are online. I'm already working on something new. I don't want to scan it yet but I have a small new image that I want to show you. It's just a preview, it's done and submitted but I'm still waiting for approval.

Nom Nom Nom

I finished the linework yesterday. I'll add some colors today.

20 Eyes In My Head...

And this time they are not all the same!

My newest shirt and I hope I'll find someone who buys this.

There's another crazy monster design that I'm working on right now. Donuts, slime and skulls will be involved. I still have so many sketches that I want to turn into designs. I also started drawing flowers. It's so much different than what I usually do but it's fun and it's good for learning things about symmetry and proportions.

Less Talk, More Shirts

Not approved. Click it to see some details. Contact me if you want to buy the artwork. I'll change the text.

Done with the Linework and I already started coloring it.

Tattoos

I wouldn't consider myself a tattoo artist. I don't know much about it but I enjoy good tattoos. And when a friend asks me to draw something for a tattoo, I'm down for it. my friend Alex wanted something for his arm that reflects his love for music and drums. My original drawing was a lot busier and included some other ideas. This heart was the center of it. So after disgussing things with his tattoo-guy Alex went home with this sweet new tattoo...

The shading is different but I definitely recognize my linework. I really enjoyed doing this and the outcome is awesome. It all  worked out so smooth and now someone walks around with my art forever on his arm which is amazing. Probably one of the biggest compliments you can get as an artist.

I'm still working on the eyeball-monster and some other personal projects. Some tattoo-stuff, too. The more I get into it the more I want a tattoo somewhere on my own body...

Back To School

Tomorrow will be the last day of work for me. My internship will end and I'll go to school again. I will miss all of my co-workers. I'll visit them whenever I can, they already said I am always welcome. And my boss will get a special suprise tomorrow...

... it's a monument in our city. Not a famous one but that's all Bielefeld has to offer. I had to draw it at the beginning of my internship. He wanted it to look like an old line drawing. So this time I gave him a big evil head and added some skulls. I hope he likes it, at least he will remember me when he sees it.

And this is a little preview. Just some eyes and an ugly haircut. I'm working on this one and the best part has yet to be drawn. I hope I can finish it after the weekend. I also plan on drawing during every lunch break at school to save some time.

So... I will enjoy my last day of work and the weekend. I'll visit the Netherlands with 5 friends and I'm sure that will be an awesome trip and I'll probably be drunk most of the time haha.

Suicide Silence Shirt Printed

One of my latest designs got printed recently. Suicide Silence is one of my favorite bands so I submitted something to them and they liked it. So now you can buy that shirt online at their store.

http://www.thirddegreemerch.com/suicidesilence

I think the green is kinda weird. I used pink instead but they changed that.

So... Let's Start This!

Alright. So I just created this blog. I still have to add a banner and find out about all the settings. It will take some time I guess. I hate getting new accounts. But I noticed that a lot of artists have this blog-thing going on and I thought maybe this is helpful. So this blogs main focus will be my designs and my art. Maybe I'll also write about other stuff, I don't know yet. Right now I just wanted to try out posting, I don't have anything new to show at this moment. I'll post some older stuff later just to avoid this emptiness.

At the moment my day-job and my school are keeping me busy. I am working as an intern but I have to go to school again in February. It's already annoying, I have to sign up for my final exam and they want so many documents and a review about my internship. But I'm still working on new shirt designs and an album cover for a friends band. There's a small competition going on at emptees.com in which I participate. It's a team competition. I'm working with ColourCollapse and our topic is martians. It's the first time I am doing a collab. So far it has been a lot of fun working with him and drawing a big ugly martian. You'll see it here when it's done.

Thanks for reading my first post ^_^