Olve's Blog

It's time to wish you all a...

2011-12-22T19:59:00.002+01:00

The Secret World Teaser #4

2011-12-21T09:50:00.004+01:00

I completely forgot to post this when it was released back in August.
It's the last teaser I was involved in before leaving Funcom. On this one I did the storyboards only. The director originally wanted it all in one take - which was a bit of a challenge. But they seem to have abandoned that thought later in the process.
Oh, by the way, the super cool flying subway was my idea. ;)
Enjoy!

Blåfjell 2 Concept Art

2011-11-29T13:53:00.003+01:00

Gimpville did some effects for the Norwegian christmas movie "Blåfjell 2: Jakten på det magiske horn" (a.k.a. Magic Silver 2) which has just been released in the theaters over here.
We primarily did effects for two sequences in the movie.
For the first sequence containing some animated holograms telling an ancient story I did the designs and storyboarded the animation before doing an animatic on top of the live action plates.
The second sequence was a two and a half minute long underground mine cart chase where we did the entire mine before comping in the two main characters riding the mine cart in front of a green screen.
Footage from both sequences can be seen in this trailer.
Here are some of the concepts I did for the movie.

Apotekforeningen - Bus

2011-10-28T10:44:00.003+02:00

Here's my second attempt on CG-animation, the third spot in a series of four Gimpville just did for the Norwegian Pharmacy Association.
(The previous spots can be seen below - and the fourth and final one, animated by Kjetil Kulander, can be seen here.)

Marg & Bein: Korte Grøss

2011-10-19T20:31:00.000+02:00

Here's yet another Marg & Bein cover. It's the 21st book in the series - which means my 21st cover, but it's the first book to contain several short stories by the regular three authors Arne Svingen, Ingunn Aamodt and Jon Ewo. It is also in a slightly different format than the previous books.

Apotekforeningen - Elevator

2011-10-14T15:31:00.002+02:00

The previous post included my very first comp.
And here is my very first piece of CG-animation!
Gimpville is currently doing four spots for the Norwegian Pharmacy Association. The two first were just released and I animated the elevator scene in the one below.
Due to a fairly tight deadline I pretty much had to learn by doing, but I'm quite happy with the result after all.
I also did concepts and designs for these spots. I have posted a selection of them below.
Don't forget to check out the other spot as well, animated by Kjetil Kulander.
Enjoy!

Hodejegerne VFX

2011-10-13T09:59:00.003+02:00

Hodejegerne is doing very well in the Norwegian cinemas at the moment. Gimpville did quite a few effects for it and here is a clip showing what we did. Some spoiler shots are excluded.
This movie also happens to include my very first compositing work ever to be released - which is the last shot in this clip with the garbage truck. :)
Enjoy.

Nille Skole

2011-08-15T17:27:00.001+02:00

Here's a concept I did for Gimpville's third Nille spot. Nille is a Norwegian variety store chain and the spot can be seen here.

32nd World Wide SketchCrawl - NYC

2011-08-05T17:09:00.000+02:00

Yesterday Hanne and me came back from 12 nights in New York (expect some photos soon). The 23rd of July the 32nd SketchCrawl took place so we joined the NYC group in High Line Park. It was an extremely hot day so we eventually moved indoors to Chelsea Market for a while before we left the group a bit early to do touristy things. It was great fun meeting the NYC SketchCrawlers and this is what I managed to jot down in my sketchbook that day.

Daily Sketch #36

2011-07-08T13:50:00.003+02:00

Summer self portrait...

Daily Sketch #35

2011-07-07T16:11:00.002+02:00

The Secret World Teaser #3

2011-07-06T20:30:00.009+02:00

It is finally released, the third CGI teaser for Funcom's The Secret World, the game I worked on for several years.
This teaser was actually finished about two and a half years ago and has been on hold since then. Digic did the modeling and animation as usual. Simon Poole at Funcom did the fantastic sound design.
I began working on it nearly three years ago and like on the previous two CGI teasers (here and here) I also storyboarded this one. In addition I also designed the monster (and, er, the restroom...) The monster was based on an even earlier and already published concept I did for the game:

Daily Sketch #34

2011-07-06T17:18:00.000+02:00

Oh well... daily sketch...?
It's been two years since I last posted a daily sketch on this blog.

Beat.no

2011-07-04T10:00:00.004+02:00

Here's the latest Beat.no spot which is just released!
When director David Reiss-Andersen from Pravda came to us with this project in May we at Gimpville pushed for a traditionally animated approach. Fortunately he thought it was a very good idea and I got to do some good old hand-drawn animation again.
I started off doing some concepts and towards the end of May we spent one morning at Danseløvene dance school here in Oslo filming the talented dancer Meriam doing some nice moves for reference.
I made a rough cut of the material and started animating the entire thing in TVPaint. Simon Dahle Nyhus helped me out animating the fancy rim lights and cleaned up my rougher lines.
I animated the whole thing in about four weeks - and here it is.
I've also included a progress clip showing the reference material, a rough version, the cleaned up animation and the final spot.
Hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did doing it. :)

Pillow Hat

2011-06-25T16:08:00.001+02:00

Just a quick sketch I did a few weeks ago of my girlfriend Hanne wearing a funny pillow on her head. :)

Eigil

2011-05-31T21:14:00.002+02:00

My former colleague Eigil left Funcom today, and even though me myself left the company back in 2009 I just had to do the goodbye card for him when being asked.
So here is my interpretation of the king of shaky face photos.
Best of luck to Eigil and the rest of the great guys who just started up Blink Studios!
I smell success!

New Alvin Pang

2011-05-07T22:00:00.002+02:00

The third book about Alvin Pang has just been published here in Norway. It's called "Alvin Pang og hva foreldre gjør når du sover" (Alvin Pang And What Parents Do When You Sleep), it's written by Endre Lund Eriksen and published by Aschehoug.
I did 28 illustrations for this including the cover. Here are a few of them plus the cover illustration.

31st World Wide SketchCrawl, Oslo

2011-04-17T16:07:00.004+02:00

31st World Wide SketchCrawl took place on April 16th. It was a nice and sunny day in Oslo and about a dozen sketchers showed up. Here are some pages from my book.
The official Oslo thread can be found here.

Cody

2011-04-14T21:55:00.001+02:00

Einar A. Lund's first book in the Rottekrigen-series was recently published by Gyldendal here in Norway. It's called "Codys arv" and I did the cover illustration for it. Here it is.

VIC - Gathering Brands

2011-04-14T14:40:00.002+02:00

Gimpville did a commercial for VIC which was released about a month ago.
I did the storyboards and the concept art for this one.
Watch the commercial here.

Artists Help Japan

2011-03-13T01:41:00.003+01:00

"On March 11, an 8.9 earthquake struck off the northeast coast of Japan near the city of Sendai. The earthquake generated a massive tsunami with waves as high as 30 feet, resulting in floods, fires and the closure of airports and transit systems. Hundreds of people were killed, and homes, fields and towns were flooded or destroyed.

Artists Help Japan Earthquake & Tsunami Fund is responding to the immediate needs of survivors as well as short-term to long-term recovery projects undertaken by the affected communities. Founded by Dice Tsutsumi, an art director at Pixar Animation Studios who was also behind 2008 Totoro Forest Project to help preserve Sayama Forest in Japan and Sketchtravel Project.

We are partnering with Give2Asia, which has a local team based in Tokyo to assess the current situation and to obtain more information on the needs of survivors. Give2Asia helped animation industry famous Totoro Forest Project efficiently send fund to Japan and has a great reputation when it comes to humanitarian efforts in Asia.

Please make a contribution today to help the survivors! And spread the word on your blog and facebook!!"

DONATE HERE

Artists Help Japan Blog

Bufdir: Sara

2011-01-28T18:29:00.011+01:00

About one year ago, while working for Storm Studios, Endre Skandfer and myself started production on two shorts for Bufdir (a.k.a. Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs) to be screened in schools. The theme of the first film, Sara, was drug abuse in the family while the other one, Alex, dealt with psychiatric problems.
Endre directed both shorts while I storyboarded them and did the character designs. I animated a big part of the Sara film as well as drawing up many of the backgrounds for it. The budget was extremely tight so Sara was all done in a handful of weeks - if not less. For some of the backgrounds we even used storyboard frames which Endre improved with colors and textures.
I didn't get to animate on the Alex short though. It was impressively all done by Endre in one (!) week - animation, backgrounds, comp and all.
Despite the short time we had it was great fun to work with. It was pretty much exactly 10 years since Endre and me last worked together with animation. And seven years since I had animated anything myself. It was also my first attempt to work with the great animation program TVPaint - which I also had to learn during this production.
Sara can be seen here.
Below are line tests from two of the scenes I animated.

Statnett

2011-01-27T19:50:00.005+01:00

Here's something else I've done in Gimpville recently. This is an ad for Statnett, the operator of Norway's main high voltage grid, and it was just published for print.
The image was based on a photo of an ice skater I was given and it's all painted in Photoshop.

Lotto: Drømmerekka

2011-01-26T19:43:00.009+01:00

I have never posted anything I've worked on in Gimpville on this blog. So I guess our latest project could be a good start.
Three commercials for Lotto have just been released here in Norway (three more are on their way) and Gimpville did the visual effects on them. This mainly involved creating the city environment, which is all CG, and compositing the live action into it.
I designed the look of the city. I also did the mattepaint of the background elements which was based on some simple geometry.
Here's the first commercial (the other two can be seen here and here) followed by two pieces of my concept art showing a few approaches.
Finally I've posted my mattepaint of the background.
Enjoy! :)

30th World Wide SketchCrawl, Oslo

2011-01-23T15:24:00.008+01:00

Saturday, 22nd of November 2011.
We met up in Oslo's Zoological Museum. Sketched there for a while before having a break in Tea Lounge nearby. We ended the SketchCrawl with dinner and drinks in Tekehtopa as usual.
Here are my sketches of the day. And some photos.

2011

2010-12-31T12:44:00.001+01:00

North Korea - October 2010

2010-12-29T22:35:00.005+01:00

In October I went one week to North Korea.
Needless to say it was an experience out of the ordinary and a trip I will never forget.
As always I took thousands of photos. Below I've posted 15 of them.
In case you are interested I have a lot more photos in my collection on Flickr with comments and all. There you'll also find photos from my stay in China (Beijing and Dandong) the days before and after my trip to North Korea.
And before you ask: Yes, it is possible to travel to North Korea - unless you're a journalist or from South Korea that is. I went with Koryo Tours which I would highly recommend.
Enjoy.

Merry Christmas 2010

2010-12-21T22:55:00.001+01:00

Dukken

2010-10-26T17:10:00.000+02:00

CappelenDamm published their first three books in the horror series for kids called Marg & Bein back in early 2007. Three authors have contributed to the series: Jon Ewo, Arne Svingen and Ingunn Aamodt. And I've been doing the covers for all the books since the beginning.
I've lost count on how many titles there are by now and I've rarely posted the covers here. But here's the cover illustration for latest one called Dukken (The Doll) which is written by Ingunn Aamodt.

Alvin Pang

2010-09-17T19:19:00.009+02:00

The first two books about Alvin Pang are finally out here in Norway!
The Alvin Pang books are written by Endre Lund Eriksen and aimed at preschool kids.
I spent most of the spring illustrating these two books, each book containing 30 illustrated pages plus cover. The cover is 100% Photoshop, but the inside illustrations are done with pencil and painted digitally.
I'm very excited about the result. Designer Lise Mosveen did an excellent job putting it all together.
So after a fancy lunch today with Endre, Lise and the editors from Aschehoug celebrating the books, as well as having my illustrations fill almost one full page of a major Norwegian newspaper called Dagsavisen (and getting one on the front page), I felt it was appropriate to finish this Alvin-day with a blog post.

The first book is called Alvin Pang og en søster for mye and this is the cover:

Here are two single pages and one double page from the book (without text):

Here's the cover for the second book called Alvin Pang og verdens beste bursdag:

And again, two single pages and one double page from the book:

And finally two caricatures I did of Endre and myself for the back covers.
Enjoy. :)

28th World Wide SketchCrawl in Vannes, France

2010-08-02T22:40:00.004+02:00

Last night I returned home from a week in France where I, after two busy days in Paris, spent the rest of the time camping with my good friends Guillaume and Claire outside the beautiful town of Vannes in Brittany.
The 28th World Wide SketchCrawl took place this Saturday and we attended from Vannes.
Here are some of my sketches:

Maria 30

2010-06-28T00:20:00.004+02:00

Maria, my old colleague from Funcom, turned 30 and she held a great barbeque party this Saturday.
I finally got an excuse to do a caricature of her so I painted her this card.

The birthday girl with her card.

Goodbye Storm Studios

2010-06-22T21:55:00.007+02:00

Today was my last day in Storm Studios.
I've only worked there since last autumn, but for several reasons I already felt it was time to move on.
My next stop will be Gimpville. I'll join the talented guys in August after some weeks of freelancing and a couple of weeks off.
It's been a busy time in Storm and since February I've mostly been doing traditional animation for the first time in seven years which has been great fun. I can't really show any of that yet, but after going through my harddrive I found a few things I could share which I haven't shared before from my time in Storm.
First up is a poster I did for the "Kindergarden Day" which took place in March. Not really a common task to get at Storm, but I really enjoyed doing it.

Storm also did a Subaru commercial around new year. All the mountain scenes were done by matte paint projection on geometry and I was involved in most of the shots.
Here's one of the concepts I did as well as a more traditional matte paint showing the plate, the matte paint and a final frame.

27th World Wide SketchCrawl

2010-05-16T17:44:00.010+02:00

The 27th World Wide SketchCrawl was arranged yesterday and despite rainy weather we managed to gather four people in Oslo. Not many at all, but we had a good time sketching in a café and in Oslo Reptile Park.
Here are some of my sketches:

Some photos:

(See more photos on Flickr.)

Olsenbanden Jr. Matte Paintings

2010-02-02T22:01:00.011+01:00

Olsenbanden is a popular comedy series here in Norway about a not so successful trio of crooks. 13 movies were released between the first one in 1969 and 1984 (not counting another attempt in 1999). Olsenbanden jr. is a spin-off about the trio when they were kids and several children's TV-series and movies have been released the recent years. The latest, "Olsenbanden jr. Mestertyvens skatt," premiered last Friday here in Norway.
I did five matte paintings for this film just after I started working in Storm Studios including adding lights to windows in a couple of day for night shots.
Here's one of them before and after:

I also did three quite similar matte paintings adding roof windows, rearranging chimneys and removing some window reflections on an old building (the open window was a green screen model).
Here's one of the three before and after:

Tomme Tønner Matte Painting

2010-01-11T23:37:00.006+01:00

The very first work I did when I started in Storm Studios in October is now showing in the cinemas here in Norway. It was a matte painting for the film Tomme Tønner which premiered last Friday.
In the shot a barn is being blown to pieces resulting in a massive shock wave. The exploding barn was a model which was composited in later.
This landscape doesn't exist anywhere so in this matte painting I stitched together several landscape elements from photos and removed some unwanted objects:

Then I added a layer of the damaged field after the explosion - which actually is more or less invisible in the final shot because of the shock wave effects:

The shot can be seen at the end of this trailer. For some reason it's running at double speed in this clip.

Japan 2009

2010-01-11T22:28:00.006+01:00

Maja and me returned to Japan in November 2009. We were there from the 7th of November until the 23rd and spent half of the vacation traveling around. We stayed at Kanaguya in Shibu Onsen, the ryokan which was the inspiration behind the bath house in Spirited Away. We visited Takayama, Kyoto, Miyajima, Hiroshima, Kurashiki and Yokohama before spending the rest of the time in Tokyo. In Tokyo we attended the 25th World Wide SketchCrawl and met up with a bunch of great people in the Tokyo sketch group (check the post below).
Also this time I've made a blog from the trip with a selection of the few thousand photos I took:
Olve & Maja in Japan 2
Here are a few photos from the blog.

Kid chasing rabbits in Yoyogi Park, Tokyo.

Jigokudani snow monkey park.

Autumn colours in Kyoto.

Bamboo grove in Arashiyama, Kyoto.

Daishō-in, Miyajima.

Deer in Miyajima.

Oysters in Hiroshima.

Vanish roller coaster, Yokohama.

Iidabashi station, Tokyo.

Koi.

Girls blowing bubbles in Yoyogi Park, Tokyo.

2010

2010-01-02T00:08:00.001+01:00

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-23T15:29:00.001+01:00

スケッチクロール

2009-11-26T22:50:00.006+01:00

Maja and me came back from another trip to Japan earlier this week. And we were lucky to be in Tokyo for the 25th World Wide SketchCrawl last Saturday.
So we met up with the incredibly nice and talented members of the Tokyo team and spent the day sketching (and eating). We had a great time!
Here are some of my sketches from that day:

Some photos:

Also check out the Tokyo thread at the SketchCrawl forum for more sketches and photos.

Goodbye Funcom

2009-10-02T17:51:00.009+02:00

So that was it.
I just came home from Funcom for the last time. This week I've been going through four years worth of stuff which has been piling up around my desk and on my PC including hundreds of sketches I've done during concept meetings and other meetings. (What do you expect to happen when you put a group of concept artists into one meeting room? :))
First out is a selection of sketches and caricatures I've done of my colleagues.

Then a selection of imaginary characters.
(Oh, before you ask... No, they have nothing to do with the game at all. ;))

I usually got the task to draw cards for team members who were leaving the company, got kids or whatever. Here are a few caricatures of some great artists who moved on.

And finally. A clip of me chilling out in the animation department during the early days of The Secret World some time in 2006. :)

Dark Days

2009-09-30T15:03:00.003+02:00

My last week in Funcom didn't turn out as expected.
Yesterday morning the company announced that they had to cut 20% of the staff and our main office here in Oslo was hit the hardest.
It was incredibly sad to see so many of my extremely talented friends and colleagues one by one getting the news that they had to leave. And the messages kept ticking in on Facebook throughout the evening.
I wish them all the best for the future!
I wish Funcom good luck too...

The official press release can be found here.

24th World Wide SketchCrawl

2009-09-21T22:02:00.004+02:00

Last Saturday a bunch of us met up in Oslo for the 24th World Wide SketchCrawl.
Here are a few messy pages from my sketchbook.

Leaving Funcom

2009-09-18T14:47:00.011+02:00

Everything comes to an end.
It's four years (and two days to be excact) since I started working as a concept artist in Funcom. Monday I handed in my resignation and in two weeks today I'll have my last day here.
The first concept I did in Funcom was an alien-mushroom-thing for the Anarchy Online expansion pack Lost Eden where I ended up designing the entire mothership interior. I also did a few little things for Conan inbetween.
Then finally production started on The Secret World during the summer of 2006. It's been fun to follow the project from the beginning, see the team expand from just a few people and to work with such a bunch of great people.
I have a note on my wall which I believe I wrote during our very first official TSW meeting. On top it says KICKAZZ in big red letters, a keyword which still is being frequently used to describe the game. I wish my team and the project all the best. And I certainly hope it will be really KICKAZZ.
So what's next for me?
I'll return to movies and animation - which is closer to my heart I guess. The place is Storm Studios where I will be a part of the art department together with some extremely talented friends of mine.
Storm Studios did Norway's first CG-feature Free Jimmy which was released in 2006. They did special effects for some of the recent most successful Norwegian movies like Max Manus and Død Snø (Dead Snow). They also produced and did the effects for Peter & The Wolf which was awarded with an Oscar for the best animated short last year.
I'm really looking forward to it. I'm sure it's going to be great fun!

Super

2009-09-16T22:24:00.006+02:00

Here's another book cover from me.
This is for Norwegian author Endre Lund Eriksen's latest which is called Super and it has just been published by Aschehoug in Norway.
(And, yes, the Kill Bill reference is intended. ;))
Hope you like.

The Secret World Teaser #2 Storyboards

2009-09-13T22:00:00.008+02:00

(And post number 100 on this blog! Yey!)
I did the storyboards for the second TSW teaser and again I grabbed some screenshots from it and compared it to my storyboards. And they match up pretty well (apart from the train scene which wasn't executed the way I intended, but that's not a part of this selection anyway).
I've mixed boards from several parts of the process. Some are coloured (we ended up colouring the entire storyboard for this teaser), some are rougher and some, like the last two, are from the very first super rough draft. In fact, that she fires the gun was later removed, but made its way back into the final cut. Enjoy.

The Secret World Concept Art #1

2009-09-11T19:26:00.006+02:00

Since Funcom just published a few of my concepts for our game, The Secret World, I might as well throw them in here too.
There's not much I can say about them except for that they're relatively old.
If you haven't already, do drop by the game's website for more info on the game, more concept art, new screenshots and a forum - which always is a lot of fun to read.

The Secret World Teaser #2

2009-09-04T10:02:00.005+02:00

The second teaser for Funcom's The Secret World is out.
I did the storyboard on this one as well based on a short synopsis from director Ragnar Tørnqvist.
Designs were done in Funcom as well as the sound. Digic did the modelling and the animation.
Enjoy.

Edit: Watch it in higher resolution here at GameTrailers.com.

Mumbai 2009

2009-08-04T15:14:00.004+02:00

I jumped on a plane to Mumbai (or Bombay if you like) and spent one week with my friend Shank and his family in July this year.
Here are a few photos from the trip.
There are even more in my Flickr gallery. Feel free to check them out.

Daily Sketch #33

2009-06-22T22:54:00.002+02:00

It's been a while...

Two Philip Pullman Covers

2009-06-18T19:26:00.007+02:00

Philip Pullman's books about The New Cut Gang, Thunderbolt's Waxwork and The Gas-Fitters' Ball, have just been published in Norwegian.
Two great books for kids which I really enjoyed reading myself.
I did the cover illustrations. Here they are:

And this is how they look in the shop:

Gesture Drawings #2

2009-04-29T23:49:00.003+02:00

A small collection of quick gesture drawings done between January and April 2009.

Sketching During Breaks #1

2009-04-29T20:47:00.004+02:00

At life drawing I always sketch the other people during the breaks.
Here's a selection of my doodles so far this year.
Hope you like them.
(And yes, I'll post some gesture drawings as soon as I get them scanned.:))

The Secret World Teaser #1 Storyboards

2009-04-14T22:49:00.005+02:00

As mentioned below I storyboarded the first teaser for Funcom's game The Secret World which was released just before easter.
Here are my boards for the last part put together with grabs from the final teaser.
The guys at Digic Pictures, who brought our animatic and designs to life, did a great job.

The Secret World Teaser #1

2009-04-07T19:03:00.002+02:00

It here.
The first teaser for Funcom's The Secret World, the game I've worked on as a concept artist for the last three years.
I storyboarded this teaser. I also designed the location and did some early concepts of the monster.
Enjoy!

Better quality here.

Daily Sketch # 32

2009-03-03T23:57:00.002+01:00

Daily Sketch #31

2009-02-18T22:54:00.000+01:00

Daily Sketch #30

2009-01-20T23:25:00.001+01:00

Daily Sketch #29

2009-01-19T20:00:00.000+01:00

Daily Sketch #28

2009-01-18T22:19:00.001+01:00

Daily Sketch #27

2009-01-14T21:40:00.002+01:00

Daily Sketch #26

2009-01-11T19:14:00.002+01:00

Daily Sketch #25

2009-01-08T23:06:00.000+01:00

Daily Sketch #24

2009-01-06T19:47:00.001+01:00

Daily Sketch #23

2009-01-05T22:08:00.002+01:00

Daily Sketch #22

2008-12-30T23:06:00.002+01:00

Daily Sketch #21

2008-12-30T01:33:00.003+01:00

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T00:51:00.002+01:00

Daily Sketch #20

2008-12-23T17:41:00.002+01:00

Ready for christmas.

Daily Sketch #19

2008-12-18T21:13:00.001+01:00

Daily Sketch #18

2008-12-15T23:02:00.000+01:00

Daily Sketch #17

2008-12-11T22:17:00.001+01:00

Daily Sketch #16

2008-12-10T21:37:00.001+01:00

Daily Sketch #15

2008-12-08T22:44:00.001+01:00

Daily Sketch #14

2008-12-08T22:43:00.001+01:00

Daily Sketch #13

2008-12-05T22:03:00.000+01:00

Daily Sketch #12

2008-12-03T22:11:00.002+01:00

Daily Sketch #11

2008-12-02T21:30:00.002+01:00

Daily Sketch #10

2008-11-27T22:27:00.002+01:00

Daily Sketch #9

2008-11-26T21:37:00.003+01:00

Daily Sketch #8

2008-11-25T21:12:00.002+01:00

Daily Sketch #7

2008-11-23T17:58:00.002+01:00

Daily Sketch #6

2008-11-19T22:25:00.002+01:00

Daily Sketch #5

2008-11-18T20:57:00.003+01:00

Daily Sketch #4

2008-11-12T22:03:00.002+01:00

Daily Sketch #3

2008-11-09T14:32:00.002+01:00

Daily Sketch #2

2008-11-06T23:13:00.004+01:00

More like a monthly sketch right now. I have to get into the habit to make it a daily.
The theme today was "gold digger".

Japan 2

2008-11-04T21:18:00.005+01:00

In October I returned to Japan for the second time this year.
I was there for 10 days flying in and out of Nagoya but spending most of the time in Tokyo including a daytrip to Kamakura.
I took a whole lot of photos (1425 of them to be precise). Here are 10 of them. Please check out more on Flickr.

Mare 3: Apokalypsen

2008-10-21T23:33:00.006+02:00

The last book in Ruben Eliassen's trilogy Mare has already been in the shops a couple of weeks here in Norway. It's called Mare: Apokalypsen (Mare: The Apocalypse).
Personally this is the book I'm most happy with, both when it comes to my own work and how it turned out in print.
As always I did 20 illustrations for it plus the cover.
Here are five. Hope you like them.

Daily Sketch #1

2008-10-01T23:06:00.006+02:00

I'm trying to get back into the habit of doing a daily sketch and start contributing again to the threads on the discussion board I'm administrating called Det Store Dyret (as well as getting some more stuff to post here).
Today I was inspired by a (IMO horrific) piece of medieval-techno-something someone posted as a topic.
My first thought was the homeosexual Shakespearean actor in Rowan Atkinson Live, but after a while the music got a bit faster so I just gave him an iPod.
It was done in about 15 minutes.

Illustrations: Farlig ferd

2008-08-28T17:51:00.004+02:00

The second book in the science fiction trilogy called "Kampen om Mars" written by Tore Aurstad is out. This one is called "Farlig ferd."
I did nine illustrations for it pluss the cover. Here are four.
Hope you like them.

Mare: Nøkkelen

2008-08-06T19:02:00.006+02:00

The second book in Ruben Eliassen's Mare trilogy was just released in the bookshops here in Norway. It's called Mare: Nøkkelen (Mare: The Key in English).
I did 20 illustrations for this one as well plus the cover. And here's a handful of them. Hope you like. :)

SketchCrawl #6 in Oslo

2008-07-20T21:17:00.005+02:00

World Wide SketchCrawl #19 took place on the 21st of June. And it was the sixth time we got together in Oslo.
We spent most of the time in The Vigelandspark sketching before moving to Tekehtopa for food and drinks.
It was good to get out sketching again and I finally got around to scan some of my doodles - about one month too late...
Hope you like them.
I've also got a photo gallery from the SketchCrawl here.

Me by Guillaume

2008-07-09T10:54:00.004+02:00

Just had to post this. My colleauge Guillaume did this sketch of me during our last SketchCrawl on the 21st of June. I'm honored. :)
Which reminds me... I should really scan some of my sketches too.
By the way, I recommend checking out his blog. Some great stuff there!

Mare: Circus

2008-06-19T19:10:00.012+02:00

I've had (and still have) the pleasure to be working with author Ruben Eliassen on his new book series called Mare. It's a fantasy trilogy and the first book called Mare: Circus is just out.
Last Monday there was a small release event in a bookshop here in Oslo. A large group of kids were invited as Ruben presented the book:

I was also up there making a fool out of myself infront of the lively crowd.

I did 20 illustrations for Mare: Circus plus the cover. Here's a handful of them.

I finished the illustrations for the second book yesterday and it's on its way to print as I write. It'll be released in August and the third book will be out in October.
Meanwhile check out Mare Circus if you can. It's very cool and it looks like this:

Funcom's Age of Conan PR Party

2008-05-16T13:58:00.003+02:00

On Tuesday the 13th of May Funcom invited journalists from all over the world, celebrities, fans and employees to a huge party at Holmenkollen in Oslo to celebrate the launch of our latest game; Age Of Conan: Hyborian Adventures.
Holmenkollen had been turned into a Cimmerian camp with locals and horses, meat was being grilled and served, drinks were free, jugglers and flame blowers performed, Helene Bøksle sang from the soundtrack with her amazing voice and the occasional fight broke out between warriors. The whole event culminated in a great battle where Conan in person sorted everything out followed by a massive firework display.
Afterwards we were taken underground to a harem where Turbonegro had a concert (which happened after I'd left the harem).
It was a fun evening and I took some photos.
You can see some more on Flickr.

Illustrations: Flukten fra utpost 4

2008-04-30T22:09:00.007+02:00

Here's a handful of illustrations I did for a book which was published about a month ago in Norway by Damm. It's called "Flukten fra utpost 4," takes place on Mars some time in the future and is written by Tore Aurstad. It's the first one in a trilogy I am currently working on called "Kampen om Mars."
I did 14 illustrations all together for this one. Here are seven of them.
Hope you like.

Our Japan Blog

2008-04-17T14:41:00.027+02:00

We are back from Japan. And it was fantastic!
Coming home with more than 2200 photos and quite a few videoclips I decided to do a separate blog from the trip.
Please check it out here.

Individual posts:
- Intro
- Day 1 & 2 (The flight, Tokyo (Ueno, Akihabara, Ginza))
- Day 3 (Tokyo (Tsukiji, Odaiba))
- Day 4 (Tokyo (Shibuya, Ikebukuro))
- Day 5 (Tokyo: (Kichijōji, Ghibli Museum))
- Day 6 (Nikko)
- Day 7 (Tokyo (Ueno, Asakusa, Tokyo Tower, Roppongi))
- Day 7 (Tokyo (Ueno Zoo))
- Day 8 (Tokyo (Aoyama, Harajuku, Shinjuku))
- Day 9 (Tokyo (Harajuku, Daikanyama))
- Vehicles
- Day 10 (Kyoto)
- Day 11 (Kyoto)
- Signs #1
- Day 12 (Iga, Kyoto)
- Day 13 (Kyoto)
- Signs #2
- Day 14 (Kyoto, Hiroshima, Miyajima)
- Day 15 & 16 (Miyajima, Hiroshima, Osaka)

Japan - One Week To Go!

2008-03-21T15:38:00.003+01:00

In exactly one week we'll be up in the air halfway to Amsterdam where we'll jump on a flight to Tokyo.
The trip is planned out and a bit of Japanese has been studied.
We'll spend about a week in Tokyo before going down to Kyoto for four nights. Then we'll enjoy one day in Miyajima outside Hiroshima before spending our last night in Osaka.
And according to the sakura (cherry blossoms) forecast, the best viewing in Tokyo is estimated to the exact period we'll be there. Fantastic!
Until next post; sayonara.

Ghibli Voucher

2008-02-10T15:44:00.000+01:00

The 28th of March Maja and myself will be off to Japan!
We still haven't received the plane tickets, but we've got this. Our first physical piece of paper for the trip was picked up from the post office yesterday: a voucher for the Ghibli Museum. And we'll be there on the 2nd of April.
I am very relieved I figured out by accident how complicated it is to get tickets to the museum in time, but Aya at MybusUK made sure they were here within days.
So this is the first post about our 16 day trip to Japan this spring. I will certainly write more. :)