I Made a Mad Little Story

Indeed it would be sad if this blog should be neglected, so here is a link to my latest creation.

Sjov med ny iphone!

iPhone er et sjovt, sjovt, SJOVT legetøj! Jeg har brugt evigheder på at tage billeder og køre dem igennem en masse nyopdagede apps – burde nok bruge tiden på noget… Ehm… Fornuftigt… Fx lektier! Forresten så hedder katten Kiki.

Klik for fuld størrelse

Livet på Arkitektskolen

Og jeg mener virkelig LIVET på arkitektskolen. Tid uden for skolen, til fornuftige ting som rengøring, indkøb, madlavning og tøjvask (tsk, vi ved jo alle godt, at det har studerende ikke behov for, doh!) har man som studerende ikke - på den gode måde. Der er dog et eller andet utroligt tilfredsstillende i at bruge alt sin energi på det man virkelig brænder for og som en lille sidegevinst også har det rigtig sjovt med.

Jeg er nået halvvejs gennem to projekter nu og har en lille håndfuld bøger, der skal læses færdigt. Jeg er ved godt mod og elsker stadig arkitektskolen, mest fordi det stadig er en stor legeplads. Men UHU Hart! Puha!

Just wanted to say that besides this blog, I also have another one, where I post sketches and more random stuff, like small texts in Japanese. So if anyone wants to see more of my art, check out Sketchwhales.wordpress.com.

Besides that, if you don’t speak danish, but have an interesting in the process of becoming an architect, run Xiao’s post below through google translator. It’s the kind of information that a person might think is boring to other people, when it in fact is very interesting, as long as it’s your kind of thing.

Første måned på Arkitektskolen i Århus

Wow, første måned på arkitektskolen er veloverstået og jeg lever endda endnu! Jeg skal måske starte et andet sted. Jeg kom ind på Arkitektskolen i Århus her i år 2009, selvom jeg “‘kun’ havde fået en standby-plads på kvote 1. Fire dage før rusugen startede fik jeg en fin lille email, hvori der stod: “Vi har fået nogle afbud, og derfor kan vi nu tilbyde dig en studieplads pr. 1. september 2009.”

How Should a Comic Look?

I often try to start writing and drawing a comic. It’s proving rather difficult How does one start? I guess there isn’t really a right way, but it’s seems like a good idea to have a basic idea, maybe some characters and a plot? I have those. But I don’t have an opening frame, and my abilities at drawing backgrounds are terrible.

Guess that shouldn’t matter much. I can live with a lack of backgrounds if the characters are well written. Hell, art that just IS shouldn’t bother anybody, Persepolis and The Rabbi’s Cat proved that.

Thinking about what a story is, I like to consider it like a piece of life and life is like a neverending monologue. So I have to pull out a part of this monologue. A part that feels good to start at and a fitting ending. Which means there is always before and after my story. So beginning at the beginning is not really possibly. Logically, it should be easier to make a story like this:

“There was bear. It was happy. But one day it got sad. And then it died”.

But that isn’t exciting or fun to make. But if I start later:

“—- It was happy. But one day it got sad. Why did the bear get sad? Then it died”.

That sorta changes a lot. The reader is left bewildered in the beginning. What was happy? Why isn’t it anymore?

This is getting my head spinning, so I’ll just post some sketches that kinda show which direction I’m taking or trying to take my comic…

They are quick pencil sketches, shaded with watercolours, then edited in the Gimp very quickly as well.

Of Introductions and Names

Hi I’m Jacob. I’ve started this blog with Xiao to simply write. Getting your thoughts out there is a great way to expand your horizon and so we decided to make a blog about our interests. We are both creative people and like to experience and contemplate on art and culture. I study Japanese and Japanese culture and history and Xiao studies architecture.

I’ll be writing in English. I feel comfortable with it and like the large vocabulary available and Xaio will be writing in Danish. But feel free to put her lines through google translator. She’s a smart and funny girl, though I don’t know how much will make it across the translation…

About the name of the site, we spent a good few hours tossing words back and forth. Since we didn’t really have a specific focus on what the blog was about, other than “stuff we like” we didn’t really have any limitations either. It was a lot of fun and actually a good way to work. I’ve done a lot of group work in high school and college and this was by far the best. What worked so well, was that we were both very willing to let go of the names and words we liked, if something else we liked came into the picture. I very much wanted to mix something urban with something organic, not really caring so much about length or how catchy it was and Xiao wanted something that was appealing I think. I think I had a problem with “canned”, mostly because something called “Canned Coffee” already exists but it is a funny word. Mixing it with “Pixel” was a good way to go, though a lot of words could have been used instead of pixel. But what made sense about pixel, was that a pixel is… not tangible. Like put happiness or inspiration on can. But pixel also kept some of the “urbanness” I wanted. A pixel is the smallest part of a lot of our culture today plus I’m very fond of low-res art, such as gameboy graphics.

So to some it up:

• We are Jacob and Xiao
• Writing could be fun
• Relax, hang out
• Canned Pixel doesn’t mean anything
• When working as a group such as brainstorming: Be prepared to kill your babies! It works

Hej Hej

næææ… endnu en blog er født?! Jepper – denne blog vil omhandle… sager. Nemlig. Arkitektur, Japan, mad, sovedyr, mere mad og hvad der nu end lyser op i vores sære hoveder. I kan bare vente Jer.

Hi Xiao!

^^