PARTIES, DOGS AND WORK!

Hello everyone! Reporting here straight from springtime Finland! The past few weeks have kept me pretty busy, but I wanted to take a moment to share with you some significant events and experiences.

We recently celebrated my father's 80th birthday, which provided an opportunity to gather as a family and share quality time. The gift I brought put a smile on his face, it's always nice to be able to brighten up the old man's day. One of the most heartwarming moments of the celebration was when my father thanked me and praised my comic project. He acknowledged that I've put in a tremendous amount of effort, and expressed his sincere hope that all this hard work will bear fruit.

My dog Conan, sedated at the vet.

And doing well again :)

And here we go again!

A slight concern arose in my household when my dog, Conan, started to limp. A visit to the vet revealed that the claw capsule had come off, and the claw had to be removed to prevent infection in the paw. Over the past few days, I have been diligently tending to Conan's paw - washing, moisturizing, and changing dressings. Thanks to an antibiotic course, the infection thankfully healed quickly. A big thanks to our vet who did a first-class job, as well as Conan's breeder, who was ready to help in a situation that would have been impossible to manage alone.

In the midst of all this, I barely had the energy to write for the blog, but that doesn't mean my project hasn't progressed. Quite the contrary! A side project emerged from my comic project which has also progressed well, although I can't reveal much about it yet. All I can say is that I'm really excited about the results and can't wait to share more with you.

The original sketch.

The new layout with drawings and inks.

My comic project has continued as planned, and I've been working intensively on the texts and polishing illustrations. An interesting coincidence was when I noticed one of my comic pages greatly resembling a scene from the Conan the Barbarian movie. This wasn't an intentional decision, but it stirred up intriguing thoughts and inspired me even more. It's clear that I've internalized the powerful images of Conan the Barbarian from childhood.

I still love comics!

And speaking of Conan the Barbarian, I want to mention the new Conan the Barbarian comic that I am eagerly anticipating. I've seen some sample pages, and their drawing style and overall atmosphere seem absolutely fantastic. Even though nowadays, at 44, I don't get excited about things as easily, this new Conan the Barbarian comic arouses real enthusiasm. Whenever a Conan the Barbarian story is done properly, it offers experiences that I, as a man of the North, highly appreciate.

A big thank you to all of you for your support and encouragement. I wish you all a pleasant weekend, and let's each remember to take care of our projects and passions! Stay tuned, as there's still a lot of new stuff coming up.

And what about my comic project?

As I began to ink this page that I had sketched out a long time ago, I noticed something. The layout of this page pretty much sucks ass. The problem is that it's hard to discern the order of the panels on the top half, making it difficult to understand how to read this presentation.

I wanted the page to be more dynamic, to make the action feel brisk and to ensure that the protagonist's beating visually communicates clearly how we transition to the second half of the page. Compared to the original, the axe swing in the middle now carries more force. In addition, the kick in the next panel seems to follow directly after the axe swing. You'll also likely notice that I killed off one panel entirely. The reason for this was that on the previous page I completely changed the content of the last panel, rendering the panel on this page redundant. Now, thanks to these changes, this scene flows much more smoothly and prevents readers from falling asleep in the middle of it all.

Sven-Ole Thorsen, in his role as Thorgrim, partaking in his favored hobby in the film Conan the Barbarian (1982).