BRUN CROES

The Whippersnapper

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:22:00 +0000

Hi Folks,

The kind people over at Gallery Nucleus asked me to make them a small (traditional media) 5″ x 7″ illustration for their Power In Numbers project. This is the result, a combination of mixed media (mainly pencil with watercolor and a few digital adjustments). I had an enormous amount of fun working on this one and tried to incorporate a few hidden messages into the design.

The Whippersnapper:

Lately, I’ve been noticing strange things happening in my street. All kinds of small incidents, most of them innocent like children who fall of their bikes because one of the wheels came lose. I'v notice tentacles creeping away underneath the cars and in small alleyways whenever such an incident took place… A few days ago I managed to follow one of these tentacles and to my surprise they vanished in a cloud. If that wasn’t strange enough, I was completely and utterly bedazzled when I saw a strange figure emerge from the cloud… I ran home and tried to capture him in this illustration the best I could, but… Has anyone else seen this figure in their neighborhood too? If so, watch yourself and be cautious when you go outside…

(click for a bigger resolution)

There should be a few interesting posts in the near future, I’m working on a few things that I think most of you will enjoy!
I’m not sure when the next update will be, probably after the holidays… So until then I wish all of you a happy christmas (way to early I know, deal with it)

Cheers,

-Brun

Super Villain - The Bendigeitvran - RotopolPress

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 11:25:00 +0000

I proudly made this illustration for the Super Villain exhibition / group show given by RotopolPress in Kassel (Germany). The Theme is self-explanatory. I had lots of fun and tried to combine things I know with new ideas / tricks.

Here's a small backstory (if you're into that sort of thing):

THE BENDIGEITVRAN (a.k.a The Big Bad Ass Living Bird Armor)

Bran, a young and ambitious archeologist discovers a strange armor during one of his expeditions. While studying the origin of the armor in the comfort of his home, he quickly becomes obsessed by it. After a few days the armor seems to be calling out to him, asking him to put it on, after a while Bran gives in to the request. The armor comes alive and grips firmly around his body, his skin rapidly changes turning him into some kind of purple monster. Bran has lost control over his body as the armor has taken over his ability to speak and move. Suddenly he starts to grow and grow breaking trough the rooftops of his house. The armor seems to be set out on destroying the entire city. Trapped inside the armor, Bran is forced to witness the destruction before him...

ps: Its been ages since I updated this place, I'll try to update more often from now on!

Hope you guys like it!

-Brun

Graduated

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 15:32:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I graduated from my Master with great honours. It feels strange to finally be done with school. I took some time off to catch up on some much needed sleep. However, I decided it was about time to show you guys what I’ve done for my final school project. Without going into much detail, I developed a story and told it trough my illustrations. My overall goal was not to make illustrations that were technically impressive but it was more about achieving a certain atmosphere and focussing on the feeling of a piece so that it would best fit with the story.

Not focussing too much on the technical aspect also helped me to quickly achieve a good result, I spent quite some time on making thumbnails and small sketches before I started working on the final illustrations. This approach helped me to do one or two illustrations a day. This resulted in challenging myself to do 15 illustrations in 15 days, a really great exercise from which I learned tons of stuff. In the end I decided to present the illustrations not as a complete storybook, but as individual pieces built around the same story. Our very own Michael Meier helped me by printing these illustrations (as you can see in the pictures I took below) on high quality paper (Giclee on Hahnemühle Cotton Paper).

Shameless self promotion:

For those interested, I started an ETSY store where I’m selling the illustrations as Numbered Limited Edition Prints. To visit my ETSY store follow the link –> Etsy Store

Looking back at my last year at school I feel a big relieve that its all over, I’m excited for whats to come and I’m looking forward to start a professional career as an illustrator & concept artist (preferably freelance). So my next goal is to get some work ASAP!

Without further ado,

Cheers,

-Brun

A Tainted Village (WIP)

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 09:48:00 +0000

This illustration is part of a series I'm doing for my (graduation) Illustration Thesis. More specific this is part of the village/town where the biggest part of the story will take place.

I haven't touched this illustration in weeks so for now its still in a ruff state (hence the Work In Progress mention in the title), but I like how it looks unfinished and what that does to the image… I hope you like where this is going and I'll be sure to update when I have more to show.

(click the image for a slightly larger resolution)

-Brun

gorilla artbook vol. 1: coming soon ! ! !

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 21:03:00 +0000

Some friends and me over at Gorillaartfare have been working together with CFSL Ink to bring you the first volume in what is bound to be an incredible artbook. It will be filled with awesome pieces of illustrations from all kinds of genre and I am stocked to have a few of my illustrations on the pages of this book among all those amazing people.

Here's the official statement from our group blog:

We have the most exciting news today! Gorilla Artfare and CFSL Ink have joined forces to bring you a wonderful collection of artwork: Gorilla Artbook Vol 1!
The book is hardcover, sized 24×28 cm (9.4×11 inches approximately) and it holds 250+ pages of stunning images by more than 70 of our artists. It will be available for preorder on April 7th and released on April 14th!
We will share more info on pricing and where you can buy it real soon! Update: Some more info + a small preview of the interiors here! For now, feast your eyes on these previews of the cover (illustrated by Clo, Devin Platts & Tom Scholes, designed by Victoria Maderna & Federico Piatti):

Mother...?

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 23:42:00 +0000

Wow...200 followers, that means a lot to me! It keeps me going knowing that there are people out there that like what I do! I remember when I had 100 followers a few months ago, I promised to do some sort of "print" giveaway. Never got around to doing that, I might revisit that idea though. Hopefully this time I don't forget about it!

As some of you might know, I’m working on my (illustration) thesis at my final year at school for which I wrote a story. The character design here portraits the mother of the main character. I hope you like her design…

-Brun

Business Card

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 17:53:00 +0000

I made this illustration for my business card a while ago but I don’t think I ever got around to posting it. I might turn this into a full illustration when I find the time...

-Brun

Poltergeist

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 16:33:00 +0000

This is the poltergeist roaming around my house at night. He freaks me out from time to time, a few days ago I finally caught a glimpse of him so I decided to draw him. I love messing around with this technique (Pencil / watercolor / digital Finish)

-Brun

Spaghetti Parade

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 10:14:00 +0000

Here’s a small commissioned piece I did, done with Pencil + Watercolor + Digital Color. I really like this technique (as I've mentioned in the past) I hope to do more of these, in fact I'm working on a new one already...

-Brun

Forest Guard

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:49:00 +0000

Trying to maintain the looseness/quickness of the brushstrokes and a minimal color palette. Your opinion is more then welcome!

-Brun

Kitchen Maid

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 09:32:00 +0000

I'm making a story for my graduation project, I'm not giving away to much at the moment. But you can expect some weird looking characters. The story will have a 1940-1960 look, although it will feature advanced technology. The following is a quick character sketch of a kitchen maid who might be part of the story. I'm trying to look for a quick and loose way of rendering to get fast results, I can always go back later to render it a bit more.

-Brun

Globetrotter

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 19:50:00 +0000

I would like to apologize for this long overdue post. Things are hectic around here ever since my Master year started. I just returned from a wonderful trip to copenhagen with my lovely Julie. I really needed the time off. Now its back to drawing 24/7.

-Brun

Morgan Creature Design WIP

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 12:18:00 +0000

A while ago I posted about "The Journal Of Samuel Blackburn". Lots of illustrations were made for the project, however Julie and I decided to redo most of these illustrations and designs. The reason for this is that the project started out as a school project but has grown way beyond that. Most of the illustrations at the time were rushed and not as good as we hoped to be, except for a chosen few. Today, while looking through some of those illustrations, I found a few that I feel good about and even though they won't be used anymore I would still like to post some of them here because I had so much fun making them.

So here is a wip for a creature design, I'll post some of the others in a few days.

-Brun

Zombie Says Hi

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 22:28:00 +0000

I did this a while ago for the Zombie Expo over at CFSL.net. I didn’t want to make a stereotypic zombie with all the gore and rotten flesh, rather then that I was looking for a more “zombiefied” person (in this case a hillbilly farmer). I might have spend some more time on it but instead I finally got around to making my portfolio website (http://www.bruncroes.com) as mentioned in my previous post. As always, click on the image for a bigger resolution.

-Brun

Portfolio Website

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 22:05:00 +0000

Sorry For not updating in such a long time (despite the fact that I've got tons of stuff to show you guys). One of the reasons for this is that I had to learn Html/Css/Javascript/PHP in a few days in order to build my own person portfolio website!

Yes thats right, I finally took the time to make my portfolio website. I should have done this way back! At the moment there's lots of old stuff on there, but thanks to the structure of the site it is easy to update so I'll provide it with regular updates.

Go there: http://www.bruncroes.com

-Brun

Funeral Director

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 19:28:00 +0000

Here’s a doodle I drew live on TinyChat last night. It feels strange to draw while people are watching!

PS: In my previous post I talked about doing something for my 100th post, after some consideration I've decided on doing a giveaway of sorts. More info soon!

-Brun

100th Post

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 20:02:00 +0000

Here’s a small doodle I did yesterday. It started out as a pencil sketch, but I ended up putting a few colors on top of it in PS. I’ve got an enormous amount of illustration to post here as well, I’ll try to put those up in the coming days. This is also my 100th post! Some bloggers take the time to do something special at this occasion, I'm still thinking of something, but when I come up with something I'll be sure to let you know.

(click for a bigger resolution)

-Brun

Scottish

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Tue, 25 May 2010 22:32:00 +0000

In the past few weeks I have tried to draw more with the pencil. Some of the sketches I’ve scanned in and gave some color by putting the sketch on a multiply layer and quickly putting some color on a layer underneath it. This one of the results. I plan to do a full blown illustration with this technique once I have some spare time.

(click here for a bigger resolution)

Update: This image got featured by CGhub and tweeted by CFSL Yay!!!

-Brun

Dolor #4 (updated)

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Sat, 15 May 2010 14:17:00 +0000

A while ago I had the opportunity to make a small comic for Dolor #4 for which Julie Smits wrote the story which I illustrated. Dolor is a small comic magazine published by RotopolPress. The editors are the amazingly talented (and enormously friendly) Michael Meiers & Nic Klein. You can order/buy your copy here http://www.rotopolpress.de/en/products/novelties. I strongly recommend the previous issues too!

The other contributors of Dolor #4 are:
Aurélie Neyret
Michael Meier
Markus Färber
Nic Klein
Rita Fürstenau
Sam Bosma

Here are the First 2 pages of the entree Julie and I worked on (click for a bigger resolution)

Here is how it looks in real life, the picture were taken by Julie Smits. The cover was done by Sam Bosma.

Since we had so much fun doing this, Julie and I will try to publish small online comics every month starting this summer. Until then I hope you enjoy this issue of Dolor!

Update:
Here are some more pages of the book provided by Michael Meiers.

-Brun

Bachelor Project Update

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Mon, 03 May 2010 11:14:00 +0000

Here are 2 new sketches I've done in my sketchbook, both of them are for the Bachelor Project. I wanted to give them a little bit of color so I've set them on a multiply layer in Photoshop and added some color underneath them. I like the result so I'm probably gonna experiment a bit more with this technique. The first Sketch is a creature design for a doom dog. Keep in mind that this is a sketch and not necessarily the final version of the doom dog. The second Sketch is a character design of a farmer. He doesn't have a big role in the story (unlike the doom dog).

(as always, click for a bigger resolution)

-Brun

Nude Model

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:17:00 +0000

I've bought myself a new A3 moleskine. This are the first 2 pages. every pose was somewhere between 5-10 minutes. I used a ballpoint pen because I like the way it flow over the smooth paper. It also forces me to draw the right line from the beginning. I'm sorry for the bad quality of the scan, The pages are A3 and the scanner is A4.

PS: I wanted to thank everybody who has been following me, the counter finally reached a 100 followers. Thanks folks, it means a lot!!!

Cheers,

-Brun

Bachelor Project

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 17:59:00 +0000

I'm in my 3rd Bachelor year at school. As some sort of mini thesis (Bachelor Project) we have to make our own assignment in preparation of the bigger thesis should we choose to do a Master (4th) year. This mini thesis will also determine if I'm fit or not fit to do a Master year. So for this bachelor Project I want to work on a story that is loosely based on English and Scandinavian (mainly the latter) folklore, myths and legends. The story itself is being written by the talented Julie Smits while I handle the illustrations, layout, typography, etc.. But I have no doubt that she will have some great ideas for those parts too. I will try to keep my blog up to date with how this project evolves and from time to time.

I'll give some more info on the story itself. More info and pics will follow when time permits it! Here is a sketch for the project, determined to change quite a bit.

(click for a bigger resolution)

-Brun

Zombie Be Damned

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:49:00 +0000

A small zombie doodle, hopefully it doesn’t show up too dark.
(ps: pink totally rocks)

Cheers,

-Brun

New Stuff (wip)

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 23:27:00 +0000

Here are some illustrations that I made a few weeks ago, they were all done really fast so they look kinda unfinished (thats why I might retouch them somewhere in the future, because I’m not really satisfied with the way they tunred out) Anyways, I hope u guys like’em though ^^

(The one with the guy running and the white bear was done fot the second birthday of gorillaartfare.com, so head over here for more info --> LINK!!!)

(click for a bigger resolution)

(wip)

(wip)

(wip)

(wip)

(wip)

(wip)

I'll try to do more (real) updates soon !!!

Heads Up

noreply@blogger.com (Brun Croes) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:48:00 +0000

I finally decided to buy a new scanner/printer and had the time to scan some old 1 to 5 minute doodles I did a few months back. They where just for fun and although not all of them turned out good, I had a great time drawing them. I hope that I’ll be able to post some more recent sketchbook pages in the near future.

(Click for a much higher resolution)

Update:
I also did a few heads in ecoline for a school assignment that had something to do with the different musea from Antwerp.
The assignment asked for a simple presentation of different artists. My teachers liked the heads I posted earlier and wanted me to do them in a more traditional way and more illustrative form. these heads are the results.
The heads were then used for different purposes which I'll try to post later.
(Click for a higher resolution)

-B