Chapter 2: Le Roadtrip

Allthough we stayed in US for two week,s we still had a rather tight schedule so after two days in SF, it was time for the next adventure - moving on towards LA!

Rented le purdy car. It was RED.

Haha no but seriously :D
Only two of us had a driving licence(unfortunately I'm not one of them, and I'm starting to want it SO BADLY), and it was thanks to them that this whole adventure happened at all.

Lots of hills, lots of fog, pretty beaches, BIG waves...

 Managed to snap some postcard- shots. Just for the sake of it!

Made one stop at Monterey, slept at Otter Inn(It was off season so we had everything for ourselves MUHAHAHA). Also on a sidenote: Otters seem to be da shit over there.


Went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium (Supercool!)
Ate heavy breakfasts, scribbled on the tables.....

 Must've been the heaviest french toast everrr...

(Made two stops in total, but I've forgotten about where that was. Shame on me. 
The motel was really nice & cheap though!)

Ah right! We made a little stop at Carmel as well. Tourist- style. Ha, the streets over there were rather adoreable. Felt like living in some Disnye/Hobbit dreamland.

Passed by, and saw lots of other places too such as Santa Barbara.
So nice and hot. Wish we could have summer all the time here in Sweden.



 And then... dun dun DUUUUUHHHH! 

Finally arrived at Burbank :O



- Andrea

Sketches - Raised by a Cat

"Raised by a Cat" - Photoshop CS5 & Cintiq 12WX

I wonder what would happen if an orphaned foal got raised by a stray cat?
That would look so awkward... And adoreable at the same time!

Anyhow.

Good morning :)



Mondays. Ahh..
You know not much.. Just starting off the day with some coffee and preparing my tasks for today.
Did some storyboarding for a short intro for one of the games that's in the making, we'll see if I'll continue with that.



So how was your weekend people?


- Andrea

Chapter 1: San Francisco & Pixar

Time to start sharing, right?

This was probably the richest US trip so far for me, barely had any "rest" or real vacation, hehe.
Had an awesome time with awesome friends.

So what happened?

I'll keep it rough, cause I'll have to write a whole book otherwise...

First we stayed at San Francisco for about two days I think(things start to get blurry haha).
Never been there before... Dude, the buildings are GINORMOUS over there! :O Stockholm feels so darn tiny compared to that City.

Anyway.

Visited the Walt Disney Family Museum, plus saw some fantastic artwork by Tyrus Wong(one of the legends working on Bambi). Those exhibitions were seriously mindblowing, definitely worth a visit.

The day after was even more awesome.

We visited Pixar Animation Studios.
Do I have to mention that I almost had a breakdown when we got to the main entrance?
I don't think so.. I mean seriously dude, pinch me. PINCH MEEE!!

Two of the friends I was travelling with happened to know one of the animators there, one of the few Swedish people working at the big studios. So he let us in - THANK YOU!!

We had lunch together, got a tour, saw some chubby squirrels running around in the campus and it was just pure awesomeness.

Inside the main entrance, plus some lunch at the studio.


If only for a while, I don't care.
One day, I'll become as good as they are, and this will become my reality and everyday life. 


Beside these events, we also had some more time to explore San Francisco.
Passed by ILM and saw that famous Yoda Fountain, I got lucky as usual and found 2 five leaves + one four leaf hehehehehe...

Four & Five Leaves in November. Not bad at all ^^

Also saw lots of seals at the bay, discovered Clam Chowder(instant love!) plus much more.




That's pretty much it for now. Hang in there IT GETS BETTER!
To be continued......



- Andrea

It's been awesome!

 Wolf faces. Photoshop CS5 & Cintiq 12WX

Got back from LA two days ago. 

The short version.....:




IT WAS AWESOME!!
Wow.


I'll have to get back and post photos and stories later on, describing everything in one evening is almost impossible. The trip could pretty much be divided into 5 chapters, hehe.

1. San Franisco & visited Pixar (No, I'm not joking)
2. Road trip from SF to LA
3. CTNx 2013, baby!
4. We rented a house at Silverlake, visited Dreamworks & Disney (Still not joking)
5. Got stuck for another night in London


So yeah, stay tuned for some more later on!
I got another deadline again.. So I'm done with my holiday, time to get back to business :)


- Andrea

Wolf sketches

Hey amigos!


Do you remember this one?

"Did he just watch me poop?" Photoshop CS5 & Cintiq 12WX

I decided to develop some sort of story for it. So far it's about some butterfly stalker(hehe). I think he and his friend's got a little bit of a dirty mind, they like spying on wolves pooping... Haha.

Wolf poses, Photoshop CS5 & Cintiq 12WX

Not everyone appreciates being watched. We'll see how this will end...


From pooping wolves to something else!

I'm leaving Sweden tomorrow. I'm leaving my laptop tomorrow.
We're heading towards the States and I'll be gone for 2 weeks. Partly for CTNx next friday, and lots of other adventures as well. Never been there for so long(it's my third trip in a row now).

I feel so incredibly excited! Last year felt terrible compared to now. But that's a different story :)

So.. Yeah. I'll be instagramming and facebooking, so if you wanna stay in touch/follow my adventures, then that's where things will happen for the coming two weeks.


- Andrea

My new tutorial in Advanced Photoshop, issue 115

 Advanced Photoshop Magazine, issue 115

Yaaaaay!

The latest issue(115) of Advanced Photoshop Magazine is finally out in the stores here in Sweden(you can find it at Pressbyrån).

This time I had the honor to write a full tutorial of my wolf illustration, from scratch. I even got a spot in the "Pro Panel" of the magazine, where I share some tips and tricks for digital painting.
Me? A pro? Haha wow, feels weird.

I'm very happy with how it all turned out, and I hope that you'll like it too! :)


This is definitely something to cross off my professional bucketlist, writing tutorials for magazines has been a dream of mine for several years now.

2013 has truly been an awesome year so far. 
Sooooo busy but yet so much fun.

What's on your bucketlist? I'd love to hear your goals!

- Andrea

Tigers and balloons

Photoshop CS5 & Cintiq 12WX

Good morning!

I'm off to a meeting in like ten minutes, but though I'd throw these in real quickly just to show you guys what else I've been working on.

More tigers, more balloons! These are really fun and hard to come up with, so it's really good practice for yours truly. And as you can see, my evil sense of humor comes through a bit as well.... Hehehehe.

Hope you still like me D:

- Andrea

More sketchin'

They're playing the "Friday Song" here at the office, so I'd take some micro time off and make a little post here. (Friday song = every friday, at 3 pm, they play a random feelgood song here at the office, just to get that coziness goingggggg yeeeeaaah)

Anyway, here are some more random sketches from the past days.

Laters dudes and dudettes!
Thanks for reading, commenting and following despite the abcense. It means a lot :)



Hope you all had a great Halloween too! 


- Andrea

CTNx 2013, sketches and excitement

TADAAA!

Andrea is finally back!
Ghah, no idea what happened there, i think that  managed to hit a minor wall or something, hence the absence. Don't get me wrong though, I've had so much fun. I just need to hibernate a little, from time to time ;)

After delivering the last bits and pieces for those superfun projects that kept me occupied for like.. FOREVER, I decided to take some time off just for myself.

I've been...

- Working out! (YAY!)

- Tried to regain a somewhat normal social life

- Drawing things for myself.. Like horses hehe.

- zZzleeping...


Ah yeah and then I also revised this:

The other pose felt too static, knew I could pull off a better one.

Oh, and CTNx 2013 is just around the corner.

I'M EXCITED! :D

WHO ELSE IS GOING?

There will be a lot more Swedes attending this year. Please say hi if you happen to see me :)


I'll be back later. Ciao!

- Andrea

The sweet sound of crickets

Random insta from 2012

Been a bit quiet around here.
Well hm.. I'm still flooded by feelance work. Typical, eh?
One more week of crunch time, then we'll see what happens.

Don't worry though, you have no idea how much fun I've had so far! Got the opportunity to work on some really fun and exciting stuff, and I really look forward to share it with you once I'm allowed to. 

I haven't even had time to work out, and I'm really starting to miss it...
Well, I obviously need it. Energetic much?

 I really deserve some physical exhaustment.

Anyways, smell you later! I'll be back soon.
Got some even more exciting stuff to share later on, so stay tuuuuned. 



Hey btw. Don't forget to feed Peleng. Hes still hungry.



- Andrea