Friendship Day stamp design competition

I thought I share my process of creating my postage stamp designs for a competition organized by Posti Group together with Kuvittajat, Association of Finnish Illustrators and Grafia, Association of Finnish Communication Designers. The theme was Finnish version of Valentine's Day, the Friendship Day. The job was to design five stamps around this theme. I came third in the competition, which I was so happy about as these illustrations were made with a lot of thought and love!
My idea was to illustrate animals and children posing in a school photo shoot in a "BFF" kind of a way. I chose animals that are related to each other even when they are different species, whether they are domestic or wild animals. I wanted to make a point that despite the cultural differences, you can be friends with each other. But I also wanted to illustrate happy, joyful friends, sweet characters with a bit of humour too. I chose to go for a retro colour palette and simple, graphic shapes for the characters.

I started with some small thumbnails in a sketchbook, simplified my characters, just played around. Then I did the actual illustrations with black ink on A3 paper, one for each (really big!). Like these here below:

Then I scanned the illustrations and played with the colour palette on my computer. I had some very strange colour versions, some were ok...

And when I had decided the colours, the final designs were fine-tuned and turned into vector illustrations. So this is how they looked like in the end!

Colouring my Phoenix

My version of the mythical Phoenix, a poster, card design or wall art perhaps. I just might try to print this with my lovely A3 printer. I know I should be working on my website, just avoiding the tedious task of finding my artwork files from the depths of my old, dear computer and get organized. Volunteers, anyone?

King Gustav III in Suomenlinna

This is the third time that I illustrated the poster and leaflet for Suomenlinna Children's Adventure Tour. Here is the main illustration with handwritten typography. This time the King Gustav III of Sweden has lost his crown and children help him to solve the mystery. After all, the crown is a very important part of being a king! The tour takes the audience to the dark corridors and pathways of the Suomenlinna fortress. Torches are a must! 

Painting summer!

It's gloomingly dark time of the year, but at least it's bright and colourful in the studio! I'm working on the historical characters for next summer's Suomenlinna children's adventure tour. This time the story will be about King Gustav III of Sweden and his missing crown. Lots of research for the costumes again, which I enjoy.

The fourth book in Elsa and Lauri series is "work in progress" on my desk too. Here is the cover design. So not too many holidays for me this Christmas, but plenty of good chocolate! And books!

Combining handwritten text and image

Suomenlinna sea fortress is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Finland. The Ehrensvärd Society (http://www.suomenlinnatours.com/lastenkierros) organizes every summer a children adventure tour around the island. I designed the poster for this year's adventure.

The interactive play takes children to see exciting places with characters that are based on the history of the sea fortress. This year's adventure will be set in late 18th century. What a fiddly business I had with the historical costumes to get them look almost authentic with all the tiny, important details.

By the way, the picture makes me realize that summer is closer every day!

This is the very day...

...when I finally start my very own blog! 

To begin with, I'd like you to meet two of my favourite people in the world.  This poster illustration was inspired by our music sessions in the living room. Nukkelsson Jazz Band was born, me and my boys jamming away.