"It's not the pace of life I mind, it's the sudden stop at the end."

I just finished a fun (personal) project, the kind where you you stay up till 2am and you just want to keep on going. It's a mock cover for an album of Yoko Tsuno.

I initially wanted to imitate Roger Leloup's style but he's the type of artist that draws every little detail and I have become a much more sketchy and gestural illustrator (or one could say in my case, lazy and unskilled). As a teen, I would probably have drawn detailed pencils and then be as clean as possible inking over them. I unfortunately, do not find that fun anymore even though I admire artists who can do that, for example: Iona Pioaru (www.ioanapioaru.com), or Roger Leloup himself (www.yokotsuno.com).

I get the impression that there is a lot of admiration within the North American fandom for cartoonists who are highly skilled at technical or perspective drawing, just watch any Cartoonist Kayfabe (or any other comics related channel) video featuring work by Otomo, Satoshi Kon, Gene Day, Moebius, Geof Darrow ... to see comics lovers lose their minds at the prowess of these artists. It's a sentiment I share but I just wonder why Roger Leloup's work seems relatively unknown here (the American Anglophone comics crowd) and this guy has been kicking ass since the 1950s and just released the latest Yoko Tsuno album at the age of 91! I marveled at the backgrounds and vehicles in many albums, especially in La Frontière de la vie (On the Edge of Life in English), the 7th volume.

I drew Yoko's head and traced the cover dressing or found fonts close enough to the original.

Yeah, I borrowed the title from the manga by Yumemakura and Taniguchi.

I have probably captured 5% of the beauty of the picture in my drawing and in the picture less than 1% of the beauty of the mountains were captured.

Happy new year.

"It's not the pace of life I mind, it's the sudden stop at the end."

-B. Watterson

#HumanMadeArts