This might be a good time to issue a progress report on the stuff I'm involved with, since there's been actual progress on them of late.

Firstly, work on NIGHTLIFE is proceeding a pace, with a definite eye on release in the fall. The above image, gorgeously coloured by Yann, is from the third story in the book. Dale has several more preview pages up at his Facebook page, which you're all encouraged to visit. 

Secondly, I've hade a few pieces selected for inclusion in Bruno Gmünders STRIPPED UNCENSORED art book! I've seen a preview copy of the book, and let me tell you, the thing is jam-packed with exquisitely dirty pictures by some great erotic artists. I had four pictures selected, two of which are expanded from pictures I've had on this blog, and two are completely new. 

Thirdly, I'm about halfway through the story I'm drawing for François Peneaud, which means it's hardly on schedule but at least chugging along nicely. With a bit of luck it should be finished early june, but don't hold me to that...

A few weeks ago I took a week off to go visit Ola, a friend of mine who is also an artist. We had a great time just drawing, discussing making comics, storytelling, etc, and watching a boatload of bad movies. It was a very relaxing and enjoyable week, and I came away having produced 3 pages, which felt great. Since then I've tinkered a lot with my art process, trying to create ways of working more efficiently - I always feel hampered by my slowness. 

And lastly, there is always a lot of things going on with our horses, which keeps things interesting. A few weeks back one of our mares delivered her second foal, a very beautiful, bouncy little filly. We have another broadmare expecting in mid-june. Waiting for foalings is always both exciting and nerve-racking. The horses take up a huge part of our time, but it's naturally a very rewarding hobby...

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Well, it had to happen, i suppose - I've fallen a little late on my asssignment for François (I think he's a bit annoyed...). It's mainly due to working like a loon trying to finish up a couple of original pieces for a submission packet, on a rapidly approaching deadline. I took the opportunity to update a couple of pieces that I've used here on the blog for this purpose, as well. 

Now I'm in the car, coming home from Stockholm, where I've been on a two-day work related trip. This weekend I'll finally be able to get back to the drawing board again, which is going to be nice. I've worked out a couple of new little techniques and shortcuts that I'm anxcious to try out. 

Meanwhile, Dale has been keeping busy. He's put together a couple of wallpapers for NIGHTLIFE, that you can find and download from the column on the right. 

I'm also beginning to feel an itch to travel. I just don't kn ow what to do - do I wnat to go to Gran Canaria for some more sun, or do I want to go to some city, Barcelona or Amsterdam, maybe? London? Or just fuck off into a cloister or something and spend a week with nothing but drawing and writing? The last one is very tempting...

 

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Unbelievably, I'm still on track with François' 16-pager, as I completed drawing page 4 and coloured page 3 well before lunch time today, and delivered both to François for review. Of course, he emidiately spotted some things that needed to be fixed, but nothing really major. The deadline pressure is still really helping with the output... This story might actually be finished someday!

All right, the deadline I've committed to on this job is only one page per week, so you know, it's not the toughest assignment. But François keeps stuffing the pages with panels (7 panels this page, next one is 8 panels - I have no idea how to manage that ) which is quite a change from the 3-5 I had on NIGHTLIFE. It takes a good bit of work making the story read smoothly on the page, while not loosing any of the detail that François asks for. So far it's been a really fun, challenging job, and even moreso as I'm also colouring it. I hope to be able to post some art from this story soon...

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It really feels like things are cooking right now on the comics front. I suppose it's really down to deadlines. I don't know why - nothing seems to happen if there's not a deadline looming over head.

NIGHTLIFE is moving forward rapidly, and is actually set for a fall release. I'm so pleased with the excellent colouring we're getting from our new colourist, Yann. Yann is an accomplished artist in his own right, and his colour sense and attention to detail is very impressive. He has really added infinitely to the pages. I can hardly believe I drew them.

I should really point out that none of the colourists we have tried to use on the project have been bad - quite the contrary in fact - but for various reasons it just hasn't worked out. For a while there I thought we were cursed or something... Dale really lucked out in basically stumbling upon Yann a day or so after we had to let the last guy off the project. Yann is very enthusiastic, and he's really put in a lot of work this last month, on a very tight deadline.

The project I'm doing with François is also moving forward, after a bit of a stall. I've committed to a deadline and everything! On this project I'm foolishly decided to do the works - art, colour, lettering. I've never coloured any sequential stuff before, and trying to do it while getting inundated with superb work from Yann is a bit intimidating.

We opted for a pretty basic colour style, with a limited palette, flat shading, etc, a style that isn't too complicated and time consuming. I've coloured two pages so far, and I've been pretty OK with the result, actually. I'm always gonna be a nit-picky perfectionist when it comes to my own work, so the deadline we have agreed upon will help a lot when it comes to getting the work out of my hands...

If I could only impose some deadlines on myself, maybe a few of my other projects would also get done....

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Out of the blue, I suddenly felt like jotting down a quick sketch of this character, one of my own guys that loaf around in my head being pretty and useless... and far be it from me to ignore such an impulse. As I was doodling I suddenly realised that this guy is actually the only character I have that comes with an actual story engine built into his world and occupation (he's a reporter) - until now I planned to use him for a single story, but I may reconsider.

Ultimately, this came out pretty much as a standard Bastian Boy. Character design-wize, it's pretty Bland McBlandy, of course - I do feel there should be a bit more to him. I haven't settled on any outfit or clothing look, for instance, although an ill-fitting hoody works for him. When (if) I actually would draw him in a comic, he'd probably take on a bit more personality. Personally, I'm not sure about the manga-esque tuft of dyed hair up front. I went for a scruffy, unkempt look to him... but he turned out to be a prettyboy as usual.

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Back to the cold, sour winter of Sweden, after having enjoyed a nice, hot vacation in Playa Del Ingles on Gran Canaria, filled with lots of sexy guys and booze... as usual.

January can't really be said to be the best time to be there - the bars and clubs were usually kind of empty (apart from Construction, which I don't really like). Good thing the flirtiest after beach hangout of all, die Strand-Apo-Theke, was as fun as always at least, and we also met a couple of nice irish people at Adonis.

Anyway, fun as always, even though when we left I actually felt it would be kind of nice to get back to real life for once... but that was before stepping onto the tarmac in Sweden.Good grief, what a fucking country to live in!

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And so, the blog is back from the dead, and I'm back from a nice, albeit cold, trip to the US (dayjob-related business trip, unfortunately, though we did manage a daytrip to New York, which was cool). I really didn't think the old posts would be recoverable, but the thumblogger team managed to restore everything, so a big thank you to them.

Future plans include: continuing work on the current story I'm drawing, and a week long holiday trip to Gran Canaria at the end of january. (Yeah, I kinda travel a lot.) 

And maybe a drawing or two here...? ;

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Well, the last few days I've been struggling with page 3 of the story I mentioned in the last post. I sent my BF packing to a ski resort over the weekend and envisioned myself in a creative frenzy, freed from most distrations. And I have produced a whopping total of one panel.

Of course, it's the focal panel of the page, as well as the event that changes the direction of the story, and it needed to be just right. But it's clearly too long to spend on one panel. The rest of the page will now flow a bit better... or else. 

I've also been doing a lot of thinking about writing, the in's- and out's of it, and why I don't really seem to get any headway on it - this usually puts me in a less than inspired mood, so that might have something to do with the lack of drawing output as well.

And, well, I've come to realise that I might often work better WITH distrations and limits imposed from outside - makes me more determined to overcome them and do the work instead. When I'm totally on my own I instead find ways to distract myself... 

On tuesday I'm off on a week long business trip, so no drawing next week. Hopefully, I can do some writing in the down time. 

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So yeah, this here blog's host got right fucked in the ass by some shithead hacker bastard over the holidays. Merry fucking christmas... That took a good while to sort out. So, since it's a new year, let's call this a fresh start (or maybe just blog amnesia) - something like BoytoyGraphics version 3.0.

Happy (belated) new year and all that. 2008... the less said the better.

Actually, my BF and I spent a wonderful, quiet New Years Eve celebration with a couple of friends of ours, that rather unexpectedly turned into a champagne fuelled five man orgy. Now, that's what I call seeing in the new year in style...

My new years resolution -- no, scratch that, I don't do that shit. My ambition for 2009 is to spend more time and energy on my own work, and less time and brain-ache on other peoples shit. (Yeah, I don't believe it either...)

Oh, and to have even more casual, fun sex... ...and no, I'm not gonna tell you how many guys I fucked with last year. Almost definitely.

Now, "regular" readers of previous editions of this blog know that I'm not really a blogging person per se, so I wouldn't expect very regular updates, sorry. That said, I will ever strive to devote some more time to this place, and try to integrate it a little more into my life and routines.

Right now I'm on page 3 of drawing a nice little 16-pager for François Peneaud , writer of the excellent Brother to Dragons, that I couldn't resist. After that I really want to get back to my own stories, so that I can have something to serialize here, finally...

So - let's all have a good 2009, eh?

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Pretty dead around here, I know. I'm plugging away at plotting and writing, and it feels like I'm actually making some headway... in the scraps of time I can pry loose.

Other than that, it's been work, work, work. September looks pretty rough too, to be honest. Way behind on too many large scale projects, with deadlines bearing down on me from all directions. 

I may post some sketch material here over the next couple of days, though... and possibly let slip some character designs from my present project.

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Anyone for some fun around the pool...?  

(Click to view larger, as usual...) 

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Just this afternoon I had what feels like a great idea for how to structure the opening of my next comic, the one I want to serialize here... Now I just have to hope I can pull it off.

I'm gonna spend as much of the weekend as I can to try to coalesce this thing out of the ether, and not loose the images of it that I have in my mind's eye... it's nice when a spark of inspiration hits you friday afternoon while leaving work, instead of tuesday morning while you are stuck with a shitload of stuff that have to get done or else...

So, um... that just leaves the rest of the actual story to think up...

Also, if I can find the time to pick up the drawing pen, some hot boytoy action should be forthcoming over the weekend... I'm getting a bit bored with pin-ups, I want to do something a little more hardcore, I think...

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Time for some new guys, isn't it? I originally meant the sexy dude above for my header image, but although I purposely chose a low pose, it still came out too big . I'm sure I'll think of something else.

I've really had a hectic couple of weeks, so it's nice to get some little time to wind down - in between non-stop crazyness at my day job there was EuroPride (that was fucking AWESOME!), then last weekend I was at a friends 50'th birthday party - western themed! We hoe-downed til the wee hours, let me tell you...

Work is progressing nicely on my collaboration with Dale Lazarov, NIGHTLIFE - all pages are drawn, and the book is being coloured now. What I've seen of it looks pretty fucking excellent...

Well, it's back to work for me... although, by work I mean drawing hot guys, so you know, poor me...

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Next week is Stockholm Pride , and I'm going, of course. It's gonna be great! Me and my boyfriend go almost every year. When you live all the way out in the sticks like we do, it's really nice to get away and spend some time with the tribe. It's always wonderful spending time in Stockholm, but it's especially wonderful seeing al lthe people wearing Pride dog tags everywhere you look. It's like the whole city is queer.

We're usually hanging out with a great gang of friends, drinking champagne, dancing, and partying the whole time. Lazy warm days and long, hot nights... It's not a very relaxing vacation, to be honest, but it's always great fun.

And it doesn't hurt that Stockholm is hosting Europride again this year - that always brings in that extra international crowd.

So - anyone else going?

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Yeah, so I've changed the site a bit. There are still a few bugs to work out, but over-all it seems ok.

 Thoughts? Comments? Ideas?

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Well, christmas is a little ways of yet, but I thought you might enjoy a little gingerbread man... And I don't know about you lot, but here in sweden we like to eat gingerbread all year round.

For a couple of years I used to do christmas card decorations for a local business - I wonder what they would have said if presented with this guy...

This was another warm-up sketch trying out new PS techniques that got away from me. I should really be finishing up NIGHTLIFE instead - I've only got a couple of pages left...

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This is very exciting! My best friend Ola Skogäng is getting his first GN published - a 200 page childrens book about a bear (an actual bear) who investigates supernatural crime in the Stockholm area. The title is Mumiens Blod (Blood of the Mummy).

Ola is really a much better artist than I am - his Stockholm scenery is quite exquisite. He works in a more european, semi-ligne claire style. And the fucker draws up to four pages a day. His web page is Theo's Home. Stop by and check it out!

The book is launched the 25 of april, and Ola will be signing at the SPX con at Kulturhuset, Stockholm 25-27 april. The book's only available in swedish at the moment, but hopefully an international release will follow.

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Made a second attempt at this piece (first try looked absolute crap), which suddenly veered into blue. Blue really is my favourite colour...

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I've really gotten into playing around trying to learn how to color / paint. So I think there will be a few more sketches here on this theme... Did another one just now that turned out TOO hideous, so that will have to be redone before it's put up.

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In this sketch, I'm mostly playing around with colouring and color holds...

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This blog will obviously remain dormant over the holidays. No naked santas for you, I'm afraid. I'll get back into drawing naughty pictures sometime in january.

Have a merry Midvinter Solstice Celebration, and a happy new Gregorian Calender Year, y'all!

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Man, I haven't been posting a damn thing lately!

Work and real life is really kicking my ass at the moment, I'm afraid. Everybody is back from vacation and it seems every bloody thing I'm involved with has kicked into high gear at the same time... It doesn't help that I've spread myself a bit thin (as usual - I have a real problem saying no to interesting stuff).

I'll really try to get something new up this weekend...

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A short hiatus turns so easily into a long hiatus... This image sure brings back memories of the tortured, gnarled vegetation of the desert in Gran Canaria... among other things.

Can't say I'm happy with the color, though... It doesn't really capture the LIGHT and HEAT of the place. I don't know what to do about that. But I do know that I tend to over-desaturate my images...

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And here is the finished piece... This guy is captain of his own starship, his body is tattooed with the ghosts of dead aliens - I think he's entitled to dress however he wants on the bridge...

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It's probably going to be light posting here for a while longer. The majority of the work I'm doing is stuff I can't post here yet, and I don't really have time to devote to anything else right now... And next week I'll be off in vacation. I guess I should post something, at least...

Here's a little work in progress. This is just a quick character sketch I tossed down for a S/F story I'm thinking about. I wasn't going to spend much more time on it since it was just supposed to be a sketch, but as I was drawing it I grew to like the pose and attitude of the guy... I guess I'll work on it some more.

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This is another favorite character of mine. Captain Britain in his "classic" outfit, designed by CB artist extraordinaire Alan Davis (one of my absolute favourite artists) when he took over the strip in the early eighties.

I can understand why he chose to simplify the design early on in his later Excalibur run, because, boy howdy was this baby tough to draw... I can't imagine doing it on a weekly deadline.

The image started out as a warm up sketch, evolving into a full illo. The pose is pretty generic... I had to draw it twice, because the finished pencils were lost through a Photoshop crash. One of the perils of working entirely digitally.

(Also, apologies for the crappy background.)

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Ah, taking a swim in the mediterranean just about now would sure be good...

This is another older piece. As I recall, it took me about a week to finish.

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A little slashpic, suggested by Dale. Lightray is another favorite of mine among Jack's creations. Orion on the other hand always struck me as dour and boring. But I guess gods have natural urges too...



And in full, blotchy color...


I almost never do fanart or slash, but this was a lot of fun (although it took an entire afternoon). I think this might turn into an irregular feature around here...

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It's high time for some actual comics around here... I've been working on a book for a while now, and I thought I'd showcase a few pages here.

The following pages are from NIGHTLIFE, a forthcoming collaboration with Dale Lazarov (who wrote STICKY, Bruno Gmünder Verlag, 2006). The book is a collection of gay erotic comics stories of men who find masculine passion and tenderness in gay nightlife.

These pages are from the first story in the book, "After Hours", in which we see how a club DJ and his brawny bouncer partner wind down after a hard night's work at a dance club...


...and, well, things heat up a bit. I'll post a few pages more sometime.

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So I read Chynna Clugston-Major's smart, funny, sexy Scooter Girl and got inspired. This popped out of my head. I think it needs a background though. I'd want to do something very sunny California... Something for later.

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Thought I'd share this guy... When I colored this I wanted to evoke the look of a silk screen print.

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Hmmm... for an allegedly homoerotic/pornographic blog, there is a woeful lack of cocks on display here... I must apologise, and resolve to do better.  

Kamandi without the pants though is just that guy you picked up last night, really. I'll have a rummage through my drawers and see what I can pull out tomorrow...

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It's been raining for the whole fucking day today, so I decided it was time for a quick sketch, just to cheer myself up.

Kamandi is one of my absolute favorites - Jack Kirby channeling (=stealing shamelessly from) Planet of the Apes but thinking "wouldn't it be much cooler if all the animals became intelligent?". Why, yes. Yes, it would.

Besides, a half-naked guy with wild, long hair tearing through a post-apocalyptic future filled with hairy beast men... sounds like saturday night.

I'm not really one of those people who dream about a "Big Two" career - I know what I want to do, and they ain't gonna be getting into the gay porn business anytime soon. However, if I got an offer to do a classic Kamandi series tomorrow you wouldn't see me for the dust.

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Lets start with a favorite of mine... Drew this some 4 years ago. The color work is dodgy in places, but over all I'm quite pleased with it.

These lovely guys are quite near and dear to me, as I've lived with them bouncing about in my head for about ten years... long story. Maybe, some day, I'll be able to tell you about some of their misadventures...

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