Lego Advent Calendar Star Wars 2019

Some time has passed since my last update, there will probably be some changes to that eventually...! This post will be about Lego! Every year when Christmas is around the corner, I treat myself to a Lego Advent Calendar, often it is the Star Wars one. For those not acquainted with the calendar, for every day in December up to the 24th it is little model or a figure that has to be put together! After the holidays I pick the models apart and make my own models, that sometimes is within the Star Wars realm. I will now share pictures of this years models!

Enjoy and take care!

Here the inspiration was not as imminent as when I started the project! Two characters or robots of some sort, perhaps working(?) for Jabba the Hut!

Here is a freighter of some sort, what is hard to see on the picture above but perhaps easier below is that I have used two shapes and laid them on top of each other and reversed them. I was very pleased with myself when I came up with that one! The design aspect of it all, aaaah!!

This structure could eventually be found on the Ewoks planet.

A land cruiser perhaps also on the Ewoks planet. I think this is the best model!

A structure from the ice planet from "Empire".

A also like this vessel that has some kind of 50s appeal to it. Episode 1...?

This is my attempt at making a freighter ship that could passed as one in the Alien-films. I tried to make it as long and as hard and bulky as I could, with these small blocks that are included in the calendar.

Some kind of radio or transmission tower...not that much inspiration here, I think that this was one of the last three models being made.

The last two models, just trying to make do with what I had! The one on the left could be one of those radio controlled things that pass by in Episode 4...! Or is it a Sand people vessel?

Some energy drilling or harvesting plant.

A fast vessel for close to the ground action!

The hardest thing I've ever said

Last november I was published in Plutonium Comics 13. My contribution to the anthology was a four page comic written by me and drawn by Jan Kustfält. The subject for the story is my father's passing. It's a personal story and Jan did a good job with the artwork.

I wrote the script a couple of years ago, I can't really remember how it all got started. Perhaps it was a way for me to get a handle on my feelings of loss and sorrow following the death of my father. I remember though that I asked Jan if he would be interested in providing the artwork for the story and he said yes. I wrote it quite quickly, and sent it over to him, and the rest is history!

You can check out the website for the anthology here:
https://plutoniumcomics.se

Take care!

Writing a one year master thesis, how it all ended!

As can be read below I have finished a one year master thesis! What I forgot to write about in the last post was the later months of the writing.

All right, so there I was, I had spent 2 (two) years on this project, and had no feeling of getting closer to the finish line. Actually, I had decided to put in another six months and then take a break. So, yeah, I was tired of it, real tired! During the summer working and writing, I had searched and found a theory. At the end of the summer I had submitted a draft to my supervisor, and as always I got several pages of notes from our meeting. I was not done! Now autumn had come and I worked with the notes and sent in another draft, got some notes back about 3 (three) pages worth. This had been our way of working, me submitting drafts and getting notes, working with the notes, making a new draft and submitting it, and so on.

About this time or perhaps some months before, I got this feeling that maybe I was not worthy writing the thesis. Possibly I had not shown myself worthy for the Saami god that handles the animals and is closely tied to the bear (Leib-olmai), or perhaps the bear himself did not think of me as worthy. So, I sent an e-mail to a Saami academic with these thoughts and she answered nicely and gave me some thoughts to ponder. But the thought of my worthiness lingered and I almost went out to the woods to sit there with a drum trying to make contact…!

However, without visiting the woods I started working with the last notes. At this time I had finished my work and could spend whole days with the thesis. When I was done with the notes, I realized that I needed to do some more work with the theory and method section. So I did that. Now I had to redo parts of the analysis. I had also read through a really good thesis that used the same method, so I “borrowed” that structure for my thesis. This meant that the introduction chapters also got revised. When I had done that I sent a draft without the discussion and conclusion chapters, because I wanted to see if I had done some progress or not. It seemed that I had done so! Now the time had come to write the discussion and conclusion! And when I had made a new draft with them, a light of hope was lit that I just might be able to submit it for the seminary in January!

I am not sure what it was that got me to do some good thesis writing that autumn, if it was the thoughts on my worthiness towards the bear, or if it was something else. But it really felt like I was on my way moving forward, which had not been the case for some time…

And now for something completely different! After the seminary I went to a café to sort of pick up the pieces and to get some food, and also to write down my experiences of the day. Later that evening I met up with some friends for an event called Drink and draw. It is an event where boys and girls meet and drinks and draws! Well, the first comic made by the gang that evening featured me and here it is!

How (not) to write a master thesis!

If you have passed my blog the latest year(s) or so, you might have noticed that the activity has not been so grand. The reason for this inactivity is because of perhaps the largest writing project I have EVER attempted. Some years ago I decided to write a one year master thesis or a magisteruppsats as we say here in Sweden! This post will be a tad longer, so I would recommend to get a beverage of your own choice to accompany you during the reading!

During a course where we looked at the indigenous people’s religion, my interest awakened. Later after my bachelor I attended some second level courses. Since those courses worked out alright I decided to write a thesis. Since I live in Sweden and had read some about the Saami in northern Scandinavia, I thought that would be a great subject for my thesis project. When I saw a documentary film about the Saami view of the bear I knew what I wanted to investigate. In my thesis project I analyse five known bear myths from Sápmi with narrative criticism.

This blog post will have a subjective perspective since I write about my own experiences writing the thesis. The reason why I’m doing this is for my own benefit to sort of put in writing what I’ve learned and also if there are students out there writing an essay of some sort, maybe they can read it and possibly avoid some of my mistakes!

If you would like to read the thesis I would recommend you to use this link:

http://hdl.handle.net/2077/58866

If you have an interest in bears and myths and the Saami it will be a splendid read for you, if you don’t find that interesting at all, then maybe you can use it as a sleeping pill and consider your trouble sleeping gone permanently!

The saying ignorance is bliss is oh, so, VERY correct! If I had known the amount of work that was needed to finish the thesis, I would probably NOT have endeavoured to begin such a project. This has truly been a learning experience for me, and I now know how not go about writing a thesis project! These are the traps that I fell right into which would be helpful to avoid in the future:

A) It is NOT a good start to work full time and study full time when I am beginning writing my thesis. Even if this particular situation lasted only for a couple of months, it did not help me get a good start.

B) I should not have run off oh so happily, to the library and search for literature on and around the subject BEFORE I knew what I wanted to write about! I found A LOT of nice and interesting books and articles that I read through. BUT they were often in the outskirts of the phenomenon that I ended up investigating. That time reading SHOULD have been spent on my blue couch thinking through what I want to investigate.

C) A theory does NOT land on my lap, no matter how much I hope it will! A theory MUST be searched for, found, read, and tested before it is chosen!

D) Delaying the writing process is NOT a good choice! Something happens when you read about stuff and write about it!

E) Defining the object of study is a good thing to do quite EARLY in the process, and NOT to increase it after the first year or so...!

So, did I not do anything right? Perhaps to the readers of this blog’s astonishment I did!

1) I chose a phenomenon to investigate that I was REALLY and TRULY interested in! If I had not I think I would not have been able to finish it.

2) Perhaps what I did the best was that I did not quit! For quitters do not win, or finish what they have started! One big reason to be able to finish the project was that I constantly tried to be better and taking the critique that I got and re-do it one, two or more times over.

For my next thesis project I will:

a) NOT run off with a silly smile on may face to the library and borrow books!

b) Read a) again, and this time DILIGENTLY!

c) Still on my blue couch locate a phenomenon that I want to investigate.

d) In the found phenomenon CHOOSE a piece to analyse.

e) For the piece to be analysed choose WISELY a theory that will do the trick.

f) When a theory is found, locate essays where the theory is used and see how it works, and if possible “borrow” that essay’s structure!

g) NOW the time has come to leave the blue couch and go to the library and search for books and articles!

h) Start the writing process, perhaps that can be done even earlier!

i) Read, investigate, analyse, read some more, write some more and come to a conclusion et voila a finished thesis project!

Writing a thesis project is a process, and processes are not static, things happen! Everyone that has built an instrument can attest to that. So it is also with a writing project. Therefore it is important to know what I want to investigate, because if I know what my goal is I can plot a course along that line even if I get sidetracked, which I will and many times so!

Speaking or writing about processes, I feel that I must confess that I periodically felt stupid during the writing. I do not know how that could be since I have ALWAYS passed my exams on the first go, and sometimes even got a high grade. And I had taken enough courses up to the thesis, so I have not skipped important ones. It sometimes felt like I tried to do this fundamentally important work (for me) and instead of using the word processor I only had crayons and blank sheets of paper! Perhaps we can charge that to the account of the process. I haven’t really experienced that before, sure the confidence has sometimes wavered, but I always have come through. If those thoughts will appear again I will try and take a step back and make me realize that it is ok and I have come this far and it IS time for a thesis, and I will pull through, eventually.

Lately I have thought of the structure of a thesis as building blocks, or like Legos if you’d like. Where the most important ones are the area of study and the theory and method. The thesis’s question(s) that I ask will depend on the theory I will use. It is important to pose questions that the theory will be able to answer. If I have these blocks in order then the rest will come. It is important that the theory and area of study makes good music together. The time spent on the blue couch locating a good theory is time well spent! When the project is still in the idea phase it might be easier to look at certain theories and view it from other angles. Like Lego bricks, what happens if I use these two bricks? Or change that one into this one, what will the result be? Because when the writing process starts it is more difficult to make large changes, because of the time spent writing. So to sum up, make sure the building blocks fit together snuggly or as good as they possibly can, so they can make good music together!

I will end this post with some tips on the craft of writing:

1) Someone wrote somewhere, I think, that writers come out of readers. During my project I have read many essays and theses. To learn from those who know better than me and also to learn from their mistakes. One of the things that I have gotten the most critique on is the language. I decided against my better judgement, to write my thesis in English. Because as most Swedes do I think I am proficient in the language. But writing a thesis is a whole other ball game, than to read a text or write an email to a friend. Although the writing of a novel is different from writing a thesis, there are authors out there who have written about their craft and perhaps they have something to teach.

2) My supervisor came with this tip, when cutting pieces of the text, paste them into another document. This will make it easier to cut down the text, for is is retrievable. I did this and some pieces have been cut, pasted into another document; just to be found worthy again later and pasted them back into the thesis!

3) When the thesis has a large amount of text, it might be difficult to write new pieces. What I did was that I created a new document, where I wrote the new pieces free of what’s coming before and after, that helped me a lot. When the new piece was ready it was just to copy and paste it and do some finishing touches!

4) When a paragraph needs to be looked at carefully, it is easier to focus on it if there are blank spaces above and below it. This also makes room to move around single words or lines of text.

5) It is well worth finding a writing process that works, not just for the first week or so when inspiration is high, but also for the days, weeks or months when inspiration is low or extinct! I am fortunate enough to be able to sit through hours of writing or reading, but sometimes a break is needed and it is during some of these breaks that break throughs or good ideas have come!

And on that note I will end this blog post, proud, a little tired and oh so very, VERY proud!

Take care!

P.s I might return to write more on this fascinating subject, or not...!

P.s 2 Here are two illustration that I did for the thesis:

I am now a translator of western movies!

Ok, I'll let that sink in for a moment.... yes, you got it right! I am now a translator of western films! or A film if we are going to get picky!

Well, the story behind it, is this: A friend of mine (David Rylander of Rylander Animation) asked me if I were interested in making a translation from Swedish to French, for his and his daughters short animated film. After watching and enjoying it, I agreed to the project!

The translation was fairly easy and done quite quickly, although I think that this prose is the first french text with rhymes that I have ever written!

If you would like to have a gander at it, here is the link:

https://vimeo.com/249027438

To enjoy the french traduction click on the CC button and choose french!

Take care!

/P-G

Here is the link to Rylander Animation-website:

http://rylanderanimation.se

My second violin!!

Some years ago at the violin making course, we got a phone call from someone that had a half built violin project. They had inherited it, from a dear relative that had passed. The question was, if someone at the club would be interested in finishing the project. And yes there was, me!

A few days later I had a look at the project, and became interested in finishing it. What I didn't realize at the time, was that it was going to be such a learning process!

The information that I got, was that it was half built, after looking at it, it was not. At first I had to retrace the steps of the original builder, and sort of follow in his steps. Because the decisions that he had made, I could not undo, without deconstructing the whole construction. If I had done that then the violin that had been begun, would not be build, and I wanted to finish the project. So I had to retrace his steps, and also follow in his directions. To complicate things, the measurements that had been used, was new to me. The templates that we have at the club, did not fit. So there was some initial thinking to be done, which continued during the making of this violin.

When I received the project, the back was mounted on the ribs, and I took it from there. First I worked on the back to get the right thickness, and then I worked on the purfling. Then I worked on the belly, and on and on!

When the neck is mounted on the "body", it can hang in the kitchen window to get some summer sun. During this time I started on my next violin and lets not talk about that process, I'm still licking the wounds on that one, phew! ;-)

After the summer sun, it was varnished, and then put together. I might've had finished it earlier but I really wanted to come to a point with my third, that it was ok to leave it, so that I did not just leave it hanging there. So that pushed the finishing date forward a bit.

Here are some pictures of it, and as always I am NOT a photographer, but I hope you will get a hint of its gorgeousness!

So, dear Lars Lundskog, the violin that you started building is now finished. I have your name on the label inside, together with mine. And wherever you are, I hope you are as proud of it as I am. A retired violinist have already played on it, and it sounded great, at least in my ears! Actually he gave me some pointers, that I can implement on my next project!

Take care

Two new publications!

Hi there!
This spring I got published in Home Made Comics no 17, and somewhat later I got published in Serienördens trädgårdsbok/The comics artist book on gardening, from Doob Förlag!

In Home Made Comics you can read chapters two and three of Pilgrim the comic that I finished a couple of years ago.

In Serienördens trädgårdsbok I made a comics page about how to best prepare the soil before planting.

It's fun and rewarding to be published and it's great to see all of the other great comics artists that are published in these anthologies.

That was all for now!

Take care!