I don't think now is the best time
I truly feel like writing about my love of pirates.
Sure my "feelings" are highly romanticized, but so are the legends and stories, I guess. :D But I'm not denying it, I am a romanticist.
I tend to say that if I cannot maintain myself as a graphic designer, I will become a pirate. At the moment I am, however, doing design for a living... Nevertheless, I'm always prepared to board.
I live in a piratey hole, I guess. That photo looks awkward, but yes, it's my front door. It looks like a warehouse door, I know. That why those friends who've never been here before have trouble finding the right door. Or not anymore, since I can tell them to look for the Jolly Roger. However, I pity every courier who has to come knocking on my door...
I have to thank my neighbourhood's kids for giving me the idea to make such a flag. Thanks to them, it suddenly felt like an obvious idea – though I wonder why I didn't come up with that earlier, given that I had spent years wondering how to block that window (it had a blank white curtain for three years) and also given that I've liked pirates for long...
And how did they do that? One afternoon, two small boys knocked on my door. I went to open, and they totally froze, not saying anything for a while, until the other one asked; "do you have a ring?" I was very, very dumbfounded, not understanding what on earth they were actually after. I tried to ask though, but they figured I couldn't answer their question in a satisfactory way, so they left without telling me what was going on. After that, they came to spy on me through my open window. Now I call them treasure hunters.
Despite my interest, I hadn't seen Pirates of the Caribbean movies until this week. Now I watched all of them, and now I feel all piratey. Yarr.
The movies were all entertaining and nice. However, such piratey language is occasionally a bit difficult to follow... :/ Audiovisually stunning, too. That's why I'm listening to the soundtrack now, and oh, the boats – what they looked like! And everything else too, but I was particularly fascinated by the Flying Dutchman. Oh so epic...
I feel like drawing piratey images again...
Pirates sure have made my life epic in other ways too. Roughly a year ago, a friend had a housewarming-costume-party, and I decided to dress up as a pirate. With my souvenir sword, my piratey pants from Baby, the stars shine bright brand's collection Alice and the Pirates... and a pirate map of the city, tied to a bottle of rum as a housewarming gift, I sailed there.
That map could have turned out much better, but I made it completely with Photoshop, thus, the lines are not nice, lively and delicate. I also made it quickly. (The "real" places would be these: Ocean of Näsi = Näsijärvi, Gulf of Dead Women = Naistenlahti, Unholy Sea = Pyhäjärvi, Mountains of the Cursed Bishop = Pispalanharju.)
However, I had fun while working on that map, and I thought, probably even told a friend, how awesome it would be to get to make some pirate illustrations as a real commission.
A month passed, and I was contacted by one editor of a newspaper in which I had worked during a few summers. She asked if I could make an illustration for a newspaper article dealing with pirates. The deadline was a bit tough – I got the commission on one Wednesday midday, while I was at work, and the illustration was to be in their hands by Friday morning. However, I couldn't possibly say no. I spent two evenings, after days at work, drawing like a madman, but I had great fun, and I delivered the illustration on time. (And I slept quite a little.)
But like I said, I cannot say no to a commission of my dreams. Unfortunately, for some copyright reasons, I'm only showing the image like that... As the article dealt with modern piracy, swords have been replaced with assault rifles and sailing ships with, eh, tankers? I don't know about these marine things much, and despite my love of pirates, I'm not particularly much in love with seas or ships.
An acquaintance said my life resembles a movie because it was so absurd how I got that commission.
By the way, if the skulls in the illustration and in my curtain seem somehow similar, well, I can say, they are – I used the illustration sketch when I was painting that fabric.
Somehow my interest in steampunk goes well with piracy. Both give me a lot of creative ideas, for designs, drawings, interior, clothes...
And somehow, pirates never fail to fascinate me. :D In 2008, my absolute favourite group in the Eurovision Song Contest was – surprisingly – a band of pirates!
Pirates can also seem credible in bright colors. I've never seen anything else but this video of this children's TV show: I wonder if I've now said everything I've got to say about pirates – for now, I'm rather sure this won't be over. Oh but no, I almost forgot, I dressed up as one on Halloween too. Or to be precise, on All Saints' Day, when a friend had a costume party. That time I drew a map by hand, but unfortunately, I have no evidence of it anymore as I gave it to the party hostess. But it turned out much better, being hand-made. I am aware that Facebook is available in pirate English as well, but I don't use it, don't know why... Maybe I truly should? So long – and until the next time – yarr! Follow my blog with Bloglovin'
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