The Sketchbook Project

2009-02-03T11:38:00.000-08:00

Hey all you good folks in the Southern hemisphere! Just a few pages from my moleskine sketchbook while I was in your neck of the woods in August. My apologies for not seeing most of you as I was busy chasing around my baby girl being a house-dad. Hopefully see some of you later this year. I'll have more sketchbook pages over at my blog.

2008-08-04T04:37:00.000-07:00

Three recent scribbles...

2008-02-25T05:07:00.000-08:00

Some oldies, not so goodies...

2008-02-05T02:33:00.001-08:00

Haven't posted here in ages... the guy in bed was done for Illustration Friday!

2008-01-07T11:26:00.000-08:00

Happy new year, sketchbook blogging peoples! Thought I'd plop up some character sketches. I coloured them up using Gimp Shop which is a nice free lil' photoshop clone. I'd recommend using it if you can't afford Photoshop! Photoshop Elements is also a nice affordable alternative to the full Photoshop package. For me though Gimp Shop is swell!

Anyways, why doesn't someone else plop up some sketcharooneez and give their cartoonist/Illustrator tips? eg: What pens you use, paper, brainstorming process etc...

Shrimp Salad!

2007-12-17T15:51:00.000-08:00

Some more music sketches for y'all!

2007-11-17T07:49:00.000-08:00

Hey Everybody...okay, it's been a looooong time since I've posted anything, so I thought I should put up a thing or two. Some music sketches to get you movin'.

2007-09-05T00:28:00.000-07:00

Hello...

If anyone is here you might be interested in this lil' review of our Durban Mamba Comix launch
Mike will be stoked to know that we got his super rad slideshow working this time and it was projected on a wall for everyone to see!

um... spaghetti!

2007-07-19T09:10:00.001-07:00

Awareness. My buddy James made a kiff cartoon. I took the liberties of colouring it. Now I'm posting it here. Awareness. Kiff. Cheese. Bovril. Eggs and Ham. Those are some of the things I like.

For more of James' kiff cartoon go to http://www.happychickensuicidecult.blogspot.com

Awareness. Horse.

2007-07-13T00:24:00.000-07:00

a little doodle for Friday the 13th

2007-07-07T09:51:00.000-07:00

Big Monster sez "Democracy is Freedom and Freedom is Nicer Than Being In Jail Or Covered By Ants...Especially Small Biting Ants."

2007-07-03T11:17:00.000-07:00

Howdee! I'm trying to put up my blog again that got mysteriously deleted! It's hard cos I've forgotton how to put up a nice spiffy header! For those of you who don't give a toss CLICK HERE and watch my cartoon!

2007-06-29T10:50:00.000-07:00

Here are some awesome pics from the cool cat Dylan!

2007-06-29T10:41:00.000-07:00

Hello fellow scribblers!

Here be what happened to me the minute I got a full time job! I am a happy, sad and nervous man this weekend! Sad cos Jenna is working late all weekend at the Durban fashion week:( Happy cos I bought the second season of 24 and am already 3 DVD's into it! Nervous cos I'm taking Jen skydiving on Sunday!

Awesome! Hope y'all are kiff!

2007-06-24T09:42:00.000-07:00

A few drawings from the new sketchbook. Must be something in the water here...

2007-06-22T05:39:00.001-07:00

Following on from Jason's directive below... somthing fishy ;-)

2007-06-22T02:56:00.001-07:00

2007-06-21T22:01:00.000-07:00

I challenge you all to post something. Surely you haven't stopped drawing simply because the show etc is all over?
Come on, you can do it!

PS: did you see how I used italics for emphasis up there?

2007-06-19T23:59:00.000-07:00

Is this place still open?

2007-06-17T09:56:00.000-07:00

All you good folks should run out right now and pick up the June issue of Blunt Magazine. It features a fine article on The Sketchbook Project!

2007-06-12T01:50:00.000-07:00

It's been a bit quiet round here, so I thought I'd show you some of the process behind the cover of Mamba No 5. It's not overly thorough but a little walkthrough of what went down. Ready? Here goes...

I had a bit of an idea of what I thought would work. I sketched a few thumbnails out (since lost in my house moving), and then made a few mock-ups using some new and old drawings I had lying around. I thinned out 3 options and sent them through to young Andy:

The above was my favourite. I 'doodled' it out in Illustrator. Supposed to look like a dude with his head open, worms coming out and chowing his neck/body! Rad!

This was a drawing I did a long time ago. I had it lying around and always wanted to do something with it. Check the hate, man!

This lady was part of a drawing I had up here not too long ago. I liked this layout quite a bit as well. And no, Andy, she's not puking!

Andy was digging the middle option, and it was starting to grow on me too. Direct and intriguing, right? Anyway, I drew a few more sketches - cleaning up the lines and then traced over that using my trusty nib pen, india ink and draughting vellum.

My idea was to have the face perfectly symmetrical. I thought it might be quite strong graphically. Or maybe I was too damned lazy to draw the whole face. You'll never know!

(Above) I scanned the linework in and cleaned it up all nicely in Photoshop. Lined up the two halves and start laying down some flat colour. Getting a bit abstract here..

(Above) I know, I'll add some orange and pink, and fill in the eyes so long... Nah, still not feeling this. At this point I'm thinking about all that beer in the fridge.

(Above) Getting upppity, I chuck out all the shading and lay down the law (flat orange). Add a gradient in from top and bottom, some skulls and stuff and suddenly it's looking OK. Ok?

(Above) It still needs a bit more punch. How about just a little shadow? Hmm.. I need to have a coffee and mull it over.

Ok, alright, I think it's working. Let's check it out in layout...

Should I go with a font or with handwritten type? That blue is kind of cool, but we're not there yet.

Andy's feeling the white option, and with the cover lines it all somehow looks OK. I added a halftone pattern vibe to the final version, which creates a little more depth.
Cool. About those beers....?

What do you think?

2007-05-26T08:55:00.000-07:00

This is the last page of my sketchbook and I finished it while in South Africa just before the show. Since arriving back in Canada I've begun a new sketchbook as I can't seem to get enough of this nonsense.

2007-05-21T12:01:00.000-07:00

2007-05-18T11:18:00.000-07:00

NOOOOOOO!

2007-05-17T16:01:00.000-07:00

Another pitch, another kids show. I really like the flies we came up with. They're 2 flies on the wall, and they listen in. But we made them, like, flippen' SPY flies! Radness.

2007-05-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

2007-05-16T08:04:00.000-07:00

I spent some time working around my logo for my animation. I'll tell you a joke:

"What's nice and round and full of nice colours? A rainbow."

I made that one up right now. Not flippen' bad. Not bad at all.

2007-05-15T10:42:00.000-07:00

Woahski's bru! Awesome pics that I can now pore over! NICE ONE BRUTHAS! You all ROCK! Looked like a flippen' awesome event. Bring on the next one, WOOHOO! As soon as I can afford it, I'm hiring Tyron Love and Alistair laird to make animations with me. Kiffness.

(Some random drawings I did while I was working on another thing)

2007-05-15T10:30:00.000-07:00

The following photos are my somewhat clumsy attempt at documenting the Sketchbook Project exhibition "OFF THE WALL 2" at artSPACE gallery in Durban on May 7, 2007.

The exhibition began on May 6 at artSpace with a graf workshop by Senyol. This amazing wall was created that afternoon. Wesley Van Eeden made a nice contribution on the far right side of the wall.

My apologies to all those artists that were left out of these photos. Sadly, I missed some of the contributors, so one will have to visit artSPACE to get the full effect. Enjoy.

2007-05-15T10:26:00.000-07:00

A mind-blowing series by Jeff Rankin.

Cape Town artist, Senyol, hanging his work.

Jeff Rankin, Rico and Andrew Mogridge discussing life, the universe and everything.

2007-05-15T10:14:00.000-07:00

A lovely striking wall by Andrew Mogridge.

Mogorosi Motshumi in the foreground with incredible works by Wild Beast and N.D. Mazin in the background.

Tyron and Ross showing off their skills in co-operation as they hang Tyron's work.

Wild Beast studying Mogorosi's panels.

Rico's large paintings pack a visual punch in the back half of the gallery.

2007-05-15T10:06:00.000-07:00

The completed wall by Senyol

Mogorosi enjoying the "Cheap Stuff Wall". Behind in the corner is an amazing surfboard by Luke Molver.

An eye-popping collage by Alastair Laird.

Beautiful paintings by Ross Turpin, with a triptych by Luke Molver below.

An awe-inspiring collection of work by Jason Bronkhorst.

2007-05-15T09:04:00.000-07:00

Some pics from the show on May 7th at the artSPACE gallery.

And the crowds arrived in droves. The turn out was wonderful and the large area of artSPACE was filled to the brim.

2007-05-15T08:57:00.000-07:00

The indefatigable N.D. Mazin addressing the masses.

The sketchbooks on display with some brilliant Zapiro work in the background.

Ewok laying down some sweet beats.

2007-05-15T00:58:00.000-07:00

Oh heck, let me post something here again... ever have the feeling of being "stuck in a runt?" ... ok, ok, ok... really, really bad pun! ;-)

2007-05-14T15:41:00.000-07:00

A competition for 'Caption the Cartoon' in a Medical magazine. Hey, anyone ever read PERRY BIBLE FELLOWSHIP? great web-comic.

http://www.pbfcomics.com

2007-05-13T11:26:00.000-07:00

Mommy, I want milk. Anyway, some pictures (more) for this pitch. Wanna check out that Alistair Laird comic book. Anyone still read this blog? Talking to myself? Howzit? Schweet.

2007-05-12T06:24:00.000-07:00

Some sketches I'm doing. Putting a visual pitch package together for some dudes for their brand new Afrikaans Music Kids Show! I say "heeeeyoooo" I say "ho ho ho." Anyway, having quite a lot of fun I guess, there's another cartoonist here by the name of James Wolfaardt. His ideas are superb. Check out http://www.happychickensuicidecult.blogspot.com He does a webcomic. It is called, funnily enough; 'Happy Chicken Suicide Cult'. So he's helping me with this kids show. It's with medium-sized puppets (the ones where the oke puts his arm inside the puppet and uses his other hand to control a wire to the puppet's one arm) and shot in green chroma screen, so the studio can be hand-drawn and stuffs as well. We doing our kiffest our side to make the puppets rad.

Any news on the show in Durbs? I'd really like to know how things went. Did the slideshow work? Anyone sell any paintings? Because I can't find news ANYWHERE except from Tyron Love, but I think he ducked out early to go become a porn star.

2007-05-12T00:17:00.000-07:00

For those of you who were at the recent opening of the Off the Wall 2 exhibition in Durban you might have been approached by a little pimped up, side cap wearing kid trying to sell you one of the photo copied ‘zines in the box he was clutching. I bought one off this little savage for 10 bucks and put it in the girlfriend’s bag for later.

Alistair Laird is a young cartoonist from Toti in Durban, I remember when he first arrived at the Durban Cartoon Project studio’s years ago bugging Themba and I while we were trying to meet deadlines. It’s been a few years and he has grown up into a freak of nature that I would seriously ban my daughter from dating! For all his extreme oddities however his cartoons were for me one of the highlights of the exhibition. His style is a crazy hybrid of Mark Bell, Gary Panter and Matt Groening. He offends plenty of people in an unapologetic manner. He admits that, if he could he would kill everyone who judges him, he draws out conversations with startling accuracy and has crazy characters like Angus the Anus, Lorenzo the Plant, The nameless puddle of Urine and Pete the Washing Machine.

So if you are in need of some exhausting reading while you are casting out that Durban curry demon I recommend Sick Comix Mini Theatre. I have no clue of how you are gonna get one of these ‘zines but if you are interested in buying it then e-mail me: Skinnyfishpaste@gmail.com and I’ll organize! Alistair will be stoked!

2007-05-03T10:17:00.000-07:00

Look - some more quasi-what-the-hell-is-it-flying-through-the-sky stuff, now with ADDED 3D! Oh man.

2007-05-02T05:47:00.000-07:00

I put the sketchbook project slideshow together today. Over 500 sketches! Wooh! That's a lot. Great work you dudes and chicks. I sent the slideshow to Andy. It is very kiff.

Here's a sketch I did that. "Time to VECTORIZE" as they say in the classics.

Also, for anyone that's interested in animation, there's a cool interview with ED, EDD & EDDY creator Danny Antonucci. Hard to believe he created a kids show. What a kiff dude.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ns5RPHQigg

2007-05-02T02:35:00.000-07:00

Finished a painting last night. I now have three of the four I planned to take down to Durbs this weekend. Sadly, that thing called 'work' is getting in the way of progress...!

Here's a doodle on my door.

And some brush and inkery.

2007-05-01T04:57:00.000-07:00

Yo! Here be a flyer for the exhibition! Please feel free to pass it on to anyone you want cos you can! (Notice my rejected cover being used!)

2007-04-30T15:44:00.000-07:00

Anyone else find it ironic Worker's Day and Freedom Day are so close together?
Anyway, I met Jeremy Nell (Urban Trash) and Gavin Thomson (Mama Taxi) and John Curtis (satire cartoonist) in Cape Town. Flippen' great. Got some really good input from Jeremy about Bru & Boegie and the cartooning world in general.
Keen to check out some of your processes for creating cartoons. Above is how I generally do it with a WACOM tablet. Get article from Medical Chronicle, get a specific cartoon idea and poses and environment, either by doodling or speaking to my dad because he's clever and can think of ideas quickly relating to news, rough line of action, outlines, colour.

2007-04-30T02:19:00.000-07:00

Little preview of drawing for Off The Wall... feels like I'm the only person in Jozi working today :-/

2007-04-30T00:20:00.000-07:00

Waiting for the paint to dry on one of those Paintings©™ I'm doing, I grabbed some pen and ink and doodled this out on an A3 sheet.

2007-04-27T09:06:00.000-07:00

More bloody fun from behind the counter of a video shop...

2007-04-23T12:13:00.000-07:00

Been AWOL for awhile, but here are some more stains & smudges from my autobio comic, A Bloody Business. Read from top.

2007-04-23T00:15:00.000-07:00

Some of the pieces I'm working up for the Off The Wall exhibition... plse excuse the crappy quality of the photographs... india ink is very reflective :-/

2007-04-21T08:52:00.000-07:00

My heart sank deep down to my toes when I found out that my humble Mamba cover effort got rejected by the powers that be! "It'll make the perfect back cover!" I was told...sniffle...

It wouldn't have been so bad if I wasn't showered with praise at first (false hope?)...don't you hate it when that happens?! If anyone can do a better, scarier cover with blood and fire please contact N.D. Mazin.

2007-04-20T08:39:00.000-07:00

Scribbled this up during the Friday after-lunch-slump... ... uh... buggered up pen nib, drybrush and red marker pen :-)

2007-04-19T17:30:00.000-07:00

Look at how clever I was. I added some ridiculous text to a half-finished comic, and instead of deleting it, I made the awful mistake of posting it here. Oh noes.

2007-04-19T13:06:00.000-07:00

“Sometimes you just have to pee in the sink.”
Charles Bukowski

More of the same over at Casa Jason

2007-04-18T08:15:00.000-07:00

A quickie sketch of our house and something I puked up while talking on the phone. Also, more of my animation fiddling

2007-04-16T11:59:00.000-07:00

Howdee! Here be some doodles from some bits of paper that are present in the world around us. For some reason it's impossible for me to keep a sketchbook! My brain enjoys the thrill of picking up bits of mucky paper and doing the doodle!

2007-04-16T09:03:00.000-07:00

Spent the day designerating, and had a sudden urge to do something analogue (I think that's what they call that thing you do without computers...).
These all came out in the space of 30 mins or so. Whew.

See them big and everything over at my blog.

2007-04-14T13:58:00.000-07:00

2007-04-12T08:07:00.000-07:00

Some more from "A brush with death"

2007-04-12T04:49:00.000-07:00

Andrew Mogridge says: I could well get voted off the island for trying to sell stuff on a blog rife with editorial integrity. ..I'll take the chance

2007-04-12T00:17:00.000-07:00

Lorem ipsum lodorum etc etc...

2007-04-12T00:11:00.000-07:00

Hello. My name is Mike. I have Killer Dance Moves. Not really, but I WILL post this little snippet of my little animation thing, and a little update and little nice things here and there. Still got a LOT to do to it, but I like the direction it's going in.

2007-04-11T08:57:00.000-07:00

Scott's rant:

Stick up you hand if you’ve had a broken heart!!
Well never let it happen again encase it in Armadillo plates for protection; never feel never,
love again be alone for ever YIPEEEE!!!!!

2007-04-10T12:41:00.000-07:00

so I accidentally bought a cheap little sketchbook earlier today when i went to the art shop for something entirely different. It's because they have something in the air conditioning...

2007-04-10T08:59:00.000-07:00

Well folks, this will be my last post before I see you all in SA. It's cold and snowy here in Ottawa, but soon I'll be in the land of sunshine. It's been great fun...thanks for the opportunity to take part in it with you all.

2007-04-08T11:30:00.000-07:00

more nonsense...enjoy!

2007-04-05T00:24:00.000-07:00

The other day The Princess asked me for some directions. I doodled this and kinda liked how it came out.

Yesterday the same thing. You can see I started getting carried away...

I love those old cartoon maps. My favourite at one point was a map of Port Elizabeth by Dean Foster. Does anyone know what happened to that guy?

2007-04-03T13:11:00.000-07:00

Scott muses:

‘Good morning mirror its me! It’s a bad face day, drowning in Life!’

2007-04-03T13:08:00.000-07:00

Here be a bit from Senyol's sketchbook. I think it's a riveting piece!

2007-04-02T11:43:00.000-07:00

ya mun, fug dat sheeit.

2007-04-02T01:18:00.000-07:00

Andrew Mogridgesubmits part of a series called " A brush with death"

2007-03-31T00:08:00.000-07:00

Here be a sketcharoo I did for some band...I'm trying to move my computer from my office to my flat so I can have more access to the blog and the world! It WILL happen this weekend or I will nibble off my toenails in fear of what N.D. Mazin will do to me. He is tough like Nick Slaughter after all! Any cartoonists and/or writers living in Durbs are invited to Bean Bag on Weds 4 April @ 5pm for one of our "productive" Mamba meetings!

2007-03-31T00:03:00.000-07:00

Here's some long over due stuffs from the mysterious Dylan.

2007-03-29T13:25:00.000-07:00

The wind blew an invocation, and I fell asleep at the gate...

Some more over at my blog

2007-03-29T08:31:00.000-07:00

I was going through all 256 posts to gather all the pictures EVER that have been posted on SKETCHBOOK PROJECT (about 400 pictures or so) for a mega-slide show for the night of the exhibition, and I came across a picture by Ben Hodson that was particularly striking. So, whilst I should have been working or playing video games, I colored it slightly. It's got great compositional elements. Nice one.

I'm blown away by the quality of work each artist's posted here. Amazing. I think we take for granted the huge cartooning/art talent within South Africa (even though I know Ben's from Canada.)

2007-03-27T15:03:00.000-07:00

Yup, this is where my mind wanders when it's given a choice. It doesn't look good for me. Maybe I should get out more??

2007-03-27T08:58:00.000-07:00

This should be a billboard

2007-03-27T00:55:00.000-07:00

2007-03-26T23:29:00.000-07:00

2007-03-25T14:35:00.000-07:00

Look everyone - it's fun time. I just realized I forgot to put a string around the air mask thing around his head. No-one will notice. See how things are out of proportion? That's not called creative license. That's called not enough practice doing life drawing.

You know what I think would be fun? Is if each person who posts on the blog gets another person's style to copy. That'd be fun and stuff. I mean, imitate. You know - I'd dig to check someone draw my Bru & Boegie characters in their own style, trying to get my style down. I'm sure most other dudes would find it entertaining.

2007-03-23T13:51:00.000-07:00

I moved to Plett. Is is nice and pretty. I like the clouds and sunsets and sunrises. Jeepers. Well, LUSH from HERE wrote up a little thing about a soap opera thing of South African blogs, and I had some time to sketch it up in a crazy messy thing, and oh well, it's kind of sketchy, so I thought I'd post it here.

Any chance we could get the SKETCHBOOK PROJECT LAUNCH moved to Plett? Please?

I also noticed, you can see very clearly the differences between a well-trained artist who uses line of action and proper human proportions in his drawings, and a guy who just wings it. I fall into the latter category. Man, must be great to be able to use composition, line of action, shaping out your characters, strong silhouettes, etc...properly. Ever feel like you're just repeating the same mistakes over and over, the only fall back being that they're fairly charming drawings and worth a smile? Well, that's sometimes how I feel. About this picture, for example. It's also whack to look at someone who tries too hard to get things perfect in a drawing, while leaving huge gaping glaring holes open in other aspects. I do it, man. I do it. I have nightmares about this kind of stuff.

Anyway, you guys know what I'm talking about. Have a great weekend. I ain't complaining, I'm just remarking.

2007-03-19T23:39:00.000-07:00

Jeff Rankin says:
About these images: THINK I'LL BE WORKING WITH THIS SLIM FORMAT FOR A WHILE. MAYBE. BUT I HAVE ANOTHER HALF-FILLED BOOK CUT TO A DIFFERENT SHAPE. MAYBE I'LL GO BACK TO THAT ONE. OR MAYBE I'LL GET A THIRD ONE SOMEWHERE BETWEEN THE TWO. WHAT ABOUT THE A5 BOOK THAT HAS ONLY ONE SKETCH IN IT? THEN THERE ARE THE 53 LOOSE-LEAF SKETCHES THAT I COULD BIND AFTER THE FACT, IN COMPLETE BREACH OF PROJECT PROTOCOL. AND WHAT ABOUT THE 762 DRAWINGS I FOUND IN MY SEVENTIES & EIGHTIES PORTFOLIO... BETTER CHECK & CHANGE ALL THE DATES...

2007-03-19T12:48:00.000-07:00

2007-03-18T10:09:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what it means....but it's deep, man. Really, really deep.

2007-03-16T23:25:00.000-07:00

The Friday quickie....10 minute sketchy goodness to alleviate work drudgery...

2007-03-14T03:10:00.000-07:00

A little something from the darker recesses... inspired by Jason's recent pan and ink's...

2007-03-14T02:26:00.000-07:00

These are some sketches from Mr Ross Turpin.

2007-03-14T00:07:00.000-07:00

oh well.

2007-03-13T02:16:00.000-07:00

Broke down the 'process' a little on my blog...

"The moments of freedom, they cannot be given to you. You have to take them."
Robert Frost

2007-03-10T05:59:00.000-08:00

From my other sketchbook. For these drawings I used a "china marker" which is like a big waxy pencil. It holds a great line and shades nicely without being too smudgy.

2007-03-10T04:01:00.000-08:00

Here's more from Jeff Rankin!!!

2007-03-10T03:54:00.000-08:00

Hey people! Here be stuff from Jeremy Nell! I know I don't have to ask cos EVERYONE on this blog has pre ordered their Urban trash book! Right? If you are thinking you haven't then CLICK HERE and you will feel swell!!!

2007-03-07T10:58:00.000-08:00

Sometimes the brain has it's own agenda...also, couldn't resist adding some Rick Griffin flying eyes.

2007-03-07T10:40:00.000-08:00

I saw a scrap piece of paper on the kitchen table that my mom had written on. My dad had just got back from golf, and I decided to sketch something quickly. I was feeling good because I had a good lunch with someone I really like, and so this dude materialized. He looks naughty, my dad said, as though he had just farted. I tend to agree.

2007-03-07T05:01:00.000-08:00

Andrew Mogridge: Spent the weekend drawing on my guitar, good fun.

2007-03-06T21:30:00.000-08:00

This type of drawing is what happens the morning after some guys take me to the Radium to drink whiskey. Bastards.

2007-03-06T12:05:00.000-08:00

Shoowee! -- that's another Moleskine sketchbook all filled up -- that's last two pages I skribbled up this morning. (actually their the first two pages of the book, as I started somewhere in the middle... first page anxiety and all that jazz!)

2007-03-05T23:28:00.000-08:00

Hmm.. weird...

Anyway, been thinking about painting this guy on a nice big canvas. What you think?

2007-03-05T08:40:00.000-08:00

Here be a sketch from Dylan, who is a swell guy!!

2007-03-05T08:34:00.000-08:00

Jeff says:

I was so close to a story for this project, but the sketches are what happens while I'm busy making other plans. So I'm sketching on as events and ideas present themselves... fireside chats that get out of hand, family extensions, useless yesness again, and getting old ... happily haphazard ... sometimes working on double spreads, I like the space. Some sketches have evolved into bigger pieces for the exhibition; I'm looking forward to the diversity of that show.

2007-03-03T01:51:00.000-08:00

Welcome to yet another page of my sketchbook - where the unconscious reigns and the pen moves freely. Sweet. Also, an example of how I turn stuff from my sketchbook into vector stuff, and then, as a result, get 10 extra points for being cool.