Robinnygrenart - Robin Nygren Hiltunen

So, my nephew gave me this Spider-Man drawing he had spent all day in Kindergarten putting his soul in and it’s the best birthday gift I have ever received and unbiased I might add, the best piece of art I will ever put up on my wall, including my LEGO Great Wave off Kanagawa. But I felt like wanting to return the favor and gave it a few hours on Photoshop.

Suit is based on the one in the Spidey and His Amazing Friends-cartoon as it’s where I assume my nephew knows off Spider-Man and the background is just a traced photo of a random road in the Spider-Man PS-game in the colorful palette of the cartoon-NYC.

But I thought this was interesting. I was born in the early 2000s, grew up with the Raimi-trilogy and the Webb-films. I watched the 90s cartoon, the Spectacular-cartoon, Peter Parker was everywhere and for me there’s nobody else under the mask hearing the name Spider-Man.

So, receiving this drawing, my genuine first thought was the concept art of the Symbiote-suit, with the red logo instead of the final white. But after realising my 4-year old nephew probably doesn't know what a symbiote is, what Secret Wars is, what concept art is or what even the 1900s are, his dad started to talk about how much he loves Miles Morales. And I think it’s super cool that well, my Spider-Man; Peter Parker is old news. He’s not the golden boy for much sooner. My nephew doesn’t care about that nerd.

Like, there are so many Spiders out there, different genders, different ethnicities and the fact that Stan Lee talked about with Spider-Man’s design, “anyone can wear the mask” has truly become the modern reality. Peter will always be my favourite, will always be the one I relate to the most but damn, there’s Miles now becoming mainstream, there’s Gwen back from the dead. More knows about Michael and there’s even Otto Octavius in his fun little corner. Marvel has expanded and it will be so fun to teach this kid about all these characters as much as he will teach me. And to put on my reading glasses one day and tell my nephew that “in my days, Spider-Man had organic webbing!”

God, it feels wrong to upload stuff like this, being vulnerable and things. But, kind of a thing I only can acknowledge once in a lifetime.

It’s not like I kept a diary or anything so can’t say with 100% certainty but quite positive 2024 has been my tenth bonus-year.

And, damn. It’s been hard. The demons have gone up and down and there was this 2-year period where I thought they would be gone for good before the pandemic just NOPE.

But, a major thank you to all my friends, family, colleagues for always being there and supporting me and lended me a hand whenever needed and yeah, bullies and obstacles that have challenged me and forced me to grow. And a major thanks to my nephews and nieces for bringing a new light in the end of the tunnel.

Every second with you is more heartwarming than I could ever have imagined 10 years ago.

I didn’t feel very good in high school. Or life. Childhood. At all. There was a lot of negativity. I didn’t feel I belonged in my family and friends who I thought were ride or die had all just abandoned me as our class swished schools to fit in with the new popular kids and that meant, not to get seen talking to me. Any time someone in my class spoke to me were either to speak down to me or just hit my head into a wall. And well, I lived at a child care I guess is the closest translation so it's easy to feel abandoned by your relatives and you tell yourself your place there isn’t more than an income for your carers.

I felt useless. Absolutely 150% worthless. Waste of space and oxygen. If you think you can imagine that, you can’t. You have to experience it and not everyone makes it out of that journey alive. I kinda just dragged my lifeless body throughout childhood, telling myself “just one more day”, trying to find something to live for. Marvel-releases were kind of small milestones to strive for but lacked any real meaning, so now you know why I draw so much Marvel.

I didn’t talk much to my new class in high school as well, my friends I have known since kindergarten didn’t value me more than popularity, why would this new class?

So strangely enough, I find myself in a group chat with some other selected classmates one night and have to leave the conversation because of a sudden anxiety attack where, to my surprise, I get a notification.

One of the other classmates had noticed I stopped talking and reached out privately, asking how I was doing. And in my entire “emo-phase”, nobody had ever asked me that before. Not really, not in a meaningful serious way other than the usual polite “it’s been so long, how are you, enough about that…”

That was the first real step into this random girl who I expected would leave my life after graduation becoming one of the most important people in my life and holding my hand in this new journey into the light at the end of the tunnel.

Tiny moment after moment, inviting me for milkshakes, sleepovers, watching Good Omens, bonding over horror films, this girl made me feel like I was more than a waste of space, that maybe I… could matter?

And from feeling absolutely nothing, that I mattered nothing, less than so, to just… be invited to stuff. That was huge. It’s indescribably huge.

I am now 22 and can seriously say that I’m much older than I ever expected to be and I am grateful for that every good and bad day.

All because of that single message that one night. That first step on a ladder she probably didn’t know I needed to climb.

Thank you.

Reach out to someone, you never know who might be needing it.

LATE MAY THE 4TH AND REVENGE OF THE 5TH!!

Been away to Comic Con so was unable to post but back now!

It was so fun! Got a selfie with Mark Waid and he signed my Kingdom Come! It was amazing!

And got an X-Men poster SIGNED by R. B. Silva! As well as some classics to my bookshelf like “Whatever happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” and “Demon in a Bottle”

10/10 weekend!

Some things I want to get done before New Year are just some re-drawings of stuff I wasn’t happy with.

First was the Chat Noir-post which itself was a redrawing of an older Miraculous Day-post.

This new one is closer to the original and more symmetric. Doesn’t feel as all-over-the-place as V.2 and looks better side-by-side with Ladybug.

Were originally planning to just redraw an old basic post, the two of them jumping over a rooftop but felt… nah. I’m not satisfied with my Miraculous-work. I need to do something big, something detailed, something filled with love and wow and oof. And I had done like posters and phone-backgrounds before but never given Miraculous a real character-filled wallpaper before like Spider-Man, Star Wars or Justice League so here! Probably my most claustrophobic wallpaper yet but actually losing to both Spider-Man 2 and Life is Strange with just 15 characters compared to their 16! But this is filled with full body-drawings, fully drawn, zero traced faces or anything and took like a week to make thanks to also working now, so the longest project to date! You’re welcome!

I wanted something to represent the whole Agreste-Saga and had a ton of different ideas and sketches to pick from. There was the book, the rings, the wall between them, all the supportive casts including drama, rivals, a mysterious cousin, 5 whole seasons of stories but I think I managed to mush it all down to one final product!

V.2

This MIGHT be 99% pre-downloaded brushes that came with Photoshop that might also not work well together BUT I saw this cat a while ago sitting on a well and looking over her home and I did not have time to pick up my camera SO here’s a ruff concept of what it looked like.

Magnificent.