Andi Pasti's Animal Art

Last year I wanted to find and read comics that are an adventure, and preferably play in a dense, green and lush jungle. I came across the LOVE comics, written by  Frédéric Brrémaud  and drawn by Federico Bertolucci, published by Magnetic press between 2011 and 2021. The first issue is called "The Tiger", which actually plays in a jungle. What's so special about LOVE comics? The 5 comics ( the Tiger , the Fox , the Lion , the Dinosaur , the Mastiff ) are all word-less comics, no speech bubbles, no dialogue. They play out as one day in each of the animals' life, albeit a very compressed day with sometimes exceptional and rare incidents. No animal in the wild would realistically meet that many animals in one day, or experiencing a volcano outbreak is nothing you would see every day. But of course the focus is on story-telling, so showing an animal resting for the most of the day would probably not the best use of 50 pages. But why are they called LOVE? Choosing a title ...

You might have seen that one on an episode of "One Planet". A bird searching for spiders and receiving an unpleasant turn. This scene was genuinely one of the most surprising outcomes in a natural story on television, even for a long-time-nature-documentary-watcher like me. The spider-tailed horned viper is a quite recent, but extraordinary discovery. It evolved modified scales on the tail that form a tail tip resembling a spider. Camouflaged against the rocks of Iran, it imitates spider movements to attract birds which want to feed on spiders. In a split-second the snake attacks with its venomous fangs to kill the bird. The viper was actually first known to the Western world in 1968, where it was captured and investigated in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, USA. Back then, the weird and unhealthy looking tail end was written off as a spider attached to the snake, and later regarded as a deformation or tumour. Only later in 2003, when another specimen was found...

Earlier this year I set myself the goal to print my comic Woolly Wonderful . Even though I finished a digital version almost 2 years ago, for a long time I did not think about getting it printed. It was only through my contribution to the WIP Comics Anthology in 2025 , and meeting with other comic creators who brought along their work in person, where in contrast I did not have anything to show physically. These experiences finally convinced me to give it a go. Especially the learnings and guidance through the comics group and my participation in the anthology last year helped me to better understand the printing process. My comic was drawn entirely in Procreate on the iPad. Here are some tips for getting your comic ready for print: St art with the correct format and DPI Procreate has a template named "Comic", but what is odd about it, is the preconfigured DPI (dots per inch) of 400. Dots per inch means how many ink dots per inch (2,56 cm) the printer will use when printing o...

When  you watch some funny video compilations on the internet with Pandas falling down trees and rolling down hills endlessly, you might think they are not quite equipped for living in this world. Humans on the internet in the last decade certainly have formed an opinion that Giant Pandas are just meant to go extinct, that they are not build for survival and it’s a miracle they are still around. See some proofs here , here and  here . And indeed, their survival was threatened in the past. In this post I want to explore how it came to be why giant Pandas suffer from human misunderstanding and what effect this still has on us and them. Giant Panda - a picture book teddy bear The Giant Panda's magical allure So what is it with Giant Pandas  ( Ailuropoda melanoleuca )?  Why do we cherish them so much? These animals seem to be the unicorn of the animal world, a super model for highlighting conservation programs and marketing, in contrast to other animals. They have tota...

I’ve recently finished this book and need to tell you that it will light up your curiosity about the natural world. In this post I will give a quick review why “ Animal Kingdom - A Natural History in 100 objects ” by Jack Ashby ( link ) might be one of the best books about natural history. Why Animal Kingdom is so enjoyable First off, despite being very informative, Ashby's writing style is super accessible . You won't need to fear that he will throw around terms that make your head scratch, it is written as a popular science book.  And I chuckled a lot, even laughed out loud.   Would you think that many people are interesting in worms? Not so much. Would  you think that a specimen of the penis worm in the Grant Museum of Zoology London would regularly cause interesting looks and comments by the visitors? Sure you would. Did you know that the Echidna displayed in the Grant Museum has its feet mounted in the wrong direction? Echidna back feet point backwards, so that these...

Porcupines are well known, easily identifiable by the massive amount of quills covering their body. Which always and immediately raises the question on how they mate. Well, in short, very carefully. But what about the stages right before that? The first look, the first conversation, the first kiss and bonding on emotional level? Find out! And before you wonder: no, porcupines can not shoot their quills like darts! They fall off or break when predators attack them so they get stuck in their skin. Thanks for asking. The comic - porcupines dating African porcupines form a lifelong bond and can mate several times a year. Because porcupines are equipped with their sharp quills, intercourse is very dangerous. Therefore the female initiates by presenting her back. Gestation period is  around 3 months with a litter of up to four pups, called porcupettes (adorable name, isn’t it?). Because these porcupines are mostly active at night, and although pairs are kept in captivity, scientists and ...

A few weeks ago I signed up for an online drawing session with wildlifedrawing.co.uk . A few times a year I attend these along the in-person ones. They provide a comforting space where you can unwind, draw and learn more about a particular animal. And you will leave more inspired and uplifted after each session. Drawing hairy-nosed otters online This time it was about the hairy-nosed otter, for me a welcome change to the more familiar and better known Eurasian otter or sea otters you hear a lot about. Hairy-nosed otters are home in South East Asia, where they sadly get victimised by poachers and habitat loss. These otters are so rarely sighted that we don’t know a lot about them and they are considered endangered by the IUCN. Instead of a pencil, our instructor Jennie used a brush ink pen, after the work of  Charles Tunnicliffe‘s wood carvings. I haven’t drawn with ink in a long time traditionally too and decided to give it a try. I used Faber Castell technical pens for the most pa...

More than a year as passed since I uploaded issue #1 of my robot comic Woolly Wonderful. Now I am thinking about plotting Issue #2 - I am showing you which methods I use for story telling and what my next steps are.  My original plan was to work the rest of the story out and jump on issue #2 soon after. In summer '24 I drew an illustration of Woolly on a rabbit to try a new page process to simplify and speed up my drawing. The drawing was uploaded in an earlier blog post . In preparation for the plot creation I've read Lisa Cron's book Wired for Story  which is indeed an excellent book and an inspiration when crafting a story. The book itself is a page-turner, high recommendation from me, though I am not affiliated with that link. But not a lot of progress has been made I have to admit. Woolly is shocked about the slow story progress So where are we with the story? If you have not read issue #1, go ahead and read it first, and then come back. You'll find it when you cli...

I am contributing a comic to this year’s anthology of my comic group. Over 60 creators around the UK will contribute to another magnificent book. The theme of the current book is infinity/loop, so comics will cover anything about infinite repetition and variety. We are running a kickstarter to crowd fund the book and there are less than 10 days left. If you are interested into indie comics and want to support us, please consider backing the project. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mike-armstrong/the-new-wip-comics-anthology Thank you, Andi Pasti

Hey, Exciting news!  WIP comics is a community of comic creators around London (and further) who support each other in finishing their comic ideas and finding ways to promote their work or find opportunities to collaborate with writers, artists and publishers. They have been creating an anthology book every year for 7 years now.  I have signed up to contribute a Comic this year. The book is currently in the making and will be sold from November on at the Thought Bubble convention and online. The preliminary cover, subject to change 60 people will contribute comics around the theme infinity. That means loads of different art styles and interpretations of this year’s theme. If you want to support the project, head over to kickstarter, follow the project and back it when it launches. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mike-armstrong/the-new-wip-comics-anthology Thanks for reading, see you soon! Andi Pasti

Have you watched the dinosaur show "Chased by dinosaurs" with Nigel Marven, a TV program from 2002?  It was made in the aftermath of "Walking with dinosaurs", which was a huge success in the realms of paleo-documentaries. This time, instead of being a serious documentary, it uses a time-travel approach. It features the wildlife presenter Nigel Marven running around in real locations in search for dinosaurs. Well, and what is hilarious is, he gets frequently too close to these supposedly dangerous animals. In real life, you wouldn't probably do that. So that's why I had to make a parody (and admittedly I had enough spare time). (Click on the image to view a bigger version) What is even more exciting for me, I met Nigel Marven years later at a Tetzoocon in 2023, report here:  https://tetzoo.com/blog/2023/12/15/tetzoocon-2023-the-report Nigel was nice enough to stay around and talk with people, but there was such a huge queue that I couldn't have been bothe...

A few of my brain cells worked together and came up with a little, funny animal comic about a hunting cheetah (see more posts about animals ). I think as inspiration I can blame the Keeper Chat podcast where I learned about some interesting cheetah facts that are rarely mentioned in documentaries. Enjoy! I have been dreaming a while now about writing about animals and our relationship or misconceptions about them. But who reads blogs nowadays anyway, huh? So I tried to keep short, funny and a bit educational. Maybe, maybe this is the start of a new project. Is there an animal and a behaviour you would like to see in a comic? Fancy another funny comic? Click here . Or have you read my greatest art achievement yet ? Thanks for reading and till next time, Andi Pasti

How is it end of February already? I didn't get to update the final of the Animal Advent Calendar as I became more overwhelmed right before Christmas and needed to stop. On top of that, I got sick for a few weeks in January. Learning to draw animals is challenging For a long time it was my desire to draw animals. But with so many shapes and forms it is an immense undertaking to tackle them all, if not impossible. I bought several books and did numerous live drawings. But with live drawings you might often feel overwhelmed because your animal models don’t hold still how you like it. The easiest indeed were reptiles and by chance sleeping piglets, which I could have done a blog post about (darn). Books present a calmer and self directed way of learning. And I did start off with books and some generic body plan drawings, feet and hands. But it’s not the most fun way. And you need a lot of discipline to get through a book. At which it again feels a bit like work.  Animal research and d...