Blessed †'mas!

It's been a while since I did a greeting picture, so I thought I'd do a special one this Christmas featuring the cast of Wen's World. There were a couple of things that I wanted to achieve in this pic, which I'll briefly explain.

First of all, you might find the brushwork and colour choices familiar. Well, I'm a big fan of Bill Watterson's Calvin & Hobbes comic strip (which has since been retired), and sought to emulate his style somewhat. The original sketch was drawn in pencil at A5 size, then scanned and blown up to A4 for inking using a brush pen. Colours were applied in Photoshop. The snowmen are also reminiscent of Calvin's works.

Secondly, I wanted to emphasize that it was not X'mas, but †'mas. There's no Christmas without Christ, so I decided to put the cross the right way up. This is the day we commemorate one of history's most remarkable events - the Incarnation, when God took the form of a human child to become the Saviour of the world. Christ is the only reason we celebrate the season, for without this Gift of God, we would still be walking in darkness.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.

All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

...

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth"

~ 1 John 1:1-4,14 ~

Nothing But the Blood

Most of Wen's World's illustrations can be said to be very cheerful. But once in a while, you may see something like the picture above among our works. In fact, I was told that one of my little nieces saw this picture and started crying non-stop.

When it comes to the Passion of our Lord, we often see images depicting Jesus with a serene face in death, hanging from the cross, or His back bruised with just a few scratches. But while the brutality of the cross may be toned down in many instances so as not to shock the public with too much gore, that very brutality must not be forgotten, for it is exactly that which shows us the cost of our sin to a holy God.

In this illustration which we did for our Names of God calendar, I tried to capture not only the physical suffering of Jesus, but his emotional pain at the scorn of a host of soldiers taking Him for a sport, and the utter callousness of human hearts towards Him who died for us. Yet no picture however well painted can begin to describe His agony in those few hours He spent forsaken by His Father. Therein lay the true price, and Jesus paid it in full as he drank to the dregs the cup of suffering that was meant to be ours.

Shall we tone down the suffering Jesus experienced on the cross? I hope we never do so, lest we forget how much we owe Him and how great a sacrifice He made out of love for us whose sin made the cross necessary.

Without His tears, there is no comfort

Without His death, there is no life

Without His blood, there is no pardon

Without His cross, there is no crown

Without His shame, there is no glory

Without His grief, there is no joy

Without His stripes, there is no healing

Without His cross, there is no crown

Lamb of God, You bring salvation

And with Your grace, our hearts are sealed

Lord, with Your tears of love, You bathed our sorrows

In Your eyes we stand revealed

Without His tears, there is no comfort

Without His death, there is no life

Without His blood, there is no pardon

Without His cross, there is no crown

Without His Cross

By : Joseph M. Martin

Wen's World Shirts (and more) by Zazzle!

Change of Seasons Shirt (single-side, light) by wensworld
See other Hamsters T-Shirts

At long last we have put up our designs on Zazzle, where you can order shirts, mugs, caps, badges, cards, mousepads and more! Even pet clothing for your doggy!

At this point in time we have posted our T-shirts, tote bags and mousepads. More items will be coming soon, so keep posted!

Come visit us at the Wen's World Zazzle shop today!

Mini Cards - The Harvest

We're planning for a range of mini cards now. I remember how I used to collect Pass-It-On® cards and loved to give them to my friends with a handwritten note behind. They were inexpensive and fit nicely into the wallet, and could double up as mini greeting cards as well as gift tags.

Most of the Pass-It-On® cards were friendship or encouragement themed, and were very meaningful. There are many verses in the Bible and quotes by Godly men and women along those lines. As I was designing this card, I wondered if many people would be attracted to the verse on it. After all, it is not really friendship-themed, and it is more for the Christian than the unbeliever. I decided that the design and colour would have to make up for that.

For this card, the verse was chosen after the concept. The inspiration was more an exercise of composition and colour to start with - A thin strip of blue sky at the top contrasting with rich yellow wheat fields at the bottom. Kako provides the point of interest as a farmer with his woven hat and sickle. I later added the clouds to break up the flat blue sky and put in more texture with a wheat brush I created in Photoshop. I originally wanted to include a bundle of wheat in the distance on the left, but in the end felt that it was unnecessary. The vast wheat field contrasted with a single labourer would communicate the message more effectively without the bundle of wheat.

The Fruit of the Spirit

Many years ago I drew a cartoon representation of the fruit of the Spirit as described in Galatians 5:22-23 and printed it on T-shirts for my friends and myself. I don't think I can find the soft copy anymore, but more recently I re-drew the passage using the 2 hamsters Robinson and Kako.

I had different ideas for this. One of those ideas was to do a calendar of the Fruit of the Spirit, and to use different scenes from Bible narratives to illustrate each aspect of the fruit. However we decided not to produce calendars in the end, and chose to do stickers instead.

The challenge was to condense each aspect of the Spirit's fruit into one single illustration. Many Bible concepts are very abstract and challenging to portray visually. How does one illustrate "holiness"? Or "goodness" and "faithfulness" for that matter? After much thought, I finally decided how to illustrate them. Some of the ideas are taken from the original illustration I did many years ago, while others are from Bible passages. Hope you enjoy them :)


P.S. I managed to find the earlier Fruit of the Spirit illustration. Apparently I did do a backup! Here it is:

Evangelistic Namecard

The namecard printers I use offer double-sided colour printing at the same cost as one-sided colour printing. I thought it would be a good idea to utilize the back of the card to share the Gospel, hence this design. It still needs work, but I think you get the idea ;)

That I May Save Some

This comic was done for the International Christian Comics Competition 2 a couple of years ago. I found out about the competition rather late and had to finish it within a week. The theme had to do with evangelism or discipleship, so I decided to do a Gospel comic from the perspective of a street evangelist to 1) encourage those who faithfully go out to share the Gospel on the streets, and 2) to present the Gospel to those who need to hear it.