A few months back, I hit a bit of a creative drought and was looking for new things to draw. In my Google image searching and Pinterest browsing, I stumbled upon a photo of Amsterdam and thought, "well, obviously." I did some more "research" (meaning I stared at pictures online for extended periods of time) and created a few sketches of fictional Amsterdam blocks with anthropomorphized animals all over the place. Many of those animals were pigs and so that sketch took on the name "Hamsterdam."

Fast forward a couple months when I'm showing the sketch to a friend and he says, "My brother loves illustrations, comics and cartoons and he lived in Amsterdam for a few years. Can I commission you to draw his building and his block like that?"

After I said "Of course!" said friend provided two things.

1) A Google streetview of the block:

2) A list of demands which included but was not limited to: The Muppets' Lew Zealand throwing fish, a pig in a squirrel suit riding a bicycle, the Hamburglar, select friends, a T-rex carrying a rolling bag into John(his brother)'s building, a pig napping in a top floor hammock (John's apartment), two friends (initialed AY and RG) smoking outside a local bar, and lots of bicycles and blazers, etc. etc. You know, the obvious stuff.

SO... the final product was just delivered to John as an early Christmas present. And while I finished this on November 2, I've been waiting to post this write-up. I'm not an incredibly patient person, so I'm really excited to finally be able to share this all.

Here's the process shown through time-lapse video, followed by the finished product and some detail images. Enjoy!