My church is running alpha course soon and thought I would think of a cartoon related to getting people to join Alpha :)

Ephesians 1:15-23 really had me struggling to think of a suitable cartoon.. I kind of got the message that it is about thanksgiving and prayer, and drew this cartoon on giving thanks for the food!

Ephesians 1: 15-16 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.”

Ephesians 1:9 “And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment - to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.”

Ephesians 1:13 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,..”

Published in Shanghai Community Fellowship’s 24 August 2008 bulletin

Ephesians 1:4 “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight”

Published in Shanghai Community Fellowship’s 17 August 2008 bulletin

It just so happened (does anything just happen?) that a sister in Christ who is on mission trip overseas requested that I buy some sermon CDs from Singapore. And guess what? I bought a series of sermons on Ephesians! Little did I know when buying them, that I would be listening to them, learning from the sermon CDs and drawing inspiration for my cartoons!

Now, pray for me that I can keep up the listening, keep up the drawing and that I can meet the weekly deadline for the cartoon to be published! Praise the Lord!

No new Adobe Illustrator tools used for this one but it is difficult to make the facial hair realistic. I have used the wrinkle tool for the moustache and beard and stylised brush for the eyebrows.

The hair took a long time, not perfect but tried my best using overlapping shapes (different parts of the hair) and gradient, lasso the points and eyedrop the neighboring color to make it look more natural.

So, I suggest that you post a comment on any of the cartoon portrait related blog posts requesting for one just in case your email went into spam and I missed it. So far, to everyone that requested, I have replied so you don’t have to comment here.

Also, quite a number of people are wondering why I’m doing this as it takes about 4 hours to get one done. I’m doing this in the spirit of giving and for a link crediting CluelessClay for it. :)

Remembered what Jesus said, ”it’s better to give than to receive.” Acts 20:35

There is this guy, he finds the life he wanted on the blue path.. but after a while, it starts to spiral and he decided to take another path.. but this one soon turns into a big question mark.. life seems exasperating for him!

But human beings are limited.. and sometimes when I encounter such moments of exasperation, I like to think that all these curvy detours that we take are actually all part of fulfilling God’s purpose for us.

Isaiah 55:9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Illustrator tool used.. dash stroke and copy the blue path on the lower map, changed to orange color, delete some points and place over the original blue path!