Top Secret Activities— REVEALED!! Part 2

Our second big secret was our gift to Eli.

Not much music is exported from Norway EXCEPT Death Metal.

Norway, with its grassy mountains, glittering fjords, and fuzzy adorable sheep is home to a surprising amount of death metal bands. These bands combine dark lyrics and heavy metal thrashing with naturally rosy cheeks and Moms who cheerfully make potato dumplings on Thursdays. They occasionally burn down churches. The musicians, not the cheerful Moms.

Eli, who loves Death Metal, proudly proclaimed Knut a Death Metal Norwegian despite Knut’s record collection leaning heavily towards Bananarama and Howard Jones. When we told him Magnus was a family name and we had thought of naming a son “Magnus Graabein” (“graabein” is an old word for “wolf”), Eli decided Magnus would be a death metal prodigy and he would be Magnus’s manager and godfather.

Fine with us!

So for Eli’s birthday Knut and I conspired to make him a t-shirt for Magnus’s fake band, MidgardsOrm. The Midgardsorm is the Norse mythological serpent that swallows its own tail and it encircles the world.

Knut began by taking cell phone photos of himself in the position in which he wanted Magnus. Then, using those as a reference, he drew the center image in pencil. After the pencil sketch was done, he went over it in ink and erased the pencil. Knut chose to draw him in a skinny goth teenager style and included the broken string guitar and Odin’s pet ravens. Interestingly, Magnus quite resembles him.

Then I scanned the drawing and added the text. The serpent that makes the “o” is itself is taken from an old Viking manuscript. We chose to have that be the only color and for Magnus to be in front of his own name and behind the band’s name. I added drop shadows to the text, and the little “Eli Martinez Productions” blurb at the bottom. That little bit is white on black because the whole image was printed on a black t-shirt and that little line of text needed to be subtle.

Pictures of the shirt itself are soon to come!