ANGER

I'll always have a soft spot for comic book style art.

I saw a Movie...

I remember the first thing I did after coming from the theater when I saw a movie I liked was to grab paper and pen and draw whatever I could remember from that movie.

Later, while growing up, I found this new thing called MTV and one of the first video clips I saw was Ray Parker Jr.'s "Ghostbusters". That video looked a lot like the collages of movie images I drew ever since I remembered how to smudge pencil and inks on my dad's typewriter machine bond paper. This year I saw for the first time in ages a music clip related to an upcoming movie : Suicide Squad. Seeing that made me wonder why people think that good ideas are meant to be abandoned over time. Thanks  to that videoclip my anticipation for that movie grew, I wanted to see it, I needed to. And when I finally did I was as excited as I was when I saw GHOSTBUSTERS back in 1984. I'm not saying that this movie was as good but for someone to feel at least remotely like that 32 years later that says a lot of the impact of combining art forms and media on different platforms. I even drew something when I came back from the theater again. Wanna see it? It's Harley Quinn. 

Ministry of Silly Walks. A Monty Python Tribute.

When you join an Art Challenge initiative you never know what would happen. Specially when topics are choose at random by picking a piece of paper from a sorting hat. So when this Friday's theme was "Monty Python" I found myself with the task of creating something that otherwise I would never try on my own and you know what? I'm glad for it. The result was this piece I made in a relatively short time and without any sort of pressure. Turns out this is my favorite cartoon work in a while.

Dark Shadows

Dark Shadows

Cooling down things

After all has been said about the infamous Milo Manara  SPIDER_WOMAN # 1 Cover I think is time to cool things down with, of all things, a noble and altruistic Icebucket challenge. A bit titillating perhaps but maybe it is meant to leave things behind.

CACTUS

Do you remember that commercial where a Living Cactus only wanted to fit in? Before all that awesome CGI and a really really good actor who actually performed every scene, it all started with a sketch.

PROFILE ICONS

Profile Icons are the best excuse to have your face turned into a vintage Clip Art cartoon. Not everyone needs this but some personalities are definitely meant to have one of these.

MICHONNE

I must admit that AMC's THE WALKING DEAD is currently my favorite TV show and that's why the "Michonne" character was the pefect excuse to make this Tablet drawing practice.
I wasn't aiming for realism since I had no photo reference o the actress who plays her but this is the result.

BAMF

Nightcrawler from X-men.
This is what happens when you re-visit those old doodle files that are out of sight and therefore out of mind. Lose sketches can become very enjoyable pieces with just a second look.

Done entirely on Photoshop.

Nightcrawler & X-Men ®  MARVEL Comics Group.

Pooch

Searching through old files I found this forgotten character design I made some time ago. This is just one of three options I made and what I like most about this is how the puppy manages to look kind of adorable without being "cute".  It went unused but frankly, by looking at it I really don't understand why.

LIFE ON MARS?

David Bowie's LIFE ON MARS look. I know it is just a variant of my Ziggy Stardust piece but I just couldn't help it. That song was playing on my head over and over and over. Besides I love his creepy Glam-Joker character on that performance.

Ziggy Played Guitar

Another sketch to warm up the hand.

Dragging My Pen Around

A quick one. Any good musician knows who this storyteller is. :)

Cajun

Most of the time, when artists think of digital art they think that the "organic" feel of a sketch made by hand is out of the question. I don't think so. Technology has evolved a lot since the early days of computer-aided comic art (trust me, I know) and today yo can do sketches using the computer just as if you had paper, ink and all of the color markers in the world. The only thing you'll miss is the smell of them.

Here's everyone's second favorite mutant. Gambit.

Old Bat Sketch

Back in the day Batman wasn't the fashionista he is now. So when he had to change threads it meant that he knew he was way over his head and had to even the odds against the (usually alien) threat.
When Frank Miller designed his utilitarian armor to fight Superman -Ooops. Spoiler!- on 'The Dark Knight Returns' I was amazed at how effectively he conveyed the notion of a powerful suit of armor with minimal design. There was not even time to throw a Bat symbol on the chest.

I analyzed that design by sketching the suit myself in this old loose doodle I made years ago. Unlike all the Rainbow variations toy companies put out every month, The TDKR armor is a true modern classic.

Master of The Universe

I loved He-Man.
And way back in the day (1982 to be precise) my dad came home from a business trip to Puesto Rico with a gift for me. It was a Masters Of the Universe 'He-Man & Battle Cat' box set. By that time I thought that Star Wars figures were as good as action figures could get but this blond barbarian with MASSIVE muscles and brutal weapons  and Frazetta-like artwork on the box blew my mind! The fact that his ride was a gigantic green tiger in armor only confirmed that this was a bad-ass hero.

I did not know the back story of any of those characters on the back of the box but they did spar my imagination so I did the only logical thing an awe-struck 9-year-old could  do: I started creating my own fan comic based on them.
I later incorporated some elements I knew about them based on the earliest mini-comics some of my friends showed me when the toy line became less rare but my stories had nothing to do with the cartoons (which I hated with all my heart) and I will always remember He-Man as a savage hero. Not as a purple tights wearing prince.

Undead Horde.

This zombie horde was a "viral' drawing that started up a single zombie sketch and spread to the whole page.
I decided to give it a holiday color hue right in time for Halloween to use it as my Facebook head image (years from now this will sound so retro!) so here it is.

FACES

To design a character you have to know it from every angle and also you need to know what kind of facial expressions it is capable of. Most of the time a character can not emote very wall due to it's design but when you have the chance to make it as lively and expressive as you can, by all means go for it!!

Here: A face study for a character who's job is to appeal both young and grown-ups alike.

SCREAM

a series of illustrations made for the launch campaign of SCREAM LAND. A local amusement park that I have yet to visit. Seeing these on billboards and with those huge dots make me go "Oh, yeah!".

I actually liked how these turned out.

COMIC works