CTN Burbank 2001!

One more year Tina Price and her team have put together another fantastic CTN long animation weekend (Nov 18-20) for all of us to enjoy. The list of talent that will show up for the event is incredible and I will be fortunate to share some of this time on Saturday Nov 19th at noon (from 12-1 pm) on a one hour signing session of my book 'Framed Ink', where we can also have time to chat in this great location (see link for more details on the whole weekend).
Hope to see you guys there!

Kings and Vikings

These are from some older projects I worked on while back in Spain, in the early 2000's.
The first piece comes from a feature show directed by my friend Antonio Navarro called 'The Three Wise Men', in which I got credited as art director. This is one of the early inspirational illustrations I did for it.
The other two are from 'Asterix And The Vikings', also lots of fun to work in with the great crew from A-Film in Denmark. Some of you will notice I already posted some pieces from this show in the past.
I hope everyone is doing great.

Moonshine on Vimeo

Alexis Wanneroy and Christophe Lautrette recently put together a video with interviews with some of the artists from Dreamworks who participated in the making of 'Moonshine', a publication with some of their (our) personal artwork.
The project was originally put together by Christophe and Pierre Olivier Vincent a few years ago and finally saw the light about a year ago now.
Enjoy the video!

Burrufu

Check it out, my friend (and great storyteller) Alberto Corral has just put a new children's book out there called "My Monster Burrufu". The story is his and the illustrations are Alessandra Sorrentino's. Fantastic duo!
Here is the link to the book in Amazon.

ComiCon aftermath, and sketch

Busy busy lately, but still here is a sketch I recently did, at least to keep the blog breathing!
ComiCon went great, both DSP and LAAFA booths busy and exciting.
I met Jim Steranko and Bill Sienkiewicz, couldn't ask for more after shaking hands that have produced such fantastic and inspirational artwork for so long!

ComiCon San Diego 2011

Hi everyone,
I'll be at San Diego ComiCon this year on Saturday 23rd, first at the LAAFA booth between 11:00 and 11:30 am for a demo and Q&A, and right after that (between 12:00 and 2:00 pm) at Design Studio Press' stand (Booth 1701, inside door marked B2) signing copies of 'Framed Ink'.
I hope to see you all soon!

'Framed Ink' lecture at LAAFA

Hi everyone, this really is a long notice, I will be giving a lecture on composition for visual storytellers based on my book at the Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art (LAAFA).
It's a great place where I have taught composition classes before, so I hope I'll be seeing you there on December 1st.

Night Creatures

The main characters and one location panel from 'Sunset on Hollywood'.
I keep reposting these from very time to time, but they bring me back good memories, and I have no time to do new stuff lately!

The Aviator

And she's all ready to go, high up in the sky.
It actually is an oldie, from 2003, portfolio piece back at that time.

Somewhere

Somewhere in a castilian-italian landscape, I figure if such blend existed it could look something like that.
Happy spring break everyone.

This time...

...I got inspiration from pictures of some people in the news, and then took it from there.
Thanks to everyone who attended the lecture at Pasadena Art Center! such a great place to be at.

"Ok, here is the idea..."

"...These are the tickets to Greece. Once there we go to the beach, any beach...and then, we do the 'CD cover thing', you know, beauty on the front, creative muscle in the middle, and then the percussionist at the very background, looking really absent, like he's so cool he don't need all that".
Anyway, an homage to these nearly extinct CD's. I'm finding it difficult to replace my old (and finally broken down) CD player these days. Not so long ago the choices when it came to this were practically endless, now you are lucky if you find two different models on a sorry shelve at the very en of the store... (no somos nadie, indeed).

Swords, ink and other things

Basically what the title says.
On another note, it looks like we are heading for some seriously nice weather around here, at least for the rest of the week.
Enjoy!

Lecture and book signing at Art Center (Pasadena)

On April 5th, between 1-2 pm. I'll be at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena for a -lecture and "Framed Ink" book signing- event. So if you would like to attend and have the chance to do so you can also let them know at Design Studio Press's Facebook page.
I hope to see you soon!

Venice (+Update)

In these days when following the daily news is upsetting and dramatic, and while just hoping all the best for this planet of ours and all species on it, here come two sketches. One of them after one of my visits to Venice, Italy, a number of years ago.
I hope everyone is fine.
---
UPDATE: I have just seen online the 'give2asia blog', in which anyone can make a donation that will go a very long way. Please take a moment to visit the site.

Pub Life

'Hanging around the pub in the afternoon'. Inspired by the Agatha Christie novels I used to read (one after the other) when I discovered them through a friend in my early high school days. By the way, if you haven't seen all the cover art Tom Adams did for them along the 60's and 70's you should take a look. They were oneiric images based on actual elements that appeared in (or somehow were related to) the story. Enough to insinuate what was going on but never giving you enough so that you would have an actual idea of how all those elements would relate within the story.
Good rest of the weekend everyone.

"No place like home"

Here is an image that came to my head this morning thinking of my home town. It is not a particular street, alley or corner, but it certainly feels like it could be any one of them in what is called 'casc antic', or 'old town'.
Most buildings there are from the 1700's 1800's, and were mostly inspired and designed by italian architects of the time. In fact, walking around these streets one can see the resemblance with certain secluded areas of cities like Venice.

Sittin' on the dock of the bay...

And I wander ...doing what?. Looks like shady stuff to me.
The rest are a little bunch of people making funny faces.
Happy Wednesday everyone

Even gunmen need a haircut...

...From time to time, just like this fellow here.
Then again, one more drawing on shooting guns. I hope this phase it's not going to go on for too long, although it's being fun in the meantime.

Guns, and No Roses

Here comes one of people mostly shooting guns around ...nothing like that to start off a weekend!
In fact things got already very interesting Thursday night. Jason Scheier invited me to give a lecture on composition for his pupils at Art Center in Pasadena. It was fantastic to interact with his team of highly motivated young talent, I certainly did have a great time as well as the opportunity to answer some very interesting questions related to the theme!

2006, and looking for a face

Before I went ahead with my online 'Hollywood on Sunset' I was looking for a face for my main character. At the end she didn't look like any of these here, but at least they got me started on the path I was looking for.

Long time no see...

...Indeed, Busy, busy lately but here we go again.
Talking about "long time no see", here are a few images of Culver City, where I lived for a few years while working at Sony Animation. These are part of our lunch break sketch routine, we did a lot of that and it certainly was a way to practice and to get to know the area better while paying attention to every detail.
The one with the red canvas in a place called 'Santa Maria Bbq' or something like that, one of our favorite places at the time seen here from another restaurant across the street. The 'fire house' of the city (in white), and finally (in red brown) a location I believe they recently reconverted into 'something', location that at some point in the 80's was used as a stage for some scenes of the original 'Tron' (the video game arcade I believe).
'Talk soon.

Preliminary ideas

So this are some drawings and sketches I did before the one featured in my last post. I guess I should have posted them 'before' last then. Anyway, ...here they come nevertheless.

Going 1700's

Sometimes I wish I had the ability to go back to prior historical periods and see first hand what they -felt- like. In my many years of working as an illustrator and graphic novel artist I had (enjoyed immensely, actually) to dive into reference sources so that I could visualize as accurately as possible how other moments in our history looked like. But that's never enough, it's not only about the visuals but also about being as close as possible to how everything worked, what sort of logistical and circumstantial issues did our ancestors run into not only in their exceptional moments but daily, how things smelled (well, this one might not have been in the top of my list), at what pace things happened, how science, religion, etc influenced the way they lived. All these would have affected how they moved (literally) around regularly.
Anyhow, more on the 'fantasy' side now, here are these two fierce fighters getting down to business and trying to clarify, whatever it is they need to clarify, for good.
Great weekend everyone.

Face Off

As it happens from time to time (as you also see from time to time in this blog) I feel the sudden need to fill up a page with characters' faces. I guess there is a therapeutic side to it.
I hope all is going fine with everyone.

Voices from the past

So welcome 2011.
And while looking forward to the future, here are some images evocative of other past times. The first three are out of a design job I did in 2004 for 'Ghost' Studios in Denmark, one general view of a ghostly hall and two magnified details. The other one, a 'two character' quick inspirational sketch for 'El Pacifico'.
All the best for this New Year!