Feets!

Here are some pages out of my sketchbook. The first one is a study for Carla’s feet, with and without shoes. Feet are weird and fun to draw, they have to ground the character and can be expressive as well. I love drawing shoes as well, the variations and character are very fun and can add quite a lot to the drawing. As with all my characters I am making a style guide that will determine the range of wardrobe the characters wear.

The other page is a variation of lighting styles for Carla. I plan on using a variety of dramatic lighting and colors for my comic to help better tell the story. I want a cinematic feel to my stories, like the reader is watching a scary movie. I have noticed that the new Scooby Doo cartoon does this and it is quite effective (even though the whole color palette is a bit over-saturated for my tastes).

A rose by any other name...

I am still rather giggly on the inside over the BigWow comic convention. There were some huge names there (Adam Hughes, Frank Cho, Humberto Ramos, Terry and Rachel Dodson) and I got some very positive feedback on my art and more importantly my comic idea and business model on how I am going to pitch it to the publishers.

I sat in on a panel for Latinos in comics and while the panel focused on artists talking about what it was like to work in comics as Latinos, it was taken over midway by the question of a lack of representation that Latino comic fans feel in superhero comics. Sergio Aragones (Creator of Groo the Wanderer and Mad Magazine cartoonist) said that the wide diversity of Latinos all over the world makes this difficult, Latinos in Los Angeles have different problems than Latinos in Mexico City and Latinos in Mexico City have different problems in Bolivia, etc... He went on to talk about the importance of good writing versus just pandering to Latino comic fans. The audience seemed a little disheartened at his answer but I thought it was right on the money.

I want my comic to have a broad appeal not because she happens to be Latino or a girl, but because she is an awesome character with compelling and fun stories that people want to read. More importantly, stories that I want to read and make. The idea that there is a huge desire for superheroes that the Latino population can call their own was exciting for me. I would be an idiot to not bring this up when I pitch my comic but marketing towards a demographic is for the ad-wizards, I want to make awesome comics.

Francisco Herrera and Humberto Ramos (the artist for Spider-Man) both seemed to really like my designs and the overall concept of my comic, but I was also encouraged by the number of others that showed great interest from the audience of the panel. One guy said to me “this is exactly what I am looking for”. He had this look of gratitude and excitement on his face and that inspired me more so than anything else I think. This comic has developed a life of it’s own and it feels now that  the story is telling itself.

Anyhow, below is a drawing out of my sketchbook of Carla that I will probably use in some form or another for a cover. I will eventually play around with angles and poses to come up with the most exciting version.

Laziness Pays Off Sometimes...

I went to the BigWow Comic convention this weekend (more on that later) and was basically in need of some business cards, my old cards have outdated info on them so I ended up giving out the small drawing sheets I printed up for Free Comic Book Day and ended up running out! So I decided it’s time for a new business card, I need to get them soon because I will need them for the Latino Comic Expo in June.

While at BigWow, I sat in on Frank Cho’s figure drawing demo as I love his work and it’s always quite amusing. Ivy Doomkitty was the model and was having wardrobe difficulties so she ended up being about a half an hour late. Normally people would complain in that situation, but Frank decided to work on one of his pages for X-men while we waited and we got to watch him draw and ink his pages. His pencils were really rough with not a lot of detail. He explained that it saves a lot of time doing this and that his pencils are just loose guides, so I decided to try it.

For my business card design I did an homage (Artist speak for ripping off) of a classic Tales from the Crypt comic cover by Jack Davis. I drew one of these a while back but I have changed my character designs and coloring technique since then so I started fresh. Below is the pencils which I transferred to Bristol board as well as the inks so you all can see what I started with and what I ended up with. Frank was right that it does save a lot of time.

I will talk more about BigWow in my next entry, check back in a couple of days.

More Colors!

Hey all, it’s me again with another color test for Carla. This time I played around a little with lighting effects, warm background with a cool foreground. I also added Chopper to this drawing (Carla’s favorite machete...hey, a girl has to accessorize...). I gave Chopper a course metal texture as well as some blood splatter in photoshop which I think adds a lot of character to the machete.

Carla Color Test

Here is what Carla looks like when she is powered up. Most hunters are going to be unique patterns, Carla has a rose and thorns theme. I may add some vines with thorns wrapping around her arms but haven't decided yet. All in all I am really happy with the colors. Carla's hair is going to be a neutral black but will be colored as a dark grey (as will blood related Calaveras', it will be a dominant trait). Same with her shirt, it's black but colored as a dark grey, never go full black as it will appear as just a blob in your drawing.

Carla Calaveras

Here is my character design for Carla, the title character and protagonist from my comic that I am making. Carla is a 16 year old monster hunter, she is brave, smart, cool under pressure and sarcastic (all qualities I admire). I want my characters to be well rounded and realistic so I try to avoid pitfalls and stereotypes. Carla is tall and skinny, but I made sure to not just give her twig legs. The legs are in fact long and skinny, but I pay attention to add shape as well.

I love the picture in the corner of Carla crying, I think it adds a lot to her. Something I want to explore is the depiction of crying in my comic and all the range of crying that exists. Crying for loss, crying because you fail, crying because you are happy or relieved, crying because you just can't fucking take it any more, crying because you were rejected and many many more reasons... all of these should look different from each other. So the question you should ask is not "how does my character look like when he/she is crying?" but "what is my character crying ABOUT? and what does that look like?" because it does matter.

P.S. - I would tell you what she is crying about in this particular picture but...spoilers, so no.