Spokane ComiCon, Free Comic Day, More Work, Sketchbook!

I'm compiling some entries from my deviantArt page here, so here goes:

Everything is going to plan for the Spokane ComiCon. I have 100 (yes that's right, 100) sketchbooks made up for the event. Here's the cover:




I'm expecting to have a lot of extras, I know I'll be handing them out to friends and family, as well as selling extras here and there. I'll also have Solar Flares 24Hour comic available as well, both in Spanish and English. If anyone wants either book after May 30th, you can email me or post here. I'll let you know the details.

I'm planning on having a couple portfolios of my art on display, some 6"x6" sketches on display to entice people to buy $5.00 small sketches. I'm also thinking of doing a $5.00 deal for a book and a sketch inside the book. I'll also have a mini easel on the table displaying some smaller paintings, and a big easel behind displaying my big pieces. I'll be rotating pieces throughout the day.

I'm also going to sift through my work to see if there are any pages worth making prints of.
I hope to see lots of people, stop by and say hi!


During Free Comic Book Day, our group ran into some issues with references when drawing sketches for the kids. Fortunately we were in a gaming/comic shop, so there were some references to be found. But in light of this, I decided to run out to the store and pic up a 2gb microSD card for my phone. Its soul purpose is to be filled with reference images of super heroes, video game characters, manga, movies, tv, whatever. With this, I can thumb through and have references on demand!

But here's the tricky part, what are some of the most beloved characters that I should put on the card?

If you have the time, give me a top ten of your favorite all time characters. With a decent list, I have a direction for character choices. Thanks!


Lastly, I wanted to share a colored piece I just finished (or think I finished, I'm debating on some minor things):


I'm thinking of maybe turning the mountain lineart into color just to give a depth feeling. I'm also thinking of changing the lineart of the etching on the rock into a darker grey instead of the black lines to make it less prominent. Lastly, thinking of changing some of the detail lineart on the tree into a darker brown for a similar reason as the rock. If you have any opinions, let me know!

Little Red, sleeping away

Here is where I was a few days ago with that tree problem:


and here it is today:


I just printed it(non photo blue) onto bristol board, and I'll be inking within the next couple days. Any thoughts before I hit it with the inks?

Caperucita Roja

So, I think I have a final design for Caperucita Roja here. The coat has changed since last time because a standard serape covers a lot of details on the front of her body. I want to add some thinner lines in her hair, and maybe a pattern in her dress, but I haven't come up with one yet.


This has been pretty difficult to work on lately with Winter Quarter going on, but I have really enjoyed my classes so far. I'm taking Intro To Film and Ethnic & Racial Sociology. In Film, we just finished watching Casablanca. I hadn't really watched the film since I was a kid, so I didn't really know how good of a movie it is. I'd definitely recommend it to everyone, there is a lot of great dialogue, comedic wit, interesting characters, and a fun setting (Casablanca, Morocco).

BTW, tomorrow (Sun Jan 18, 3PM) at Merlyns (19 W Main Ave, Spokane, WA 99201) will be another Comic Artist meetup. Its been really nice to get together with other like minded artists, if you're interested, I hope you can make it!

Caperucita Roja -I think this is it-

If you've been following my blog, I've been working on the character designs for a Little Red Riding Hood comic. FINALLY I think I have come up with the perfect Little Red. I just need to refine it a little bit, and play around with her cloak, and then I think I will have it.


One of my major issues was dealing with that hood... I finally decided to go with a more Link like Cap instead, mainly because the original is called: Le Petit Chaperon Rouge (o en Español, Caperucita Roja) meaning Little Red Cap... Previously with a hood design, it was difficult to attach the hood to the cloak, while still showing her hair and face.

So I'll do a model sheet, showing her at several angles, and moving in certain actions to get her design down. Then I think its time to move onto Abuelita, El Cazador, y El Lobo... ;) I'm very excited for this project!

More comic work, and more

So I'm still working on this Little Red Riding Hood design. I keep looking at other people's works for ideas for children, but I'm still not hitting it on the head the way I'd like to. I want to make a little 12 page comic with this, once I get the character designs down.

So here's another that I did a few days ago:


I like that its cleaner and much more streamlined, but I don't like the face at all, and the hair isn't what I envisioned at all... It seems the more manga direction I go, the more I lose what I was aiming for.

Now she has become too tall, I wanted her to be very young and short, kind of like Lilo from Lilo and Stitch. I want to give her an ethnic appearance, but with the pigtails, it looked more Native American:



Here's the newest attempt:


I shrunk her head down because it looked too big and manga like the previous time. But now it looks too big and her shoulders too wide. I'm also having such a hard time drawing girl hair. I guess I've just never had to pay much attention to pig tails and bows, and all that frilly stuff.

Besides Little Red, I was sick for a couple days. I had a stomach flu, and couldn't do much but watch tv. There was a House marathon, so I watched that. I really enjoy funny asshole characters like House. I don't generally watch the show, or many shows though, because I don't like to get caught up in it and have to watch it weekly. But since I was sick, I just kicked back. After 20 episodes, I noticed medical shows really bite for tv, and how can anyone watch them for very long? Every episode is the same situation: patient in extreme situation comes in, banters with doctors, doctors have inter-work relationships and fight with themselves, patient almost dies, they misdiagnose (generally Ive noticed on House, they think everyone has MS), then they try a surgery for the patient to almost die again, and then they solve it.

I also watched Magnificent Seven again. I think Magnificent Seven and Seven Samurai are the best movies to look at for dealing with a story with multiple main heroes. That movie is so perfect, you could take it to any setting and retell a great story. You could replace Yule Brynner with Aragorn, Steve McQueen with a fast arrow shooting elf, and other characters with various fantasy characters and it would be a great fantasy movie.

Anyway, its a brand new year which is very exciting. There's a lot of stuff happening this year, so I'm pretty happy for that. School starts on the 5th, so I'm going to have to learn how to balance school in the early morning and working in the afternoon and everything else in the evening. It will be a challenging quarter, but I'm glad to be getting more credits out of the way.. I feel like I'm digging myself out of a ditch, I should be able to go to Eastern by next Fall or Winter if I keep up the pace.

Anyway, everyone have a Happy New Year.

More Caperucitas Rojas

Still working on a look for the little hero:



I'm having trouble with the face and hair... Children are difficult to draw.


*update*
I drew a face, and I like it. But I still don't like the hair quite yet..

Caperucita Roja

I'm thinking of doing a short comic of Little Red Riding Hood... Here's some rough illustrations so far:







Its been a while since I've posted any new art, so this is a nice jumpstart.


A second design. I may have to find a happy middle between the two. My idea behind this is a more of a Legend of Zelda: Link To The Past sort of feel in the style of art. Link was sorta squat like Little Red here.