Face to face

In between laying out the roughs for the next projects I felt like practicing drawing from movies like in the old days. Its a great way to get a better idea of expressions, likenesses and lighting. Faces are mysterious to me, how two people can look alike just by sharing the same way of smiling or some other subtlety.


He hecho un descanso en la planificación de los próximos proyectos y me he puesto a dibujar congelando la imagen de una película como hacia en los viejos tiempos. Es una buena manera de entender las expresiones, los parecidos y las luces. El rostro es un misterio que me atrapa, como dos personas pueden parecerse simplemente por la manera en que sonrien o algún otro gesto sutil.

Keeping traditions asleep/ Mantener las tradiciones dormidas

err, I meant alive. Sunday sketch of my father while on his nap. A tradition I never adopted due to my lack of sleeping patterns but that works well for many.
Enjoy Sunday rest!

Si, claro, los que entendeís castellano sabeís que hago traducciones libres de lo que escribo en Inglés. Estoy seguro de que no me lo tendreís muy en cuenta, pero después de un largo período de negligencia por mi parte por mantener una presencia en mi idioma en la red he decidido que el instituto Cervantes no me mandé al infierno de los españoles renegados...
Disfrutad del domingo!

skkkketching

I went out to sketch with Tesi today and did a couple of drawings I like in this spot of town that I really like. I guess I am not the only one since the local kids gather around to break dance there lately. I don't mean kids for nothing, there was a two year old fascinated by them, he got real closed followed by his dad and he started replicating their moves. The kids were pretty nice and danced just for the little boy. It was quite a scene and it made us all smile.

Esta tarde estuve dibujando con Tesi en el Pasaje Gutierrez, uno de mis sitios preferidos de Valladolid. Y no soy el único al que le gusta, últimamente se acercan muchos chavales a practicar break dance. Lo mejor de todo ha sido cuando un niño de dos años seguido de su padre se ha puesto en primera línea a observar fascinado todos los movimientos y poco a poco se ha puesto a imitarlos. A los chavales les ha hecho gracia y ha bailado sólo para el niño. Ellos hacía un paso y el niño replicaba. Creo que la escena nos ha hecho reir a todos.

The Wrestler

I have recently worked with Christine Bower-Wright on this really fun project, The Wrestler for Hemispheres magazine. The article written by Kevin Gray deals with the current scandals overshadowing sumo wrestling and turning to an unlikely savior, Baruto, a big genial Estonian to restore this 2,000 year-old sport to glory.

One of the things I loved about this project is that I got to develop a couple of comic strips for it. Considering my love for comics as a kid played a big part in my decision to become an illustrator approaching the sequential art has always been a blast for me.

We wanted a simple image for the opener that referenced poster art could strike the viewer. Sumo wrestlers are massive so playing with the scale was a natural approach. We had to take into account as well Baruto's personality and actually portray him accurately. So in the end a big close up hit all the spots.

I suggested some designs to make the opener illustration go over the whole spread and played a bit with the type.

Note how amazing the art directors I work with are that they allow me to do these simple sketches, that is nothing else but a great ability on their part to see further from a loose drawing. And I do love them very much for that.

There were originally two comic strips but we only ended using the first one. Here is the process for both and the end result for the first one. I moved the fight scene from the second strip to the first one once it got killed.

Thanks for checking!