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!

Warming up

With so many travels these days I barely find time to make nice posts with scanned sketches. This is a warm up piece from today. I never learned how to use watercolor properly even though an old friend gave me some good lessons. Thanks Jenny, I am sorry I did not pay more attention.
So whenever I feel in a dead end, I just know I can go over with other media. In this case I used nupastel. And I gave it a photoshop last touch to clean up.
Hopefully I can go back to posting sketches regularly soon.
Thanks for looking


- Posted by Raul

Some more dirty quick sketches

The dirty refers only to the quality of the photos. I will scan an review both posts
when I get some time.
I wish I could show some of the work I am doing but not just yet...

Thanks for looking!



















- Posted by Raul

Censored sketches from Twitter

This is a provisional Post since Twitter won't let me show any of these sketches. today was my second day working from life at CBA in Madrid. I am having a blast!
Please beware these are drawings depicting nude people.
Do I really need to make this blog for mature readers for this reason?

First 2 min poses working with Pentel brush.














2 min ballpoint pen






2 minutes Nupastel sketches








And some 10 min







Thanks for looking.

- Posted by Raul

After Mexico

The trip to Guadalajara International Book Fair in Mexico was great, we had a lot of fun hanging out with old and new friends alike. Now its time to go back to the studio and bring some movement to the blog with pictures from Guadalajara, some process work and more sketches so don't go too far. It is coming really soon.
This is another image from Cuentos y Leyendas de la geografía española, Ed, Juventud. A really nice present for these Holidays...(Spanish only...)

El viaje a la Feria Internacional del libro de Guadalajara, Mexico ha sido increíble, disfrutamos de la compañía de viejos y nuevos amigos de aquí y allí. Ya es hora de volver al estudio y resucitar el blog con fotos de Guadalajara, bocetos y imágenes del proceso de los últimos libros. Todo esto muy pronto.
La imagen que abre el texto es del libro Cuentos y Leyendas de la geografía española, Ed, Juventud. Es un bonito regalo para estas fiestas...

Wrapping up

This week on Interviú

Interviú is a Spanish magazine with ample views. They always like to see more.
I lllustrated one of the short stories by Lorenzo Silva. A dark piece of genre violence with a twist.
Since it was fiction they gave me a lot of freedom which is always nice. I created the opener spread and three spots.

Ilustraciones para la revista Interviú para el texto de Lorenzo Silva.
Un historia de ficción sobre la voilencia de género con un toque inesperado.
Me dejaron mucha libertad creativa y eso siempre se agradece. Realicé la imagen de apertura a doble página y tres spots.