A COUPLE OF PORTRAITS

Even when I have almost zero free time, in the last months I've managed to finish a couple of portraits, just for the sake of practicing a little and not letting my drawing skills (whatever they may be) die. I still have tons of unfinished sketches waiting to be scanned, though.
The guy portrayed in the first illustration is artist R. M. Guèra. The woman portrayed in the second one should be singer-composer Tori Amos, but I'm not sure I managed to capture her naïve, fairy-like beauty.

LEONARDO

Unlike many people my age, I wasn't a big fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon back in the late 80s and early 90s. However, having recently watched a lot of episodes of the 2012 reboot, Leonardo has become my favorite character. He's the Cyclops of the team (if you can get my X-Men reference) and he's also a Star Trek fan. Well, kind of.
I used pencil to draw this, then painted it with watercolor, then put a little bit of Photoshop on it. By enlarging the picture you'll see the watercolor texture better.
[Leonardo created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird]

THE BEARD AND THE FURIOUS

A lot of times I try a new drawing technique, but after layers and layers and layers, and even more layers yet, I end up with a result that looks very similar to previous illustrations.
This time I used a photo of internet pal (and awesome podcaster) Robin Harman to draw this mad guy here.
Also, I made an animated GIF (click to enlarge, as always) with some steps of the process. Enjoy.

MATT THE DEER

I made this illustration last month, when teaching a brief Drawing with Photoshop course.
I kept calling the deer Matt, as I used a photo of actor Matt Smith as reference.

CAPTAIN FALCON

I'm really enjoying Rick Remender's work on Captain America, so as soon I knew the Falcon was becoming the new Cap, I thought I could draw an illustration about that. I did it just for the fun of trying some different coloring techniques, although I always end up with kind of the same result.
I also made an animated gif (click to enlarge) showing five steps of the whole process. As you can see here, during the coloring/texturing step I made some changes to the original wings, which I didn't quite like.

There is a fun fact related to this illustration: three of the seven people who saw it before I posted it here, first misread the text as "Captain Africa", and asked me if I had done it on purpose. Which I didn't, by the way. Weird.
[Captain America, created by Joe Simon and Jack Kriby, is a property of Marvel Comics]

HIPSTER GLASSES

A pretty quick self-portrait I did last night. The third one I post in this blog, I think.
Also: hipster glasses are cool, and that's a fact.

USAGI YOJIMBO

Another tribute to another comic I like: Usagi Yojimbo, by the great Stan Sakai.

My love for samurai stories comes, mainly, from Akira Kurosawa films, so that's why I decided to use actor Toshiro Mifune (who stars in many of Kurosawa's films) as the model for Usagi's body.

[Usagi Yojimbo created by Stan Sakai]

PRINCES OF THE UNIVERSE

I'm gonna continue posting tributes to some characters or comics I like. This time it had to be Saga, the awesome sci-fi epic written by Brian K. Vaughan with art by Fiona Staples. I love this book so much.
This fake cover was made with a combination of pencil and Photoshop. I used photo-reference for the robot and his horse, although we'd better call it painting-reference. I love Velázquez' work, and have always wanted to do something inspired in this portrait of Count-Duke of Olivares, so here it is.
Oh, and yes, I was listening to Queen when drawing this.
[Saga and all its characters are copyright by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples]

RENEGADES

In 2009 Mariano de la Torre published "Renegades: En los Albores de la Tempestad", a space-opera comic that he created, wrote and illustrated himself. Since I read it, I've been wanting to try drawing some of the characters in the book.
Last night I couldn't sleep, so I decided to embrace insomnia, go to Photoshop and make this illustration of Agnam, a cat-person priest. I guess it was the obvious choice, given my love for anthropomorphic felines.
I know Mariano has had the intention to reprise his Renegades characters since the first volume came out. I hope we can soon enjoy another story in this universe.
[Agnam and the Renegades are a creation and a property of Mariano de la Torre]

SOME CHARACTERS

Those are some characters I designed for a very old, never released comic project. I drew them back in 2000, and just found them in a drawer some days ago and thought about scanning and coloring them in Photoshop.
If I had a dollar for every project I've started but never finished, I could buy my own publishing company. Or, at least, get me a nice dinner.