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.

THE GIRL IN THE WINDOW

Last month I was hired to do some concept art illustrations for a horror film that a friend of mine is pre-producing. Unfortunately, I had to give up the job due to schedule problems.
This melancholic girl here is one of the very few drawings that got actually finished. It was rejected by the director, by the way, as the character in the script was meant to look younger.

A TARDIS IN BARCELONA

These days I've been sketching some ideas for a Doctor Who illustration, but that's the only one I had time to finish. It shows the TARDIS parked in Plaça Reial, a famous place in Barcelona.
The technique I used was ballpoint pen, then watercolors, then Photoshop.
[The TARDIS is a property of the British Broadcasting Corporation]

THE BRUSH AND THE COMPUTER

Aaaand another portrait. In this case the original inspiration came from actor Peter Capaldi, who was recently chosed as the 12th actor to play the role of Doctor Who.
This illustration was actually an excuse to experiment with a technique that (as long as I can recall) I hadn't used before. I drew the basic lines on my computer, then printed it and colored it with watercolor, then scanned it and finished it with some Photoshop. I had a lot of fun with the process, so I guess I'll be trying it again soon.

LOKI

That's a quick illustration I made to pay nerdy tribute to Tom Hiddleston performance during a Marvel panel at San Diego Comic-Con 2013.
I've been wanting to go to Comic-Con since the day I found out about its existence. Maybe next year. Yeah, maybe.
[Marvel's Loki created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby]

STYLUS

I took me 9 months to update this blog, basically because I haven't had time to draw. Some weeks ago, though, I got one of those stylus for the tablet and started practicing some sketching in my iPad. These two drawings here are an example of what I have been trying.

The two of them were done from start to finis with my iPad, using Adobe Ideas. 

Hope this summer I'll have some free time to continue messing with the stylus. 

ME

It's been three years since I made this self-portrait, so I decide to try another one. I actually began drawing when I still had long hair, which I cut away some weeks ago.

SCALPED TWO

Last weeks I've been doing some boring work in front of the computer, waiting to capture, convert or compress video files before editing them. Sometimes, when I have to waste my time with that kind of stuff, I use it to work on some of the dozen of unfinished illustrations I have in my "to do" folder.
I chose two SCALPED characters this time: Dashiell Bad Horse and Lincoln Red Crow. The two main characters of the book.



I enjoy drawing Dashiell, not only because he's a very charismatic character, but also because you can easily imagine him carrying a gun, and as someone who was a teen when Image Comics and the first Tarantino movies came out, I have so much fun drawing guys with guns.
But if there's a character in SCALPED that beats Dashiell, that has to be Lincoln Red Crow. I have wanted to try another Red Crow close-up (with a different approach and a different technique) since I made this one about two years ago. It is difficult to render the many marks the past has left on his face the way Guéra does, but I like to try.



This summer the 60th and final issue of SCALPED will be out, setting the end of one of the best collections in the history of American comics. Let these illustrations serve as my very humble tribute to the great job Jason Aaron and R. M. Guéra have been doing for the last five years.
[Scalped, Dashiell Bad Horse and Lincoln Red Crow created by Jason Aaron and R. M. Guéra]

TIGER ROBOT

These days I've been recovering old drawings from forgotten folders I had at home. This one here, for instace, is a recently remade version of a tiger robot I drew back in 1993, when I was still a student at Joso Comics School. I added the background, but the tiger looks pretty much the same as it did 18 years ago.
I designed this robot as part of a sience-fiction universe I've been building since I was a kid. I guess that's something we sci-fi/fantasy fans all like to do, creating our own fictional world.