DROGO!

Just became addicted to Game of Thrones!!!

Villain

Currently working hard on developing a comic. You might be seeing a whole lot more of the development work here.

THE AVENGERS MAX-Captain America

In a world were civil war tore America into a thousand pieces, the symbol of that nation finds himself broken and twisted. This is a captain no more, he now represents a reality of tyranny and despair, and revels in it...with a smile.



Another Mash up with friend Jorge Lacera, meet the Avengers MAX!!!

GAMBIT-90's stylin'

A quick challenge with art brother Jorge Lacera, 90's style Gambit. Had fun with the inks on this one. I always felt that gambit was a natural asshole and loved his relationship of mistrust with Wolverine in the 90's comics. They should revamp Gambit and bring him back with a cool story. Hope you guys like it.

SHARKBOXER all pages

These are all the pages I inked for the short graphic story by my friend and colleague, Joe Karg. I learned a lot through this whole process and I really think I grew as an inker, Hope you guys like!
To check out the amazing colors of this pages check out Paper Dog Studios!!!

Here's a look at one of my favorite pages in full color by Chris Bivins

HellBlazer

A quick self-promotion image, Hellblazer, also known as John Constantine. Enjoy.

Astonishing Assholes-Beast, Cyclops

-The Astonishing Assholes is a reinvention of the X-men. Young, jaded assholes that have no purpose but to listen to loud music and smash a few heads. They smoke, drink and fuck. Everything your normal teenager does. Enjoy!-



Cyclops is a particularly nasty asshole, the kind with no real remorse. He has no problem disintegrating your bones if you happen to speak to him after a particularly indulgent binge of booze and cocaine. Deep down inside, he's just an insecure little prick like everyone else. Enjoy!



Beast is pissed off at the world. I mean who wouldn't be if they had his ugly mug. He loves punk rock and getting into bar fights. He also has quite the sweet tooth for the opposite sex, doing whatever he can to get his.


Check out Jorge Lacera's and Gavin Goulden's take on these assholes.

Cowboy Concept

I've been playing a lot of Red Dead Redemption lately and not drawing enough. This is my way of making up for it. haha. Super quick character study of a badass cowboy. Very Red Dead inspired I know, The game makes me wish I lived in the wild west sometimes ha! Hope you guys dig!

The Incomparable Sharkboxer

So out of the blue this guy, Joe Karg, hit me up on my blog for some freelance work. This is the first piece I did for him, a pin-up for his upcoming graphic novel, The Incomparable Sharkboxer. I gotta say he had some great ideas for these pin-ups, strange but that's what made them so great. For this piece up top I drew every girl individually then inked them and finally composed them so I could have some versatility with the design.



As I kept on doing these I kept on trying to push the inks. At some points pushing some of these made me extremely uncomfortable but then I thought that was a great thing. I really believe I evolved with my inks while doing these. Hope you guys dig.



This was a hilarious concept, I gotta give it up to Joe, he was never shy at pushing the conventional concepts of pin-up art.



This piece was another one where I had a blast drawing a bunch of individual bees and then finding a way to fit them in the composition. I personally think they all look crazy and like I said the all make me uncomfortable, but I really think in the end the color will separate everything really nicely.



These are the first two pages that I inked for him for the actual graphic novel. Check out the inks here they look KILLER!!!



One last note, I broke down and joined twitter. I've actually become pretty fond of it lately and figured why fight it. My screename is CVillagra99 so please click the follow button if you'd like. I will be posting about art and updates and all things illustration.

Buzz

Another challenge with buddies Jorge Lacera and Chad King. This theme was picking a Pixar character and giving them a badass weapon while reimagining them. I picked Buzz Lightyear and decided to make this space ranger a knight ranger. Hope you guys dig!





Detail of Buzz's face. It's crazy loose and but I did spend like 8 hours on the upper lip. Thought I'd share, hope you like!

Recent Sketchbook Page

I know I haven't been posting much here lately, I plan to correct that. Been to busy with projects, I can't wait to show you guys once they are done! For now you will have to settle for this crappy sketchbook page ha!

BTW The Hub premiered 10.10.10. The Hub is a brand new kids network, formerly known as Discovery Kids.

American Greetings has three shows on, Strawberry Shortcake, Twisted Whiskers, and Maryoku Yummy!!!

I worked on all the properties in some way, will post art soon!
The Hub looks great so far, I'm excited for the possibilities.

TRON

This was another quick challenge with my art brothers Jorge Lacera and Jim Groman.
I might screen print a few of these, let me know if you guys would want one. Working with the type was fun. The movie looks great, can't wait!

Also I want to try something new, I want to open up the floor to my visitors. I want you guys to suggest the next theme for us to work on. The person's idea I pick will get their choice of original inks for the kick-ass piece or the original inks for this Tron piece. Hopefully you guys out there read this haha!

Upcoming art show preview ~SOLDIERS ON BIKES~

So my friend and Art Director Anthony Davila invited me recently to take part in a local art show here in Cleveland. The show will be held at a bicycle shop and the theme has to loosely include bikes. I was really struggling for a while in deciding what to do for this show, one of the draw backs of not having ONE style to just fall back on, this part of the process is always the toughest. Luckily I've been sketching in my sketchbook a ton lately and from those sketches SOLDIERS ON BIKES emerged, haha random i know! I did a test piece to see if it was going to work and i dig the result a lot and I hope you guys do too. I will actually do this traditionally with painting and collage elements. Im excited and nervous at the same time so wish me luck. Drop a line if you guys dig this.

Thor Painting

So I'm back to the easel again . This time I am painting Thor the god of thunder. I will again do a process post and describe each step for you guys that enjoyed it last time. This is my very rough drawing and underpainting. I try to be as lose as possible to create gestural strokes and define masses with little limitation of details. This serves as almost a map for me to go from and then really define shapes and masses. I will now let this dry completely and go from there. I will let this piece develop very organically and take it one step at a time. I have no clue as to how much of a finished look this will have but I'm hoping once i reach that state i will just know. Hope you dig this first part and I will post the next session soon, I hope.

Experiments with Memories ~ "Taken"

~Taken~

I am currently working on a series of paintings entitled Experiments with Memories.

The work mostly deals with my attempt at recalling my childhood memories with no help from physical references like photographs and such. My childhood was unique by most standards and i feel like a lot of thoughts formed inside my head that were fictional but felt real at the moment. I will elaborate on my thoughts on this theme on later posts. For now please enjoy my sketch for this piece entitled "taken".

I am thinking on posting the process for this piece but I am still debating it.
The work will be done in oils for a future gallery show.
Any thoughts are appreciated.

Much love!

MADBALLS!!

We here at American Greetings Properties recently had a gallery show showcasing the relaunch of MADBALLS. Some of you guys probably remember these gross yet awesome foam balls that were o popular int the 80's. There is exciting things happening around this property and I was glad to have been asked to be a part of this show. If you guys want to check out more things madballs head over to the Madballs Central Blog. Anyways I hope you guys enjoy my piece and be on the lookout for the toy in the stores, they are really awesome gross fun . In other news I just got done with a huge freelance job that had me tied up and sleepless for months but now I will buckle down and get my butt painting and working towards a gallery show sometime in the near future. Hope you all digs!!!

Holly Hobbie Classic

So here at my place of employment, American Greetings Properties, we often get to do specialty artwork for specific purposes. This is a piece I did of Holly Hobbie Classic, one of our oldest properties. I was originally supposed to do this piece in oils but with the short deadline I had to fall back and paint it digitally. There is a part of me that will never truly love this piece because it was always intended to be traditional but I think the outcome was pretty good and it gave me much needed practice with Painter. Anyways I hope you guys like it, and as always drop a line if you digs.

ULTRAMAN!

Detail.

-DAY4-
I had two or three more sessions on this painting without updates to have a bigger leap from the last stage to the final painting. The background was the hardest element to figure out.
It was a challenge because I didn't want it to be too painterly and take away from the figures and I also didn't want it to be too graphic. The figures was just a process of building on the light areas and finally adding the final highlights and details. . I definitely wanted Ultraman to be the focus of the piece so he has the most details and strong bold colors. I made the background lighter so the silhouette of the figures could stand out. Now I need to find the right frame for the piece and varnish it when its all over. The varnish will bring out all the dull colors and unify the piece making it glossy and giving it that wonderful wet look. Hope you guys enjoy the final painting and I hope I didn't bore you too much with my rants about painting. I will start work on a new painting but this one will move a lot slower and it will be a fairly big piece. ENJOY AND DROP ME A LINE IF YOU DIG IT!!



-DAY3-
I worked on the piece for about 2 1/2 hours today. First I worked on the grey areas of Ultramans costume, keeping it simple and not trying to get too light or detailed. Then I worked in the red and got it pretty far along just needing the final touches and highlights/reflections. I established a neutral background color which I will later develop into maybe smoke or something that will give interest without taking too much from the figures. I want the final color of the background to be brighter as well, because I feel it will fit the subject matter better. I glazed in a violet color on the shadows of the monster and worked a bit more in the light areas defining them a bit further. I need to let this part dry so I can go in the piece and start defining areas better with more detail and color. I'm thinking one or two more days and the piece will be finished. I'm enjoying this piece and will hopefully carry momentum into more paintings, i need to paint more and maybe it will lead into a gallery show later down the line.

On another note I saw "The History of Pixar" at the Cleveland film festival and it was amazing and inspirational. If you have a chance to check out this film please do, it's a must for any artist with a need to create quality original material.



-DAY2-
This part is where the fun really begins. Now my focus is on applying my basic light areas on the monster and a dark tone of red on some areas of the ultraman figure. Note that the light areas on the monster are very loose and I let the brush do a lot of the work for me. My objective is not to scrub paint but let the paint dictate what it wants to do. This part of the process gives the monster an organic feel and it creates crevices and other fun things that will later guide me when I am refining the light areas. Also note that the light color is still very much a mid tone just to define my lights and darks. Now I let this stage dry overnight.

I don't mean to ramble on but I figure it would be nice to share my painting process, hope you enjoy it!



-DAY1-
Day 1 was a short day of work on this painting because of pesky freelance jobs. I was basically just able to put down my acrylic base coat and once that was dry, my basic figures in oil. The trick about painting in oils is having patience, so I let this stage dry over night so the next day I am able to apply paint without the worry of taking off paint that is already there.


ULTRA MAN!! He's great, spending his time fighting monsters the size of buildings and saving the life of thousands while he's at it! I'm really exited about this piece and I'm glad to say this will be my first oil painting in a long time. This image is actually a photo of the sketch already down on the masonite ready for paint! I've never really painted anything this stylized in oils before but I'm confident I can make this work and I feel up for the challenge. Maybe I will post process pics as I go along but I haven't decided. It feels great to step away from the computer and get you hands dirty. There is so much going on as far as work and freelance so forgive me if the final takes a while but I'm hoping I can buckle down and grind this one out. Everyone stay fresh and if ya DIG IT drop a comment and say hello!

SUSHI PACK cont.

Here is some more stuff I did for the Sushi Pack cartoon on CBS Saturday mornings. Full episodes will be going up on the AGKidZone website soon so if you guys happen not to catch it on CBS you can watch them anytime on the website. This year we hope to push awareness on the property so hopefully you will be seeing cool stuff coming out. I can't wait until we make toys from this show, I think they might start off as a specialty product so expect them to be awesome! This is definitely a great show thats not getting the eyeballs it deserves so i encourage you to watch some episodes and let me know what you think. I've been working on my own personal projects lately and I'm very excited about them but they need a lot of work still.
I will be starting a new full size oil painting soon and I will post the drawing for it in the coming week hopefully. Until then everyone have a great weekend !

GO JOE!!!!!

SNAKEYES!! One of all my all time favorites. You can't do stormshadow and not Snakeyes now can you?? Hope ya digs!


So my friend and co-worker Saxton Moore is having a G.I. JOE contest over at channel frederator raw. I decided to do my all time faves Stormshadow and Snakeyes (Snakeyes is still in the works). Love these two, I always though they where the most badass, other than Destro that is. I have really fond memories of this show and the toys were a dream come true for a young boy like me. I had tons of fun with this one and even though the holidays got in the way I finally finished one of them and the other should be done tomorrow. Hope you guys digs and hope everyone had a good holidays. Everybody's resolution should be to post more often, I know that's what mine is=)