Hospital Reflections

My mom got hospitalized last week because of a knee injury. Nothing serious but she was confined to the hospital for almost four days to allow her knee to heal before we could go home. I stayed with her in the hospital and asked my brother to bring my laptop along with my work files so I can work from there.

The experience was quite enlightening. As my mom put it: The last time she was confined in a hospital was when I was born 31 years ago. For some people this might not be a big deal but for me it is. Save for when my dad had laser surgery on his eyes when I was in high school my parents were never really sick and now that they have gone old and the arthritis and all that has started showing their signs I suddenly feel that there is an urgency for us siblings to excel in our own personal lives for a number of different reasons. For me the main reasons are:

1. My parents worked hard for us. We were never rich but we were empowered to do the things that we wanted to do at an early age. Even with limited resources way back then my parents (Manay included) made sure that I had art materials always ready for when I had the urge to draw. I feel that at this stage in my life the best way to honor them is to be really really good at what I do so they will know how much their work has impacted mine.
2. They are getting older and we need to be in a better financial situation so that we can take better care of them when they retire. This means getting better at our craft and taking care of our own businesses.
3. To start a family sooner so my parents can enjoy their grandkids more the way they are enjoying Bella and Enzo right now.

I guess what I am really trying to say is that I really won the parent lottery when I was born and I wish I could do more for them right now. My parents were never perfect but they were really awesome for me and they were very much involved in everything that we siblings did and the best way to honor them is to show them the fruits of their labor: That we've grown up able to take care of them the way they were able to look after us using the skills they allowed us to cultivate.

JLA Zombies

It's been a while since my last post... I have been really busy with work and preparations for the holidays. Here's a recent image I finished for an art jam with some of my church mates for our topic: Zombie Apocalypse.

I recently celebrated my 31st birthday and all I can say is that my 30th was the best year of my life so far and I am looking forward to so much more this year. I aim to be more productive, be faster and to be a better artist all around. I have been praying for so many things last year and while I was not able to get some of them I can say that most of what I have been asking God for he has provided me with.

So here's to my 31st! Looking forward to more client work and personal art to keep me busy :)

Batman Page 1

And here's page 1 of my portfolio update from the GHG Batman script. Too busy with work but am finally able to squeeze in a couple of hours daily for practice :)

Sample Page 01

Busy with work but was able to snag some time last week to start working on my new set of samples.

Peter Pan Inks

Here's the inks for the Peter Pan sketch I uploaded last.

Last week was pretty tight, as well as the weeks before that. Today I am waiting for feedback from 3 of my current clients and seeing that it is still early Monday where they are I sort of have the whole day dedicated to working on my personal projects. This feels really weird for me, it has been so long since I've had time to draw just for kicks hehe. I will enjoy this day and hopefully I come up with something nice.

Peter Pan sketch update

Here's an update on the Peter Pan sketch I uploaded the other day. I pray I don't mess this one up when I start inking hehe.

Modern Peter Pan Sketch

And here's another entry for an artjam with some of my friends from church. Still part of my lessons on digital inking and how to do spot blacks so I guess I won't be able to color this but I think I will enjoy this a lot hehe.

X23 inks

And finally, the inks for X23.

I don't know why, but it seems like I am drawing slower these past few days. Could just be me still adjusting to my sleep pattern. I need to work faster if I want to keep on drawing stuff for myself.

X-23 Update

And here's an update on the X23... I feel weird today.

X-23 WIP

And here's something I've been drawing as warm-up before I dive into projects.

Prince Caspian: Colored

Here's the colored piece :)

Prince Caspian

Prince Caspian line art for an art jam with some of our friends from Church.

I feel totally wasted today.

The Mutant Master of Magnetism

Magneto final art! Moving on to my sequential pages again...

Magneto WIP Update

Magneto WIP

Chugging along with updating my folio... I really really feel the need to draw faster :)

Drawing for Kicks

Magneto Sketch

Nothing much to say except that I'm in a phase where I am enjoying drawing so much it's like being a kid again :) I thank God for this career and for an awesome family that supports this geekiness that I have hehe.

The Artist's Dilemma

Emma Frost, inking drills :)

I wanted to write something about being inspired (or the lack of it) but when I think about it, it is something I cannot fully grasp.  When I was in college I often felt disconnected from this whole "Fine Art" thing because I really wasn't interested in self-expression. When I think of art I think of robots and comics and spaceships and dinosaurs. Those things excite me, they fill my head most of my waking hours then even until now. I guess being inspired based on how I feel is foreign to me because I don't think that deep when it comes to art. I know that there are times when what I give to my client makes me feel happy and during those times I like to think I am inspired but more often than not I just do what I need to do and hopefully there's something in what I need to draw that will excite me and if there is none, I switch on the documentaries and everything is alright again.

I've worked as a commercial artist since I graduated in 2004. This meant that happy, sad, depressed, ecstatic or whatever I needed to submit something irrelevant of how I feel at the moment. Most artists frown at this and think that what artists like me do is soul less because of the lack of the "self" in our art but isn't that how commercial art/illustrating works? Our inspiration comes from the material provided by the client and the world that we make out of it. This offers plenty of opportunities for imagination and regardless of how I feel making stuff up will always be fun.

But I don't frown on people's emotional because sometimes they help. I know, because I've been there, just not as often as how people like to imagine us artists whenever we are working. Art is a very fun thing to work with and if our emotions keep getting in the way then it will be very hard for us to enjoy this life and there'd be so much less dinosaurs, comics, spaceships and robots in this world that we live in.

Life Advice from Steve Vai

Emma Frost WIP

Terribly busy as of the moment but I try to devote at least an hour daily for my personal drawing time.

Sometimes, when there is just so art to make and it feels like it has become a chore I find that working on something personal and allowing myself the time to just draw for kicks sets me up quite well for the challenges of the day ahead. Whenever I draw for myself I go back to my high school days living in Obando where I'd spend the early mornings before going to school drawing and the summers I spent indoors poring over Loomis' Anatomy and reading comics. I remember being blessed with friends in high school and college who were into drawing as well and how hard it was for us to acquire references for anatomy because the internet wasn't such a big thing then and whatever we had we photocopied. Fun days, really really fun days.

There is so much wisdom from what Steve Vai said in one of his guitar clinics where he said that when you get frustrated always go back to see the big picture and to that place of excitement for you. That place of excitement for me was in our old room in Obando, with my brother's hand-me-down drafting table and that photocopied book of Loomis surrounded by stacks of Spawn. When I go there, specially when I am neck deep in deadlines, I feel ok and I know that the rest of my drawing day will be alright.

By the way, here's the link to the video from Steve Vai. I don't play guitar that much anymore but his advice here applies to all things in life.

Remembering Habagat

Ei guys! I haven't been able to post much here in the blog and again largely in part of me being busy with work but hopefully I could get around to posting some more personal stuff over the next couple of weeks.

I've just gotten around to setting up my studio again after rushing to move everything up to storage in my brother's place because of an impending flash flood due to heavy monsoon rain. Thankfully we were not hit, unlike last year where our house was submerged in neck deep waters and my studio was a total wreck.

As it was raining heavily and I was taking my quiet time I realized how angry I was when we were hit by Habagat last year. I was just about to start around 3 projects then when the flood hit. I was really angry at the Lord for allowing that to happen to us, especially when the rescue boats came and rescued my sister-in-law who was 8 months pregnant, my sister and her daughter Bella who was 2 years old then. I cried when I saw my niece crying frantically as she was taken by the rescuers. It was more painful when I learned that the rescue boat got punctured and they won't be able to go back to take my parents and Manay as they had originally planned. I was confused, mad and dead tired. I feared a repeat of Ondoy and while I laugh at that experience 4 years ago and how I jest about how much comics I lost during Ondoy, when the water was rising, I was afraid for my life and Manay's. I was not ready for a repeat of last year and with my whole family gathered here at the house I began to feel really really afraid for everyone else.

This time it was different. After last year's Habagat I realized a lot of things. Habagat made me realize that even if I lose my clients and my work my family will always be here with me. I had a deeper appreciation of my bonds with my siblings and my in-laws and I saw how God acted in spite of the rising waters. No one was harmed. We were safe, we had a house to return to and the projects were restored. I was amazed at how we functioned like a well oiled unit then and I knew that should things like this happen again we would be able to brave them as long as we don't lose faith and allow God to see us through.

As I was getting ready to pack my studio stuff the other day I prayed and told God that this time I would not be angry. I honestly did not know why he would allow the floods to come again but we were ready and I knew that he had greater plans for all of us than what we can see. My perspective is dwarfed greatly by how God sees things and in his divine plan I have learned to trust even if I don't understand.

Whenever personal tragedies strike I remember these two verses:

"Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
-Matthew 11:29 to 30


Perhaps the greatest lesson and grace I received from Habagat was that God is God in spite of my circumstances. This means that he is in charge and he will take care of everything. It is hard to accept this in light of suffering but trust me when I share with you that if you do surrender tragedies will turn into blessings and the realizations after our painful circumstances are worth every ounce of pain that we go through.

The Centaur, something I was able to squeeze during a weekend break.

Yeah, not much personal art these past few days. I've been swamped with work, and thankful at that and hoping that I get more busy in the next couple of weeks.

Page 5 samples

Here's page 5 of my DD sample set. Whew. It felt like forever since I last worked on this. I've been working on some card art these past few weeks and didn't get much time to work on my personal stuff so I'm just real glad that I had the time today to wrap some things up and get ready for July. 

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Here's something that I've been reading these past few days:

Air Gear by Oh! Great

I know, its old. That and there's just way too much fan service going on in this manga. But I like it, because it makes me feel like a kid again.

Art Update and The Low End Techie

DD Sample Pages, something I work on to start the day right :)

I miss drawing like this! I'ts been ages since I've been asked to work on something that's black and white.

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I'm a low end techie. I've accepted that. Whenever I get to buy stuff I tend to look at the lower or entry level stuff first. Why? That's because I used to buy the mid to high end stuff only to find out that I'm not really using the features that I paid for.

I've been burned a couple of times by this habit, my fiancee can attest to that. I've bought stuff that I'm not completely happy about and I've destroyed some pretty expensive gadgets while trying to mess around with their firmware (and no, I'm not good at that. I just follow tutorials) But the habit sticks and for some weird reason I'm proud of it and that's because I like hacking stuff or finding work-around solutions to problems so that I don't pay for them and then feel like a sucker in the end. 

The high end stuff I consider as tech demonstrators, platforms to show what manufacturers can do. I find that most people I know seldom max out the potential of their gadgets. But its a personal thing and if you want the high end stuff that's great and all but I would rather think about what I want to do with my gadgets before making a purchase  because we pay for those fancy specs and if we are not using them we are wasting money.

DareDevil Update

DareDevil Page 3

DareDevil Page 4 Sketch

I wanted to write something today but I just found out that I don't have that much time so here's a quick update on a little personal project: DareDevil sample pages. I realized that I work better on my client work after around 2 hours of drawing for myself so I am hoping that in the next few days I'll be able to update my portfolio more.

Oh, and that thing I wanted to write about: Avoid people who are overly passionate, they tend to burn out easily.

Cheers and God bless y'all!

It's been that long?

Whoa, hadn't realized that it has been too long since my last update. Things have been pretty hectic on my end and I really haven't had that much time to work on personal stuff.

Here's a few of what I've been able to work on:

Rogue Elf: loved painting them flowers.

When The Wolf Howls

And finally some new page samples: 

As always, I am thankful that things have been really busy here at the studio. I'm currently wrapping up Book 5 of the comic book that I'm pencilling/inking and working on 2 digital painting commissions as well as an ios game. So yeah, after a year of freelancing things are definitely getting better.

And to wrap things up here's my current studio:

Messier than ever!

I was able to get a Bosto Kingtee 19MB and I have to say that I am very happy with the product. Of course it is not a Cintiq, but I have always been the type of person who would look for alternatives when it comes to gadgets. This one costs way less, almost a quarter the price of what Wacom is offering and in the two weeks that I've been using it I can say that it has significantly increased my output and made drawing and painting so much fun for me, specially when it comes to drawing comics.

Environmental Warriors Commission

Line Art Illustration

     Here's a commission that I worked on last week outside of the comic book gig which I just finished penciling and am getting ready to ink.

On inking and habits

     I'm afraid of inking... it is not something I am comfortable with. I'd much rather do some really tight pencils and then go and enhance them digitally. Also, I have this fascination with using pencils to fill in the spot blacks when I'm drawing and the varying shades of gray, even though they will be solid black in print, looks so much more satisfying to me than a solid black area made with a marker. But then again, the final output is the priority and not the process, so I've decided that it would be best for me to start getting comfortable with inks again. 

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     We are creatures of habits. What we do on a daily basis, consciously or sub-consciously, will determine how successful we become in life. There is nothing more saddening than to realize that our lives have gone to waste because of the wrong habits that we developed when we were younger. 

     

On Building Bricks and Religion

I am obsessed with two-legged weapons platforms :)

     I've recently bought some cheap "Not Lego" bricks from Divisoria, of course, made in China and surprisingly for knock-offs the quality is really nice. I've read somewhere that the mind works better when the body is doing mechanical work. This is so true in my case as I find it easier to think when I am tinkering with my kits or my bricks.

The mech on the right by the way is based off a model I built from one of those playing/thinking sessions and hopefully over the weekend I'd get to draw it out some more.
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I've been thinking a lot recently about religion, not faith, because those two things are different.

There is a lot of anti-religion sentiments floating around Facebook and I have, for the most part, wanted to engage in a lot of discussions about them but then I've decided they will all just be pointless exchange of words. One simply cannot debate over which religion is better because the parameters to be used in determining the legitimacy (and the "rightness and wrongness") of ones faith is dependent on the doctrines of whatever religion one is practicing. Unless both parties agree on certain basic guidelines to follow it will just be an endless tirade of one side negating the other's statements. There will always be bias towards what you believe in, whether it be God or Science and believing in one or the other does not make you any better than the other guy.

For me the only thing that matters is when you are hurting people or stepping on other people's rights when you practice your religion or your science. Other than that it's all just a matter of respect and tolerance for people to go with what they believe in.

A Year of Waking Up Late

Because my mom's blue pen beats the crap out of all my pencils! (One of the pages from my current two hour daily practice session)

Today marks the 1st anniversary of my freelancing career. I wanted to celebrate this by sharing one of my old blog posts from DA about why I wanted to set up my own studio but for some weird reason I can't seem to find that old entry.

So, instead of that, I'll just share with you something that's kinda relevant:

My Wishlist from March 17, 2008 (And how's life right now)

1. Wish I could wake up at 8 am because I hate waking up at 6:30 to get to work.
     - Yeah, I hated waking up early. 8 am was like this magical time for me to get up. On days that I'd wake at 8 I feel so... for lack of a better term... fluffy. It's like all of my problems have been washed away and the rest of the day would be magical. Now I wake up between 9 and 10 am and start work at 11, so yay, one down!

2. Wish I could be free from the 9 to 6 work life, because really, who wants to live like this?
     - I guess what I really hated from living the 9 to 6 life was the fact that you can't really do much of the stuff that I need or want to do in life after office hours. You can't go to the bank, can't go to the dentist, can't be at the mall at 10 am and go hunt for stuff when there's not a lot of people there yet, can't eat noodles in  Binondo at a whim (Kris, Kat and I just did that yesterday, my brother and I did the same two weeks ago hehe), can't work on a kit while working ( Because a 10 minute break every hour helps to improve focus) plus a plethora of other things but I think you guys get the point.

3. Wish I had my own hobby/work room, because I'm accumulating stuff  and I'm messing up the house.

Problem Solved :)

4. Wish this internet connection would stop acting up.
    - Yeah well, it's still acting up hehe.

5. Wish I had a lightbox.
    - I'm using an old plastic board I bought when I was still working in animation with a lamp under it and set-up in front of my monitor when I need to draw pages so I guess I kinda got this already... but I think I may have to get something sturdier and larger in the next few months.

6. Wish I had a larger scanner, because I hate tiling my drawings.
    - Not anymore! Well, not quite... I still do not have an A3 scanner but I've gone around to that problem of scanning large pages so no more hassles for me in this department.

7. Wish I had a Mac setup.
    - Still thinking about this... but me being an android fan and not willing to spend that much money for power I can get at half the cost I guess this will have to be sidelined for the next few years.

8. Wish I was working on a Linux machine (just for the heck of it... I just might do this in the very near future)
     - I have one but it's wonky right now... I'll be working on it this weekend though :)

9. Wish I had a Cintiq, that's pretty much self explanatory.
     - I wish!

10. Wish I had a dual lcd monitor set up.
     - Done, and it's helped me a lot.... It gives me the power to Facebook while watching anime, watch documentaries while painting and helps me work faster on my documents (because BryanBoy loves his spreadsheets)

11. Wish I could work faster.
     - I like to think that I've gotten faster but I still see a lot of areas that need improvement. The hard thing about working at home and alone is that you sometimes lose track of time. Recently I've been paying closer attention to how much time I actually spend on tasks and I try to mark them in 15 minute and one hour increments so I can understand better the stuff that I spend the most time on.

12. Wish I had tons of money.
     - Ah... that one... I have time, but not enough money hehe! While the financial side of things has been better these past few months there is still a long way to go. I've talked to some of my freelancer friends and it really is true, the first year is often the hardest financially. But it does get better and the longer you stick to your game the higher the rates normally go. Still, not a ton of money but I can say that its a whole lot better now than when I started last year.

13. Wish I had a Beetle, both the old and the new.
     - The Beetle... this one I think I have to let go for now. It's nowhere near the top of my priorities but I promise to myself that once the more important stuff have been taken care of I'll get one for myself.

So it's been a year and what's the most important thing that I have learned? I think it's what you do when you're away from client work. It's a hard lesson and one that I am still learning right now. Most client work can't be posted unless the project has already gone public and most of the time this takes months, even years. The personal projects are the ones that will generate clients so it's actually more important than the paid gigs, plus you get to choose what art to make to address areas of weaknesses in your portfolio.

To wrap it up I'd say going freelance is a good thing if you're prepared for it. I'd say drawing/painting after office hours is always the first step. I missed a company outing before because I needed to finish some pages and I don't hang out after office hours during my last year of being employed because I needed to study. I may have lost some "life" during those years but it's price I paid for the life I am living right now.

FemDroid

Client work One of the few digital paintings that I've been able to work on these past few days. I've been wanting to do more digital paintings since most of the work that I do right now are sequentials and shirt illustrations so once I manage to snag some more free time I'd go and paint some more.

Torn

And this is what happens when I confuse my love of digital painting and comic book illustration haha!

Seriously though, I have been putting aside my love for drawing comics onto the sidelines for the longest time even though one of my main source of income right now is an indie comic book that I'm currently penciling my 3rd issue of. The reason is because I've lost interest in Super Heroes and instead have been caught in the world of Fantasy Art thanks in no small part to reading ImagineFX and playing games every so often. (And thank God my book is medieval and fantasy inspired, so yay!)

However, as I've finally managed to free up some of my time, especially during weekends, I've decided that drawings comics full time is something that I still dream off. Kristel knows how much choosing between digital painting and comic book illustration has been bugging me so I've decided to well, take a stab at both for the mean time and asking God to just point me where I need to go.

This means that even though I've gotten used to painting without a defined lineart I will have to relearn how to do that again. It also means having to watch movies more often and taking the extra time and effort to go through my reading list of comics and burning through all the "Drawing Comics" books that people have given me as gifts but hey, those things are stuff I enjoyed doing and it won't take much for me to enjoy them again.

So here's to my new weekend regimen, to going back to my roots as an illustrator, and to hopefully find why I used to love Super Heroes when I was younger!

Reset!

I found this great inking brush for Photoshop which prompted me to just redo the whole illustration I posted earlier hehe...

Earlier in Church our Pastor shared how to check if the things we are to do are in accordance to God's plans for our life and here's what he said:

1. It should be founded in the Word
2. The thing we are praying for should be soaked in prayer
3. It must be filled by the Holy Spirit

If the decision meets all of these than one should not be worried because God will take care of the rest. I don't know your religious view point and as such you may or may not agree with these but I strongly encourage you to give this a shot. It may take a certain level of open mindedness to take this in, especially if the concept of God is something you haven't entertained but there really is nothing to lose here :)

Personal Drawing Time!!!

Me wants to draw some more...

And just for kicks I've decided to draw comics again over the weekend :)