That Damn Belt

I am sure I was affected a lot more than my sister for two reasons:

1. She doesn't even remember it, and...

2. I could not eat because the pain in my chest was bigger than me.

I missed my mom and I did not like these new people in my life. I hated everything about my new environment now matter how much these people tried to paint it with rainbows and unicorns, so-to-speak. I wanted my mom. I wanted to go home.

I must've done this for some time or perhaps these ladies just grew impatient because it wasn't too long before I felt the sting of belts on my skin. Emotional pain can be debilitating and can outlast far longer than physical pain, but a belt touching your skin at 10mph can have very immediate effects. I'm assuming this was what the ladies were aiming for...

What's Missing?

I learned the value of missing someone at a very young age. It wasn't that long before my 6th birthday that our father had left. I vaguely remembered his face and his voice but I did remember that there was a male figure there at some point. How in the heck would I remember the word "papi"? That's what I called him. Yet, I was seven by this time and I was about to be abandoned by the one person I had left to look up to. As a kid, you don't truly understand a sacrifice like this, but as an adult and in retrospect, I'm grateful. But this is about me back then and THEN, I felt that gnawing burn as if your chest is about to cave in and crush your lungs while they burst into flames. The feeling when you could only gasp for air as if you were drowning and what you are reaching for is your last gulps of air. I just described to you what heartbreak felt in the years to come. But back to the story.

Meeting someone whom you're told will replace your mom is like being forced to drink castor oil. It just left a foul taste in my mouth. But what can a 7-year-old do but to swallow it and accept that for how ever long, these three ladies will replace my best friend. "Will I ever see my mom again?" is one of the things that I remember clearly asking myself. That was the question I repeated in my head for weeks after we were dropped off.

To be continued...

The Dynamic Duo

Circa 1982. Right before I began my fascination with art it was hot and muggy, but then again, I just described most every day in the Dominican Republic. My sister and I were just told that our mom would be traveling to New York. We were to stay in DR and await our visas. "What the hell does that even mean?", were probably the words that must've danced in my head at that age. I'm sure it was explained to me in more detail because somehow I recall understanding that we were not going to see our mom for a while.

We were to stay with some distant cousins, (this is all the info I got later on in life after asking who the hell those people were). Why couldn't we stay not with closer family members? My mom believed my sister and I to be a set, akin to Batman and Robin, Hawk and Dove, Tom and Jerry, Abbott and Costello. You get the idea, right? So, she didn't want to separate us while she was going to be away, and every close family member she asked could only handle one of us at a time. Even though my mom was to send money to them for our care taking, it was probably too much for any one of them to take on two more kids. More on this next time when I continue the story.

It may seem like there are so many characters in this poster and how the heck could I tackle all of them by myself? It's easier when you are drawing digitally and using layers. I am able to  can draw each character in separate layers and move them around until I get the composition that works for me, although I start with an initial composition in mind and have a rough sketch of what I want it to look like, sometimes things don't always wind up the way you intend them. Bob Ross called it "Happy little accidents".

I Never Gave Up Drawing

About 2 years after we first met, my wife and I married, but before we did, she told me she had to go to California and asked me if I would go with her. I remember it like it was just yesterday. I didn't even let her finish the sentence when I answered "YES!" Flash forward to 2017 and we are now Californians. Things have a way of materializing if you keep a focused mind on it. I've always wanted to have a family of my own and here I stand today with just that. I'm completely grateful for that and more, like the time when I went back to the Dominican Republic on vacation with my mom and sister.

It was a summer vacation, one of many I had taken courtesy of my mom. I can't remember the exact amount of time we spent there. It could've been a month, but it felt like a lifetime. I was 12 years old and I remember packing my sketchbooks and comics so I could draw on the plane. All this in case I ran into my cousin, the one who introduced me to comic book characters like Batman and Superman. I remember feeling the humid heat and the sun beating down on me and stronger than in New Yok, but it felt good. It felt like home. After a couple of days meeting up with my mom's side of the family, we visited my father's mother, "Abuela". It was at her house that I caught up with my cousin. It had been about 5 years since I'd seen him. He was excited to see me, but I was more excited to show him my drawings how much I have learned when it came to drawing. I could not contain my excitement, but that was soon snuffed out like a birthday candle when I asked him if I could see HIS work, to which he said: "I don't draw anymore." My jaw dropped in disbelief. "How could this be?", I thought. "You inspired me to draw and now you don't? What does this mean for me?" "Will I give it up too?" I think he noticed my disappointment but he did compliment my art and told me I probably drew better than he did. I never did give up drawing.

Interested

It couldn't have been more perfect. It was as if the universe orchestrated the events exactly as they needed to be in order to get me here. I met my wife by accident at a studio where I was creating storyboards and she was editing videos for commercials and short films. When I first saw her, I seriously thought she was Latina, but that thought died when I heard her accent. She sounded Russian. My interest was peaked, but it was more out of curiosity and the insatiable feeling of finding out if that was indeed a Russian accent. I mean, if you saw her, you would also think she was Latina, but that's a story for another time.

Adam started the color process already by adding the flats to this poster. I'll continue to post progress as he provides me with updates. I'm interested in what he's going to do with the layout. I inked each character on a separate layer for him to be able to move them around easily if he wasn't happy with the composition and I see he did that already.