I Like The Feeling

There was a time in my life when I could draw mostly anything that I looked at. It was one of those skills I had perfected at the unripe age of 9. It mostly came from practice and the passion for wanting to draw anything. I was like a hawk perched atop of the world, looking down at things but instead of looking for a juicy morsel, I was looking for a subject to draw.

I met Jose that same year. He was the first kid my age that could draw. Before that, there was only me. We became good friends after that. He could draw people from his head, something I couldn't do. He used no visual reference at all, at least not any I saw. He even showed me how. Apparently, he memorized muscles from the exaggerated versions of super heroes and so his interpretation of them were these bubbles that conveyed the message that they were muscles. I wish I had a copy of it. It looked pretty cool. Still, I could not understand how he had memorized those things. I had memorized songs, and other things, but never muscles or faces, but heck, I was impressed by the skill and so I sought to learn how to do it myself. The feeling was exactly like the one I got when my cousin first showed me how he drew those little figurines for me. I wrote a step by step blog that showed how he did it (at least how I remember him doing it).

To this day I still get that feeling when I finish a project. Thanks to Adam and Omar, this project has been finished.

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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.

Auto Pilot

Although the decision to move 3,000 miles away from where I rested my head every night came abruptly, it wasn't as if I had not been thinking about it for a while. About 10 years prior to my move, I visited Los Angeles and practically fell in love with the west coast. I can see why Tupac stayed. I had been thinking about making the move even before I met my wife. I had already started to make some crucial research in what I needed to live in California. I remember reaching out to my friend and asking her if she had any tips she could send my way. She did. It wasn't long after that I felt I could actually start my big goal to become a west coaster. Sometimes things happen to stop you dead in your tracks. I can't remember what it was that halted my progress but I do know that it would be another 8 years or so before I ever had California on the brain again. Speaking of brains, I think I finished with all the inks without even realizing it. What I do next is pass it on to the incredible Atom (Adam Harris) so he can lay some color on it.

Team Works

It's been five years since my family and I decided to trek west to California. It was a spur of the moment kind of thing, or at least it felt that way to me. An instant spark jolted me to cut my wife off in mid-sentence as she attempted to ask me if I wanted to move to California. I said "Let's go!" faster than the spit comes out your mouth when you sneeze. Before I knew it, we were on the road, driving to California across the states. It was a surreal moment for me because the last time I moved that far from where I lived, was in 1995 when I moved to Utah. That time I did it alone. This time I was part of a team. I feel the same way about this project that I'm inking. It's the first time I've ever inked any one's work, but I'm doing this as part of a team. This is the third time the Turlock Toon Skwad collaborates on a project. It seems to be working

Turlock Toon Skwad Strikes Again

The #turlocktoonskwad decided to take on another project. This time, a poster for another comic con. What's different than the last one? This time Adam and Omar will be doing the artwork and I will be inking and laying out the elements. Then, off to Adam again to provide the colors and then back to me to put the graphic elements such as logos, text, etc. This should be fun as it will be my first time inking someone else's work. I will be doing the inking digitally.