The Carver's House

...when I render myself scarce. Just like last year and the year before that, I'll be taking a hiatus from blogging, though I might holler from time to time when something comes up. Thank you for sharing your time with me. Sometime in the middle of the month, the Real Living team may head south to Boracay again, thus fulfilling my hidden wish. Let there be sun, please. I must soon plunge headlong into my latest Graphic Classics assignment. Though the deadline is still a few months off, I shouldn't get complacent. I'll be experimenting again, art-wise--a cross between what I did for Siglo: Passion and what I learned from Ben Templesmith. Methinks I'll be able to churn out pages a bit faster. Methinks. The Zaturnnah script is moving, and the more I work on it, the more insights I get. There's the danger of overwriting, but I've got one hand ready to yank a leash in case I'm tempted to stray too much. Just finished writing a "painful" Dodong scene....

About research When something really interests me, I research the backstory. If I wasn't a graphic designer or a comics creator, I'd be a market researcher or a business developer... or a librarian, which isn't such a bad thing when I think about it. In my early student years, the only kind of research humanly possible would be through the library, the textbooks, or the thick and deadly encyclopedias at home. I liked the idea that knowledge came in humongous tomes--they really looked like they had a stamp of authority. But researching on the Web takes the task to a wholly different level. Not only is there too much information, not every source has a seal of authority. So it's the wading and sifting that proves to be both taxing and fascinating at once. I wouldn't trade other sources of information for the Web, however. There's still the joy of the old-school search. Unfortunately, it would be really difficult to find solid sources of costumes and architecture o...

Graphic Classics: Rafael Sabatini I don't know if this will be available here, but it's got my name on the cover. (On the lower right, heheheh.) I did 40 pages worth of art for the Captain Blood origin. Gerry Alanguilan's got artwork in here too. I hope the editor likes my work enough to give me stuff to do in the future. Here's another sample page of my work for this anthology. (I had previously posted two pages in December.)

Boats and Horses Graphic Classics is an anthology series I would describe as "high-end Illustrated Classics," with each volume featuring either an author or a genre. Talented folks like Arnold Arre and Gerry Alanguilan have contributed to Graphic Classics in the past, and I was fortunate enough to land an art assignment for its next volume, Graphic Classics: Rafael Sabatini . At first, I thought I would be given something short and simple since it's my first time to work with the publication and they'd want to test me out. But lo and behold, a script for a 40-page pirate story "Captain Blood" appeared in my inbox (the average Graphic Classics story runs between 10 to 20 pages). Suffice to say, I've never drawn so many galleons and horses in my life. Apart from the numerous references generously sent by editor Tom Pomplun (including the classic film starring Errol Flynn), I scoured the internet for additional references, particularly the galleons. What...