The Sketchbook safari

Long time no post

alejjo — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 13:34:29 +0000

Work and life has kept me away from drawing, i recently started to draw again and im determined to get better, i was blessed to receive a Wacom tablet as a gift and now i am really pumped to get good, Real good at this.

i downloades a whole bunch of pictures with people in interesting poses, since figure drawing is my weakness and the idea is to capture the figure and have it look as natural as possible.

these are my first sigure studies

Day 1: pose1

Day 1: Pose 2

Day 1: Pose 3

The Tikis

alejjo — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 23:03:10 +0000

Working on a huge billboard design on the computer kept me waiting for things to load all day today, in fact as i right this im waiting for some changes to load. i was able to survive this heavy day doodling tiki characters inspired in my surf buddies enjoy

: This is a tiki with a cute hula marionette

These are the instructors of the Surf school and my friends

A surf buddy saw the others and asked me to do hers

Lol this is how i spent my entire day, waiting for the blasted file to load with every single change

The Last Ollie

alejjo — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 21:37:21 +0000

Illustrated this for the Art jumble blog the topic was “The grim reaper”, i wanted to illustrated him doing something fun, perhaps this is what he does in his spare time or maybe he is out to get an skater thats about to kick the bucket, who knows

Cloud Frosting

alejjo — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:37:12 +0000

Nothing tops eating the tasty afternoon clouds for dessert after a long day of mass destruction!

Chelsea’s Summer Critters

alejjo — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:41:35 +0000

This was an End of Summer Gift for my girlfriend who spent the majority of her summer saving critters from her evil Cat and cuddling with her massive Dog Koda

Illustration Friday: Atmosphere

alejjo — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 18:53:04 +0000

The Rock Golem cannon balls into the earth’s atmosphere expectant of what awaits for him in his new home.

Some Sketches

alejjo — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 15:03:08 +0000

i knew the topics for todays Sketchathon at Sketchoholic but i couldn’t fully participate since i was stuck in a meeting all afternoon, during my college years i develop the bad habit of doodling while listening to people, i trully stay focused and paying attention to others when im doodling. anyway i sketched through the meeting and this are the sketches i came up with

The topic for this one as magic hat, instead of growing the obvious way i wanted to create and ancient hat that granted its bearer powers, and what better setting for this than the mayan culture! i now know how much more work i need with my human anatomy but im proud of this one since i did a sketch with a real sense of movement, i definitely want more of this in my work

The topic for this fellahs here was ” Strange looking bird” so we have a Running bird that never lifts its head of the ground because of its heavy beak, he have a surfing looking bird with fully functional wings on his neck, on the bottom its a lil guy whos beak also doubles as a helmet and last but not least a frog like bird that inflates 3 bags on his neck, kinda like a frog.

i really enjoyed coming up with this birds, hope you enjoy em too, whats your favorite one? leave a comment

Ghost Ride

alejjo — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 19:19:08 +0000

As i was walking the other day i kept thinking about the concept “Fast” and what i would do to illustrate it, i remember the story about the rabbit and the turtle, a classic and i dont know how i remember my friend bryan Post Explaining me what a Ghost ride was. and Bam, the idea was in my Head, the turtles from West Pond Customs Ghost Raiding their way towards the Race against the rabbit with their pimped out Shell.
This was the first version i did, and honestly im just playing around, trying to see whats possible and learning as i go, i was reminded how important it is to have a wacom since illustrating non vector art with a mouse is like doing penmanship with a bar of soap, i showed this to my friend Cesar Bido and he told me that the concept didnt match the style, that i needed stronger colors and an Urban scene since the whole car culture is very Urban, so i went back, did some more inking to ad that comic like feel to it and again realized i need a wacom, dont get me wrong ive seen people doing wonders wiht a mouse, i guess im not one of those. over all im happy with this exercise, i wanna work more on my inks, and my lighting on both vector and non vector illustrations, but this is what its all about, Learning, leearning learning, and then learn some more.

If west pond customs were working for other fairy tales, tall tales and folk tales, who do you think would give em some work???

Illustration Friday: Caged

alejjo — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:57:00 +0000

The circus freaks decide to finally scape, they want a future that doesn’t involve being caged.

in this piece i wanted to try developing some characters, i had lots of fun creating this three, Aquaboy, the firedancer, and moonwalk, out of the three i love moon walk the most jaja maybe its his serious face or his jumpsuit, i dont know but i really love this character.

Which one do you like the best???

The Singer

alejjo — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 23:54:25 +0000

My friend Rando Camasta, an Indie Singer here in Santo Domingo asked me to do an Illustration of him, i accepted the Challenge but the truth is that achieving likeness has never been my forte let alone making it look Cartoony, ive always been amazed at how awesome illustrators are able to make the most abstract caricatures of people and you still know its them, even after turning them into an animal you still know its them. like Pablo Lobato, the guy is so good at this is not even funny.

All in all this wasa huge step outside of my comfort zone and after a while trying to figure out that made my Friend be Him i started noticing his characteristic traits, turns out that after a while i knew what went where so as i started to try different styles the all kinda looked like.

Needless to say i am very happy about this, and im very happy that i did it, i wanna get even better at this, but im happy with the end resul and i know my buddy will like it too