The Shooter

"The Shooter" is a 3 page comic I created based on an idea I got two years ago. I finally had some time to devote to it. Hope you like it!

"The Stairs"

"Story to story, building to building, street to street, we pass each other on the stairs." I can't claim to know exactly what Michael Hutchence and Andrew Farriss of INXS were visualizing when they wrote "The Stairs" but I was both inspired and enamored by the idea that stairs can be home to these micro moments between people of different backgrounds and points of view. So I ran with that idea and it evolved into this - "The Stairs."

"You Got This"

"You Got This" Your heart's beating so fast it feels like it's about to explode. And now your right knee's shaking? Wait. Why's your knee shaking? Oh my god! Can they see it? Just keep walking toward the mic. It won't be so obvious then. Just don't drop your pick cause your hands are really sweaty. Crap! What if my fingers slip? What if I forget the chords? You need to stop, ok? Take a deep breath. Breathe. C'mon, you've practiced this a million times. You know the words. You know the chords. This is what you were born to do. You got this!

After shipping out the books and rewards to all my amazing Kickstarter backers, I'm happy to announce that my "SMALL DOGS" book is now available publicly on my Storenvy page. Simply click on the link below to check it out and for anyone who'd like their copy dedicated to someone in particular I'd be happy to oblige :) Happy Friday, everyone and remember to stay small!

http://mauricioabrilart.storenvy.com/

"Hey, Little Guy"

"Hey, Little Guy." I don't really know where the specific storytelling inspiration for this came from, but I knew I wanted to capture a quiet moment between pilot and small desert creature in this "Star Wars" themed piece. It was also an opportunity to do a low contrast dusk lighting scenario painting which I've been wanting to do for a while now.

"The Little Things" - Happy Father's Day 2016

"The Little Things" - Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there for all the little things they do that add up in the end!

SMALL DOGS Kickstarter 100% Funded!

HAHA in between the time I made this image and was about to post it, my Kickstarter campaign got FULLY FUNDED! Seriously THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING AND/OR SHARING IT! The way Kickstarter works is now any additional funds raised will go toward stretch goals which are ways to enhance the existing rewards or add new ones. In the mean time thank you again for your support and for those that haven’t yet pledged, if you do now you’re guaranteed to get the book. Cheers!

http://kck.st/1R4DLTn

"Small Dogs" Coming Soon

Many of you can probably tell that storytelling is at the heart of what I do. Along that line I'd like to introduce another story. It's a children's book called "Small Dogs" that I wrote and illustrated three years ago. The book you're seeing here is a test copy which I've used to help me edit and refine it to the point that I feel it is ready to be shared with all of you. In the coming weeks I plan to post more information about the story in anticipation of launching my first ever Kickstarter campaign to help get the book printed. I've put a ton of work into this and I genuinely hope you'll enjoy seeing it. Thank you for all of your support and encouragement so far!

Father's Day 2015 Part 1 of 2

I'm not a father, at least not that I know of, but this first (of two) Father's Day illustration was inspired by a moment I experienced about a year or so ago. I was coming home late after one of those long and draining days at work. You know, the kind that are so mentally exhausting that they also drain you physically and all you want to do is lie down and do nothing?

Well as I was about to unlock my front door I had a moment for some random reason where I thought to myself - 'Oh my god, if I had to come home to a family right now and help my kid with their homework, give them a bath and put them to sleep, I just don't know how I'd be able to do it.' Usually I come home and do some art, but I didn't even want to do that and I LOVE art! It was then that I felt like I got a small glimpse into what it's like to be a father which led me to illustrate this one page comic. So this goes out to all the great papa bears out there who go to a grueling job day in and day out and still have enough for their kid(s) at the end of the day. 

Remembering the Past: D-Day 1944.

Remembering the past. Today's the anniversary of D-Day, the allied invasion of occupied France during World War II. It was also brought to life in the opening of "Saving Private Ryan." What's so interesting to me about history is that it took place on ground that is now more often than not quiet and peaceful, leaving only those who survived it to ensure that it will be remembered for generations to come.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day! This illustration is inspired by and dedicated to my loving mother. It's funny, I used to have this book of short fairy tale type stories from which my mom used to read to me and I can't remember a single one. But what I do remember are those moments. Thank you, Mom! And to all you hard working moms out there, you may not get a thank you for all the little things that you do everyday, but they'll definitely count in the end.

Making Good on a Promise: "SMALL DOGS"

Now that all of the excitement from my recent Superman film "A Smallville Man" has quieted down, I can make good on my promise to myself to follow up on another project of mine from a few years ago. It's a children's story called "Small Dogs" that some of you might have even inquired about at one of my convention appearances. If you're a fan of dogs, fun stories, and/or colorful stylized illustrations, then I think you might enjoy it. Stay tuned!

Children's book SMALL DOGS back from the printer's!

For the first time ever I will have copies of my children's book SMALL DOGS available for sale next weekend at DesignerCon in Pasadena at the convention center. The books measure at 9 x 9" and are 22 pages, and I'm super happy with the print job. I'll post some never-before-seen artwork from the inside of the book in the coming week, but until then here's some more specific info about the show:

Exhibit Hall A & B

300 East Green Street

Pasadena, CA 91101. 

Tickets are $5 per day pre-order or $7 at the door

I'll be at Booth 526 with copies of the book as well as limited prints of original art and especially from my Batman movie "A Gotham Fairytale." 

Have a great weekend!

Batman Animatic: Progress Update #2

I have been working on and off for the past year and a half on a Batman animatic for an original story I came up with years ago. In case you're not familiar, an animatic is a kind of 'film' made up of a series of storyboards edited together, sometimes with voice acting, music and other cinematic effects to give an idea of what the final scene could be.

I'm hoping to finish this by the end of the summer, and have it be ready for uploading to Youtube by end of August (at least that's the deadline I've given myself). Until then, I'm excited to share a few images from the animatic, and I'll be posting more in the coming weeks! 

This has also been a rather interesting project as I've had to explore new styles and approaches to make my art visually appealing while at the same time easy to finish in a short amount of time. So far my animatic is running at almost 200 individual images! This is definitely a labor of love as I'm not intending it for any professional use but rather simply for the joy of telling the story that's in my head. 

If you've been following my other posts, you'll know that I've got several other serious projects in the works as well, and this one just got put on priority simply for the sake of getting it out there. In the past I used it as a break from my other work, but lately I've been so frustrated by its long incubation that I decided to just finish it so I could move on with my other projects. So as a great man once said,

"You either get busy living, or you get busy dying."

"THE GIFT" - Children's Book Process Pt 2

As I mentioned in my last post, the next step in my process for creating this next book of mine is to lay out the color script. What I do for this step is I take all my thumbnails and lay them side by side in photoshop. Then I create an equally sized window below it and start laying in some color based on some pre-meditated choices I've already made. This isn't by any means final, but more of an 80% work in progress :)

The best way to imagine a color script is to think about it like a visual soundtrack for your project. Just like a good movie utilizes music to accentuate the highs and lows of a story, so too must the color help serve the emotional weight of your story at any given moment. 

Think of your favorite sad scene - now imagine listening to the music without the context of the movie or dialogue. Chances are you'd still be able to tell that the scene to which that music belongs to is sad. It is the same with color - taken alone without the context of a layout or drawing, the color of any given piece should (hopefully) resonate the emotion behind the overall illustration.

I apologize for the overly censored image above as I am not usually one for obtrusive watermarks or highly edited images. It's not that I'm afraid someone's going to steal my art, it's more that I don't want to give away too much of my story before it's finished. Also, the color script may and probably will change as the process continues, so I don't want to commit to something so forthright here in my blog. Like I mentioned before, this is my first time really documenting my process, so I'm still learning how, when, and what to share. 

If anything, I hope this inspires you all to really think about your color choices in the future. I'm by no means an expert in the area, but it's always helped me make better choices when I'm weighing them against what my narrative intent is.

Happy Weekend!

"THE GIFT" - Children's Book Process Pt 1

Some of you might already be familiar with my first picture book, SMALL DOGS, which I am querying and is currently being reviewed by an agent. Since finishing the artwork for that book a few months ago, I began working on my next picture book - THE GIFT.

THE GIFT is a different kind of story altogether. Whereas my first book is about dogs and the idea that you should never let a physical quality limit your potential, this book is a more poetic story about the relationship between a mother and her son, and how that relationship affects each of their lives.

I'd like to share a bit of my process with this project and see how that differs from my first experience, where I didn't share anything from my book until I was finished with it.

One note about this post: these steps are a general outline. I don't always do everything in this exact order as the creative process is never linear, but it certainly helps when organizing a big project such as a picture book. 

STEP 1 - STORY

It always begins with story. STORY STORY STORY! I remember when this story about a boy and his mother came to me. I was sitting listening to music, and all of a sudden, the story began manifesting itself in my mind. This was years ago! I kept that little seed in my mind until I finally had time to flesh it out, and once I did, I spent several months working on it and letting it simmer. Finally I had a working "draft," something that I could tackle and reshape where necessary.

Here you see how I generally flesh out one of my projects. After writing some drafts in MS Word, I draw very loosely on sheets of paper and I arrange them on a wall (or in this case my closet doors), so that I can see the story progress in front of me. It is as this point that I can edit and figure out my pacing, and what scenes I really need to tell my story.

My biggest obstacle wasn't what the story was, however, but in how I was going to tell it. I wrote three different versions of the same story and finally settled on the one that struck the biggest emotional chord with the help of some very talented friends who read my work and gave me their feedback.

STEP 2 - LAYOUTS

What I do next is nail down my layouts for each page, making sure that the compositions are right. This is one of the funnest parts for me, admittedly. Sorry for the blurriness on the first one, but I don't want to reveal the entirety of the book just yet. You can see what one of the sketches looks like in the next image, which is done very small. The thumbnail you see here is about 1.5" x 1.5" All of the thumbnails fit on one regular sheet of printer paper.

STEP 3 - REFINE LAYOUTS

After I've worked out my entire book in a very rough, simple format, I then begin to refine the layouts that need refinement. Sometimes I'll just paint straight over a rough sketch as I don't need more than the basic shapes. Other times, though, I might want to change a pose, or I might need to add more information to the piece in the drawing stage, in which case I'll refine the layout.

This is an example of the refinement from my thumbnail above. I changed the pose of the performers to improve the composition and made sure my text placement will fit accordingly. Since I'm going to paint over it, I'm not worried at all about doing a nice, pretty drawing. I just need enough of the information in the sketch. I also start accounting for the extra space I'll need for printing bleeds.

STEP 4 - COLOR SCRIPT

That'll be in the next part of this post. I hope you've enjoyed looking at a bit of my process. I feel a bit weird showing this much as I've never done so, but I do it in the spirit of inspiration and sharing that makes the blogosphere so awesome. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments section. Just as well, I'd love to hear about your processes and what works or doesn't work for you. Thanks for looking!

"SMALL DOGS" Children's Book

So if you've been noticing my posts for the last couple of months, I've mentioned that I've been busy working on a children's book project. Well, I'm happy to finally reveal it.

It's called "SMALL DOGS" and follows the story of a bright-eyed Chihuahua named Seth, a chubby comic book crazed Pug named Chester, and a shy but nerdy Dachshund named Winston. Together they try to show a group of big dogs led by a beautiful but vicious Boxer named Bella that you shouldn't judge someone based on their size but by the quality of their character. You can read more about it at the official website here.

It's nothing formal - this is just a dummy copy that I got printed in order to shop it around for representation and publication. The fun parts over - the artwork. I've already started the boring part - all the business and market research - and have still so much to learn. I'm thankful for all of the advice and time various professionals and former teachers have given me regarding the world of publishing. There's so much to learn, but that's part of the fun right? At least that's what I tell myself.

Thanks for stopping by!