Back from Angoulême International Comics Festival.

Bonjour! I just returned from attending the Angoulême BD 2012, Europe's largest Comic Book event. I joined a crazy bunch of Artists and Editors from Xabiroi Comic Book Magazine and traveled to the French city of Angoulême for two days of enjoying all kinds of Comic Book and Illustration art. Among other things, I stumbled upon Juanjo Guarnido (Blacksad), met the amazingly talented Aleksi Briclot, and payed a visit to Kei Acedera and Bobby Chiu at the Imaginism stand, where we chatted and ended up exchanging some presents (hadn't seen them since I left Sheridan College). Attending the festival was a great experience: I enjoyed some interesting conversations, laughed a lot and discovered some new and exciting artists. As well as, of course, walking away with some art goodies:

• The Perfect Bait and a cool print by Bobby Chiu (It surely will be an interesting read).
• Aleksi Bricolt's Worlds & Wonders. (Despite the book being an awesome enough catch by itself, Aleksi drew me a really badass sketch to go with it... just great).
• Ashley Wood's World War Robot. (Muddy, rusty and delicious).
• A couple of Japanese TOMBOW ABT "marker-brushes" (Saw Aleksi using these and had to get myself a pair. Hopefully they work as graciously in my hand).
• A Comix Buro Sketchbook by artist Didier Cassegrain (An awesome new discovery).

Some of you might be surprised at the absence of a single comic book here... Fair enough. But as you can see from the list above, this is the shopping cart of an Illustrator and a Character Designer at heart, not a Comic Book Artist. As much as I enjoy some comic book geniuses (Moebius, Guarnido, Bernet, Mignola,...) I know my place and succumbed to my true instincts as a worshiper of the sole image.

Bonne nuit and thanks for stopping by.

Angouleme 2012!

ENG) I will be attending Agouleme's Comic Book Festival, in France, this weekend. This is Europe's most important Comic Book Fair and it'll be my first time attending it. I'm arriving there Friday morning and will be staying there with a bunch of colleagues until Sunday. Anyone else going!?
ESP) Este fin de semana estaré por primera vez en el Festival de Comic de Angouleme, el más importante de Europa. Llegaré el viernes por la mañana y andaré por allí hasta el domingo con unos cuantos camaradas de profesión. Alguno de vosotros estará por allí?

Hellbull

Hi! I've finally found the time to render out this sketch I did while I was in Canada last year. I promised my muse that I would finish up this concept, and well... I'm a man of my word. I'm also taking a chance to thank David Chung, who just became the 666th member of DEISIGN's Facebook Page, by dedicating this Hellbull to him. I however would like to thank ALL of you guys for your patience and support despite my posts being scarce lately. The project I'm currently designing for is taking most of my time (not a trace of complaint here): It is a CG Animated shortfilm directed by Carlos Baena, and I assure you, it's looking amazing so far... and VERY out of the ordinary. I'll keep you guys posted on this. Anyhow, I will resume posting more often after the end of the month. I have some cover illustrations lined up, and you can expect those along with new time-lapse videos and tutorials.

Bellow you can see a gif image showing the steps I followed to render out this Hellbull concept. (Forgive the shitty 256 colors)

Brancusi | Serra | Guggenheim

Visited the Brancusi / Serra exhibit today at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. As always, Frank Gehry's building is a treat in itself, but what I really did not want to miss was Brancusi's itinerant exhibit and specially one of his pieces called Bird in space. I've known and admired this piece for years and only today I got to have it right in front of me and walk around it. Ever since I studied art history and became aware of Constantin Brancusi's work, he has been one of my favorite sculptors ever. Probably because his work strives for the pure, basic and non subjective beauty of shapes... and I do believe there is such a thing. In fact, this is something I look for in my work, even when I'm designing the ugliest of creatures: Some basic shapes, curves and lines simply "work" and others simply don't, just like sounds can become harmonic or just noise.

Quantum Levitation awesomeness a la Wipe'Out! + Old Wipe'Out vehicle designs.

Wipe'Out 2097 was my favorite racing game growing up and arguably the fastest racing game evarrrr. But as a designer at heart, something I enjoyed a lot about this game was the overall design language and its chunky futuristic shapes. Of course, it being and old, low-poly game had something to do with the blockiness, but still, the makers of this game managed to arrange really cool and aggressive shapes, specially on the vehicle designs. To show you how much I liked this game and its design work, bellow you'll find some old vehicle sketches I did a while ago as an homage, inspired by it... or I guess you can just call it Fan Art, no? haha.

"BAH, HUMBUG!" | Ebenezer Scrooge Portrait

ENG | Happy Holidays for those of you who celebrate, and just as merry of a time for those who don't give a Scrooge ;)
EUS | Gabon zoriontxuak danoi ta txintxo ibili!
ESP | Felices fiestas y no sus paséis con el turrón!