Brooklyn By The Bay

It's now a partly cloudy Monday here in Berkeley, CA. Five days ago, I've successfully moved out of my previous living situation in Emeryville SOMEWHAT unscathed! After a year and five months of moving back to the Bay Area from NY, I'd say the transition was not only inevitable; it was necessary.



 

 

 

The day I turned 27 back in late February, -still alive, thank ya!- I drew this piece out a few hours before my Wednesday Cartooning class started. For at least two months prior, a picture of myself and my quasi- official mascot Squishy the Sugar Glider kept burning in the back of my head. "What better day to draw this," I figured, "but my day of birth?!"

That day struck a cord with me for numerous reasons. Outside of binging out to the Super Smash Bros. for 3DS & Wii U soundtrack all morning, being told by an after school director how popular your Cartooning class has been for two past semesters, and being treated out by your first Bay Area roommate, I was something that I've been trying to achieve for the past three years.

Happy. 

And something even more important: Hopeful. 

 

By the middle of spring, my two Cartooning classes proved to end more successfully than I originally thought they would. Rumor had it that my classes would see the end of day if the company- sponsored Engineering classes would take on higher registration in the fall semester. I'm happy to report that it doesn't seem to be the case!

 

 

To make matters better, my two Cartooning proteges Alice and Jenna were finally done with their first graphic novel-

 

And, of course, they and their families joined me for a few hours at my booth at the Bay Area Book Festival this past Sunday! The two b.f.f.'s showed up between 10:30 and 11 am. By 11:30, I was already out of breath from drawing and clowning around with them and our books. Needless to say, foot traffic doubled around my booth thanks to our shenanigans!

 

It also helped that The Muji Story was showcased just inches away from my SolForce and Strawberry Dough graphic novels. Total strangers, families and librarians were impressed by the sight of two future fifth graders promoting their first project wackily alongside some ice cool, latte chugging, theatrical cartoonist. As a true surprise, all books on my table sold out within those two days! Here's the evidence-

 

 

This photo was taken simply 30 minutes before the festival's close. Any time I get to showcase my graphic novel projects whether in schools or book festivals, I like to keep a close eye on what catches the audiences eye. I made sure flow the table with a wave of postcards, stickers and props -Footloose the Mannequin returns!- to lure them into the characters and watercolor-on-ink art style I've sported for three years.

 

And now, it's time for a demographic study! I've done two book events between October 2015 and June 2016 and taught classes since October 2014. Have a look at the pictures below. My books, characters, and classes garner an audience of-



 

Impressionable elementary school students!

 



 

Kids of color. -which is WAY too vital, as I've explained before in Drawing While Black-

 

Oh... and girls.

 

 

 

Even before 2016 hit with Alice and Jenna being my first two students to create a book-

 



 

Many young female readers and aspiring artists were intrigued by my characters, art style and classes. Could it be the watercolor rendering style? The character descriptions and depictions themselves?! Or is it simply because much like the kids of color-

 

 

 

They see themselves more in my few characters than the thousands of rinsed and rehashed character types they're bombarded with by pop culture since birth?

 

Fellow bloggers and artists, this is why I do what I do. Sure, it's too risky to turn up unexpected into areas you don't fully fit into simply because your name doesn't hold weight as a cartooning teacher, -let alone an independent cartoonist!- or someone will think that you're too intelligible, easygoing or dark to be viewed as acceptable, but this past weekend at the festival proved to me how the price of independence in life is high, but slowly rewarding.

 

And as a shock to many, it's a price I'm willing to pay for.

 

Let's face it: if some slim- fit introverted nerd who draws cartoons for a living isn't able to have some sort of influence on brightening the future for today's more self- aware and sophisticated next generation...

 

Who will?

Student Showcase! "The Muji Story"

There are many times in which the Winds of Fate will pull you in a direction that doesn't quite meet your game plan. Usually, it's by nature that we all will plan against reality since we believe it's ALL in the palm of our hands.

Thankfully, that's not the case!

Once my two Cartooning classes were underway in autumn of 2015, I dipped my bare cold feet into rather warm water. Both classes were composed of deeply impressionable elementary school students, all of which had either an inkling or fine reasoning as to why they wanted to learn the ways of the Cartoonist. Take it from this slim fit jazz buff; I was impressed.

While my K- 2nd grade group took a few weeks to warm up to my existence, my 4th- 6th grade group couldn't help but peek at my book projects -especially SolForce- at least once a class for inspiration. Midway though the semester, I noticed that I was slowly but surely giving the students revised character designs, story ideas and even comic titles! Of the ten students, only a few of them produced concrete ideas to take them a step further.

Allow me to introduce you to two of my Cartooning proteges: Jenna and Alice!!

Starting out as close friends since the 1st grade -their words, not mine-, Alice and Jenna joined my first Cartooning class already in love with three things: animals, magic, and comedy. When asked on the first day of class what were their favorite comic or cartoon characters, both replied Calvin & Hobbes; I almost teared up. Oddly enough, talking with them both together made me consider how much in common they have with my 5th grade- self. In the olden days of my youth, Pokemon, Harry Potter, and SpongeBob SquarePants were my pop culture obsessions. They ended up having a huge pull on my art style and storytelling, just as much as the Looney Tunes, Pink Panther and Garfield comics had on me since I picked up the Crayola crayons in pre- K. 

Working alone for the first seven weeks of class, Jenna created an assortment of animal characters for a household setting that included a trouble-making beagle, a wildly sweet cockatoo and a shy kitten. Me and her often debated on names; the cockatoo's name being Snowy was fitting, but Spot for the beagle I thought was too... common! So, I suggested a name with more weight on it like Magnus! Jenna brings that incident up every chance she gets. Oh, the hilarity.

Alice created characters more for the forest. Her first was a rascally rabbit named Flora. The others were a wildcat, a bluejay bird and a fish that I redesigned as a mud-skipper. Look; when I meet anyone of any age with a genuine love for animals, I try to expand to expand their vocabulary even if the next sentence is "I DON'T WANT HER TO BE A DOG. SHE'S A PUPPY!"

Fast forward to week eight of the class, the duo told me that they wanted to make a comic together. I assumed that they wanted to make new characters, so I let them roam free for 30 minutes. And this is what they came up with:

Yes. Within 40 minutes, this character concept and story summary were drawn and written by them! What I managed to get out of them was this: there's a school of monsters that all look and act similar, but out of the blue an evil sorceress casts a spell on them all which causes the monsters to mutate with differing animal body parts. Now, they embark on a quest to find that sorceress to reverse the spell! 

Huh!.... The idea hooked me, especially for a comic that can have continuing stories. So, I told the girls that I'm taking home their summary and character for some editing. -they hate that word, by the way- Later that Thursday night, this ended up being the revised summary and character design.

At first, I thought I took too many liberties with the character design. "How can two 4th graders draw something like this?!" I thought in the WAY back of my cynical adult brain... But after witnessing the passion Alice and Jenna had for creating something original and telling a story, all of those doubts were dropped that night. And I even helped give the monster species a name: the Muji. The main character I thought should have a name that's youthful and connecting like its creators, so I named him Kee! His circular spiked body type and bat wing- crab arm fusion served as the basis for the Muji designs.

Next week, I presented them the revisions... and their excitement flew sky high. Within minutes, we were drawing out comic thumbnails! As a parting gift for the semester, I drew them a visual concept of the Muji comic:

This, of course, led Jenna to asking a very peculiar question when all of the other students left the room: "Can we, like, make this into a book like your stuff?!"

I looked at her mom with a big smirk and asked "When can we start?"

Folks, this is what led to Alice and Jenna being my "first clients" in comic creating. After a few weekend classes thanks to their mothers, Margot and Noelle, and another full ten week semester, I'm happy to present their first book, The Muji Story! 

Donned with 24 black and white pages, the three- chapter book follows the band of parasite- like creatures that after exposed to a hex casted by Ali- Tabada, an evil sorceress-in-training, mutate as combinations of animals, and now must find a remedy to reverse the hex!

The Muji Story, according to the duo, was only the beginning. Over their summer break, not only do we plan to work further on "Book 2" of the Muji series, but they're also joining me at my first book expo in the Bay Area: the Bay Area Book Festival!! We'll be located in Teen Town, since our projects are all- ages graphic novels. I'm beyond excited to see what the future has in store for my students and I.

Or... just call us "AJA" if we're all spotted together. 

Strawberry Dough: Spring Awakens...

And so have I on this blazing Monday in the Bay Area! So, let's get right down to it. From January to April, my day-to-day life became filled with longer shifts at both jobs, possible job offers in the works that pertains to my career path (!!!!!), and of course, art deprived elementary school kids who need to release that inner Rembrandt and Jack Kirby. You would think that I'd push back Squishy's latest for a few more weeks down the road once my time started freeing up, but my watercolor pencils and Tuesday café hops weren't letting me up.

Strawberry Dough Season's Sweetings: Spring has finally come to its imminent completion last Tuesday and boy, has it been a topsy-turvy three months! Originally intended to get done a week before the spring season started, Spring brings us to the third of four seasons in the Alpine Outback and if any of you read (let alone peeked) into the Winter book, you'd know that things got a tad funkier and experimental with the comedic tone and character development.

This book also includes the return of the oddball of the Outback posse, Echidna!!!



Many of my readers asked why did I have to stick with keeping Echidna out of the Winter book despite his hibernation habits. A few of them felt that had he been there, the encounter with Goanna and Bilby wouldn't have even happened near Squishy and Co. since he's second only to Hedgehog as the most practical to keeping his social circle in check.

That's why I wanted him out! Echidna was also the one character I decided to give a slight design overhaul to thanks to his absence. He now dons four sharp nails varying in size on each of his feet, true to how the echidna's anatomy works in reality. And yet, he's not the only focus of a returning or new character. That special award goes to-

Kiwi! And she was designed with a kiwifruit in mind! The kiwi bird has always been a species of birds that particularly intrigued me since I was in the second grade. One thing I noticed while downing many an iced chocolate chai latte and designing at the same time is that a kiwi bird's feathering comes off looking very fur-like. The final character visual above shows Kiwi in her golden brown-on-lime green glory after testing colors all throughout February and even before anyone knew of the Spring book's existence, people were in LOVE with this character.  



And rightfully so! In Spring, Kiwi's role is given gravity once Echidna figures out that the very curious bird carries around slices of kiwifruit for a daily dose of vitamin C that keeps her legs and eyes awake daily. Of course, this gives Echidna the bright idea to bring Squishy to her for further dietary needs and training! It's... not easy, though.

One lesson I definitely took from Winter came from one student's review of it: 'I like that there's drama with the comedy now!' In other words, I created a continuity with a series of short comic strips that could've just been one-shots.

So despite having Alaok take Hedgehog and Wombat away for a while in a couple of pages for an intense yoga session-

Or Goanna hunting down Bilby in the heat of the night-

Remember that it can all be taken as a one complete story, or a serialized manual to friendships and survival of the animal kingdom!









Strawberry Dough Season's Sweetings: Spring was released on the Blue Aura Oasis site on April 15th, and will come with a free Kiwi sticker with orders and purchases before the summer hits! Thanks for reading and sharing this post!

Oh, and speaking of... Summer-



Try guessing THOSE animals, why dontcha!

Dial 'M' For Moleskine

Take a look at the image below.

This mocha latte was dripping in whipped cream from a Sunday brunch with a fellow author friend and future collaborator. All the while talking about our current endeavors and watching waiters, I felt some need to sneak out my ruled Moleskine journal.... to draw it. She even took the sketch to her Instagram page!

 

And the latte was drunken within an hour. My loyalty to coffee has no limit.

 

Look again at the ruled lines on the picture. Even more so, what and how it was drawn. My Moleskine journal is often saved for the unsolicited thoughts of my artistic path within a day to a week, not for rough 5- 15 minute sketches with ink only. And yet, that's what has been going on for the past four weeks! This latte was just the beginning; my BART and MUNI rides to work were about to become much more... inky.

The process started on a Tuesday. One thing's for sure; if I'm drawing someone a seat away from me, I tend to keep my eyesight four seconds on target. Sure, glasses allow me to hide my eyes thanks to a pair of lenses on a single frame, but consider having to look UP every few seconds! That's the real challenge.

 

Many of you who have been following me for quite sometime know that I'd rather start a sketch with a Col-Erase pencil and iron out the details later with an inkpen and brush pen. Something about carrying around this thinly veiled journal etched one thought into my brain:

 

Don't think.

 

 

Ten minutes later, I entered a MUNI train and sat parallel to a preschooler and her nanny. What you see above is a culmination of drawing kids; they never stop moving. She was pretty exhausted by the time I finally caught her pose! 

 

Next day, a mysterious figure walks onto the BART. Outside of her skateboard and overly buttoned backpack, I couldn't tell you anymore about this woman. One thing's for sure; I refused to darken in the hood. My ink reserves itself!

 

On the adjacent path from my BART seat on the same ride, this side profile started out on a contour line basis. There was a chance to use all of the page for his dozed-off newspaper reading, but a close-up worked just fine. Since I wanted to indicate the different material on him, hatching was used for his hair and cross-hatching for his jacket. Again, saving ink. 

 

This three-part page took place on the MUNI train a half hour afterwards. Anything that puts my cone of vision to the test I'll happily accept, especially when they're more than nine feet away! All of that said, and the hooded figure on top gave off his tired and irritated vibe on my sketch of him. Doing quick studies of people in public is a good way to work on your psychiatric training, hence how I was able to catch the second face to the left. The sun was in her eyes once we hit West Portal (I think). As for the last figure, I'll just go on a limb and say that he was going to the beach that day.

 

Here's my final piece, with a somewhat different approach.



 

 

It was the Saturday morning before Valentine's Day, and folks were already recovering from Super Bowl City with an entourage of hearts and red clothing. Unless, you were like me and you were going to work. Based on the all-black attire this sleepy head was wearing, she probably couldn't bear to think of the imminent pain to endure until that coffee break. Oh, and my cone of vision was only two feet away! The brush pen was used thanks to that; outside of the clothing folds, I wanted to focus on the shading since the image began to abstract in my brain as I was reaching the Montgomery station.

 

The portrait party has come to an end for now, but the Moleskine journal still has a little life in it for a few more. Somewhere on the table, my mixed media sketchbook is dancing due to its inevitable return. Who knows? Maybe I'll make room in my bag for both!

 

 

Or... just churn some fat.

 



I Heart Sol

It all started with a simple task: a certain date named St. Valentine's Day is upon us and I figured it'd be a fun idea to draw a couple of postcards based on SolForce. The only two I thought of were Geraldine and A.C. As I fleshed out the compositions more, something became obvious to me; they were both drinking their favorite beverages. Geraldine sticks to her rabbit inhibitions and downs some carrot juice on her way from the farmer's market, while A.C. smirks after buying his first (out of five) latte macchiato's within his workday. 

 

Here's a secret: I pictured A.C. with a Kojak- esque voice in the colored version. 'Who loves ya, baby?'

 

These two pieces led to six more card designs with RaiStar Twinkle, John Clue, Martha Clue, Revenda Delgatta, Stephanie Monroe, and Essa and Aamoco Gerbil with some form of their favorite food or beverage drinks. This was the purest opportunity to test out a marketing plan that can reach all year round instead of only February. I titled it I Heart Sol! 

 

 

The official logo!



 

Without further ado, here are the original eight chosen for this test!

 



 

Ceasar 'A.C.' Southermire and a Latte Macchiato

 

Geraldine Archer and Carrot Juice

 

John Clue and a Martini

 

Martha Clue and Lemonade

 

RaiStar Twinkle and Cherries (lots of them)

 

Revenda Delgatta, Milk and a Mambo Dancing Gingerbread Mouse 

 

Stephanie Monroe and Mint Ice Cream Cake

 

 

Essa and Aamoco Gerbil and a Bowl of Cereal

 

 

One day over the week, I'll make these available as a package to order! Seeing them on a screen is great, but physical postcards with cartoon characters loving food is too tempting to pass up on.

 

Till then, have a great week and stay Sol-ful!