Southside of Elsewhere

Enjoy!

SATURDAY PREMIERE!!!

After three years, Southside of Elsewhere will finally have it's online premiere! Tune in to Lost Skies Production on VIMEO on Saturday, May 26th, 2012 at 10:00am MST and watch the hard work of many people!

Here's the official synopsis: A researcher goes on the run when he tries to hide his daughter from becoming the target of a megacorporation's super-soldier project.

I'm excited for all of you to see it!

Neil Gaiman's Timeless Advice for Artists

We've had a rough couple of weeks recently. We've been dealing with the passing of our young nephew, so as you can imagine it's been stressful and heart breaking. I've also had some freelance that needed a quick turn around, which was a much needed diversion.

With everything that has happened, I stumbled on this address from Neil Gaiman to graduates- and he had one striking piece of advice that I know I must follow: When times are rough and life seems overwhelming, make good art.

Now time to follow that advice.

Life is fragile, but goes on.

I keep going back to Milton Caniff's work. It's obvious to me how so many of my inspirations were themselves inspired by him. His work is so cinematic, alive, and timeless. The craftmanship and storytelling alone are incredible, you just don't find much out there that matches it's spirit.

And to look at this picture- I see myself in a few years... I'd like to imagine myself like that anyway...

It's a long ways off.

I'm sorry, though. I have no artwork to post today, and probably won't for a while. On a personal note, my 16 year old nephew died in a car accident this week, and to say it's been hell would be an understatement. He was bright, funny, popular and talented- he had better designs than I did in college. It's been devastating- his father had died 5 years ago and that was just horrible enough. Now, we're reeling, trying to shake off the shock and lay my nephew to rest soon.  Life is short and fragile, so please hold on to you loved ones, you never know what happens from one day to the next.

In the meantime, distraction from dwelling keeps me going. I just hope Jacob can continue with his artwork up there as well.

Some more old drawings

Just for fun, I discovered these on my harddrive.  Here are the first five of fifteen older drawings from some comic book pages that I turned into storyboards:

Visual tool

Well, I promised some recent drawings. Hardly any personal stuff right now- my fault of course, but to be fair I have been busy with house and home lately.

My day job is challenging, but sometimes the work very dry. So I get excited when a project comes along that requires me to draw something. A year and a half ago, I was asked to design a mascot, but they opted for another design by a very talented employee whom I've yet to meet. Earlier this week, another department wanted an orientation video, but due to expense they'll have to pitch the idea to the president of our organization... so I was called upon to do some quick storyboards.  By quick, I mean just a couple of hours!

Luckily, due to the nature of the video, it's mostly interviews- and not a lot of b-roll. So the Senior Copywriter pounded out a script and I illustrated the key points. Easy enough... so here's what I quickly put together:

Ball point pens are my friends.

Of course, the copywriter added this to the side of the script. Hopefully this will help the group get what they set out to do.

Not what I expected

Still worth the price!

I got my copy of "The Cisco Kid" yesterday... and while it was exciting to get, I am slightly disappointed with it.

While I could only imagine what effort it was to find and compile 3 years worth of strips from 60 years ago, it looks as if the scans were from actual news paper proofs, or in some cases actual clippings. Being a graphic artist, I can see tell tale signs of degradation and cleaning effort.  Plus, the original film process and printing onto porous newspaper would really destroy half of Salinas' work to boot.

What I was expecting (though unrealistically)? Scans of the original art- like here: Salinas- Cisco Kid on Comic Art Fans. What is printed in the book is very different.

However- my expectations were extremely high. I will still treasure this book and read it- the story is entertaining and the art is still wonderful.  It's clean and the publishers did the best that anyone could do with such a rare, old and complete series.

Time to retire an old friend

I tend to use tiger stripes and snake tattoos quite a bit.

Here is an old business card that I have used for years (altered here, no offense but I'd rather not advertise my cell number online :). These illustrations are old, and the card itself was in black and white to save printing costs.

In any case, it's time to retire the old bugger. It's served me well for many a yarn, but I've been using my Lost Skies business card more and more. However, I'd would still like to use a separate card strictly for illustration purposes. But what should I put on v2.0?

Ships sailing the skies...

Note the Spanish flag on the main mast... a nod to my heritage.

The original idea I had when I came up with name "Lost Skies" was based on the "lost lands" literary motiff: undiscovered country, new horizons, lost civilizations... that sort of thing.  What better way to explore the proverbial 'Lost Skies' than on a ship sailing through the clouds?  That was the idea for this logo- which I used for a number of years.  However, as a logo, you really could never see the illustration technique of the boat and the clouds- it didn't really "read" the way I wanted it.

Still, it captures my imagination. Enough so that I've decided to use it as a title for my web comic strip (currently under development) "Tales of the Lost Skies". It would be an anthology series, like the Outer Limits, Twilight Zone, Amazing Stories, Tales from the Crypt, Weird War, Weird Fantasy, Mystery in Space, etc. This way I will be able to experiment with one shots, or short story arcs allowing me to visit all sorts of different stories across multiple genres.  Maybe I'll breathe new life into the above logo into a title graphic.

Quick Update

It's been a bit busy lately. While Aaron is hammering out a new script, I've been taking care of life, but have also stayed creative with drawing. Not to worry, I will have a storyboard article sooner than later! As for SSOE... plan on a Vimeo release in May.

Meanwhile, please check out my other site http://juanmaestas.blogspot.com to see what I've been up to lately!

"Adventure" Library PSA

Back in 2005ish, I had done a set of illustrations used in some public service announcements on how exciting it is to read (which it is, of course). The images were given motion, sound, and music by the producer. They were rather effective. I illustrated two, and storyboarded a few others.

This particular one was titled "Adventure", starring the tomb robber "Montana Stagg", named after my friend Brett Stagg who helped me with some photo reference. I particularly like how this one turned out- it almost seems like a traditionally animated cartoon. Note how they are formatted in the "academy" aspect ratio of 4:3... the good old days of NTSC before the digital switchover.

Kubert Correspondence Course Sale!

I've been waiting for a Correspondence Course sale at Kubert School, and I was hoping one would be popping up soon.

Kubert School is celebrating the 13th Anniversary (of I'm assuming their Correspondence Courses) and they have a big contest to win a print drawn and signed by Joe, Adam and Andy Kubert! 13 lucky winners of the prints will be drawn (heh) from the best of the second assignments. If that's not incentive to do your best, I don't know what is!

So I have some freelance gigs coming up which will pay for my order! And I will post my assignments and critiques!

Stocking up

Hmm... what could these be for? You tell me, I've had them for a while.

The initial idea was that I wanted to convert one of my feature length screenplays into 6 issue mini-series that could become bundled into a graphic novel. I have plenty of ideas- more than I know what to do with- and often because I keep switching back and forth, it's paralyzing. Running too many directions at once paralyzes you in place. I want to do too many things and I lack focus some times- or rather I get discouraged. I'm working on it, though. I've always done well in school, freelance, and work- when I have deadlines and I have people relying on me... but it's at the expense of my own goals.

SO they're patiently waiting for me to get to the point where I won't waste them.

The Cisco Kid, Volume 1

The Cisco Kid: Volume 1. Now Available For $24.95

I'm really looking forward to getting this- I just placed my order through Amazon. But a bit of background- I first came across Jose Luis Salinas' artwork while perusing Comic Art Fans' website. I've always loved the adventure comic strip, I used to cut and save many of them when I was younger- usually Prince Valiant, Spiderman, The Empire Strikes Back, Tarzan, etc. I was always taken by the draftmanship of these cartoons... ever since I was 4 years old. Seriously.

When I came across Salinas' work I was awe-struck. Anatomy, expression, landscape, light and shadow, sequential storytelling, costumes and props, inkwork... I could go on and on. AND it was all done BY HAND, nothing digital at all about it. No crutches of 3d software or anything- just plain old talent and skill.  You hardly see anything like that anymore. I'll leave that rant for another time.

However, there are many articles about Salinas throughout the web, and many examples of his art. When I found that Classic Comic Press was compiling a series of books, I was ECSTATIC!!! I hope I can gleam some sort of education from owning this, to help my own adventure cartooning and inking. Between that and Kubert School's Correspondence Course, it's just a matter of time and discipline.

Looking across their site, I've discovered another strip that I might have to get- Frank Godwin's Rusty Wiley- amazing stuff. Looks like the folks over at Classic Comic Press will be getting quite a bit of my money- and I'll gladly give it to them for such amazing books!

Bacon on the side!

Bacon-licious!

Experimenting with cartoons and painting. This little dude turned out, and has sort of become my alter-ego.