Chinito Dog

Flee - Original circa 1995

Roe dawg

Whew, this one is one of my favorite human-type characters. Although, it wasn't always this way. Back in 94-95, Roe a.k.a. "Da Roach", was a cartoony looking gangsta roach with four arms and antennas. Forward some years and he evolved as a rival gang member cut off his other two arms and his antenna over an altercation involving a girl. Nearly 10 years after his creation (2001) and the current Roe pictured came to be fully equipped with those cool claw bracelets and that oversized sword; notice the remnants of the gangsta in his face, you can still see him wearing the bandana, and the baggy jeans him and his partner Flee (see later post) sport.

Bar Monkeys

A play on words, Johnny & Ghouly on the monkey bars. A pinup I did of these two hanging out.

Ghouly invasion

Facial expressions and a few poses of Ghouly, notice his various calm and cute scary and violent transformations. I really enjoy this character because he has a split personality to him allowing him to have a wider range of expressions.

7 Seas sushi chef

The 7 Seas Sushi Chef is a character made for a Canadian raw fish supplier advertisement which ran in the Sushi & Tofu newspaper. The pitch for this came as an image of a large, happy, Japanese sushi chef giving the "thumbs up" in regards to the quality of the fish. After sending them the preliminary sketch, they agreed on the character and later requested for the final, cleaned up version. They bought the full page space and paid extra for the custom-made character/mascot.

Endtroducing... Mr. Kechi

Mr. Kechi is a spoof character of my ex boss David Kudo whom I worked for as an Art Director for his Japanese/English newspaper "Sushi & Tofu" (now named "Sushi & Sake" --horrible name for a newspaper isn't?) The direct Japanese to English translation of the word Kechi means cheap or greedy, which is exactly what Kudo is. However, I always appreciated my time there because this job opened the doors for me to work for newspaper Hoy/L.A. Times. A homage to where I got started, the experience, the influences, and how I got in the industry. Enjoy!

Johnny & Ghouly - villain characters

Introducing the villains from "The Nightmarish Adventures of Johnny & Ghouly. First off, we have the leader of the gang, the ultimate of all evil and commander of the largest army of nightmare creatures... the devil master. This guy is always plotting ways to use Johnny as a ways to open a portal to the human world so that he and his minions can bring Armageddon to earth.

The witch is the devil's main lady who he trusts to train the hordes of evil nightmare creatures to scare and continue to enter the human realms in the form of nightmares. This evil witch's main function is to assign a nightmare creature to each human and does so by birthing creature babies at will. Her shadow tentacles are used as portal doors into the minds of sleeping humans.

The mummy is Ghouly's biggest nemesis, though friends at first and strongest of the nightmare creatures, Ghouly's interest in saving Johnny from the nightmare world has made the mummy hold a personal vendetta against his old pal, Ghouly. This character has however one defect, although he wants Ghouly dead and Johnny in the hands of the devil master, he always comes close to killing off Ghouly, but leaves him alive enough for him to come and rescue Johnny, it's believed that he does so because the human embodiment he takes after was of an Egyptian lord who was known to have a big heart, yet condemned to hell by treason. In a sense, he does good deeds to clear his name for all the crimes he was blamed for.

Kid Monsters

"Kid Monsters" is about these kid versions of classic horror movie monsters going through the everyday struggles of elementary school. These kid monsters are a creation of a mad scientist who is also the school's janitor (whose appearance is never fully revealed). This mad scientist, loosely monitors the monsters as he plans on ways to turn them against the students and school staff. His ultimate dream is to turn the children into an army of kid monsters to fulfill his goal of world domination. The twist here is that these kid monsters have a good side, which for the most part, dominates their monster side, therefore ruining the dreams of the mad scientist/janitor's world domination.
Seen here from top to bottom is Batsy Vamps (kid vampire) and Itey Frost (kid yeti). More characters would include a kid mummy, werewolf, creature from the lagoon, Frankenstein, zombie, and of course chupacabra! Stay tuned for more sketches of the rest of the cast.

"The Nightmarish Adventures of Johnny & Ghouly"

This image was to be a promo for my portfolio some years back, these two characters were to be set at a police line-up, or in this case a jail picture where Johnny Freight (the human looking one) would be holding his name and info for the mug-shot, and Ghouly (the crazy monster) as seen wearing an unbuckled straight jacket. More story line info and character poses/turn-arounds to come. Got content galore for this character series, one of my favorite!

Anime/manga inspired vampire guy

Vampire Lestat type character; notice the anime/manga influences in hair, eyes, mouth, and overall appeal. Currently not too sure where to go with this character, a while back I had a storyline similar to Vampire Hunter D, but them Vampire Hunter D actually materilized into an amazing film, and my idea, well, it went as far as this sketch (damn procrastination symdrome of mine!).

Diggin up the bonez of DJ Skeleto

DJ Skeleto, my latest character in the three stages that it went through. From top to bottom: sketch done in pencil on paper, transferred to canvas done in acrylics and paint markers, then digitized in photoshop with the addition of the angel wings (done in illustrator first, then rasterized). This image pretty much sums it up as far as my style. Strong Mexican art figure (dia de los muertos), DJing, which symbolizes my love for hip-hop culture, and to some extent, the tattoo/street art iconic simplicity that I'm such a fan of. Oh and I just had to throw those signature angel wings which, as the title of my blog reads, it's all about me being from the city of angels, the place I call home and the greater influence for this and most of my pieces. Enjoy!

My very first post!

Well, here I am, jumping in the bandwagon of an art blog. After hearing about all of these things regarding blogger and how every artist in my class @ the Animation Academy seems to own one and whatnot. So, here I am. From the crap I produce to some of the stuff that might get me somewhere someday. Enjoy everybody, more to come, promise!