SDCC

Comic-Con! My Twitter feed and Facebook page have been lit up with news, events, and photos from San Diego already this week. This is actually the first year since I moved to California that I haven't gone to SDCC.

There's a lot to love about a gathering of like-minded geeks and talented artists in one space. I always somehow talked myself into going year after year because I knew I would see friends there that I almost never see otherwise. Comic-Con, for me, was a big reunion, and for that, it was worth the crowds, the smells, the angry pen-wielding Harry Potter fans, and spending a year's vacation budget on a hotel room only to sleep on the floor.

This year, it just got too big, and all of those people I went every year to see decided not to go. So this was the year that I stayed home too. Especially after the extreme drama of last year's event, I'm relieved to be at home and in my normal routine.

But, in the spirit of Comic-Con, here are some of my sketchbook entries from last year's tumultuous SDCC weekend. :-)

Home

I just got back from a few days visiting my parents back home in Missouri. It was my dad's birthday, and I needed a change of scenery before LA made me crazy. (OK, crazier.) I never do much drawing when I'm home, but I managed a few sketches of some of the wildlife during this last visit.

Favela 3

Crazy week! But I had time during the "Mad Men" season finale to unwind with a new favela drawing, which I wrapped up last night. If it looks familiar, that's because it's drawn from the same photo I posted in the last entry!

Eu Te Amo, Rocinha

A little bit of fun news about my artwork! DJ Zezinho sent me the link today of a great video that Brazil's largest network, Globo, posted featuring his Spin Rocinha DJ school. I had the chance to meet Zezinho, DJ Ramon, and some of the students while I was visiting Rocinha, and I designed some t-shirts for the students. This video is in Portuguese with no subtitles, but you English speakers can clearly see my t-shirts being worn by the students, and you can see the enthusiasm everyone at the school has for music and their community.

Desde que eu tenha seguidores no Brasil e Portugal também...hoje o DJ Zezinho me mandou esse video sobre a Spin Rocinha escola de DJ na Rocinha, no Rio de Janeiro. Na minha última viagem ao Rio, eu desenhei algumas camisas pros alunos da escola, que vocês podem ver nesse video! Tô com orgulho. :-)

Here are the original drawings I did...Aí vai os desenhos originais que eu fiz:

Beijos!

Rua Barata Ribeiro

Missing Rio a little this morning, so I dug up some sketches from one of my last days there. I had this mental image that my time there was going to be spent in cafés and bars, with my sketchbook in hand, drawing all day. These drawings are from the one time I actually did sit in a café and draw. (As for the bars...yeah, forget about it.) 

Portrait of the artist

Some pretty exciting news over here today, at least for me. As of today I am officially signed on as the illustrator for Issue 2 of Run By The Gun...and what that means is that for the next month and a half, comics will be my full-time job, instead of that thing I try to do when my full-time job isn't consuming my life.

Not too shabby, considering it was just a little over three months ago that I quit said day job in order to pursue comics more seriously (with a nice little monthlong buffer of "fuck everything" time in Rio in between). I can't say everything in the last three months has gone according to my crazy plan, but, I can say I'm figuring it out, and so far I'm excited. 

About to get very busy over here! 

Favela 2

Mais uma! 

Saudades

Saudade is my favorite word in Portuguese, and one of the first I ever learned. It has no direct English translation, but it's a feeling we've all had at some point or another..."a nostalgic feeling connected to the memory of someone or something absent" (my translation of the Portuguese definition). You feel saudade for home, for family, for loved ones who are far away, for something as silly as a bar you used to go to in college or a kind of food you had on vacation and can't get where you live. It's less the feeling of missing, and more the feeling you get from the thought of that someone or something that is far away or absent.

The Book of Love

Wrapping up another busy day of work, and feeling a bit sappy this evening, so I thought I'd share a couple of romantic little drawings from my sketchbooks.

An older couple I spotted in Arpoador on one of my last days in Rio.
Yes, they were actually reading Voltaire. 

Árvores

Whew! Been too long since I updated. It was a very busy week working in-studio, picking up a new gig and trying to crank out the first round of work for that to be approved, and trying to catch up on a comic page for a SCAD anthology. I only just wrapped up work for the day, there's more tomorrow, and then it's a whole new busy week again...

So, sorry for the half-assed post, but you guys just get some goofy sketches of trees today. (At least they're trees from Florianópolis! Does that make them more exciting?)

Treasure Map

An older sketch from the archives (read: the depths of my external hard drive) today. A couple of pirate characters a friend and I sort of accidentally created a few years back.

"I think the cat's got the right idea. What do you say we
skip the adventure?"

Rainy Day

After a lovely few days up in Monterey, supporting/driving/carb-loading my roomie as she ran the Big Sur marathon, I'm back to (surprisingly gloomy) LA, the grind, and the sketchbook.

Orange hair

Favela...finished!

Finished and properly scanned!

Garotas de Ipanema

A series of pin-ups inspired by the Rio de Janeiro beach culture and the beautiful, confident carioca women that people have been writing cheesy songs about for as long as there has been a Rio. I used to be a cold weather, only-happy-when-it-rains, scarves and boots kind of girl. Although I loved the beach, I hid beneath layers of clothes and SPF 80, fearing the sun as much as showing off any bit of my less than perfect beach bod. 

Well, Rio beat that out of me, and fast. I'm still religious about my sunscreen, but now that I've been converted to the cult of the barely-there biquini (and tricked by the carioca men into believing I look good in one), I use about twice as much...

Scribbles

Just a couple of random sketches from last night and this morning...

São Paulo

During my first trip to Brazil, I never left Rio de Janeiro...I was broke, only knew one person in the entire country, and my Portuguese was rough at best (and incomprehensible at worst), so that was pretty much as far outside my comfort zone as I was willing to go at the time. This second time around, I was still broke, but managed to arrange a week of traveling to two other cities in southern Brazil, São Paulo and Florianópolis.

I had heard São Paulo described as "ugly" and "crowded" compared to Rio...that it was nothing but buildings with no green anywhere. I didn't find this true at all. There were plenty of lush trees and parks throughout all of the skyscrapers and high-rise apartment buildings. Of course the geography of the place isn't quite as naturally stunning as Rio's beaches and mountains, but calling "Sampa" an ugly city is hardly fair.

São Paulo did feel much less like a foreign city to me than Rio does...you arrive in Rio and immediately you know you are not in Kansas anymore. Sampa, on the other hand, seems to have built itself up as a global city from the get-go. It felt like the older, more responsible lawyer firstborn to Rio's wild bohemian baby of the family...complete with the sibling rivalry.

"Porra! Why are there so many windows? This is taking
FOREVER to draw..."

I hope to get the chance to go back and explore more...I definitely am more of a carioca at heart, but I loved São Paulo.

País Tropical

I haven't yet posted anything in color here!

I've become a fan of the Tombow dual-ended brush pens...I probably should just cave and get a watercolor set, but I always feel like I'm too wimpy with watercolors, and always end up with a mushy mess. With markers I'm usually too saturated and cartoonish but at least it looks like a big, loud, colorful mistake instead of an overworked dull one.

Basically I was marvelling at the effect that Rio's tropical climate had had on me after a week. (I may have been exaggerating a little.) For all the things I do love about LA, the arid climate is not one of them, and you'll never hear me happily talking about "dry heat". I am not a desert creature.

Verde!

Just a little doodle in the garden outside my friend's condo. 

Corcovado

More Rio sketches. At the tail end of my second visit to this city, I finally made it to one of the major landmarks, Corcovado.

While waiting to take the train back down from the Cristo Redentor (or Christ Redeemer) statue, we had time for a caipirinha and I had time for some sketching. It must be a total pain going anywhere with me, all I want to do is sit and draw, which takes so much longer than snapping pictures! 

Yes, this is a butt shot of Jesus. The cafe
didn't exactly have the best view. 

Carioca com caipirinha.

I had to stop at these three sketches because a thunderstorm rolled in and it started to rain. (Yay! I love rain! Oh no! My sketchbook pages don't!) With a view like this, I could've stayed up there scribbling all afternoon:

Favela

One of my sketches from near the end of the Brazil trip. This favela (according to Google Maps, Favela Morro dos Cabritos...I never asked the name of it while I was there) was right next door to my friend's condo where I stayed in Copacabana for most of my visit. 

While working on T-shirt designs for the Rocinha Media School, in Rio de Janeiro's largest favela Rocinha, I found a certain zen in drawing the crazy stacked buildings of the favela communities. I'd just pick a point to start from, put pen to paper, and draw outward from that point. No pencil underdrawing, no straightedge...it wasn't important that my favela sketches looked 100% photographically accurate, but that they captured the structured madness that is the favela. These buildings have been built up over decades on top of each other, painted bright colors, added on to...it seems almost everyone has satellite TV...there's always laundry out to dry and amazing cooking smells in the air. 

I want to do a whole series of favela drawings, larger and more detailed than this, but the same basic concept and approach...freehand pen sketches of sprawling, stacked buildings. With all their satellite dishes. Hey, you think maybe I could make a friend in the favela who'd let me come over and watch "Game of Thrones"? 

(This would of course require me living in Rio.)

(I am totally OK with that.)