How to Train Your Dragon

I did the cover for A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons, one of the books in the Hiccup the Viking Series. It's very exciting to see the Dreamworks trailer to the movie.

Scroll down to my August 31st post to see the cover I illustrated.

Here's the movie trailer. It looks amazing.

The Red Badge of Courage

I recently finished illustrating the cover and interiors for Stephen Crane's classic novel, The Red Badge of Courage.

The book will be available January 2010 through Magic Wagon, a division of the ABDO Group www.abdopub.com, or your educational wholesaler.



I decided to take the poses myself, and have a friend shoot me for photo reference. I don't usually do this, but I felt an urge to do so for this project. It was fun getting to play the characters.



These are a some of the interior illustrations I did for the book. I inked these with a sumi pen.

The Farmer

One of the images from a recent story I illustrated.

This is a retrospective scene, where the farmer is remembering the good old days on the farm.

A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons

I did the cover art for Cressida Cowell's book, A Hero's Guide to Deadly Dragons. This book is now available at all major book stores.

Dreamworks is making a feature film on the characters in this series. Read more about it on this link. www.imdb.com

Field Trip Mysteries

I just got my copies for the Field Trip Mystery Series. I did the cover and interiors for all 4 books. The books were written by Steve Brezenoff and published by Stone Arch Books.





Here are the main characters in the series

The Goblin Baby

Random House send me copies of the Goblin Baby book I did the cover art for. Yay!

The story is written by Berlie Doherty, and the interior art was done by Lesley Harker. The book was published in May so it should be out in all major book stores.

The Star-Figher of Murphey Street

Today I got my copies of The Star-Fighter of Murphy Street trilogy, published by Zonderkidz. I Illustrated the covers and interior spots about a year ago. I've been looking forward to seeing these books published. It's always a treat for me to see the final outcome of my illustration work.

These books were really fun to illustrate. I love the titles for each book:)

Spring Cleaning. Yay!!!

I just cleaned out my locker at the Academy just before spring break. I had about 3 years worth of drawing pads in there. I brought home about 15, 18 X 24 drawings pads, 100 pages per pad. Each pad is jammed packed with drawings from my classes. A lot of them were demos I've given, and drawings from my workshop. I am in the process of transferring and cataloging them in my computer. It will take quite a bit of time to sort through all of them but I am working on it.

I didn't realize I had accumulated so many drawings is such a short amount of time. I'm glad these drawings are finally getting the chance to see the light of day again:) I'm seriously thinking of putting these drawings together in a book format. We'll see...

I have enough material to update my blog for a couple of years now. Ha! I'll show you guys the drawings in small increments.

Most of the drawings I've been posting on my blog are nude quickstudies. I love drawing the clothed figure as well. I find folds very fascinating and challenging to draw.

These drawings are all 20 minute poses.These are all done with a compress charcoal stick on 18 by 24 smooth news print.






I used a red prsmacolor stick for this one


Pencil in sketchbook

New Baby/ Anatomy Drawings

Thanks for all your feedback on the last post. My goal is to post at least once a month, so check back every so often.

I been quite busy with the family, teaching, and freelancing. We have a new baby in the house. Emma Beatrice Canga was born November 17, 08. She is a bundle of joy and a handful.

4 months here


Been getting back to anatomy lately. Every so often I like to freshen up my knowledge, by studying the drawings of the great Renaissance masters, and look at a lot of Greek and Roman sculptures. They are very inspiring to me.

All of these were done at my Quickstudies workshop. The poses range from 1-3 minutes.

Quick Studies/ Workshop Part 5

Sorry it's been some time since my last update. Thanks for everyone's feedback on the last post.

It's good to have the Spring 09 Quickstudies in session. Here are some drawings from yesterday night.

King Midas

Here are some of the images from a story I illustrated for Pearson Education. The story is about King Midas, the man with the golden touch.

Most of the storytelling here is done through body language and facial expressions.

These images are copywritten by Pearson Education

Who needs Structure?

Yes structure is very important, but sometimes I like to add a dash of unpredictability and chaos to the mix. Just a dash...

These were done with a felt tip pen. Towards the end my pen started to run out of ink. The lines started to get scratchy. I like happy accidents such as that.

Our model was amazing. She did a lot of great poses.

Children's Books

Just recently got my copies of the Alec Flint, and Fearless Flynn books I worked on. It's always a pleasant treat for me to see my work in print.

I did the cover and interior art for Alec Flint Super Sleuth. The book is published by Scholastic and is written by Jill Santopolo.
The book comes with a key chain medallion.



Fearless Flynn and other tales is a book comprised of 3 short stories. I didn't do the cover for this book, but I illustrated one of the stories called Thirteen Crows. The book is published by Harper Collins and the story is written by Gillian Shields.

Hear are a few of the pages I illustrated from the book.

Quickstudies Workshop Part 4

Some sketchbook pages from Mondays quickstudies workshop. These were done using a sumi pen and graphite stick.

Quickstudies Workshop Part 3

Here are a few of my sketchbook pages from the last 2 quickstudies workshops. These are done in Pen. Yes, we go through a lot of paper:)

More to come...

The Mousehunter

I did the cover for the American version of Alex Milway's book, The Mousehunter. The book will be out February 1, 09. You can read more about the book on The Mousehunter website and blog. Here's the links.
www.themousehunter.com
www.themousehunter.com/blog/

I designed the gold borders framing the image as well. Portrayed on the cover is Emiline, the main character, and her mouse friends.


Here is the cover layout along with the title. I did not design the title. You can read a brief description of the book here.




Thanks to the folks at Little Brown for giving me permission to post this on my blog.

Quickstudies Workshop Part 2

Here are a few drawings from my quickstudies workshop. The workshop is held once a week, on Monday nights from 4-7 pm. In one workshop the model will do as many as 74 poses. The poses range from 1-5 minutes. I use charcoals of varying colors and prismacolor sticks.

You can go through a lot of paper in one workshop, so I like to cram my pages up. Here are some example of that. I will post more of these in the future.





This is a head studies demo I gave in class the other day. We each took turns doing 5-10 minute poses. I drew the students as they posed, while others watched.

The Violinist/ Kids at Play

Kids at play

Landscapes Sketches

Thanks to everyone for all the feedback on the last post. I really appreciate it.

I like to think of my sketchbook as a visual journal. Looking back at my drawings I can remember everything that went on the day I drew each image.

I find sketching landscapes very therapeutic and relaxing. It is always my goal to do more. These were all drawn in different areas. I used prismacolor pencils on all of these.

An old railroad bridge in Pacheco

A view of the Pacheco Cemetery

Walnut Creek. These were done in the neighborhood near the Lindsay Wildlife Museum.

Temescal Lake Recreational Park. The Oakland Hills are in the background.

Brionies Recreational Park. There was no one on this road for the longest time. I was about to finish the sketch when a Jeep came rolling by, kicking up some dust. I decided to draw it in.

A cowboy parked his trailer right in front of me and took his horse on the trail.

San Ramon Park

I sketched this at the Martinez Marina. This is a great place to draw and paint. The city of Martinez is a beautiful place. John Muir, the famous naturalist and author, knew what he was doing when he settled down in Martinez, California.

I was really captivated by the shapes of these trees. I had to draw them.

Snow White Frames/ Summer Class

Shown here are 20 of the Snow White frames ; I illustrated over 70 frames total. I decided to post mainly establishing shots and back views of the characters. I'll save the rest for the premier.

Thanks to the folks at Green Screen Games for giving me permission to post these.

These frames are not in any particular order. I had a lot of fun using color and value to create a certain mood for each frame.

Here's an example of my thumbnail process for the opening frame of Snow White's castle. This is the stage where I think about designing an effective composition which will lead the viewer through the image. I do as many thumbnails as it takes, till I get what I am looking for. Sometimes I'll place a little star on the lower right hand corner of the ones I am considering. Once I finally decide on a particular composition, I take that drawing and refine it. After that it is ready to be painted in Photoshop.

Before and after shots of Snow White's castle. The evil queen did a lot of redecorating, that's for sure:) I enjoyed making the castle and surrounding areas evil and decrepit.

The good king and queen longed for a child. I wanted to create a sense of hope as they looked out of the window.

Exhausted, Show White sees a cottage in the middle of the woods. Again there's a sense of hope as she leaves the darkness and walks towards the light.

Snow White and the prince are married a top of a hill overlooking the prince's castle. I used the river in the background as a directional line that leads the eye back and forth to the wedding ceremony and the castle.

My Summer Class ended not too long ago. Here is our class pic with a few students missing.