Color Changes



Hellion Rider Book #1



So Here are some examples of the color differences between book 01 and book 02.  In the new book I'm using gradient layers to try to give it an environmental light tones.  I'm still using the techniques of pencil sketch, scanned images, to digital clean up and finally digital coloring.

Why pencil drawing instead of digital drawing?

This is something I get asked a lot, and to be honest the answer is very simple.  I like how the pencil looks versus a digital drawing.  There's something about it that has such a raw appeal, and a livelier amount of flow and rhythm you sometimes miss when you do the image all digital. I like to think that I preserved some of this raw element by skipping inking and jumping right to clean ups.  Why do I like this... I'm not sure, but I believe it can be traced back to my heavy influence of classic Disney movies.  In many of these remastered movies you can still see pencil strokes, and at times hair.  It makes it human and truly unique.  I love that human touch.

Anyway... I finally reached page 09.  Move on. :D

Hellion Rider Book  #2

I finally reached page 8 and starting to fly.  I know to most people they are like... big woop, but I've had a very busy week.  Mainly having my back fixed up so I can work.  In book two there are several changes.  The main thing I'm updating is the color technique. I the first book I did something call "toon shading". This is something learned in my early days working for small animation studio here in Tampa. For this new book I'm working more with gradients and fancier shading.  I'm also working on boosting the amount of detail you will see in the pages.  Anyway back to work. 

On Track

It's been almost two years since I had a chance to truly work on the Hellion Rider and get involve with my painting.  I dusted the schedule to place on the wall to motivate me, and pulled back out the  great Hellion Rider Bible (complete with scripts, thumdbnails, foot notes and all) to help me through this book. It feels amazing be able to simply work back on this series. 

After months of coding I totally feel like a nube on my cintiq figuring out the settings I used, the painting technique I was using and getting into the flow of things.  As of now I'm up to page 7 out of 22 plus the cover with the colors.  The book it self is already fully drawn out. I have a long way to go, but a few hours a day will get the job done.  This book is currently book 2 of 6, how ever with some time in between there will be some changes in the story.  Now to continue to work on this bad boy. 

Picking Up the Pace

In 2010 the world was introduced to the "Hellion Rider". A story about a anti hero that has complex emotions that affects his power, and it's also one of the world most lethal weapons.  The story take place in a post apocalyptic world several hundred years in the future.  The world had been drastically change due to an over population, war and in the end the planet simply having incredible natural disasters that almost wiped out the entire human race.  In this world, the  majority of the remaining humans lived in a large camp fortress while other chose the live of as outlaws.  Our main Character V, has unfortunately become part of a horrific secret that has hunted the rulers of the new world, and can threaten their power on the population.  Together with his close friend Lu and the demon posses "Hellion" motorcycle, they will fight against the oppressing powers hunting him and try not to destroy him self and the planet in the process.

Inspiration of the Hellion Rider:

Back in 2008 in met up with an old acquaintance at work I haven't seen since we where teenager working at Sea World Orlando.  Immediately we became great friends and always hung out together all the time.  At work, we had about seven guys with the same first name as my friend, so I simply called him "V" for Vazquez.  Working in the graphics department, there were always silly shenanigans going on.  He became such a great and fun part of my life in a time that I didn't have much happening for me except for working my self to sleep every night.  Great times... great times... yeap.

Around that moment I was working for Razor Blade Apple as a graphic novel artist for Leviathans, and was getting back into comic books after almost ten years.  I immediately realized there weren't many great Hispanic characters in the comic book world.  If there were, they were normally portrayed as thugs, mobsters, sexy Latin ladies, drug dealers, drunks, but no epic heroes. I mean.. who can forget such memorable characters such as Rictor from X-Men (2nd -3rd banana in the series), Zorro (he was thief), the new Blue Beetle (he's kind of a dumb ass), El Dorado (cool), Aztek (kid of cool), sun spot (Afro Brazilian kind of Hispanic), to name a few of the moderate memorable good heroes.  You laugh but most people have never heard of some of these characters, hell... I had my husband Google some up just to make this list a little longer. Anyway... you get the point.  With such forgettable list of characters, you will see that it would be even harder to find a Puertorican super hero. 

This gave me an idea.   Why no make A PUERTORICAN super hero that didn't suck.  And so the Hellion Rider was born.  A sexy male anti hero, a based on an handsomely enhances version of my friend that came with a six pack, ultra powers, and a bad ass motorcycle. While some people joke and say is a Spanish version of Ghost Rider, I simply say is just my own little piece of imagination land.

2010

The first release of the Hellion Rider (HR #1) was earlier 2010.  The book was entirely written, laid out, drawn, cleaned, colored by me.  I had help from my friend Carlos Mangual on the lettering. At that point I had stared at the book for long I needed help finishing it out. All in all the book looked amazing and is the first out of 6 books.  

Since then...

Just like most people life gets in the way.  Since then I went back to school for my MBA and finished, got married, worked on two book covers (Choose your doom, Zombie Apocalypse, and Eurotrash and the adventures of the Cappuccino Kings), worked as a Storyboard artist for Kiteflyers Studios ("The Bedford Devil), and currently retraining my self in code for apps since the work in illustration has dried out in the past few years.  So far very busy but as left the story of the Hellion Rider unfinished.

2012

My main goal for this year is to finished HR #2 and start on #3.  The second book is fully drawn and I've been stuck in the coloring stage due to lack of time.  I have 7 out of 22 pages done, and the cover is also done. All an all is one of my top priorities of the year. So bring it. 2012.