Happy New Year everyone!
I know that this is about 20 days too late from the beginning of the new year, but sometimes it's better to start something later than never.
Last year was a crazy year for all of us. I lost my grand parents (not due to covid) and my very first pet passed all within the first few months of the year. As a full-time artist making a huge chunk of my income off the convention circuit, I had to adapt to moving my entire presences completely online. It's been something that I have had to push a lot more for in terms of keeping in the eye of people through social media since a lot of others have had to do the same. That, along with trying to be seen through all the political propaganda online was very hard.
As challenging as it has been though, I am grateful to say I have several strong followers and am starting to build what I feel is an even better fan base than I had before. This has been a whole "sink or swim" experience and I am glad to say I will not be going anywhere any time soon.
One of my main goals going into 2020 was to focus more at being at home making art and especially new comics. I had made A.A.I WARS in between my time off from comic conventions starting back in 2016 and it took me almost three years to make the four issues. I wanted to make sure that jumping back into making new comics wouldn't take as long this time around especially with me being at home all the time now with no excuses.
In May of 2020, after starting to adjust to moving the art career mainly online, I started working on three different comic projects. A sequel graphic novel to A.A.I WARS, a fan comic tribute book, and finishing up on a 24 hr comic idea that I fleshed the story out more to become a full comic idea. It was only a few months after this that I decided I needed to add one more new comic to the list to begin. This time a comic idea that I had created back when I was 15 years old called, BOUNTY BULLFROG.
The idea was based off my love for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Lobo. I am still, to this day, obsessed with TMNT and felt like if I couldn't have a chance to draw a comic of them then I would just make a comic of my own. After writing the script to the first issue of Bounty and letting my wife read it, she insisted that this be my main focus. I agreed with her, putting the other three books on the backburner so that I may begin work on the comic. I knew going into it that I wanted to make this something that everyone that loves the ninja turtles as much as me, would be interested in wanting to pick up. As confident in my coloring skills with the other projects, I wanted to make sure this one was better so I decided to hire a colorist for the book and was lucky enough to find a great colorist named, Guilherme Lindemberg Mendes. After getting him on board, I drew up a few pages to the book, had him color them, and launched a Kickstarter campaign in the middle of September. With great surprise, the campaign for the first issue was a HUGE success and since November I have been working hard on finishing up the comic. Bringing Bounty back has opened up a whole new world of ideas and other past comic creations to bring into the book connecting universes into one. I am beyond excited to share where this series will go and the spinoff series that will follow from it later this year.
Changing subjects some, I did have a few great experiences with comics last year. One getting to draw a cover/pinup for a fellow creator's comic book called, The Shepherd. A great supernatural book being published by Scout Comics coming out in February of this year. I am not sure when or where my piece will be printed though, so details on that are to come. The other opportunity I got was to draw a cover for the highly anticipated TMNT comic, The Last Ronin #1 for IDW. I was fortunate enough to get to do a retail exclusive variant cover for EPIKOS COMICS. This was my second official TMNT comic book cover (and won't be my last). Also, at the beginning of this new year, I was asked to do a exclusive variant cover for a new comic book coming out in February. I can't really give any details yet on the book or the publisher until I am allowed, but I will post all the details as they come.
I do apologize for the lack of updates on this page. I will work to make sure that all that changes from now going forward. But, as the new year begins, I am very happy to say that my comic career is beginning to make more movement than in past years and at this stage I have a decent foot in the door with some credits and will be getting even more by the years end.
Happy New Year everyone and keep drawing~
