New Blog!

Hello, everyone.

So I went and created a new blog. This one is getting pretty cluttered, after many years of existing, and with plenty of things that aren't related to art or to what I do. I want the new blog to be exclusively about art! Since I've only now created the new blog, I'll probably upload some work that I already posted here, but I'll start uploading new stuff and gradually "moving" from here to there. I'm not saying I'll end this blog, I'm not planning to - but I'll keep most of my artwork in the other one. So, if you want to stay up to date with drawings, sketches and doodles, please come follow me at The Art of Carla Rodrigues!

See you there!

Sketchcard 3 - Bobba Fett

And now, another post dedicated to a sketch card. This time, it was Boba Fett's turn! I had never drew Bobba Fett before, but since so many people like this character, I thought it would be a good pick for the card. After all, if you draw popular characters, there's a higher chance that people will buy them, and the whole point of this is to raise as much money as possible for charity.

Here is the inked version. As with Lobster Johnson, I forgot to take photos of the pencils, so we're jumping straight into the inks.

Next, I started laying down the colors, using colored pencils (like I did before). This photo didn't turn out great, I apologize for the weird lighting.


And here's the end result! Used a simple colored background, like I did before.

I hope you enjoy yet another post dedicated to a sketch card. There's still one more to go, so expect that one soon!

Scott Pilgrim

Alright. I'm sure all of you know that the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World trailer was released today, and in case you're one of those poor souls that haven't watched it, go here and make your day.

I've seen it, and I loved it. I can not wait to see this movie. I know a lot of people are still unhappy with the choice of Michael Cera for the role of Scott, but I grew to embrace the choice and I think he did a pretty good job, from what I see in the trailer. Well, I could take more of the action and less of his whiny voice, but I'm sure the final product will be awesome. Since I loved it this much, I couldn't help but putting pencil to paper and coming up with a quick drawing of Scott to mark today's release of the trailer. Here is the quick piece I've done, hope you enjoy it!

Sketchcard 2 - Lobster Johnson

One more peek at another of the sketchcards I produced to benefit the American Cancer Society. I hope it's not a boring idea and that you guys get a kick out of this instead of just seeing the finished product.
Well, this next card features Lobster Johnson, who's not an actual lobster - he's a character from the Hellboy world that I had never drawn before. I don't have as many photos of Lobster as I had of Terry Bogard, so we're jumping directly into inks. Or we can pretend I drew this with a pen, straight up, because I'm cool like that.

So here he is, looking a bit pouty. I wanted him to look "intense", but turns out he looks more pouty than anything.

Started laying down the colors. As with the previous card, I used colored pencils. I'd love to try out prisma markers sometime, but I have no idea where to get them here and I've been too lazy to hunt for them online. Also, I'm scared they'll be super expensive.

The colors are pretty much finished here. Added a simple background to make Lobster pop a little more.

Ta-da! Lobster is finished, and here he is next to Terry. It looks like he's disapproving of Terry being so smiley. Lighten up, Lobster. You'll make money for a good cause.

Hope you enjoyed this once again. If you did, I'll keep posting these!

Sketchcard 1 - Terry Bogard

This year I had the pleasure of creating a small set of 4 sketchcards for Comics for Cures, to benefit the American Cancer Society. Artists donate sketchcards for the show. The sketchcards will then be part of a gallery show, and after that they're put on eBay, and all proceeds from the auction go to the American Cancer Society. It is pretty awesome, and whenever I have the chance of helping out with my scribbles, I'm glad to jump at the opportunity. The auction was supposed to go live on April 3rd, but I was just told that the date was moved to May 22nd, so it'll still be a while before you can bid on those cards.
Anyway, I've posted the cards over at deviantart, but I promised I'd post some progress shots over here. So, in an effort to put this blog to better use, here go some shots of the first card I did, Terry Bogard:

First, here are the penciled lines. Why did I go with Terry Bogard? Well, I love the game series King of Fighters, and Fatal Fury too, where this character is from. He's not one of my favorites from either game, but I had never drawn him before so I figured I'd give it a shot. Also, I think he's a popular character and so his card will probably sell well in the auction (I hope).

Here I've moved on to inks. I kept it pretty clean and simple. The cards are relatively small (about 6x9 cm.) and I'm not really used to drawing small, so the pose isn't very original or fresh, but I tried to make up for it.

Started laying down the colors with my mighty colored pencils. Well, I say mighty but in reality I hardly ever color with colored pencils. The scanner destroys the coloring and that made me almost quit coloring pencils a long time ago. But I enjoyed the practice, and I think I might have to keep going at it. I love the organic feeling of coloring traditionally as oposed to digitally.

Ta-da, the card is done here! Just added a simple background that makes Terry pop out a little more. As you can see it's a fairly simple process, and a lot of fun. I hope this card raises a lot of money for the good cause. Stay tuned, I may do similar posts of my other cards!

Hope you enjoyed this!

Release party of Zona Fantástica at Central Comics

Last Saturday, March 6th, the release party for Zona Fantástica took place at one of the local comic shops, Central Comics. We weren't the only book being released, there was also "As Incríveis Aventuras de Dog Mendonça e Pizzaboy", a widely anticipated comic made by the collaboration between portuguese writer/producer Filipe Melo and 3 artists from Argentina, so we were in great company. The afternoon flew by, once again drawing and signing books, chatting with my fellow artists and with Filipe Melo (which was very cool, because I really admire him - he produced the first (and only, so far) portuguese zombie movie, which makes him pretty much the awesomest person around). This time the paparazzi was my lovely Cosmic-rocket-man, who took loads of cool photos, some of which I'll share on this post.

Can you spot Zona Fantástica there? This is the store front of Central Comics. I felt pretty excited to see a book with my cover there, I can't deny that. It was a good feeling.

The announcement of the two release parties taking place that afternoon. Hey, Green Lantern, stop stealing my thunder!

Here's the book for sale. Me and the rest of the gang signed all of these and plenty more.

This is me drawing on Central Comic's honor board. Whenever they host a special book release, they have the authors draw something on this board, and then they hang it in the store. It's pretty cool, especially since before I used to always look at the honor boards and admired the work on them, and now I have my very own drawing there too.

This is me, Fil and Rui Alex drawing. I wasn't signing a book at the time, I was drawing on that kid's moleskine per request. It was cool!

Still drawing for the kid. I drew a zombie, which I hope didn't scare him or anything. It was a nice zombie, it wouldn't bite anyone.

Still drawing, and joined at the table by Diogo Campos. Hey look, it's the Walking Dead!

Chatting with Filipe Melo, who we had the pleasure to meet! I got to draw him a nifty zombie. Wish I had had more time to really draw something kick ass, but Filipe still had to go to his book's release at Fnac, and so was short on time. He was a super cool guy.

Still drawing and chatting with Filipe. Ignore my stupid face, I don't know what was going on.

Moved tables, got joined by Pedro Nascimento, and continued drawing. It was an amazing afternoon. Drawing for hours, signing books and chatting with the people in a comic shop... could there be something cooler to do? I don't think so!
If you'd like to have a book, you can always go to the official blog for the project and order one via e-mail. Hope you enjoyed the photos!

Release of Zona Fantástica

As you know - because I've posted about it earlier - yesterday was the release of the comics/illustration project Zona Fantástica, as part of Fantasporto - Oporto's International Movie Festival. It went very well and it was fantastic to hang out with all the artists and the people that went to the release! I drew a lot of zombies in a lot of books, predictably. I have to find something more fun to draw than zombies, quickly. Since I had my friend Mário take some photos, I'll take this chance to post a few of them.

This was the selling stand. You can see the book that was released, Zona Fantástica - as well as official t-shirts - and also the previous volumes, Zona Zero and Zona Negra.

This is me on the table. Next to me are Joana Afonso and André Oliveira, and we can see the back of Diogo Campos :)

Another shot of some artists at the table, this time with our "srs business" face. Left to right, you've got me, Joana, André, the Fantasporto presenter that made the opening speech, and Fil (who unfortunatelly got half-cut from the pic).

The lighting was not the best for photos, but here André and Fil were talking about the Hammer Killer, which was my comic. Look, there's my name on the wall!

This was at the end, when we were autographing and drawing on books. Clockwork from me are Hugo Teixeira, Diogo Campos, Fil, Pedro Nascimento and Raz.

And this photo was snapped by Joana, it's my very own Cosmic-Rocket-Man and André!

All in all, it was a great end of a day. Not only were we all happy with the book, it sold well, we drew a lot, and people also seemed to enjoy it. Another plus was hanging out with each other, since we all live pretty much scattered all over the country and don't get many chances to hang out.

I hope you enjoy the photos, and in some time I'll post the Hammer Killer I drew for this.
Keep rocking!

PS - Quem não pôde aparecer ontem, pode aparecer amanhã, dia 6, na Central Comics, depois das 17h, pois vamos ter uma festa de lançamento da Zona com alguns dos autores presentes (entre os quais eu) para sessão de autógrafos. E se quiserem apareçam ainda mais cedo e apanham o Filipe Melo e a festa do Dog Mendonça e Pizzaboy!