London Is My BF 4

Footbridge near Mansion House Station. Lexington Gray ink in Pen&Ink Sketch fountain pen, Cotman pan watercolours.

I have a book!

Click here for the book launch page!

What My Grandmother Told Me is in Spanish and English, and published by Tahanan Books. At the moment it's only available in the Philippines. I'll be informed when it becomes available in local bookstores and online, and I'll pass on the dates!

Page previews:

Some illustrations that didn't make it into the book:

mysterious beasts

I wanted to incorporate more background elements for the merboy story. Noodler's Bad Blue Heron ink, Sailor Clear Candy fountain pen and Pentel waterbrushes on Muji sketchbook. I tweaked the hue and saturation in Photoshop so the blue wasn't so bright.

This is pretty much the look I want for the comic. Strong character lines, detailed but slightly hazy backgrounds, all in sea-blue on cream. Progress! (Although next time, text should be created and scanned separately.)

page a day: water, water everywhere

I have a new dip pen! It was super cheap and it's very good with Noodler's Eternal Luxury Blue. Have some water gardens and a Roman bath to celebrate.

I am trying to keep my hand in with dip pens as the Book is entirely done in pen & ink with some washes, and I'm planning to make some comics in the same way. It's a good thing I'm moving back to where I can get heavy cartridge paper with relative ease again; it seems to be the best fit for this technique.

tiny stories

Happy May Day!

HitRECord is putting together work for another Tiny Book of Tiny Stories, so I'm hastily scrobbling things together in the hope that I can get into this little indie art book.

This is a standalone illustration for a writer to build a tiny story around. Oh look, mermaids again. Speaking of which, if you like mermaids and you haven't seen the blog The Wide-Eyed Legless, you are missing out on a lot.

This is an illustration for ubespidermonkey's tiny story 'Jealous Stars':

Stars are jealous of city lights.
So once in a while, they cut the power.  

POLEMICA (Raw)

ugh you guys I have been drawing tiny flowers for two days straight and I am sick of it

...but look!

POLEMICA

I saw a girl on Guerrisms.com in a coat and a hoodie and she reminded me of my friend Abrar. My fashion obsession at that point kind of ran into my thoughts about how the Arab Spring reminded me of the EDSA Revolution in the Philippines. Add a twist of how I've been annoyed with random misogyny around the internet lately and voilá.

('No, commander, the word means "What is that in the table?" ')*

*sorry, Pratchett joke†
†oh look, another one!

WIP (warning: pink)

Ahahaha this is taking forever but I feel pretty good about it. I wish the red pen had contrasted better though; I should have used the violet one all the way. Sakura colour turned out bolder in the scan.