All Men Must Die

The idea for this illustration was conceived when a friend approached me wanting a mural to be done in his house. Originally, we did not have anything in mind but after a lengthy (and fruitful) discussion about the latest (and many) ordeals to fall upon the land of Westeros, our mutual affection for the Game of Thrones tv series lead us to the obvious: DUDE IT CAN BE A GAME OF THRONES MURAL!

I approached this illustration with the composition being my main concern. I wanted things to flow nicely from top to bottom, and after making a quick sketch I came up with the final version of where I wanted the elements to be. I placed them in a zigzag pattern trying to balance it all out and not have one side feel heavier than the other.

Now all that is left is to copy it on the wall...sigh

And after a little photoshop..

Continuous Lines

This series of illustrations was done for a tutorial book on brainstorming. After different sketches and...brainstorming sessions the client and I decided to go with a continuous line technique, showing a clear start and end point, illustrating the process one goes through from creation of an idea to implementation or finalization.

Continuous line drawings are done without lifting your pen or pencil off the paper.

I was familiar with this style but never actually tried it out. I honestly really enjoyed it and it is something I want to experiment with more. The challenge lies in your decision of what to show and what not to show, you are forced to think about what details to keep and which ones to omit. You also have to plan your route out before starting in order to avoid the : "I drew the mouth but how to i get up to the ear?" moments.

The book was written in the form of a quest/journey and the illustrations serve as decisions or options the reader has to make.

Inception

Ideation, the creation of ideas.

Preliminary sketch for a book illustration. Although we went in a different direction I was pleased with the way this came out.

Her Birthday

I didn't really know where this was going when i started, but as the sketch progressed i started getting a better idea of what I wanted. Unlike many watercolors that i do i wanted to keep the pencil lines and shades in order to give the painting a little more depth once I applied the paint.

And most importantly she really liked it.

TOTÒ

I was commissioned by a friend and owner of the Italian eatery to do a series of murals on the upper level which was a new addition to the restaurant.

Initially there was no real idea to what exactly the murals were going to be. After some brainstorming we decided to go with a big portrait of Totò himself, for those not familiar with who this is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tot%C3%B2

My idea was to keep the graphics simple, to go with the over all mood of the upper floor and having a fairly small space to dine in, I did not want to paint something that was too overbearing. For the triangular pattern in the suit I was inspired by a piece of furniture found in the restaurant and thought that using the pattern would be a great way to tie everything together.

For the 2 other walls, I depicted silhouetted and abstracted scenes from Puglia, Italy, the home region ofthe restaurants signature pizzas.

Night Friends

I have grown up with two loves: video games and comics. 

Although I have been playing videos games since the 90's I never really thought about actually creating or doing any sort of art for videos games. That all changed when I discovered a gem in the indie video gaming world called: Machinarium (I suggest you look it up if you are not familiar with it).

The simplicity of the gameplay was so beautifully crafted and the fix camera angle, jaw droopingly gorgeous scenes made me think to myself, wow I want to make something like this one day (ONE day). I felt this same way about comics when a friend introduced me to the world of Hellboy. 

I immediately fell in love with the art of the great Mike Mignola and I again found myself saying, wow I want to make something like this.

My earliest work was influenced but the artistic style used by Mignola, using large amounts of blacks for shading and just drawing lots of creepy little things (such as skulls which I have had a unhealthy obsession with for years).

These were part of a postcard series I did as a project while I was a student at the American University of Beirut. Colors were written down on pieces of paper which were placed in a hate, each student had to pick a paper and draw a series based on the color they got, and as if by fate I got the color black.

Originally penciled and inked using a Uniball pen, they were later scanned and color using photoshop.

This series was published in the last issue of Rusty Radishes.

Goat Head

This is a drawing I neglected for a few weeks due to more important projects...or so I tell myself. The truth is that I did not know how to continue once i had finished the inking stage. I eventually started to add color with watercolors, my preferred medium, and just kind of improvised as i went along. No real concept here, this started off a sketch out of boredom.