It’s been a while. Four months
have passed since my last entry. What was I doing? Have I been drawing? Well,
as you can see I’ve been adding hours to my challenge nearly completing 1/4th
of my objective of reaching 10,000 hours at the moment of this entry. Still,
the one thing I’ve been focusing more is in graduating with a Bachelor in Fine
Arts from the School of Visual Arts located in the art capital of the United
States, New York. Let me get this straight, graduating with a BFA does not make
you a master in arts, not even getting an MFA (Master in Fine Arts), so my
challenge does NOT end here. What makes you a master (in Malcolm Gladwell’s
perspective and now my own of course) is the accumulation of ten thousand hours.
Still a long way to go, and my will to achieve them is still intact. Don’t get
me wrong, I feel more confident than before and I have learned new skills and techniques
that makes it easy for me to make a professional career now that I have to be
in the real world of freelance illustration and cartooning.
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| Bachelor in Fine Arts |
Now everyone says to me that the
hard part is yet to come, and they may be partially right. You have to remember
that I’ve been in this situation before, back in 2000 when I got my Bachelor in
Business Administration. There was as much anxiety back then as there is now.
The difference now is that I’m not afraid of working professionally since I did
it for ten years before deciding to study again. What I’m concerned is that I
don’t really know how this industry is going to welcome me. Is it going to be
with open arms recognizing the talent or at least the potential in my work? Or
is it going to be harder than I expect with lots of trials an errors and
disappointments along the way? Realistically I think it would be a combination
of the two. I heard that some professional artists when critiquing your
portfolio they can be mean as hell. Their attitude comes from the belief that
they have to trash your work and if you don’t let them break your spirit you
deserve to be a comic book artist. They literally tell you that you stink and
that you won’t ever make it in the industry (It hasn’t happened to me yet,
probably because I haven’t showed my portfolio to anyone yet). Let them trash
my work if they want, I have the will of a Green Lantern (geek reference) and
it won’t be bent. My only fear is fear itself. No, really, let me paraphrase,
my only fear is discouragement. I’m afraid that if things go too slow I will be
making more business choices rather than art. I still have to earn an income,
right. I made it this far and I’m not about to quit now, I just need focus and some
incentive :)
Since I haven’t been able to tell
you about my classes for this semester, I will show you my grades first and
then I’ll walk you through the work I’ve done for the aforementioned studies
with their proper course descriptions. Now without further ado I will present
my grades for this semester and also the cumulative GPA (Magna Cum Laude) for
the whole curriculum at SVA.
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| Grades - Spring 2013 semester |
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| Magna Cum Laude |
As you can see, I took 5 classes
in this semester. I was going to take 6 but I decided that since I didn’t need
those extra credits I would go easier on myself this semester and focus more on
the important classes. I will be discussing each class in the next paragraphs.
Cartooning Portfolio 2 is a
critical class and by far the most important in this semester because I had to
build, as you can guess, a great portfolio to show my work to professionals in
the field. Remember than in art you don’t need to show your potential employer
a résumé. They are not interested in how well you did in class or how many A+
you had, what they really need to see is your portfolio, and believe me they
will know your strengths and your weaknesses from page one (considering that
they are art directors or artists in general, of course). Your weaknesses just
pop up and there’s no way you can embellish them if you have not yet learned those
skills. Your portfolio is your life (or at least professionally) and you have
to build it and constantly include better and more recent pieces in it so you
can make it attractive for the people looking for a freelance artist. Also as important
is the fact that I will be doing freelance work since the comic industry is not
in the habit of employing artists. They make you agree to contracts for individual
projects but you are still a freelance artist nonetheless, hoping that when you
finish that job you have another one waiting for you.
The goal of this class was to
create a strong portfolio so after graduation you can actually get work in the
real world. I built a good portfolio, but I still think it needs more work, at
least taking into account my artistic ambitions. My “perfect” portfolio will
come in time, or perhaps never since I’m a perfectionist at heart and I will
always feel a little apprehensive about my work. There has been a lot of
improvement since my previous semester but I believe if I work hard for the
rest of this year I will be able to make a great portfolio for next year’s
comic conventions.
The main work throughout this
semester was finishing my story “Turmoil”, an 18-page comic book that deals
with Alzheimer and the turmoil this disease causes in one’s mind. By now I may
have spoiled the story for you but although it is a twist just revealed in the
second part (first part is shown in my previous entry of this blog), it does
not affect the tale as a whole. I also decided to digitally paint the last four
pages so I could add more color to my portfolio. I edited the cover you
probably saw in my previous entry (if not you should read it now, or at least
look at the funny pics) with a basic and yet powerful modification, which make
it works better than before. You already know it is about Alzheimer, so by
looking at the cover now it makes a lot more sense, I hope.
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| Turmoil p8 |
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| Turmoil p7 |
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| Turmoil p9 |
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| Turmoil p10 |
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| Turmoil p11 |
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| Turmoil p12 |
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| Turmoil p13 |
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| Turmoil p14 |
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| Turmoil p15 |
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| Turmoil p16 |
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| Turmoil p17 |
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| Turmoil p18 |
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| Turmoil edited cover |
I don’t need to talk much about
Professional Cartooning since it was a non-credit mandatory class that teaches
young artists on how to make a living in illustration and cartooning after
school. Based on what I’ve seen, I would dare to say that this class was
essential for the majority of my classmates. I’d even say that SVA needs a more
comprehensive business class for artists than this one. Even though there was
some key information I learned from this class, it was kind of unnecessary. I
liked the teacher just fine and it was a fun class, but having a degree in
business made the subject a little redundant for me. The class teaches you how
to make invoices for Christ’s sake. If I didn’t know that by now then I was
living in a hole for ten years. I don’t mean to rant or be obnoxious about it
since it was very productive for my classmates. I always have to remind myself
that I’m the one who is misplaced studying to get a BFA at 35.
Anatomy was just another figure
drawing class, but you know what, I enjoyed it a lot. I was expecting more
focus on the muscles and bones and their proper mechanics and what I got was
more of the same as prior figure drawing classes. We had to draw a nude model
in different poses every week. The pros about this class is that the teacher
was really sweet and although she had a fine arts approach on teaching, she
really knew what she was talking about. What I found most interesting was the
final project. We had to create a new creature based on skeletons on different
animals. Then we had to create its skin and its environment. It’s harder than
it seems because you have to really research about it and concentrate on why
some limbs are the way they are according to its environment, why the skin has
its texture, probably for camouflage or for defense against predators. I
decided to go for a strong predator. I mixed a sabertooth with a bear and a
dinosaur. My research was more complex than just combining the three creatures
and my imagination ran wild but you get the idea. Here is the final project
along with a sketch I made of Ganesh (Hindu deity and remover of obstacles) at the museum.
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| Creature in habitat |
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| Creature skeleton |
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| Ganesh |
Multiepisodes was a writing class
and it taught me how to write a script. I already knew the basics and I learned
some new techniques. The final assignment was a full script for a 22-page
story, but we have also sketched out the whole story arc, which my teacher
thought it was very original story and that made me a happy panda ;). I cannot talk much
about this project though, since I will be starting to draw this issue anytime
soon and I will be posting those pages in future entries. I also needed a
humanities class so History of Religion fitted the bill. It was a fun and
interesting class and it broadens your perspective on faith and religion. In
any case, this is not a philosophy blog so I will skip this class altogether.
It is important to add that I had
my first two commissions as an artist and that is a HUGE deal for me. My very
first one was a portrait painting of a very close friend commissioned by her
husband who is also a dear friend of mine. He had seen my work through this
blog and I suspect he had more confidence in me that I had in myself. Don’t get
me wrong, I knew I could do it and I really hope they liked the final piece,
but I will always treasure that blind vote of confidence. He didn’t even
questioned the cost of the piece and as an artist that is always appreciated
it. I think I had come a long way in portraits and I really enjoy making them.
Still, I will be a comic book artist first and a portrait artist second. I
decided to do something different for her. I wanted to create a triptych
consisting on three different approaches and styles. The first approach was a
pencil drawing, which was her favorite and the one that comes more natural to
me; the second one was a digital painting made in Photoshop. This was my first
painting in Photoshop so it was very challenging but at the end I got the
results I wanted; and finally, I chose to make a portrait based on comic book
line art with some basic grey tones. I really liked the final piece; the only
thing is that I won’t be doing triptychs anymore. I don’t know, the fact that
the three pieces compete with each other in one piece doesn’t sit well with me.
Regardless of that I think it was a successful job.
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| Susana - commissioned by Mauricio Martinez |
The second commission and first
sketch comic-con style commission was for my brother. He is pondering the idea
of making a custom costume for cosplaying at his next comic convention. I also
think it would be great as a mannequin for exhibition. He had this bizarre and
great idea of mixing the Star Wars saga with The Game of Thrones. He wanted to
mix a Snowtrooper with the bastard John Snow. Hence, the character John
Snowtrooper is born. I made some research on the costumes and decided to ink
it. I will be painting it soon so hopefully a future entry will show the final
piece. By the way, if you desire a sketch, or a portrait for that matter, I’m
willing to do them, just contact me through Facebook (Jose Molestina), Twitter
(@bielero), Instagram (@bielero), Deviantart (bielero) Tumblr (bielero), e-mail
(
bielero@hotmail.com) and through this
website. Believe you me; if you really want it you will get a hold of me. What
say you?
:)
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John Snowtrooper
Commissioned by Oswaldo Molestina |
Finally, I made one illustration
based on Wally West, the missing Flash, in Photoshop with a campaign design based on a previous campaign to promote Mark Waid's own comic book to
ask DC Comics to bring the character back since it has been MIA since the New
52 (the geek alarm went off), and another sketch with my new Copic markers of
Green Lantern. The latter was done very fast on my sketchbook so I wasn’t
looking for a professional look but rather experimentation with markers. They
are not as hard to master as I’d thought but I still need a lot more practice,
and probably a lot more colors along the way.
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| Wally West aka The Flash |
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| Green Lantern sketch - markers |
By the way, here are two pics,
one from C2E2 (comic convention in Chicago) and the other from the commencement
graduation. The first photo was when I met my favorite artist, Alex Ross. You
have no idea how significant was to meet this talented and extremely successful
artist two days after I finished my classes at the School of Visual Arts. The
other one is when I got my diploma at the commencement in Radio City Hall with
my wife and family. This could not have happened without your support and faith
in me. Thank you so much, I love you, and I dedicate this achievement to you.
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| Alex Ross and me at C2E2 |
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| #lovemyfamily |
The final question remains, do I
think that studying at SVA was the right call? To spend all that money in
tuition when I could have by self-discipline study on my own and spend much less.
Well, it is done, so it is kind of a moot point, isn’t it? Still, I will
provide the best possible answer. I could have studied on my own and possibly draw
even better by now, which I find doubtful, but in any case, drawing is not
everything in this career. I’m pretty sure I took for granted some lessons learned
and some I don’t even remember but are ingrained in my brain. It’s easy to look
back and say: I would have done this differently, but the fact remains that I
did not. My decision was one of the hardest decisions of my life, and it cost
me much more than just money. Now, I did it and I can call myself a comic book
artist, because I’ve learned the tools, the skills, and the secrets of the
trade. For that I am truly
grateful at my wife, parents, family, friends, teachers, and all of the people
who supported me in my journey at SVA. I don’t feel like I have already
mastered the fine arts just yet, but you know what, that will come in time,
probably in finishing those 8000 hours left. I might have been late for the
party, but I will definitively be the one who is going to make the most noise. It’s
been a hell of a ride!
I came, I saw, I conquered.
Godspeed,
Jose Luis
Ps- I will keep updating this
blog until I reach 10,000 hours. Although I reached a major goal in my life,
the challenge is not yet completed.
