commissions

ARE YOU TAKING COMMISSIONS?

Personal commissions are closed! At the moment I'm only open to new clients for commercial work or brand collaborations.

career

HOW DID YOU GET STARTED IN YOUR CAREER?

Growing up with 90's cartoons and comics made me fall in love with drawing and creating stories. I'm mostly self-taught, although I took some anatomy and painting classes when I was very young. I started to send my portfolio to editorials and working on commissions while trying to attend to classes and workshops to meet people as passionate for art as me. Surrounding yourself with the right people is very important! I got my first big job in animation while I was studying Visual Arts, and I haven't stopped since then. Keep in mind big opportunities almost never happen because of hard work only, but having the luck of the right people seeing that work, so don't be afraid to put your work out there!

DID YOU GO TO ART SCHOOL?

Right after finish high school, I got into Visual Arts but I ended up dropping in my fifth year after I landed on my first job as character designer in an animation studio. I decided to focus entirely on work and build experience; I found what I needed in my awesome work colleagues, artists I admire and internet resources.

HOW DO YOU FIND YOUR ART STYLE?

An art style is a combination of all the things you like, your perception of the world and the influences that you've been absorbing, learning and incorporating to your art throughout the years and it's something that will come naturally to you with time if you just keep drawing. Try to figure out what kind of art you want to create, what are the things that you love, that spark your interest? Build the knowledge and fundamentals and look for different sources from which you can learn and feel inspired. Don't stress about it, your skills and also your taste will evolve and change constantly over time, so focus on creating and having fun. You'll eventually have a recognizable way of drawing and you'll be doing things in your own way, promise!

DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR BEGGINER ARTISTS?

I think it's important for us artists to show ourselves and get our work out there. I know it can be scary, but it's essential in order to grow, connect and eventually, get contacted by clients. Some of the things I did when I was starting out were attending to cons as a regular visitor, giving my business card to all artists or publishers I came across, sending emails with my portfolio, going to workshops to learn and meet fellow artists, doing personal commissions and building my audience in different platforms such as Instagram, DeviantArt, Tumblr. Most importantly, practicing a lot at home and generating a big chunk of work I loved doing. Your real art style will find you when you’re not looking for it anymore and you’re focused on creating, practicing and getting better instead. As you get better, the people who your art resonates with will find you and will want to support/hire you, that’s for sure!

WHAT ARTISTS OR GENRES INSPIRE YOU?

My early inspirations were cartoons and comics such as Teen Titans 2003 series, W.I.T.C.H. and Winx Club. l used to watch Cartoon Network and Disney movies almost religiously so that had a huge influence on me when I was a child and was definitely the spark that started it all. There're many artists that shaped my art style throughout the years as well, like Alessandro Barbucci, Chiara Bautista, Glen Murakami, Todd Nauck and Marguerite Sauvage to name a few! I honestly don’t know if my art would fit a genre in particular; I feel my influences are all over the place, but I think what they have in common is many of the themes I'm interested in, anything that evokes a mythical feeling—most times related to the sea. I love to create illustrations that explore fantasy characters, bright colors, nature and hidden messages. I also get a lot of inspiration from marine life, medieval fantasy, epic adventure stories, knights, fashion, poetry and much more.

HOW DO YOU STAY MOTIVATED AND OVERCOME ART BLOCK?

I found that the best way to overcome art blocks for me is simply looking at photos, using references and copying what I see around me. That way I’m not putting too much pressure on my mind or forcing myself to come up with great ideas, but I’m still exercising and learning! Most of the time the idea of creating and trying/incorporating something new is what keeps me motivated to pick up my pencil and draw.

tools

WHAT DO YOU USE FOR DIGITAL ART?

I use Procreate on an Ipad Pro 12.9 5th Gen or Photoshop CC on a Wacom Cintiq 24 display.

WHAT BRUSHES DO YOU USE?

For Procreate I use the 6B pencil, the Dry ink brush for inking and sometimes the Watercolor Maxpack by Max Ulichney for painting. For Photoshop I use mainly a regular, hard round brush, nothing fancy! I also love the Lithotone brush set from True Grit Texture supply. I like to add a lot of texture to my digital work so I always find myself playing around and trying out different things.

WHAT KIND OF SKETCHBOOK DO YOU USE?

I love the Moleskine Art Collection sketchbooks 111lb acid-free paper, size A5. I’ve been also enjoying the Talens Art Creation for dry media and especially the Rendr non bleed-through from Crescent, which holds incredibly well pretty much any medium!

WHAT TOOLS DO YOU USE FOR YOUR TRADITIONAL ART?

I'm a huge fan of mixed media and I enjoy creating with whatever I can get my hands on. These days I love mixing together watercolors, alcohol markers, gouache and pencils mostly and sometimes I also like to work digitally on top of my traditional works. Here’s a list of my favorite art supplies:

• Watercolors:
  Kuretake Gansai Tambi 48 color set // Winsor & Newton watercolors // Watercolor Confections Pastel Dreams set

• Sketchbooks / paper:
  Moleskine Art Collection size A5 // Talens Art Creation // Rendr Crescent sketchbook // Strathmore Vision watercolor paper // Fabriano Mixed Media paper

• Pens:
  Unipin fineliners // Tombow Fudenosuke pen // Kuretake brush pen Nro 22 // Pentel Energel // Pentel Slicci // BIC fine point pen

WHY DO YOU SKETCH WITH A RED PENCIL?

My favorite pencil for sketching is the Prismacolor Col-Erase scarlet red, and I like to use it mostly because it doesn't smudge all over the paper like graphite does and it also adds a really nice warm undertone to the inks.

WHAT DO YOU USE FOR PRINTING YOUR WORK?

I have an Epson Ecotank L805 photo printer. As for the paper, I'm still figuring out which options are the best for me, so far I'm enjoying premium photo paper with any kind of texture :D

WHAT DO YOU USE FOR SCANNING YOUR WORK?

Epson Perfection V600 Photo scanner.

store

DO YOU SELL YOUR ART ANYWHERE?

I have a shop for original pieces, stickers and books here. If you’re looking for art prints, please visit my InPrnt shop.

Patreon

WHAT IS PATREON?

Patreon is a platform to support your favorite artists to keep doing what they love and receive some cool rewards in return! I've decided to open my Patreon in April of 2020 and I'm forever grateful for the support I've been receiving. In my page you'll find detailed step by steps of my digital and traditional works, secret sketchbook tours, art tips, insight of my process, favorite art supplies, brushes, exclusive videos and much more. I try my best to post new interesting content each week and share my daily life/experience as a freelance artist!

HOW MUCH IS A PATREON SUBSCRIPTION?

I currently have two tiers of $1 or $5 per month.

reposts/ refs

CAN I REPOST YOUR WORK?

No, I’m sorry. I used to be very permissive with my art which led to couple of negative past experiences so nowadays I try to avoid people reposting my art as much as possible, even if it's credited (which should always be, no matter what) but above all I won't allow people cropping my art, deleting my watermark or editing it in ANY way.

CAN I USE  YOUR ART AS REFERENCE?

You can as long as you’re mindful on how do you use other artist's work. Please know you should never copy anybody's ideas or become a carbon copy of your favorite artist, pulling off inspiration from only one or two specific artists is never a good idea. The best way to avoid this and truly grow as an artist is making sure your inspiration comes from various different sources, including the world around you, so your art ends up being a mix of all that!

As Austin Kleon says, good artists honor, study, credit and transform. Bad artists degrade, skim and plagiarize.

Also, please DO NOT trace anybody's work, never. Not only it's super obvious and frustrating for us artists when someone is tracing our work (yes, we can notice right away) but it also does absolutely nothing for you, you're certainly not improving your craft.

CAN I GET A TATTOO OF YOUR ART?

Sure thing! I love when people get tattoos of my art, especially my mermaids. I'd love to see a photo once you get it done!

CAN YOU TEACH ME HOW TO DRAW.....?

I honestly don't consider myself very good at teaching and right now I want to focus on creating other kind of content. However, I usually share plenty of  tips and insights of my process on my YouTube videos and Instagram, so I recommend you checking those out if you want to learn a bit more about my art process. I also do exclusive voice-over content for my Patrons from time to time about any subject of their choosing.

WHERE ELSE CAN I FOLLOW YOU ONLINE?