2026 Momocon Commissions and Wrap Up

 

Hello everyone, after a full day of sleep, I have somewhat returned to a normal state, and have some stuff I can report for Momocon 2026! So, Momocon is a huge show, it's 4 days long if you've never been to it, and this year was even larger than previous years. I was lucky as well to get another booth in the Comic Creator's section, and I had some good friends and great creators as neighbors.

One of the things I love about Momocon is that despite it being a HUGE show, the audience is super diverse and that means that even though my booth is largely original comic books, I can still do well there. This year, I debuted Curse of the Eel volume 5 at the con, which almost didn't happen so let me tell that story first: I finished this volume late, between freelance work and school duties, I was running sorely behind on my pages for the latest volume. I managed to turn around that 20 pages in two weeks, but I had assumed getting any volumes in time for the con would be impossible. However, I have an amazing printer in Wonderpress, and they managed to send me copies in time to make my table a success (and it was)!

Long story short, my last two Momocons have been my most successful conventions ever, and this is from most of my sales coming by book sales. Curse of the Eel sold really well, I had a bundle of the 5 volumes and while I worried that it might be too pricey, I sold several bundles and many even came just to grab volume 5 because they had already bought volumes 1-4. Also, Honor Bound might have been my best selling book in general, I even had a few people come back to tell me how much they enjoyed it, which warmed my heart and made me excited to get back to work on chapter 2!

As for the art of this post, I also took on 9 commissions at the show and was able to finish all but one of them at the con! They were an original character obsessed with blood and eyes, Rui from xlov (a K-pop group, this image isn't the finished one, I forgot to get a photo of the complete commission), Commander Wolfe from Clone Wars, Winry Rockbell from FMA in Watercolor, Nico Robin from One Piece (which I forgot to get a complete photo of), Static Shock, Gammoth from Monster Hunter, and lastly, 2 Creepy Pasta characters in a warring embrace, which I completed in the last 3 minutes of the show, but the commissioner was very happy with this one so I'm happy too.

All in all, Momocon is my favorite show to do, and I really hope that I can keep attending in the future. I have plans for new books in some of my other series, like Rare Drops, as well as some one shot and competition comics I plan to make this summer.

Check back to see some of the things I have in the works, and consider checking out my Patreon for more behind the scenes looks into my projects!

 

Honor Bound ch 1 Released!

 Hey everyone, long time no post! I've been working a bunch on new comics, and my newest one is now out in the world: Honor Bound! It's a dark fantasy romance story, about a gender neutral squire, Zheng, and the journey they must undertake to return to the love of their life, Rayner, after suffering a terrible loss while hunting a barbarian queen. This book has been my passion for the last year or so and I'm happy to have done as much of it as I have.

This book debuted at Momocon 2025, and I sold out of all the copies I had printed, which is a first for me in all of the years of creating comics and sharing them at conventions. I was incredibly moved, this book was instrumental in breaking me out of a very low point a year and a half ago so to see it do well was more than I could imagine.

You can follow the progress of Honor Bound, or read more about the worldbuilding, on my Patreon! Check out the link in my header to see the tiers I have available!

You can get a copy of this first book in my store right now! https://jorgesantiagojr.bigcartel.com/

Or, you can buy the pdf on my Patreon store! https://www.patreon.com/jorgesantiagojr/shop/honor-bound-chapter-1-pdf-1641698?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=productshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

Illarys Ink Illustrations

 In preparation for the DVPit event where I pitched both Curse of the Eel and Illarys, I wanted to populate my pitch with illustrations so it wasn't just a wall of text in the story summary.

These were very inspired by Gary Gianni's illustrations for "The Knight of the Seven Kingdoms," which is a series of short novels about a knight and his squire. I loved the book and the illustrations were amazing, so I wanted to try out this style of inking for Illarys, and here are the results!

Tools used were Deleter G-pen, Tachikawa Nihonji pen, Pilot drafting ink, on Stillman & Birn Epsilon paper.

This was the cover to the pitch, I still really love this image

Separation

Recovering

The Knight

The Cave

Panther

Illarys Chapter 0 Cover

 Hello everyone, here's a look at my cover for my next book "Illarys, chapter 0!" This is a prologue that happens before the chapter that will be published in StarTales. I loved this setting so much, I had to jump the gun and draw more. I should have this on my upcoming convention tables, at SCComicon in Greenville, SC and at Momocon in Atlanta in May!

 

More of this work to come! This was all drawn and colored in Procreate, with the type done in Illustrator.

Curse of the Eel has 1 Million Views on Tapas!

 Hello everyone, I wanted to post this before but my end of the year has been hectic, but Curse of the Eel has hit a really cool milestone! My comic has 1 million views on Tapas, which is amazing! I'm really lucky to have made a story that can be enjoyed by people, and I hope everyone will continue to enjoy Eel as the story enters its final acts!

https://tapas.io/series/Eel/info

Here is an illustration I made for the occasion! Thank you for reading!

Final Gamble Issue 2 Cover Revealed!

 Hello everyone, it's almost been a year since my last post! I've been updating parts of the blog, but I've been so busy with art I can't share that this page has gotten dusty. Here's hoping I can be better about updating it, even if I'm still super busy with stuff I have to be careful about sharing.

What I can share, is Final Gamble issue 2's cover, which was announced on Band of Bards' Twitter! I'll include the final image here, and my process on it! I draw and color the Final Gamble covers, which is why they're a different color approach from the interiors, where Harry Saxon is doing an amazing job! 

You can also add Final Gamble to your orders at your local comic shop! We're in Previews, so please ask you comic stores to order you copies of the book!

Okay, here's a look at the process for the cover:

 

This was drawn and inked on Stillman & Birn Zeta paper, with colors done in Photoshop, and the icons on the slot machine walls done in Illustrator. This is continuing the motif from issue 1, where our leads, Jasmeet and Danny, are being thrown into a gambling machine but are threatened to being crushed by the system.

 

 

Final Gamble #1 is on Kickstarter!

 Hey everyone! So this has been under my hat for a bit, but there's a book that I'm working that is available for pre-order on Kickstarter! It's called the Final Gamble, and it's about 2 people trying to gamble their way out of a terrifying situation. If you'd like to see the pitch and video and maybe donate to receive your copy, here's the link: 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bandofbards/final-gamble-issue-1

TEAM:

Writer: Bobby Singer
Pencils & Inks: Me
Colors: Harry Saxon
Lettering: George Gant
Publisher: Band of Bards

I'll also include the process work for my cover of the first issue. So this one was tricky, so to make it easier on me, I created two separate pages for this cover: one was the characters and all of the money and pokerchips, and the other was just the slot machine background. After I inked them, I combined them in Photoshop and colored them.

The campaign starts today and goes for a month, so hopefully we'll meet our goal! 

This is the final version that you'll get if you preorder the book.

Without the type

Pencils where you can see the overlap of the two images.

American Bug Book Cover Illustration

 Hey everyone! I'm really bad about sharing my freelance work on here but I want to share the cool projects I get to work on! Nick Ulanowski is a journalist and poet and he's approached me to do covers and book design for his short stories and poetry books a few times before, and now I'm working on his newest book, American Bug! It's on Kickstarter now, here's a link so you can read about it and back it to secure your copy!

This was a really fun illustration! I penciled, inked, colored, and designed the type for it, putting that Graphic Design BFA to use. I hope you enjoy it!

My favorite works from 2020

 Hey all, 2020 was no joke, a complete nightmare. I wasn't really prepared for how much quarantine and the politics of last year would drive my mental health into the ground like a spike. I'm doing better this year, but I'm still finding it hard to make work with everything going on. Either way, I'll share some of my favorite works that I created last year, comics or otherwise.

Here's to a better 2021!