Spencer and Locke Issue 1 Inks

Here are the inks I submitted for issue 1 of Spencer and Locke, which is in comic shops and Comixology today! I hope you enjoyed the book and like taking a look at my finished lineart for the comic.

My tools here were:
Inks: Zebra F Brush Pen, Pentel Color Brush Fine, and Kuretake white ink
Paper: Stillman and Birn alpha paper

O is for Oscar

O is for Oscar, another story I've yet to draw but want to get to eventually.

Oscar is a sheltered Hispanic boy who lives at home with his very protective and close knit family. Since he was small, he's always dreamed of being a fine artist, his favorite field trips were to art museums and he's read every book on fine art in the library. However, his parents don't want him to be an artist, at least not professionally. They would rather he get a normal job and just do art as a hobby. This stifling environment starts to eat away at Oscar, so he signs up for a life drawing class as an act of rebellion. This class will change his life, and also he's never been in the same room with a nude woman before.

While this isn't how my life as an artist started, I know that this is a pretty common story for young artists. The feeling that your family or friends are trying to reality check your dreams is a real one, and I wanted to explore that in cultural sense as well. I hope it'll be a fun book!

Tools: Pentel pocketbrush pen and Copic multiliners
Paper: Stillman and Birn gamma sketchbook.

M is for Marie

M is for Marie, a character from KCNO. The entire book is available online to read here: KCNO

Marie is not a character who was very popular, in fact for most of the book, people tended to dislike her because she had ideas that ran against the other characters of the comic. I think characters like Marie are ESSENTIAL to storytelling. To create characters the audience can disagree with, that is important to creating a world that feels real. Too often I'll read a comic, or watch a movie, or see a tv show where characters are all in agreement, or it's a character who is so unlikable that you hate them, but either of those can be boring. Like, SUPER boring! Character's should feel like people, not motivations, or cut outs or NPCs in a video game. A good character, whether you agree with them or not, is a character you want to see become better, no matter what they do or who they hurt, and Marie does hurt some people in KCNO. But I find that most people, after they read the book, like Marie a lot because she does become a better person. She's one of the more dynamic characters in the story in that she makes amends for being a jerk and she ends up happy. I don't think I knew what I was doing when I created her, but I think now I understand why a character like her is so important to good drama.

Tools: Pentel pocket brush pen
Paper: Stillman and Birn gamma sketchbook

Curse of the Eel Chapter 1

In the spirit of sharing more of my comics, here is my thesis work: Curse of the Eel chapter 1. I hope you enjoy it! And if you'd like to buy the first 2 chapters, it is available at my store: http://jorgesantiagojr.bigcartel.com/

Inks also from my unnamed Horror comic

Inked in the span of 2 weeks, I finished 20 pages and got the approval for them last night. So now I want to share the first 6 of them. I used a Raphael #3 brush on these and while it took some getting used to the larger size (I usually use a 2) it was a lot of fun. Although these aren't my favorites of the pages I've done for it, this was still a fun experiment with inking that I'm sure I'll use again.

The story to this one is a goth girl named Connie is bullied, and she accidentally summons forth a creature not unlike the ones in the stories she's read. That's the hook, but the story itself is more than that and I can't wait to share more of it. I've been reading a lot of H. P. Lovecraft myself and I'm really taken with the worlds and lore he creates and then pretty much just drops the mic on. My favorite was the Shunned House, and the conclusion made me very sad that this was the only story, presumably, in that world with that horror. Here is my take on his type of horror, with some of my own ideas mixed in. Well, back to work.

Stillman and Birn Zeta Review

I love drawing and lately I've been drawing more than I have at any one point in my life. Part of this is attributed to my professors at SCAD Atlanta, who challenge me to be a better artist every day; the other factor is Stillman and Birn and their line of sketchbooks. I've been using them for almost a year now and the books are so high quality, they almost ask to be drawn on. I was lucky enough to be sent a few sheets of their newest paper, Zeta, and while I haven't had a lot of time to play with it, here are my thoughts.

The Zeta line of books is a heavier version of the Epsilon line. The paper is smooth and white and while the the Epsilon can take light washes, the Zeta can accept a lot more. The paper feels like hot press watercolor paper and I enjoyed painting on this more than I did on Arches (which I did love as well). I'm not the best painter but I had a lot of fun testing out watercolor techniques on here. I'm finding I enjoy smooth paper a bit more for watercolors and I think having a sketchbook of this paper is really exciting.

I usually work in pencil and with ink, so I also did some drawings to test out different inking tools on the Zeta. Its smooth surface means ink pens like Sakura Microns and Faber Castell Pitt Pens glide across it beautifully. I wanted to test how a brush works on it in the field so I inked the drawing above with my Pentel Pocket Brush. Even though brushes aren't technically at their best on smooth paper, the brush pen gives a nice crisp line and it was very easy to use. I inked the 2 figures with a combination of brush pen and a single micron, and the line quality is amazing. I can't wait to test out my Raphael brush for some real brush inking. I'll post those when they're finished.


The Zeta has worked beautifully in the few ways that I've tested it the passed few days. I look forward to getting my own book and having even more art opportunities available to me when I'm out and feel like drawing.