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

Patreon Launched!

 Hello everyone! This is a post to let you know that I've opened up a Patreon page to support my original comics! I've been uploading to it pretty regularly, and it's become a place for me to share comic pages and to help build more of an audience for my work.

I haven't forgotten about this blog and do still intend to post work on here, I've just been pretty busy with a great many projects, that I will post about soon!

If you want to check out my Patreon, you can find it here: 

https://www.patreon.com/jorgesantiagojr

I've also started a new comic titled Honor Bound! Honor Bound is a fantasy romance story centered around a squire who is trying to return to their love following a failed war campaign. I've already posted a bunch of process work on my Patreon, but I'll share more about the story and my other projects soon!

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

Dungeon Scrawlers Character Designs

 I got to provide character designs for some characters of "Fearful Symmetry," a short D&D campaign by the Dungeon Scrawlers and DMed by Erin M. Evans! These were a lot of fun to make and I'm glad to have had the opportunity to contribute to their long running campaign!

https://www.youtube.com/c/DungeonScrawlers

https://www.twitch.tv/dungeonscrawlers

Ilya, the Rashemi Wizard

Stirge, the Rogue/Arcane Trickster

Florin, definitely not a Warlock

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.

Art Inspired by Relics of Ruin

 Hey everyone! I drew this last month, but I got to read a snippet of the upcoming Relics of Ruin, a sequel to Empire of Exiles by Erin M. Evans! I came up with this illustration of one of the best moments in the passage, which shows best boy, Tunuk, pondering on the events leading up to this current moment. This was also to congratulate Erin as the Relics cover and release date were announced! I'm excited to read this book, and to make more art inspired by the series!

This is probably one of my first full on digital illustrations. I got myself an iPad Pro with Procreate, and I've been having a lot of fun finding ways to make art in a different way. I'm not giving up my pens and paper, but this is a cool new adventure that I hope to grow from. You can also check out my process video on Tiktok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@jorgesantiagojrcomics/video/7207237658165120298?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7211591819695867435

Empire of Exiles Illustration: My first professional fantasy illustration!

Hello everyone! So this is a really cool story so let me start off with that:

I've been really digging fantasy stuff in the last few years; after the pandemic, fantasy has been my number one genre and I've been working on more fantasy stuff like Illarys, but also making fan art for my favorite characters. I've been drawing a bunch of fan art for the Brimstone Angels Saga, a D&D series about twin Tiefling girls, which is written by the awesome and kind Erin M. Evans! She's shared a bunch of my drawings on social media (which is really cool when you get seen by the creator!) and I learned very quickly that she had a new original fantasy story coming out: Empire of Exiles! She was nice enough to send me an Advanced Reader Copy, so I could get a jump start on the fan arts, and she decided to commission me to create an illustration for this new book!

I'll include my progress stages here, including a TikTok I made of my inking process on this illustration, which was used as a pre-order bonus as a bookmark and a device wallpaper! I'm really excited to have gotten this opportunity and to have my first fantasy illustration be for Erin, who is both kind and amazingly talented. I read Empire of Exiles in like 2 weeks, and I loved it! Below is my interpretation of the inciting incident, as this is a fantasy murder mystery and not all is as it seems!

You can pick up Empire of Exiles from all major booksellers, it's published through Orbit Books, so you can find it at Barnes and Noble or your local bookstores (and if they don't have it, you can ask them to order it for you)! It's also available as an e-book and an audiobook! At the end, I'll include the book description that is listed on Erin's website.

 

 

Here's a link to my ink video on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jorgesantiagojrcomics/video/7154534349751274798?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7159252760539448878

And here are the colors!

"Magic, mystery, and revolution collide in this fantasy epic where an unlikely team of mages, scribes, and archivists must band together to unearth a conspiracy that might topple their empire.

Twenty-seven years ago, a Duke with a grudge led a ruthless coup against the empire of Semilla, killing thousands. He failed. The Duke was executed, a terrifyingly powerful sorcerer was imprisoned, and an unwilling princess disappeared.

The empire moved on.

Now, when Quill, an apprentice scribe, arrives in the capital city, he believes he’s on a simple errand for another pompous noble: fetch ancient artifacts from the magical Imperial Archives. He’s always found his apprenticeship to a lawman to be dull work. But these aren’t just any artifacts — these are the instruments of revolution, the banners under which the Duke lead his coup.

Just as the artifacts are unearthed, the city is shaken by a brutal murder that seems to have been caused by a weapon not seen since the days of rebellion. With Quill being the main witness to the murder, and no one in power believing his story, he must join the Archivists — a young mage, a seasoned archivist, and a disillusioned detective — to solve the truth of the attack. And what they uncover will be the key to saving the empire – or destroying it again."

Check out Empire of Exiles, I'm already awaiting book 2!

I'm joining the anthology "Jump Tales" for a one shot!

Hey everyone, it's been a busy month and just as one Kickstarter I worked on has finished, another one is coming up in a few days! This KS is for a black and white comics anthology inspired by Shonen manga magazines like Shonen Jump, called Jump Tales! The Kickstarter is coming up, and you can pledge to receive 3 issues of this magazine, with 4 ongoing stories and a single one shot per issue. My one shot will be in issue 3, and it's called Illarys! I'll be joining a group of very talented comic artists and writers, so I hope you'll support the Kickstarter! 

Illarys is my first real attempt at a high fantasy story! I've been neck deep in fantasy novels, Dungeons and Dragons, Elder Scrolls, the Witcher, and more since the pandemic, and I'm excited to share my own fantasy world that should be fun for people who are fans of the aforementioned properties!

Illarys is a young half-elven girl in a cold land with an even colder regime. Her father attempts to flee their home nation to reunite with his elven wife, but their trip does not go as planned. It is up to Illarys to safely escort her younger brother across the lands as they are pursued by bounty hunters and other magical dangers!

Here is the promo image for Illarys, both in color and in black and white!

SketchKon 2018 Fun and Sketchbook update!

On November 2-4 in Pasadena California, the first ever Sketch Kon was held and I had the pleasure/privilege to represent Stillman & Birn at the event. Stillman & Birn, for those who don't know, make my favorite line of papers and are, quite literally, the only paper that I am willing to draw on anymore. I spent that weekend manning the Stillman & Birn booth, talking with attendees about making art and art supplies, and showing them some of my work and talking about my process. It was probably, one of the best weekends of my life. I was surrounded by so many creative people, I was representing a product I believe in, and I got the chance to draw some cool things!

Below are some of the highlights of the sketches I did at the event. These were done in 2 of S&B's newest lines of paper, the Nova series which come in Beige, Gray, and Black toned papers. These were mainly done in my beige and gray books, I'm building up my skills to be able to tackle the black paper, and I used gouache, watercolors, poster paint markers, pencils, inks, and acrylic inks on these. That's a loooot of tools to use, but this paper is amazing!

Character Design painted before my flight to Pasadena

Drawn on the flight to Pasadena

Sketches of restaurant goers on Friday night

Some demonstration sketches and a Moscow Mule from Saturday night

The Westin Bar on Saturday Night

Church across from the Westin, drawn on location and painted at the airport before my return flight

Character drawn during the event and painted after I returned to GA

SPX 2016!!

I'll be at table I-12 this weekend for the Small Press Expoooo! Here's a map and some covers of comics that didn't exist last year at the show, that will THIS YEAR!!

SPX Wrap Up and some Illustrations

Yoo! It's been half a month since I returned from SPX and I haven't updated cuz wow have I been working. Anyhow, SPX was a blast! I had a great time, I really want to go back next year. I hope it's a show I can keep returning to, but only time and my luck will tell. If you bought one of my books or got a commission from me, THANK YOU! You help make this feel like it's working! It is, but I can get sorta meh about how I do things after a while. But yes, I will share some of the art I did at the show and just some art I've done since.

Thanks!!