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!

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

Variant Cover for Sidekick for Hire issue 5

This is a project I finished at the end of last year, but I got the opportunity to draw a variant cover for the 5th issue of Sidekick for Hire, a really interesting take on superheroes by Kristian Herrera & Rick Alves! After reading the existing issues and the script for the 5th, I really wanted to focus on Sasha (she ended up as my favorite character in the series) and so I came up with this cover concept. 

I tend to color my covers a lot lately, which is interesting. This cover did come out well in terms of what I envisioned and what I was able to do, and it was a very color-centric approach, with the lighting and the effects. I hope you dig it, and please support the 5th issue which will be on Kickstarter soon! The Pre-launch link is here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sidekick3/sidekick-for-hire-1-5?ref=ksrtwitter-prelaunch

Now to take a look at my process for it. I used a Zebra brush pen and the Pentel Color Brush on Stillman & Birn Zeta paper, and it's colored in Photoshop.

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!

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!

Roxy Rewind pages 1-4

 Super late on taking advantage of this when it was online, but last year I worked David Pepose and Jim Campbell on a short story for Project Big Hype,  a comic anthology on Kickstarter! The funding was successful and I hope everyone enjoyed the comic! These pages were shared on Twitter and other places, so I'm sharing the first 4 of our story here! This is a different kind of book than I usually do, but it was a fun change of pace! I've never really drawn superheroes comics before, so this was fun!

These pages were drawn on Deleter B4 manga paper, which I haven't used in years! I used mostly G-pens and the Nihonji pen and used Photoshop to create the digital halftones. I'll include some pencils down below the inks!

 Story & Script: David Pepose https://twitter.com/Peposed

Lettering: Jim Campbell https://twitter.com/CampbellLetters

Pencils

Curse of the Eel Chapter 14

 Today I began posting chapter 14 of Curse of the Eel on Tapastic and Tumblr, and I'll be adding a link to my menu to those pages so people can read them. This chapter was a little hard for me, I was trying to draw it while being having my tank completely on empty. I just had little to no energy to do any real drawing, and anything I did draw didn't look right or just looked less than what I want or expect from my art. It's a sucky thought process, but that poisonous mindset really hobbled me in 2020.

 

Thankfully, new year brings new beginnings, and while I've never been as busy as I am now with projects, new jobs, and new energy, I'm finally feeling a bit like my younger self who just wanted to draw to make people smile or cry with my weird comics. Today Curse of the Eel returns after a short hiatus, and chapter 14 marks the beginning of the end; this comic that I thought would be 2 graphic novels is now half way through book 3, and I'm really proud of it. I've also learned how much these characters mean to people and that is an honor I can't even begin to comprehend, but one that I'm grateful for. If this comic can bring a smile to someone without one, then it was worth every second it took to dream up. I hope this new chapter finds you all well and that you have a great day, and if not, I hope Eel can lift your spirits if even for a bit.

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!