Javier Burgos Arroyo

Thanks! I’m doing great, grateful to be here.

I’ve always had this passion for drawing, comic-books, animation films, or any sequential art.. Since I was a tiny little person I remembered myself drawing. The truth is that I’ve always seen it as a hobby, so, after school, I did three years of Philosophy at college. I then realized that I wanted to draw for a living, or at least that I should give it try. So here I am. Artsketch : Your art style is fairly unique, what would you credit as being your primary inspirations?

Javier: I read a lot of people’s comments about the “uniqueness” of my art, I don’t consider myself as a great artist, but the thing that makes me proud about my work, is that my style came out pretty recognizable. Some people say that it’s manga, others say that it looks disney-ish (specially Hercules-ish), or cartoon, or animated..  I don’t really know, but I have my main influences: animation films, European comic books and certain manga, like Dragon Ball.

Speaking from my own experience: Fanart really helped me to get known at certain art forums, like Deviantart or Blogger. It’s great because I really really love drawing fanart, I feel like paying tribute to my gods while doing it, you know, Superman, Goku, Tintín, Mario… these guys are modern mythology. I have so much fun drawing the characters I love in my style, making them mine, and trying to give ‘em an original look. I guess that seeing characters, like for example from Dragon Ball, in a stylized western animation style, can be “shocking” or especially eye-catching. To me, it’s refreshing when I see other artist’s fanart of super popular characters, brought into their very own style.

I always draw with blue/red col-erase pencils. I then ink over it (or I use a mechanical pencil, if I do’t feel like using inkpens) with lines as thin as I can. Then I scan it and I delete the blue (or red) information with photoshop, this way I avoid tracing, because I hate it, it´s really boring. Then I throw in the colors, always in photoshop – this is the coloring part. When it comes to starting a piece, I’m used to doing some images research and finding a bunch of references, sometimes photographs, sometimes drawings, trying to get inspired with the elements I’m interested in. I then draw till I’m kind of satisfied with the sketch and I start the coloring process.

It depends on the piece mostly. I’m used to starting with the main character(s) and then just filling the gaps with the secondary ones, or backgrounds related to the piece’s topic. Sometimes I do sketches of the whole picture, sometimes I just start with just one character and then I improvise, as I said, it depends on the piece and how I feel about it. It is also important to have in mind before starting, how many characters you are going to use in the piece – it is not the same to compose a piece with 5 characters and another with 15. I also work with each character drawn and colored on separated layers, so I can manipulate them to make the final piece look more like I want. I love drawing multiple character pieces, it’s the funniest thing ever. Why draw just one when you can draw them all!

You work at home, you may be able to handle a few projects at one time, which should be profitable, and organize your own schedule. However there is also a lack of interacting with other people, and sharing knowledge or influences – all the benefits of teamwork. Working at home can also be distracting and tricky, and being organized is a must… and I’m totally not. I love it because it’s freedom, but hate it because of its irregularity. You may have a month with no work at all, or three overflowing with it. I’m  good so far!

More fanart, more retro stuff, more characters with cool shoes and crazy hair, more freelancing, and, hopefully, my own comic book.

First, I would like to say that I believe that in art, you never stop learning. I use everything that I can, especially many books and a lot of artbooks. It’s also important to be involved in some art communities, not only as they are  good for exposure, but also for the constant sharing, and watching hundreds of amazing pieces from amazing artists every day – plus objective critiques from colleagues.  I especially recommend “The Art of Layout and Storyboarding” by Byrne, “Directing the Story” by Francis Glebas and “Dream Worlds” by Hans Bacher. Also every book or comic from Will Eisner. Artbooks are very inspiring, and indispensable to me.

Thanks to you, it´s been a pleasure