A New Challenger Appears

May I have everyone’s Attention?

I’m moving blogs, the new hottness can be found by clicking the above, or right here: www.swattingatshadows.wordpress.com. Update your links! I’ll still keep this old site around for archival purposes. Thanks and I’ll see you on the other side.

The Urbanaut vol. 2 START

The Urbanaut is back at torontoist , now appearing every fortnight. Here are the first two, enjoy!

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I’m glad that Gleebax is back and that we can find out more about his discoveries and adventures.

When I stopped working on The Urbanaut last fall, I was in a  really work intensive situation and was starting to get burnt out. As a result the work suffered, which was a disservice to the comic. These days I’m a bit more conscious of pacing myself. I’ve had time to think about where the strip went and what I’d like to do with it in the future, and it should be pretty rad, I think!

Special thanks goes out to David Topping over at torontoist for keeping me in mind and never giving up on Gleebax.

Juxtapoz artist profile

exciting!

If you pick up this month’s issue of Juxtapoz (#103), you can find a little artist profile about me.

Here’s my little blurb, which was kind of agonizing to write because that sort of thing makes me nervous:

“Maybe it’s my daily caffeine intake or I was just born like this, but I think about things a lot.

My mind buzzes with a million thoughts, stuff like love, taxes, or lunch,sometimes to the point of incapacitation. Art is a kind of meditation for me, where I take all that chaos and distill it into images.

When I’ve got a pencil and paper, it’s one of the few places where I feel I can calm my brain and heart.

Even though I draw weird monsters and such, I feel like my works are deeply personal, even embarrassingly so. I’m always happy to learn that viewers find something in an image that they can connect with, even if a piece might be obscurely personal.

I hope it speaks to something universal for  everyone.”

dead birds don’t tweet

Hi Blog,

I think I’ve fallen in love with someone else.  She’s really low maintenance, although she isn’t much of a talker, in fact she keeps it to under 140 characters or less. I don’t care if she’s been with like, every other guy on the planet!

Yes, like many others I’ve become quite enamored with twitter.

Will it last? Or is it a fling? Who knows but lets just enjoy the adventure.

In the mean time, why don’t you, Blog, get to know Twitter? In fact I’ve got a little twitter update thing on the top right hand side of this very page. I usually post interesting articles or news on the internet, or quick ideas that I might develop further into blog posts. Maybe we can work something out between the three of us?

Anyways, enough with the innuendo.

I’ll readily admit that twitter can be at times very self involved, but my favorite tweets usually revolve around the helpful tips and information that industry people dispense.  Take for example Marvel Comics talent scout C.B. Cebulski, who often fires off excellent advice on how to break into the biz. CBR conveniently collected some of his nuggets of wisdom here.

Oh, and before I forget, you can follow me @ twitter.com/ReyOrtega

So in the spirit of sharing wisdom, I tweeted a few tips directed towards the latest generation of Sheridan Illustration grads. Originally I posted these  immediately after attending their fantastic grad show, but I feel like they are just as timely now, since the class of ’09 just received their fancy ” YOU DID IT!” papers this past week.

Here they are (somehow in reverse order):

1. not a tip: adjusting to life-after-school can be difficult. Getting your shit together life-wise reflects back into your work 11:38 AM Apr 24th from web

2. there are tons of ways to promote yourself, many of them free. Explore every avenue, flickr,art blogs, art forums 11:25 AM Apr 24th from web

3. tot hip: don’t wait to get ‘discovered’. put yourself out there and get those eyeballs on your work. 10:02 AM Apr 24th from web

4. hot tip: whatever ‘style’ you’ve achieved in school is only the beginning. Don’t settle on it, let yourself grow 9:31 AM Apr 24th from web

5. 5 hot tips for Illustration Grads: Now you have a chance to create something without anyone telling you to do so. Make something for you. 9:17 AM Apr 24th from web

6. holy sheridan illustration sensory overload 6:50 AM Apr 24th from web

I still feel like I’m learning new things everyday, so I’m hardly an expert, I just wanted to share. I feel very strongly about the above listed items, so I do hope it’s of some use. I’m certain that many other Illustration alumni and industry folks have even more advice, so I’m inviting you to share what you know in the comments below.

That’s about it, congrats to the class of Two-Thousand-Aught-Nine and I’ll see you guys around.

The Ancient Age

This past weekend was Free Comic Book Day, it’s kind of like Easter and Halloween wrapped up in a big Christmas bow.

In the spirit of free stuff, Wide Awake Press has released an epic collection of historical and mythological themed comics called, ” The Ancient Age”.

J Chris Campbell was nice enough to invite me to not only contribute a story but also help out with the cover, the result of which you can see above you. I did the big rooty tree at the bottom, and Bernie Gonzalez is rockin’ the warriors up top. The digital comic weighs in at a hefty 90+ pages (that is, if digital comics weighed anything), all of it filled with great comics talent. Thanks J Chris for letting me get in on the fun.

The cover piece and my story revolve around Angkor Wat in Cambodia, a place that I intend to visit someday. I’ve been fascinated with Angkor Watt for sometime now, but I think it started with Illusion of Gaia, a video game that featured the ancient temple as a stage. I got that game as a kid and ever since then I’ve associated ancient civilizations with crazy adventures, a theme that I think informs my work today. I’ll have to go into the details of making the comic at a later date, but for now, enjoy!

For those of you who want to zip to my contribution, you can check it out here, although I seriously recommend you check out the whole thing.

i…just…do…things

So here’s a little something something. Sorry, I can’t devulge on the details of the project, which is sort of like, how everything goes in this business, I find. I didn’t realize when I took up illustration as a career that I’d also be sworn into a society of secrets and subterfuge. The DaVinci Code? ITS ALL TRUE.

Bonus points goes to whoever gets the header.