Hello everyone, I’m Pa!
This is the first update from me at this site, I want to start saying thanks to everyone who decided to subscribe to this newsletter ToT) As you may know, just a kind reminder this will always be free, and I’ll write these monthly summaries with whatever I’ve been making the month before. Kind of similar to my public Patreon posts, but I think this way is less intrusive as it’s something you decide to read without the -give me moneeey- aka Patreon vibes.
With all this said, I was thinking to start with a small introduction of the character who will “make these updates” for me, just for fun (but it won’t be in 3rd person LOL it can be a bit confusing to speak about my works like someone else is here with me *looks around*)
(Disclaimer: I’m not the master HAHGsdf she’ll be introduced sometime soon)
OH, NOOOO… Mary is in a big trouble! She’s actually NOT good at writing, but she already accepted this extra job… what will she do?
While we wait for Mary to figure out a way to solve this, let’s start with a summary of the year! We’re in December already, why not sharing bits of what I’ve been making this 2022?
Summary of 2022
This has been a year of “change” for me, to my round faces style to one that let me draw more expressive faces… hmm! People has been pointing out similarities with other manga artist and my style, even when I was drawing the round faces, so it totally pushed this change to it as I stopped to study these artists. It’s kinda funny to get this kind of comments, because sometimes I literally have no idea who is the “new” similarity people see in it (LOL) so I’m taking it in a good way, discovering even more artist and letting my hand absorb this new information. Let’s say that’s how I’ve been feeling with my style this year, I like to let it be and develop it that way. I’m excited to see how I’ll draw next year, maybe it’ll be the same but with improvements, maybe not!
Either way, I recently took some time to sit down and think about all the artist I currently like, the ones that have been my top influence for a long time, and what I would like to learn from all of them. To Mutsumi Inomata, Yoshihiro Togashi, even Mine Yoshizaki and the Rockman.exe (or Megaman Battle Network) style have been the biggest influence for me as I discovered them (at my 16 or so, haha!), and of course my new one is Hitoshi Tomizawa (everyone’s favorite at Twitter). It’s good to see the artist you liked as a teen still having a great influence in you! It feels like my taste was genuine, like “aww I still love Megaman so much”, it gives me comfort <3
This year, I’ve participated in a few anthologies and contests (all of them rejected), worked on personal work and took some request now and then. I would like to talk about these a little bit:
The first project I worked on was my submission to the international contest “Creators for creators” which will be announced anytime soon, I’m curious who’s the finalist this year… this is one of the most famous and popular contest ever so if you don’t know about it, you should definitely try this next year. I made this pitch along with a writer, their name is Rico Taveras, and it was challenging to create something for such a cool and interesting story! We made this comic in January- March, so it looks old to me right now- again, the round faces- yet I would like to fix some details from it, and we will see what will we do with this story! Maybe pitching it around because it was an excellent one!
The next one was for my dearest and favorite fandom, Hunter x Hunter. There was a charity project around, and I felt like taking part of it. The name was “From me to you” and it was focused on keep in contact with the people you care. I drew a Gon illustration for one of the bundles and all the proceeds were donated to “The Gworls”. This was organized by Kat with Clemenzine, this is a project of them at Instagram, if you feel curious it’s over there.
What else? Oh, right! One of my favorites of this year, this made me extremely happy, and I’m still in awe with my experience. I was part of a Spanish video game magazine named “LOOP”, in both volumes one and two. The first issue was released at the beginning of this year, I believe? And the second one was recently released. I had the opportunity to draw an illustration from “Dragon Quest Builders 2” in the first issue -my favorite game on switch, and thanks to them ToT)-, then I was requested to draw 3 different characters without background for the second issue which were “Oddworld”, “Super Mario Odyssey” and I could decide the last one from one of the examples of the original text, so I went with “Maken X” (I was so close to draw GTA here, but I didn’t let my role playing enthusiasm control me *laughs) It was a really amazing and well done project! Please if you have the time, visit their site as “Year 2” is in the process, and they’re running a crowfounding for it at Verkami. Let me show you one of these illustrations *grabs it* Ow, they’re heavy…
After that, I was accepted to participate on a comic anthology “Songs of the sea” run by WildStar Press. This was a comic project about pirates, so I made a 4 page long comic about a cat who wants to be a pirate and join a pirate crew of cats. You can still find it at their site. It was a very cute project uwu)
Right after that, I joined my favorite project of the year! An anime anthology named “Alive and Well” about the characters you once loved and lost-yes, they’re dead ToT)-, run by NOC with ZinedeNuit. Their first project was brilliant, I got a digital copy of their first anthology (about angry boys like Hiei or Gaara) and absolutely loved it, so I had my eyes open in case they were going to run another anthology kukuku… I absolutely loved the experience, Noc is such a hardworking person! I participated on this year anthology, with two illustrations from Madoka Magica and X 1999 Clamp. Also, with a Nina sticker as an extra! This project is about to close the shop, so if you don’t want to miss it, I totally recommend grabbing it. The quality is superb, and I’m still impressed with the the book itself!
And finally, “Datura” a josei comic anthology. This was one of the most loved projects online! If you don’t know what’s “josei”, it’s like a romance for an adult audience, but it doesn’t necessary means it’ll contain hot themes, in fact, my story is really soft! My comic was an 8-page-long comic about two maids being in love with each other, and one day they decide to write a love letter to the other! Maids? Wait, it that Mary? YES SHE’S!!!!!! But the main character for Datura is her beloved Edith <3 <3 AW! AW! This anthology is now up as a digital purchase at Sunmi’s itchio shop, one of the main organizers of this awesome collection of love stories! The project ended up looking sooo lovely, and riso printed~~
And that’s all the projects I made this year. I really hope to have a few more opportunities this next year too, I will do my best to keep it up with arts ToT) I was rejected on a few more anthologies and projects too, despite making the arts samples and stuff *sob* Gaaahh…!! Unfortunately, I can’t mention or show this part because I’ll probably recycle until these ideas get accepted somewhere!
But wait, I’m missing something here… my personal work is another story! And this is the most important part, to my eyes and own judgement, hehe~~ Let me talk for a little longer about my comics of this year:
“Lay in the dark” A girl who frequently suffers sleep paralysis, and a loyal, good friend who protects her from the darkness. To those kids who had awful experiences. This comic was made for Bluestockings digital comic FES, and it’s 14 page longer. This is pretty close to my experience, but I didn’t have a Bobi in my life to take care of me *cries* This has become one of my favorite short stories, so I ended up printing a few copies of it to sale online and in person. I printed it twice too, so I guess I can say people liked it. If you somehow missed it, don’t worry because you can read it at my twitter or get a digital PDF at my Ko-fi shop. I hope I can take part of this fair next year, if they run it again!
I took part of a twitter challenge too, “Micro Comic challenge” run by Hiveworks this summer. The idea was drawing a 4 long comic about whatever you want. I made this for pure joy, and to test myself to draw colored comics. “The bittersweet dream to disappear” a sad comic, about a girl who wishes to disappear or be invisible. You can also read this one at my Twitter!
“Bibi” a story about a kid who's kinda lost in life, about decisions people choose for us at an early age and the ignorance of being too young. This is my largest project to this day, and will be longer than my first comic, “Blind Eye”. It took me all this year to write the entire comic, sketch the first two chapters and finish chapter 1, a 50 page long comic. I’ve plans for this one, as it’s going to have more episodes (a total of 4, of 50 pages each but the last one larger) I thought the best way to show it was, indeed, chapter per chapter. With “Blind Eye” I realized not everyone is up to reading 150 pages digitally, neither in a sit, so that made me decide the best for this project was making it this way. But of course, as this is a Patreon exclusive, I don’t want it to be there for an eternity! The plan is, once chapter 1 (done) and chapter 2 (on it) are 100% finished, I’ll release it digitally to the public, but also print some copies for those who prefer it! The idea is having this first volume by January, on my birthday… I’m totally sure I’ll make it on time ^o^) You have the preview of this comic at my portfolio, and a preview of chapter 2 at my twitter.
And that’s all for real this time!
Wait, I’m still missing something else? Something related with a comic I didn’t mention?
I’ll say it next time <3
Pa-Luis
Me alegro de ver todos los proyectos chulos en los que has participado, espero que el año que viene sigas haciendo todo lo que te propongas! Yo ahora me estoy planteando presentarme a mi primer concurso de cómic, suena tonto pero para mí sería un gran paso y siento que podría darle un giro radical a mi vida… Leyendo tu newsletter tengo el pensamiento de que de vez en cuando los sueños pueden cumplirse y eso me reconforta, muchas gracias por escribirla. Veremos qué nos depara el futuro, jejeje…