Since the days of “9” I really haven’t done too much character design work professionally. Maybe in a commercial here or there, but it wasn’t until recently that I was really able to get back to character illustration and designing. The gig was short, but incredibly sweet with the good folks at Mo Villa Productions. They asked me to do some character designs and storyboards for set dressing for an upcoming episode of HBO’s “Entourage”; more specifically, I was asked to redesign a rather obscure Marvel character: Airwalker. So, they let me go wild and I did. Below you’ll find some pictures from the actual set followed by some of the illustrations you can see on the walls. I also did some of the storyboards on the wall next to the “Braveheart” poster, and I’ll probably post them later (maybe in the Portfolio page of this site.)
Alright, so “Hockey, Love, & GUTS!” is currently on hiatus. For a comic that comes out once in a blue moon, I don’t know how being on hiatus is any different than any other time, but I just thought of stating that and getting that out of the way. Also, I’m starting to think that it might be a good idea to consider publishing it and continue the story in that realm… if anyone has any hints on how I should contact publishers and all that entails, let me know.
What I have been working on a lot however, is my story(board) portfolio. My friend Leo Matsuda has really been encouraging me to build a better storyboard portfolio, so I decided to take his advice and “go with it,” so to speak. You’ve seen some action here in the form of gag boards in the Hollywood Star FAIL series, but I’ve also been developing another story that has some more dimensional characters. I decided to take the “make a short film” approach and I’ve been writing and rewriting the script, developing the characters and their design, sets, visual development, etc. I may or may not post the whole story here, but I’ll give you a little taste in upcoming posts. To start off, here are the characters:
To celebrate the Japanese release of “9” here goes my first ever fanart. I’ve been joking around with my friend Patrick Awa about how someone in Japan needs to make a doujinshi mashup of “9” and the classic anime series “Cyborg 009”. Well, it’s been a while since the movie came out, and I’ve seen nothing of it, so Japan here it is. YOU’RE WELCOME!
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PS: This isn’t the super secret stuff I talked about in the previous post, but that is still on its way.
Absurdist stories about the life of a star in Hollywood. In this episode, Hollywood Star finds a place to settle.

Absurdist stories about the life of a star in Hollywood. In this episode, Hollywood Star attempts to buy liquor.



