ZZZombies!

Are you afraid of ZZZombies?
The other drawing is okay for coloring, I'll start it as soon as I can.

See you soon, ciao!

Almost There

Hey, I found time to go on with the drawing; there isn't much to do before it's good to go for coloring; I just wanted to post a snippet of it, I thrown another character in it; it's a guardian Smokey, something like the Holy Smokes from another illustration, and he/she/it is supposed to save the young lady from the Cyclops' grasp, will he/she/it succeed in the perilous task?

 

I'm going to start coloring it as soon as I can, hope it will be done in a week or so. 

Today it's Chrome's Planet Strike time, enjoy! Talk soon, ciao!

Favorite Artists: Ryuichiro Kutsuzawa

A long time ago, when I first discovered Katsuya Terada, I used to search the web for pictures of his works, at the time I did not own any of his artbooks and I discovered a magazine called Comickers, with a wonderful cover, it did not look much like Terada's style, but he was credited in the magazine so I just kept wondering who the cover artist may have been.

Then some years later, I started collecting the magazines called SMH and DDD, and there he was, the mystery artist, featured on the magazines with comics and illustrations. Ryuichiro Kutsuzawa!

I then got the Comickers issue with his cover and there was some more works inside; Terada was also there with some older drawings and a photo of LOTS of his sketches scattered around, but Kutsuzawa totally shocked me, on every magazine that had his work published.

 

I love his style, the blend of realistic drawing, ethnic imagery, sci-fi armors and crazy weapons, some of his characters had huge pliers as weapon, he's one of my top artists and a constant inspiration to do better.

He took part in many projects, worked on some games for Saturn, like Panzer Dragoon and Wachenroder, PSX's Front Mission Alternative and PC's Rasetsu Xan and made some comics and novel covers; then he disappeared, there hasn't been new works and as far as I understood he now teaches at university, in Osaka.

I managed to get almost all of his published work, but I wish that something new will pop out, maybe a full collection of his works, an artbook, some new character design, it's a pity that a talented artist like he is doesn't have the chance to do something, man, if I were a game designer I would make a game with Kutsuzawa as character designer! He's great, period.

 

Here is the infamous Comickers' cover, my first contact with his work, how cool is that?

One thing I really like is that he tends to draw common people with those fantastic outfits that make them look like workers from a not so far future, he's like a socialist sci-fi artist.

The other picture is the last one I found, it's a cover for a fantasy novel.

Ryuichiro, please come back! We love you!

New Steps

So, I found some time to proceed a little further with the new illo; not very much, but unfortunately things will be like this for some time.

I'm posting it, hoping I'll be able to show something more this week; I just gotta make the background then it's ready for the markers.

 

I'll try and start another one soon, I got an idea floating around my head and I want to fix it on paper as soon as I can.

And as usual, here is a link to a favorite song of mine, this time by Sun City Girls, enjoy!

New post on Flickr

Want to see how trees look like on Planet ZZZap? Check them here, and if you want, listen to this great song by NY based band Nymph while you do it.

I'm posting some progress for the new drawing next week! Talk soon, ciao!

Start Of Year

Hey, hope 2011 has begun in a great way.
I spent the last days shaking off all of the holidays big meals and celebrations; now I'm ready to start!

I just got a couple of books' shipments, one from Japan and one from Amazon.
The Japanese one is a bunch of artbooks: Redline Illustrations, which I haven't looked much yet because I want to see the movie first as soon as a translation pops out, then Shining Force III Artbook with LOTS of cool designs and ideas for characters, Elemental Gearbolt World Guidance it's a visual collection from a weird gunpoint game for PSX, set in a cyber fantasy world, the majority of the design is done by an interesting artist called Hitoshi Yoneda.

The last artbook is a collection of design from Front Mission's first episode, characters by Yoshitaka Amano and mechas by Kow Yokoyama (I bought it especially for Yokoyama's mech buildups).
There were some doujinshis too in the box, three of them by Atsuji Yamamoto, one of my favorite manga artists, a couple from his Arnis series and one with miscellaneous short comics and two volumes of the collective doujinshi Thinking Battalion with really great "hey look how early 90's Japanese fantasy we look like" characters.

The box from Amazon had  three novels inside: Breakfast Of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, Empire Of The Sun by J.G. Ballard and Thomas Pynchon's V.
I recently read some Vonnegut's novels and fell in love with them, so I'm curious to read more, I love his blend of science fiction, social criticism and anti-war themes; but I'll start off reading Ballard's Empire Of The Sun because I looked for it for quite some time and I'm impatient.
I'll keep Pynchon at the end; I'm a bit stressed right now and his novels require a huge load of attention.

Well, I guess that's all for now, I made a lot of sketches for places and new drawings, but since I'm going to be busy for the next days for work matters I guess there won't be any progress with the illustrations, as soon as I got something worth showing from ZZZ I'll post here for sure.

Talk soon, ciao!