Illustration Friday: Mermaid

So pleased to see this weeks IF topic: Mermaid! Immediately thought of this pod I drew a few years ago. So here they are:

Go Hawks!

Football mania is afoot! Everywhere I go I see fans in their favorite jersey sporting their favorite numbers. And it has reached my little space I call my studio, so clad in my own Seahawks shirt, I went to work on two commissions from Seahawks fans. Turns out they bring these to the games and get is autographed. So cool!

Doug Baldwin

Russell Wilson

Go Hawks!

Order of the Rose Book 3 - coming soon!

This is just a quick teaser...

Order of the Rose Book 3 is coming soon and yes, I'm busy working on the cover. So exciting!

This is always a project I love coming back to because every time, I have to reconnect with Tom and Aithnea and be immersed in their very unique world. In designing these covers I have to tease the readers, in one quick glance with surprises that await them inside these pages, and I've found that working on those details are always fun and challenging.

I haven't read Book 3 yet but from what I hear from the author, Joshua Hoyt, it's coming to a spectacular finish with lots of action, drama and excitement. Isn't that just what you're looking for, for a great read?

So I'm all set. I've been given the brief for the cover design. I have started drafting some ideas and I am super excited to get my hands on a copy!

But then it's also sad, because it's conclusion of the Order of the Rose trilogy. It feels like you're saying goodbye to very old friends. And this would be the last we'll see of Tom and his gang.

While we're waiting for next book, check out the first two books, Forsaken Petal and Black Petal on Amazon.

Check out Order of the Rose Forsaken Petal by clicking this LINK.

Check out Order of The Rose Black Petal by clicking this LINK.

"Black Petal" is now available on Amazon

Good news everyone! Black Petal is now available on Amazon. Please do check it out. This is the second book in the Order of the Rose trilogy written by Joshua Hoyt with covers designed by me.

And Happy July 4th! Enjoy the weekend and stay safe!

Black Petal cover design

The big reveal, cover of the upcoming book: Order of the Rose

More revelations await us in the next series of Order of the Rose: Black Petal. 

Watch out for it. Coming soon in Amazon. 

Black Petal preview

It's always a great joy and wonderful relief, to finish an artwork, specially a big one. And I definitely consider working on the cover designs of the book series Order of the Rose by Joshua Hoyt, a big and most enjoyable project.

Today, I put the final touches in Black Petal, the second in this series of three. Or, in one case, remove a detail. As always, my ever loving hubby is a source of inspiration, ideas and creative feedback. Thanks love!

Here's a preview of the title. I'll post the full design on Friday, in accordance with Josh's schedule of release. Looking forward it!

Cover artwork for "Forsaken Petal"

From December to January, I've been working on the cover for the first in the series of the fantasy adventure novel "Order of the Rose: Forgotten Petal". And I'm happy to announce, the novel is now published and ready for sale on Amazon.  Please do check it out. :D

Cover artwork by Ria Mendoza of OrangeJar.com

Amazon Book Description:

In a world where only women have been able to wield magic for centuries Tom Alerio, a young boy, soon realizes that his unique ability of wielding magic will change his life forever.

Tom’s mother is forced to send him away in order to protect him from the sisterhood she belongs to. The sisterhood fear magic returning to the hands of men and seek out and kill any that do.  

However, Tom learns that magic must be shared by men and women alike and in order to do this he must restore The Order of The Rose, an ancient order that controlled magic before it became corrupted. If he is unable to do this the new technologies and opposing forces will rip the world apart destroying all he has come to love and care for. 

OrangeJarArt on Etsy now open!

I have been considering Etsy for the longest time. But it was only a few months ago that I actually signed up to become a seller... then I left the account empty. For weeks now, I've been wanting to post my art prints and clay work but I've been too worried about shipping and packaging so I did nothing.

In the meantime, I've been trying to find the best way to ship out and well, experimenting on packaging.

But I realize now that I have to make the jump. So today, I officially opened my Etsy store. I couldn't take the name OrangeJar anymore - imagine that, somebody beat me to it. So I put in OrangeJarArt. If you want to check it out, just click here. It's a leap of faith, I wasn't ready for it, so there's only one product listed up there and that is my caricature/portrait service.

OrangeJarArt shop and the one and only product listed ;)

Etsy's email confirmation

I know I should have done this a long time ago. It takes eons of time to promote and for a shop to get recognized. But at least, I opened it. I took the plunge. Now, I just have to sort out packing and shipping and I'll be posting more stuff in there.

Here's to hoping for more clients to stumble in my humble shop!

Riel: New in Dubai

Been organizing my stuff - paper simply multiplies over the years. It's still a big wonder for me really, in this digital age, I work everyday on my computer, seldom print stuff and yet, the amount of paper I have is dizzying. Anyway, stumbled on old sketchbooks and found my old Riel comic strip. I digitized, cleaned and colored them.

This first one, I drew during my early years in Dubai, about six-seven years ago, and friends say this is still so true.

Changing styles

I was watching an Awesome Horse Studios video a while back and one of them (it's a group of four established artists, excellent in their fields who decided to share their expertise to the world for free - quite cool!) was saying that you should experiment  with your style and just let it flow. So just to practice while watching, I opened another browser and decided to draw from one of their profile pictures (the photo I based this on doesn't seem to be on their site anymore hehe).

The one on the left is my default style and the one on the right is the redraw with me making it flow freer. Gotta do more of these exercises. Quite fun!

Book Cover

Also finished last week: book cover design for self-publishing author Josh Hoyt. You can find his writings at The Blog That Helps You Diagnose Your Characters.

Mabuhay Enterprise Logo

Another project done, for a Canadian company this time.

Brief:

Mabuhay Enterprise is an online/home-based registered business in the province of British Columbia. Our goal is to provide the Filipino-Canadian community in the Greater Victoria area the following goods and services:

* Money remittance (Money Accord)- available for door to door, bank direct deposit and pick-up at outlet locations
* The Filipino Channel (TFC) cable box and subscription
* Sari-sari store online
* Philippine travel and tours
* Other services and Philippine imported goods to follow.

 Initial studies:

They emailed back that they like the flame but with the text on the side. They sent a rough sketch of how the text should look. Based on that, I gave them these choices:

 

From there, they chose flame 2, text 4 but with a smaller font size for 'enterprise'. 

So, the final logo:

Swinging 60s bday party

Finished off a bday invitation design. This was used as an ecard invitation. Some details blurred for  client privacy.

 

They also wanted a poster that will serve as a bday poster for the venue and something that they can hang at home after the party. So I designed this collage for them, with photo editing included of the vintage photo at the center (original photo at the bottom):

Playing with my pen

Finally got the setting of my Intous 3 set for Imac. This is the first result:

Feel that it's a bit skewed - comes from not detailing my pencil first. Got involved with the colors too early.

Jumpstart

Time for a revamp! This first quarter, I'll be revamping the OrangeJar website - soon there will be a new comprehensive online portfolio, the latest caricatures drawn, as well as oil, watercolor, pencil, pen and ink and photo prints.

Just to start off this new-found energy to set the house in order, here's a quick and dirty 'Riel' - an old comic series I started years ago. I'll be reviving her too and will be posting more of her adventures in Dubai. The inspiration is about seven years old... pre-Dubai recession but it's still funny. Enjoy!

Compilation of some of my works

Old comics

Cleaning up a brimming inbox and found this among the sent files. An old comics I worked on which was supposed to be for a weekly gadgets rag in Dubai, but got cancelled. Oh well. Just remember, this was like three years ago. Enjoy!

OrangeJar Free Line Arts

Hi there! As part of projects for family fun, we're going to publish OrangeJar line arts here for free. You can download them and get dirty painting.

Kids love coloring! And for adults, why not join the fun? Coloring is therapeutic, it will help you relieve the stress from the office as you spend quality time with your kids.

For this week, we have a deer and an eagle. This is the first installment, but in the future, if you want to look for more free OrangeJar line arts, just click the tags "OJ Line Arts".

Have tons of fun!!!

Painting for the day

 

Browsing Hollywood celebrity buzz, a photo of Rihana caught my eye, it was great for practice. Photoshop.

Eating

Everyday in my bag is this lovely yellow green, soft cover moleskin. It's already battered with use and abuse.

I've been doing my scribblings and quick sketches there but I've never published one yet in this blog, and inspired by other artists who draw everyday and from real life, I'll start posting some of my own work here.

This was a 5-minute sketch while having dinner at Ikea. A nice gentleman passed from my back and stopped to chat us up. I'm a self-conscious artist so I'd rather not let others see while I'm still working on a piece. That's one of the challenges of drawing from real life... Well, Mr. Nice Guy said it was good work and I'll earn money from it. This is not exactly the type of drawing I market but knock on wood, may you have the tongue of an angel.