Author: James Castro

Creative Christmas: I Am Groot

On By James CastroIn Art, ProjectsLeave a comment

Halfway through the Beetlejuice pictures another image popped into my head.  I watched a ton of Guardians of the Galaxy during the holidays and the idea of drawing a baby Groot was just too tempting to pass up.  It would give me a chance to practice color and see how much I could play with the new medium.

This one actually went so fast I didn’t have a chance to take pictures of the process.  Like many of these I wasn’t used to the methodology so about four times during the drawing I thought I’d ruined it.  I did manage to get a picture of the finished version:

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I didn’t have a brown pastel at the time so I ended up mixing my own.  It worked relatively well even if it came out a bit green.

I added the glowing parts after I finished and found the composition to be a little left-heavy.  Plus it gave me a chance to try something I couldn’t do in pencil.

I was pretty happy with it for a spur-of-the-moment picture.  And it got drawing Groot out of my system!

Creative Christmas: Beetlejuice Lydia

On By James CastroIn Art, ProjectsLeave a comment

In my last post I described my process in creating a chalk pastel Beetlejuice.  I wanted to do a nice version of Lydia to go along with it, but unlike Beetlejuice I didn’t have a clear image to go on.  Also she’s identifiable but not quite as iconic, so she had to come more from my own head than the Ghost with the Most.

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I originally wanted to go with revulsion but I didn’t like the way it paired with the Beetlejuice.  So I changed it before the final.

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I actually found a picture of “costume ideas” for Lydia cosplayers that I used as a base.

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I was particularly proud of my spider necklace design.

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She ended up looking more like the cartoon version of Lydia than Winona Ryder, but as the artwork was a little cartoony I ended up being ok with it.

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She mostly wears black except for her red wedding dress. Drawing black clothes on black paper is trickier than it seems…

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For a first big piece in chalk and color I was pretty happy with them!

Creative Christmas: Beetlejuice

On By James CastroIn Art, ProjectsLeave a comment

After the Halloween artwork I did I was itching to do some other dark, horror-related art as an X-Mas present to my RevPub Partner since the previous one turned out so well.  I originally thought Ghostbusters but after some thinking I decided to do a piece of Beetlejuice and Lydia.

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I was still starting with pencil but I was encouraged by the basic premise.

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After some thinking I decided I wanted to show his icky teeth so I gave him an open mouth smile.

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This was the first time I added real color to the image.  I liked how it turned out and this was a great first color project as if it looked a bit ragged it was ok on the Ghost with the most.20151113_164031

I was really happy with the finished product.  Now I had to figure out what I was going to do with the other pic I decided to do to match it, Lydia!

Creative Christmas: Sir Daniel Fortesque

On By James CastroIn Art, ProjectsLeave a comment

As was said in my RevPub Partner’s Christmas Post creative presents are the best presents.  I decided not to buy random, useless stuff for people this year and do some artwork.

I’m normally a black and white pencil illustrator, but ever since my experience with chalk pastels on Halloween I’ve been eager to try more.  I’ve had random images pop into my head since Halloween and a “classical” portrait of Medi-Evil’s Sir Daniel Fortesque was remarkably vivid and I knew I had to draw this one right away.  Since my friend Mike and I are a huge fan of the series, I knew this was going to be his present:

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Roughing out images for chalk pastels is super fast.  I don’t know why it so different from pencils, but for some reason I can get a rough outline done in chalk in a matter of minutes and have it be relatively accurate.

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During nearly every chalk pastel I’ve done there is a point where I think “Oh blessed Omnissiah, I’ve ruined it…”  This was the point in this one.  I didn’t have a brown pastel, so I was mixing my own.  At this stage to me everything looked wrong.  I learned on previous images that continuing and correcting as you go works very well.  I don’t erase as much in chalk as the medium is easier to cover with subsequent layers.

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At this point the corrections started to make me feel better…  I always draw the eyes in last but I was pretty happy it was all going to work out.  As an aside, I’ve had a clip on drawing board for years.  It’s worn and damaged but it’s served me well.  Especially for medium-sized pieces.

20151219_215358Final Sir Dan.  I decided not to overly detail his leg armor so it didn’t draw away from his upper body.  I was incredibly happy with this one, and it made for a great Christmas to a fellow Medi-Evil fan.  Just shy of a NEW installment in the series.

New Years: Trends to Leave in 2015…

On By James CastroIn OpinionsLeave a comment

Off the Edge

It’s almost a whole new year and rather than looking back over the previous I thought I’d take a moment to talk about some things I hope we don’t carry forward as trends in the next year:

  • General Pessimism/Cynicism: One of the developments of the always online culture has been the rise of constant and needless pessimism and cynicism. Even with good news or a surprise announcement there is a tidal wave of negativity causing any positivity or even neutrality to be lost at sea. “This new movie is coming out!” immediately followed by “It’ll suck the director is s**t and the actors can’t act.” “This thing won an award” immediately followed by “it was overrated/stupid/not worth it/not as good as XXXXX thing that I like.” “So-and-so is having a sale, things are discounted 25% to 47%!” immediately followed by “When they discount more than 50% I’ll be impressed otherwise I’ll keep getting illegal bootlegs” (For real I saw a comment VERY similar to that last one just this week…) While I don’t expect the world to be full of shiny happy people (I’d have to kill everyone and then myself if that was the case) I’d like to think we could NOT automatically jump to negative conclusions right away. Though it might give 4Chan less to talk about.
  • Miserable Rich Celebrities with No Abilities: I still use an old email system that has multiple news items you can select for your “home” page. You can have entertainment, politics, sports, etc. because I like to get movie and music news I selected “entertainment” and rather than get any Entertainment Weekly style “This movie is coming out” or “This band is back together” (Guns and Roses people…I’ll be there no matter the cost…) I got article after article about Kardashians changing their hair, or having arguments, or wearing clothes. Every article is accompanied by a picture with some rich, attractive, woman with no discernable abilities other than standing in front of the camera, being rich, and dating other famous people, looking absolutely effing miserable. I don’t know who has made this trend popular or why people insist on making these “celebrities” famous, but I’d like to see less of that and more of people who actually do something, are good at something, and might even enjoy what they do. One more picture of a despondent, collagen inflated, dead-eyed face might induce a shooting spree. We can do completely without them…
  • Wearing Designer Athletic Clothes as Regular Clothes: Wearing your workout gear to go shopping or get gas or even to work doesn’t make everyone think you’ve been working out. Mostly it makes me personally wonder what would happen if I wore the ratty clothes I work out in to the office. It’s very American to wear exercise clothes as loungewear…and it’s a trend I hope dies with the last light of 2015.
  • Screen Obsession: This one is NOT going to happen but it’s something that is becoming the epidemic of the new age. I was at a shopping center a few months ago, walking from place to place when I passed a family, a woman and two girls, sitting on a stone wall together. The mom was staring at her phone, the teenage girl was staring at her phone, the pre-teen girl was staring at her phone. A family sitting together, out together all staring at some device and really getting nothing out of it. I use my phone for a few things, but the utter obsession people have developed with these devices is getting scary. Despite it being the latest/greatest of the “information age” it certainly hasn’t made people any smarter… It’s a good idea to make sure at some point each day you detach from the mobile device for a bit. Let the battery die. Live without it for a while. It won’t kill us to actually interact with a non-glowing, behind glass world for a while.
Great pic by Cameron Power from 2015 of ONE guy not staring at his phone at a train station.
  • Fandom Superiority: This is my big one, but probably only because of the news I read or the posts I see. Star Wars is not better than Star Trek is not better than Dr Who is not better than Lord of the Rings is not better than DC is not better than Marvel. I personally prefer some of those things over others, but all of these opinions are subjective by definition. Just because you prefer Batman movies to Iron Man movies doesn’t make you deeper, more profound and just because you like prefer Tony Stark to Bruce Wayne doesn’t automatically make you more fun. Fan mash ups and “oh you think XXXXX, that’s cute” posts don’t ever actually provide any insight or value they are just ways for fans to declare what they like is better than what someone else likes. And because you read the book and someone else just saw the movie or show doesn’t make you a bigger fan. It just means you’re a fan of the book and the movie or show. It IS ok to just like the movie and not the book. There are people who are just movie fans after all. Furthermore, just because you dress your kid as Yoda, Captain Kirk, Godzilla, Batman, Spiderman, or Dr Who doesn’t make you a better parent than someone who dresses their kid in a football jersey, a band tour shirt, or their favorite designer. It just means your indoctrinating them with your version of fandom over another. Your love of Mumford and Sons doesn’t make your tastes any better than someone who prefers Motorhead. You’re just different. Fans of all media, from sports to comics and movies to music need to stop segregating themselves, accept that we all have different tastes, and limit their sense of superiority. It’s just entertainment. Be entertained…
It seems fans are turning the media they love into hate vectors for the those they don’t…

Those are my high hopes for the New Year. I don’t do personal resolutions because if it’s not worth doing in October it’s not worth doing in January. But we at RevPub wish everyone a happy new year and a good start to their 2016!

X-Mas Family Traditions

On By James CastroIn Random FunLeave a comment

It’s the holidays and while many traditions have entered into the realm of the universal, there are some that undoubtedly are only known to the families and friends who created and maintain them. One of the most famous is of course Festivus, a strange secular tradition created by Seinfeld writer Dan O’Keefe’s father Daniel. It is an unusual example as random stories from Seinfeld writers’ personal lives often ended up as plots on the show, but it makes you think how many other family-specific traditions exist out there and how many might gain wide-spread popularity if they were known. I’m sure every family has at least one; I thought I’d share a couple from my family:

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  • Christmas Donuts: This is the biggest one in the Castro family. My maternal grandfather is a retired country musician who traveled extensively during his career (my mom told me a story of how a BeeGee was once her baby sitter at a bar). Due to his hectic traveling the family never knew where they would be or be during the holidays and developed a tradition of stopping and getting everyone donuts for a treat on Christmas morning. Even after the traveling stopped Christmas donuts continued, and my mom carried into my Christmases growing up. We used to get up painfully early on Christmas Eve, drive to Shipley’s Donuts, buy an ungodly amount of donuts, and put them in the fridge until Christmas. One year we decided early that no one needed donuts and chose to not get them… Then Christmas Eve afternoon we decided the tradition couldn’t die. We went to an absolutely packed H.G. Hills store, got bags of cheap Kruellers, and had those the next day instead. Even though I don’t have Christmas breakfast with the family now I still get Christmas Donuts. I guarantee sometime before 6AM Christmas Eve morning I’ll be driving to the nearest Shipley’s to get some donuts…

  • John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together: Like most families the actual present opening for a couple kids and parents on Christmas took considerable time. My mom decided to make it an annual tradition to put in a cassette tape of the John Denver/Muppets Christmas album A Christmas Together while we opened presents. Even skipping the slow/sentimental ones it would often play through a couple times during the morning. It’s still not Christmas until Animal shouts “Run Run Reindeer!” and Miss Piggy becomes dramatically offended at the misunderstood lyrics of “Christmas is Coming” (“Piggy pudding?!”)
My dad’s kelaguen actually looks even better than this. The chicken is charred more and the ingredients very thoroughly mixed…
  • A Chamorro Buffet: Most people will have Turkey, dressing, gravy, potatoes, and ham on Christmas. Essentially Thanksgiving again. I can’t remember ever having that for Christmas. From the earliest holidays I can remember my dad always made the feast food from Guam. Kelaguen, Lumpia, charcoal BBQ ribs, chicken, and steak. I’d take it over any turkey or ham any day. He always makes enough that it’ll last a few days. Everyone eats their fill then eats their fill for about three days afterward…
  • Framily Traditions: Of course the modern family extends well beyond relatives. My RevPub partner and I have a number of annual traditions we do to celebrate the holidays. There’s the annual shopping day, which once would often start at 8 in the morning and end around 8 at night and the annual viewing of Scrooged. All of my friends also typically do individual Xmas exchanges as well. Just stopping by around the holidays to see what weird random stuff we found we thought we’d all like.

We here at RevPub wish everyone a happy holiday season and we hope you enjoy all of your family holiday traditions. You never know, one may end up as a storyline on a sitcom one day!