 Hi, everyone. Welcome. Good afternoon. Hi. My name is Eliana and I'm a librarian for the San Francisco Public Library. We are so happy to have you with us today to celebrate Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month for youth and families with authors, creators and artists, Raph Salazar and Don Aguilio. Before we begin, I would like to acknowledge that I am here in San Francisco, California on the unceded land of the Ramatush Aloni peoples. The Ramatush Aloni people still work, play and live on these lands. To learn more about the land that you're on, please visit the link in the chat. This is part of our Asian American Pacific Islander program series in which we celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander history, culture and heritage, a celebration that we believe should take place not only during May, but year round. So thank you for joining us to continue understanding, respecting and celebrating the diverse AAPI histories and cultures from San Francisco and beyond. So without the AAPI webpage of San Francisco Public Library to see our upcoming virtual events, find great books by authors and illustrators and more. Before we start, a huge thanks to the friends of the San Francisco Public Library for their generous support of this special program and series. We would not be able to do this without them. Today, you're going to meet Raf Salazar and Don Aguilio, comic artists, writers and creators of Clan of Saints Bay Monolithic Parts one, two and three, a graphic novel project produced by cool arts that spotlights the movers and shakers of the Soma Filipino community from social workers to community activists. Raf Salazar is a Bay Area artist whose work is inspired by his love of comics. Salazar focuses his talent in digital illustration and design. And Don Aguilio is a comic book artist, writer and creator on several titles, as well as head of in hiatus studios with a team of partners that out of San Francisco as well. So I would love to welcome Raf and Don and have them take it away. Thank you. Hello. Hi, guys. Don, say hello. Hi guys. I'm Raf. Myself and Don were from the East Coast and then we came over here to the Bay Area. And we both have a love for comic books. And he's the one who introduced me to this project and I had the pleasure of working with him. So, yeah. We're big geeks. We didn't grow up together in the same area, but we met through college. Some of our friends are actually in the chat right now. It's good to see everyone. It's a pretty cool seeing you all populate the chat. But yeah, we were all big geeks growing up. We were big Marvel Comics people. We currently do freelance work on top of owning the shop and that's where Raf is currently broadcasting from. You can see. We're trying to rebuild the shop. You know, everyone's coming out of the pandemic. We're slowly creeping out of it and rebuilding our print shop in downtown San Francisco. And yeah, so we did this project with cool arts through Alulia Panis who commissioned us to take on a pretty monumental, but very important and very doable project, something that was very near and dear to her but she wanted to take on artists who can communicate it through their language. And our language was first comics, not only growing up with it, being big fans of it, but also doing them professionally as well as, you know, for fun. So with her guidance and mentoring, we did a series of comic works that took on or through a series of interviews with the heroes, the movers and shakers of the local Soma Filipino district. We want the whole point of the project was to spotlight their important work as leaders in the community. And through the medium of storytelling of comics, we thought it would be an immediate way and an accessible and entertaining way to inform the public, as well as to show some of these people that we see them that their work has weight and effect. And we wanted to not only celebrate that but also inspire other people in the community to also take up take up the front lines of that important work. A quick shout out though to Abraham Ignacio at San Francisco Public Library he was a huge advocate not only for our work here with coolers but along with with anything we do. It seems like he's got his thumb on the pulse of whatever, whatever we're creating so he's always in social media kind of shouting out to us to a quick shout out to Diego Raph's brother who's also a big part of this project he's actually still on the East Coast, but is definitely a big part of everything we you will see here today. I already talked about cool arts but their entire stable of artists both visual artists and performing artists who contributed their talents to every stage of this project including our perform the performance they gave us during the launch of it at the public library. Last year. No, wow, nothing happened last year. Two years ago now. Wow. Um, and then to parallel dance company and through Eric Solano our director there he he introduced us to a lot of the influences of the things you'll see today. So, with further ado, we've a brutal small presentation here. So, I'm going to go ahead and start it. So clan of Saints Bay. I'm going to move this second. And this again this is a project that kind of we started through cool arts. They're the ones who came to us and they kind of wanted to kind of tackle on something to show what the community was going through and how could we make that in a more digestible medium. So people can understand what's going on as well as give them a voice. So we came to this and it's been challenging and very fun at the same time so I think the important part about it was that we, you know, we can't just create this, this story out of nothing. The big emphasis was to go into the community meet these people talk to them what was going on about the issue of the central conflict in clan of Saints Bay is kind of a. This building that's coming in to kind of almost like push out the people in the community so that was mirroring what was happening at the time mind you this this project started back in like 2017 and yeah. So there was those other things happening there we kind of use that as a jumping off point to kind of tell this story and get the viewpoints and perspectives of the people kind of in it, and that those became our characters are our protagonists that would become the vehicle to tell all this. Yeah, and Rafa was talking about how this project started in 2017 but we what we quickly realized was that we are walking into a huge story that's been happening for a very long time so with with all of his work and help a lot of help and guidance she directed us to the people to the who the people were and what they contributed and brought us into the conversation. We're not only transplants into their work but we're transplants from the East Coast so our perspective is really different to we had to do there was a tight or really sharp learning curve to what was going on here and how we can help communicate that. So this is kind of like a lot of our work with cool arts and clan specifically it has been through like specifically not just the people but the organizations within the soma district. And I think at the time, it was still it was still just the soma. And now it's that you know it's been it's soma Pilipinas. So a lot of a lot of changes happened during our process with with these people. But yeah, a lot of cool people we met like people at some can archipelago. The kids at West Bay, and the performers at spindle stiff. They, they were, it was very exciting to like talk to these people and kind of give us their viewpoint of what's going on. Yeah, the work that you see here is actually I mean it's a visual representation of how we, you know, how we viewed not only the work but the energy we got from these groups of people. So we're talking about theater we're talking about community, community centers we're talking about schools, the bookstores and things like that so these are, you know, we had to transpose that to fantastical world and, you know, creating, creating different things but as wrap said earlier we're not we're not doing it from scratch we are building on something that's already there, and then punching it up using the language that we know, which is, you know, Wow, it's, it's weird seeing some of these because these are like three years old silver wraps showing kind of an evolution of what we've done so some of the work here, and if some of your artists out there you know what it's like looking at password you're like, Oh wow that's, that's not how I do it now but it's kind of a nostalgia just kind of looking at it and being like, This is where we started. So, the way it began was a raft was in charge of starting to build the world. And I was doing the promotional illustrations like the posters what would be what you would think of as movie posters for this world. As it was being created so there's a lot of figuring out there's a lot of back and forth between the two of us about okay what costumes and where would they be in. And it was highly based on San Francisco so you will you'll see a lot of elements in here for example the muni bus for those of you who are in San Francisco you can see it in the back there behind where the guys hanging. That's one of our one of our community leaders Ray with his dog but yeah you'll see some elements here that kind of poke or that kind of reference San Francisco but you know the world is based on San Francisco it's not actually San Francisco. So, while Don was actually doing those illustrations as we were building this world. My, the first task of this project was this the, for me was the storytelling and again comics was like the first way the fastest way to kind of get this out there to people. So, here is kind of just like, I thought it'd be kind of cool to animate some of the panels, give you an idea of the comic and the story in the pacing, and how we kind of work here. And then that's basically, this is a following page, but so just telling their story there's also this understanding as a comic creator to like understand panels and movement. When you're doing that you can understand like how to control the time. I thought it'd be kind of cool to show. So like you know like a longer panel there's there's more time, there's more time given to it. And moment to moment you want to like shorter panels but here, and the bigger panels the more, especially right here the bottom one where there's it's not even. There's not even a border around is to kind of open it up and give it that time to breathe and that almost kind of like pause moment. So this is something that I think Don and I myself since we love comic books and we've done our time drawing and working with it, that we could use this as a great storytelling technique and medium. Yeah, so this is my pages but again, so in terms of the actual comic so Don and myself we kind of eventually took on, because we have very varying art styles. Mine's a little simpler, more stylized and then Don's very painterly and eventually the project itself kind of grew to the point where we could start telling more stories and then we kind of helm different stories with each story. I'm going to just show you. Stay here, stay here though. I'm sorry. No, no, it's cool. What I did want to say about that last page before he moved on because I knew he was going to do that. If you saw the, the guy that was hanging in the previous poster that's the same character that wrap drew in the sequence here. Now Raf knows, Raf knew Ray a lot more because he actually interviewed interviewed him for this process but for example, when we asked him, Oh, what's your favorite, what's your favorite color, what kinds of things do you, what kind of powers do you wish you had. You know, like, when we were creating these characters one important thing was what, what, what powers. Do you wish you had that in parentheses, parenthetically, that could help you in the kind of work that you do for the community because that really helped us design the characters or in this case that really helped Raf design his character because he's he's he designed him. And did you have specific words or was it just like, you know, multiple man was that the thing. That was really cool again when we reached out to the people and there's obviously a list of questions we have to give them to understand them better. But one of the things was, you know, what kind of super proud would you like and everyone that we talked to had a very specific superpower in mind that would help them kind of do what they do. And specifically he's like, there's so much to do I wish there was more of me. So, as you can see, there's there's multiple his power is to multiply himself so I thought it'd be kind of cool to kind of it's almost like wish fulfillment for some of these characters that like, let's give them what something that that they didn't have and see how that would work in this story. Yeah, so when we would ask that question, you also come across other people that we involved in this project at the guidance of a little of course, who aren't comic book readers or who don't who aren't about pop culture. So when you ask some of these leaders, what powers do you wish you had or what what kind of costume or a tire do you think your character would have it they would be draw blank like, I've never been asked that question or I don't know and then when you dig a little bit deeper, they're like, you know what I wish I could do. I wish I could stop time, or I wish I could teleport and go from one place to another really quick because I have a ton of things to do and I belong to do listen I wish I could get everything done in a day raise was like, I wish I could be everywhere because he obviously also felt like he had a lot to do and he wanted to do everything you know some. What were some other ones run really fast like the flash or quick silver right so like, I can go everywhere, some of them wanted like healing or healing or shaman shamanistic powers that that helped that helped other people. So for the most part what we definitely got from everyone with I want to help people, and I want to power that'll that'll be that'll help bolster that and that was really endearing to be able to go in these characters and be like okay, let's let's make that happen for you. Not everything was one to one though some of them are a little bit more difficult to show because. They wanted were a little bit too abstract, and we had to. How do we, how can we do that visually. So, yeah visually, which is always the plight of the artist right it's like how do I make that cool as superficial as that can sound it still should resonate visually on the page so that was a another big challenge. And we, we worked with a lot of people which means that wrap and I also had to sort of distribute the characters amongst ourselves but there it is part of the same universe so those of you that know about, you know, comic book universes or multiverse they all belong to the same to the same world. So there's some crossovers between our two books. This is my style so you can already tell there's a difference I was a painter first I mean I drew with pencil but I, I was trained in paint. So if I drew a line more than likely in the finished product you're not going to see that line anymore or the lines move over or I've done something different to it so the energy is very different with my work. And I think in terms of comics I started drawing them much later in the game than Raph and Diego did I mean they have a long running a web comic called regretable that that's it's still on my now right. No man. No. I'm going to plug it anyway. It's it's it's long running and it is it is amazing and I learned a lot from from seeing that because these guys were regimental they did it every week for how many years. Um, I don't know, too long. Well, some of us wanted back but yeah they had a lot of practice and you know storytelling and pacing and things like that so there was there was a lot to learn it was I think it was a sharper curve for for me to figure that out and to also research like the old comic books and go back into my childhood a little bit. But for mine, I wanted my, my characters were focused a little bit more on the older folks that we talked to at the the BC at the by any one. Those who felt, you know, part of the more aged community who felt a little marginalized and overlooked in terms of what the city was doing. And we spoke to a bunch of them during one of their community programs and it was, it was really eye opening to see what kinds of things, you know really hurt them and really had to be concerned about you know the present in the future and what's happening in the city. So we talked to the kids, we talked to the adults, we talked to the people who were, who were, you know, who were moving around and had the agency to do it and we definitely talked to the people who felt like they didn't have the agency to help. So. Okay. This is just, yeah. So I kind of give you an idea of the animation aspect I wanted to show you that how, how panel. You can create the pacing through your panels. And that's kind of why I think comics is a great. And then here's kind of like it visualized as an actual page. Yeah, lots going on. Mind you, most big houses, it's like, you know, like three to five people deep working on a comic. You know, you've got you got your pencil or you got your anchor you got your type setter. You got someone trying to do the writing as well, but done myself kind of you know, helming our own projects solo. And people we could talk to ourselves basically about like how to and yeah, ourselves in each other we do have our own corners, which is great. It's also nice to only have to go through one other person to be like hey what do you think about this, because you know that there's there's a quick back and forth and then we get back into our corners to get work work done when we need to. But yeah, that's, that's my style and still evolving. This is more Don stuff. Yeah, so let's see here, the loba is the wolf. She's she's kind of the villain in the piece that I was working on for this world. There's, you know, I wanted to. Yeah, I wanted to incorporate some elements here from Philippine attire. So the elements that I brought in were the, how the mallung is worn around around the waist, and then some of the young guy at the, at the hands, but I actually did it really loosely, because I wanted to actually create something a little streamlined for this character so she was kind of a villain for for my piece. And then after this, I have some of the characters who were the protagonists for my book. And some some of again some of the influences for the characters for for our books are not one to one like we did talk to a person and then we said okay elements of that might fit into this character but also to take elements from this other person so we the character on the on the right is based on one of the leaders of cultivate labs her name is Gina Rosales so she has this beautiful she had this beautiful purple street in her hair but she's also really big leader right with with that group and everything that they're doing. But then we also talked to a lot of the kids, and they had a lot of energy to so I would brought her age down a bit and then I some of the design elements we brought into hers and her own book were some things from some of the indigenous peoples in the Philippines. A lot of the character design again is informed by a raft in my membership with the Paragonal Dance Company so when we would think about how to design these characters we would immediately think about you know how things are worn, you know, like we're really interested in, and how things are draped how how things function how things look the silhouette of a character is really important but also you know some people looked at our pages there's a lot of movement and action. So does that cloak makes sense there, they're going to be able to see where they're going do they have mobility like all those come into play. And when you're talking about some of the attire they're not meant to be worn on someone who's maybe throwing themselves off the side of a building to save someone right so we've had to adapt a lot of the elements that we've we've borrowed or from from some of these looks and we wanted to stay as loose as possible because we want to you know stay stay responsible with bringing in some of those elements. Yeah, so, even though we did use a lot of people kind of to as a jumping off point for the characters we created there. It's not a one to one translation because at the same time when writing these stories, you you want to you want to figure out what's the story there once you've gathered enough information, and you want to like chip it down to how you can tell it and then with these characters place in as you create the narrative. You want to see who's going to fit and who's going to fit where and, you know, usually like you know you see that in. One of these movies that were inspired by true events. There is some false history there because they have to, you know, change something or cut something in order to make it fit. But at the same time we tried to make sure that the essence of what we were doing was still there like even though we were borrowing design elements and attire from like indigenous people from the Philippines. We can't completely say that that's like what someone from from that region would wear in this situation we just kind of like how could we apply that to this character basically. So, um, so following this is kind of like some of the designs we took or I did so um, you know, this character you kind of get like for the character, Jason, his like superhero name was Daga right so the original concept was that he would have, you know, the Daga. I wanted to like bring forth some Filipino weaponry, and then his whole designs kind of like inspired by, you know, indigenous design but and then on the character on the right. And he was someone we interviewed he's Joseph and he was, he's not. So I didn't want it wouldn't make sense for him to get a Filipino inspired outfit so I think he wanted to talk he talked about wanting to go fast so in terms of his design I thought, you know, like, he's going to need running shoes and maybe kind of like a very slick speed suit, just for functionality as he is he can run, and in terms of concealment for his identity, I think goggles was great and then like I'm like a mask, like the respirator that most like athletes wear when they're like training. It's kind of way, great way to showcase that, you know, he, he can run fast but he does have limitations he still you know, he needs proper ventilation. And then another character we had here was Zora. This is based on like Angelica from some can. This was kind of interesting so I think Don initially designed her and when I was going to use her as a character I kind of wanted to take her back before she got her full suit. So I thought of an in between suit where something more makeshift more something I could take out of my closet and become a superhero, very street level like I need to do this now. And she's very inspired by like she has the the Malong. I figured a moto jacket would probably be good in terms of combat. There's some element of armor there but it's still kind of flexible. But on the right is kind of closer to what Don had originally designed. So I was like trying to work backwards from that. Yeah, for some of the specifics here. For example, that was so people, if those of you that dance or know of that group of people you'll see some elements here that are obviously are a nod to those to that attire. We do have a question here from a lily. How many outfit versions designs do you usually go through before deciding on the final version. I'll let you answer that one. I mean it depends from character to character. Okay, so like for this pro for clan specifically. Again, since we were working with cool arts we would, there is a moment where we have to pitch what we're going to try to do through them to see if it works if it fits if it makes sense. So, there, there were designs where I was like, Oh, I think this looks really cool. And then, you know, we would get back like it's it's not like Filipino enough, if that make you know, in the sense that is it really showcasing those design elements. Otherwise it just kind of looks like just a very generic superhero. It's not like I liked it. It doesn't, which is good because you need someone to edit you someone to make you better, because sometimes we're blinded by our own biases. Yeah, absolutely the whole dialogue about appropriation and responsible responsible presentation of cultural elements that are not yours or not a part of your, your past. It's a huge part of this component is a big learning curve with all the way of giving us feedback on the kinds of choices we were making visually with the characters. She's very supportive of it and just the fact that, you know, she she point us in the right direction and gave us that kind of feedback to challenge our decisions actually made us more confident in them. As we approach, you know the final, the final designs. And actually to watch rafts stuff come in because he goes through a lot of iterations he's very, he's very big with that and sometimes sometimes I'm like I like that earlier one he's like this is one I came up with or it's fun back and forth looking at these characters as they're being developed. I think just like in general it's just fun to like draw different outfits like playing with dolls, I guess. So, yeah, one real cool thing that that we had a, again, the, the fortunate opportunity was to do a small exhibition with the San Francisco Public Library about this project and at that point. Initially it was just started off with with clan of Saints Bay, and then I guess it was people wanted to know more about it so that allowed us to continue doing it the following years. Thanks to cool arts. But so this this exhibition we did for the library I think was it 2019. Yeah, feels like it. Yeah, no that's right. And you can remember. Yeah. Don. Yeah, so the posters were actually presented along the colony so as soon as you walk in the rotunda you look up and it was so cool just seeing our work. Just presented to the public in that way and there's there's a lot of people at public library or at least there was there was then. Yeah, shout out to, to, to john for, for helping us help choreographing our second beyond ceremony that we did at the library during this launch. He helped us move to the library and put a performative piece, integrate a formative piece into the launch, which was nerve wracking because we're like, Oh, there's a lot going on, but it was a really great time. And as you can see, you can probably see that pollution in our process and our style a lot of things tightened up a lot of choices are made much more clear. Yeah, this was part of the storytelling to these final images. Yeah, it's a kind of like almost a basic a combination where we're at with the project. So it was really cool to especially because there's a lot of work that we do that isn't necessarily just comic work so it was nice to like showcase that. When creating these stories and these characters in this world, there's all this stuff that just happens before it becomes an actual thing. So, you know, there's a lot of concept work, just character explorations and just like, just stuff you want to see how these characters can interact with each other, even though you're just drawing them together. So. Yeah, it was, it was sorry. I was it was cool presenting these pieces also at the night market at the mint. That was or no, the first round of posters that you saw before this is the second round the first round we presented at the mint. And that was the first time we got to engage with the public. And in a really big way with them, and just watching people look at them and be like hey look there's so and so and hey that's so and so and just hearing them recognize these people that we, you know, that are the people that we base these characters on, but in such a different way was was really was a really beautiful thing and that was one of the major major goals for this project was to have have people see themselves through these images through these characters. Yeah, I think that again that's like basically the core reason why we way we did this was. Yeah, like it's, it's fantastical it's a it's a comic book but at the same time you know it's, it's coming from from people's experiences, and a community that I'm, I'm happy that I can say I'm a part of now as coming from the East Coast. So, and just to like let the how welcome they were when just like telling us what was going on or explaining to us why this this issue is important was really something and I think it allowed us like this is this is as artists is probably the thing we can contribute to help with their cause. So I'm trying to give them that that platform, but you know, hopefully people enjoying. Yeah, well one of the conversations wrap and I have had had was, you know it's like we are talking to really important people who do really important work on a day to day basis. And you know there was a bit of walking into this big conversation, a bit of a posture syndrome thinking, you know what can we contribute to this. And we were just glad for cool arts to be like you can contribute there's just by doing this, you are helping to spot like this and I think, you know, in a humble way we're like, Okay, we're glad we can help hopefully hopefully this this does help show show people that we see them. So yeah, again, so like for this one I just wanted to like showcase like there are these are all their likenesses these are people we've talked to and it's just it's just fun to see to look back and see everyone that we have interviewed and that wanted to participate and kind of like how they gave us these stories that for us to tell in our way so that other people can partake in it or be aware of it. So yeah, I Angelica says art is so undervalued y'all are giving people voice. Oh, we hope so we hope so that's kind of the point if you look at the screen right now. I'm sure some of you out there can probably see a couple people that you know, at least if you're in the if you're in the community. Yeah, we talked to a lot of people. You're talking about, can you see my cursor. Yes, Angelica right. Mm hmm. Is she here. Yeah, she's right here man. She's next to a Glenn. Okay. Oh, I was talking about Angelica to win. Oh, different. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah, all right. I thought, okay, that's cool. Thanks. Thanks Angelica. Anyway, um, yeah, that's been the project the that's that's been it so far. And I would say, if you guys are interested or would like to read it. I think cool arts has has it available online on their website. There are at least clan of Saints Bay, but there are spin off titles like the project we work on proceeding after this was a that used to get Pinoy stories which was kind of an anthology of different other stories kind of still loosely tied to the clan of Saints Bay universe. Which is pretty cool. I will say that a clan of Saints Bay again available online to read for free but if you would like, you know, they do accept donations they are a nonprofit organization, maybe just a dollar to read. And there is still one if you guys are interested there is still one more story that has yet to be released. That's currently not available. Hopefully we will see that in the near future. Right Don. I believe. I believe. Yeah, the public library actually has these books on the catalog. I believe. Yeah, so a major major that every time we come out with something is like let me make sure make sure that we get a copy we have two copies of it so check it out the library. All right. Okay, that's it for this. At the moment we're going to go into a little bit of process. So, wrap is going to screen share. And we're going to take a look at his process as he's doing it which is personally exciting for me because I, we don't often get to look over each other shoulder while we're doing what we do, because we're so in our corners all the time but Good. But, so we got a question. What what powers would you guys want so I'm assuming us, but do you mind taking a look on that one first. I'll set up so we're going to transition to a short demo on how we create characters but don if you would enlighten us on the powers you know about the, about the powers that I want. I always joke about this little pocket dimension that I can like slip into, where I can just take a nap for a couple days, you know pocket dimension where time doesn't really time does time stops. Access to like a little room on some ethereal plane, where I can just go for a little bit, and then come back when I'm when I'm good. I don't need flight I don't need super strength I don't need that stuff anymore. I just need some sleep, or some place to draw for a couple hours that'd be really kind of like a pocket pocket dimension. That's exactly without having to worry about like email accounts and having to, you know, do email for four hours. I'm so serious about that answer by the way. And you know how to like, when you're given an opportunity to go crazy. I know how to do it. Yeah, well I could throw parties in there too I didn't say how big the room was. Yeah, maybe I could just hop in there. Yeah, exactly. Well you could you borrow it. We're just doing a quick demo. I guess we'll both show you how we kind of work in terms of a character creation. I'm probably going to I'm going to draw one of a character we already we've already developed but I'll kind of like, maybe go step by step. But as I draw, I'm using Photoshop. You don't hold on you didn't you didn't answer the question. Okay, so well fine. You can borrow my pocket dimension but you know you can't have it. So for superpower. Yeah, sorry to interrupt but. superpower I always this is so like, if I was a kid I would I would have said flight because who doesn't want. But I'm older now and I know how super generic that question that answer is especially talking to a lot of people about what their superpowers are. You kind of get there's a lot of repeats right so check this out. Draw at the speed of thought. That's interesting, especially because of what we're about to do. But I did like just thinking it and then it just like boom in front of that not take the fun out of mistakes and no I don't know I can't tell. Just do quick demo of drawing at the speed of thought and tell me that I don't make mistakes. I'm kidding. So just a brief overview of what I'm doing I use Photoshop you don't need to use Photoshop there are a lot of other programs that have basically develop tools very similar to Photoshop. So it's just the thing I have on this machine and it's the one most familiar with. But basic things I'm going to show you it's going to be quick. I'm just going to use a brush, which is here or B is your hot key. And then one thing I use constantly is right over here is your layers. Right now I have several layers I have zero which is your white background. And then I've labeled it sketch layer so which is what we're going to do right now. The more layers you use. So if you create a layer it's just going to be a number. So obviously if you're using too many layers you can go to like layer 15 don't know where you're. What layer to work on but it's cool it's um for any animation people out there it's very similar to like cells like you can draw on one on this area and then you create a new layer and then it's unaffected by that layer. So you can stick it off and speak of mistakes. It's really good that. Okay so um real quick so I'm going to zoom in a little I would say since this is just a sketch I'm just this is kind of how we how I work with when creating a character, especially with this project. You want to know what you're going with so I have so Ray is my what's up. Hey Ray, there he is. Good job. Thanks man. Ray impression there but he's a cool guy. He's really fun. He works with kids at some can but at the same time like on the front lines you know, he's very serious and he knows what he's talking about so I like that like cool guy fun but serious when he needs to be an um. One thing I can say when when when meeting these people a lot of them is, I guess, for some reason they're very iconic to begin with so in terms of trying to translate them. I feel like a comic book form or mythologizing when superheroes wasn't too difficult because they already, there's this sense of like, you already know where to go with these characters. So like when when creating Ray, you know, we already I already looked at his like his his facial hair is pretty defining. Right. But it's cool. Oh yeah. You don't start with the facial hair to like anchor that in. But generally when I start a couple of things I like I keep in mind, especially with character design is you want to think of like silhouette and color, like where are you going to take for this and one of the questions we did ask her. Her participants was like you know what kind of what's your favorite color. And usually it's red, for some reason, Filipinos love red. I don't know why. I mean I love red. But, um, yeah, sorry, you want to be as loose as possible when character designing right now I'm just going to lay down like a basic pose or his his basically structure of this character. And I'm just, it's very loose right now. So you're doing. Not actually you're doing. No, costume design. I'm just going to do his character design like how we kind of came up to it so. So usually with this for example for like Ray did you have your notes out or I did. I would look refer to well at this stage now it's just like building the body in which to put the clothes on. Right. Yeah. During the interview process sometimes we'd look over our notes and we'd ask people, oh what are your, what are your favorite colors. And they would, they would put whole combinations together where we'd be like I would not have made that decision. I would not have made that choice. And you know sometimes we'd have to work around that or integrate that in some way and that was a really fun challenge I mean you stuck pretty close to people's preferences on color right. For the most part but again a lot of people like it would be different combinations of red in this so I'm like, no one's going to want to see a page where every character's red right. So you would have to like, I would I basically came to the point where I kind of figured out like red would be an accent color to the costume, and I would highlight the other color. Just to create some visual contrast between the characters, especially if they were on the same page. You want it more interesting that way. We have some questions. You ready. Yeah, we have a Rodrigo Salazar. What physical, I think he's an aspiring artist. What physical tools are you using a mouse. Good question. I'm using a tablet, a waycom tablet. So with these tablets, your particular peripheral for those artists out there, you're, you're doing the look on screen draw on separate peripheral right. Yeah, I'm not fancy enough to have a Cinti which allows you to kind of like her, you know, to draw digitally, as if you're drawing a sketchpad. I would say with a with a waycom tablet that I'm using there is there is a learning curve to it. You have to develop that motor skill of not looking down while you're drawing and kind of understanding how your cursor is moving on screen. That goes with Angel because next question how hard was it for you all to transition to a digital medium and when did that happen for you I don't actually know that answer. Well, it happened to be in high school, you know, tablet started being a thing. Well, you do as early as high school like sophomore year, senior year, because I didn't touch a tablet until 2000. Yeah, like, I wasn't really into tablets, there was still a part of me, this stupid pride where I was like, I want to keep drawing with a mouse. Oh, there are people that do that. Well, not. Yeah, exactly. And I respect those people a lot. So that's why I was like, I'm going to continue to control with the mouse. But eventually I think in college, because you could, I actually got my own, my first tablet. And I think you could also even rent it through the lab. I remember talking to one of my classmates, because they're like, how'd you do it that's a good mouse for one of my first pieces in college. I was like, why did you do that, you could have done that with a tablet. And I was like, you know, I didn't. He made me feel very stupid for doing that was like, but I was like, not. You stuck to your guns. Yeah. You're like, holy crap. I can. It's so much easier. But you know, Did you tell them that? Of course. Of course not. Not gonna be like, hey man, you're right. So I've laid down basically his, his, his structure, his body. And what I'm going to do is send the opacity. I'm going to make it transparent or less okay. I'm going to add a new this is going to basically, this is me dressing the character. Again, we so I was like, Well, what, what, what Filipino, like what indigenous culture in the Philippines could we pull from to help me to inspire me or to like pull from like ideas on how to dress this character for for raised character who's his name is Red Legion superheroes. His main inspiration was like the Kalinga people in the Philippines. And I have a reference photo for Kalinga people. It's on. Have you seen this one? It's pretty good. It's really good. Which one? This is my reference photo for Kalinga. Oh, wow. That's a long time ago too. The tattoo, the body art and then, you know, the Bahug, which is, you know, pretty, I would say very iconic to like Filipino people. Have you, have you, have you seen this guy? It's pretty cool. I wish I knew him. There were better models that day. I just did a Google search of Kalinga people and that's what I got. Oh, that's funny. Why didn't you show yours? I didn't do enough push-ups that day. Well, it's there on the internet. I'm going to give him the Bahug. I want to kind of give this like, and then they usually have this like idea was like the vest, but I thought like, let's, let's give like a little bit of shoulder pad to it. All right. Some of that 90s comic, comic of sensibility. Yeah. I feel, I feel like a colossus there a little bit. Well, typically this, this vest deal, there is no collar, but I thought like, you know, you want to this, again, this is a battle outfit. So I would give it a collar just to like protect his neck. And also sometimes there's, you know, like, we'd have to sit like, I think abstract some of the, the flourish is like sometimes there's jewelry involved. So I would give it a collar guard or clavicle guard instead of an actual necklace piece. Do you ever feeling in your drawing process, you're like, oh, I want to get past this part so much because I can't wait to put that element in, or are you pretty regimented? Do you hop around? Well, it looks like you are hopping around. I do hop around. So like, there are pieces I really like. Again, I think when creating these characters, you look at, you look at your inspiration here, this is like what they wear and then kind of think how can I, how can I turn that into something more, more ready for like street fighting or taking damage. So, so like instead of like jewelry bracelets, you kind of give it like thick gauntlet like bracelets so they can guard against wear. And then the figure for the chest piece is kind of like some body armor. Yes. And I'll typically feel indigestible are kind of barefoot. So I kind of use that as an inspiration for like the Ninja Toes kind of footwear. Because we have to think these guys are in the city. You don't want to be barefoot downtown. And then questioning what you stepped in if it's animal or human, you know what I'm saying. So that initial sketch is basically informing where I can put everything. That's pretty much. Cool. So yeah, your process is very silhouette based like I would have come up on the head quite a bit more already at this point. Well, because yeah, I think it's something because I wanted to get into the game design and in terms of that, the idea is silhouette like just real quick. I think that that helps make a more iconic character who like watch this check this out. I mean we already know who that is. Yeah, it's Leonardo. That's good. Leonardo from the right. So we got it. Oh, okay. Mickey Mouse got it. Yep. Yep. Okay. But for his design, I wanted the like the headband. I can't remember the word, but so what's very iconic to Ray himself is he always rocks his cool like beanie with a bill. Kind of hat. So I use like, instead of a traditional to bow I gave it kind of a beak on itself so would give that silhouette that he's still going to build and then I would put the to bow underneath it. And the guy usually rocks a ponytail but I figure that's him in a civilian form. He's a superhero. He's going to let his locks kind of go free. The signature, the hair. Ray had a particular particularly fun reaction to seeing himself. I think he, I think he brought pulled someone over to to see the poster at the event, I think it was. Yeah, in terms of character design, it's usually for me it's usually this loose. Since I'm just trying to understand the where I want to take it. And then get rid of the sketch and this is pretty much it. So at this point for me. So I'm going to, I'm going to name this the line layer. I'm going to create a layer underneath. So it's perfect colors red. And so this is where I'll just probably drop in some colors. For him. I wanted, you know, red was a big deal. So a lot of it will just be read at the speed of thought. I know right. It'll be done. I don't typically worry about coloring in the lines at this point. So it's just about getting that idea down. Let's get it right here. Watch this. I'm not even going to, I'm just going to color grab his skin. Open arms. This guy has spent a lot of time beating up bad dudes. And you know, Ray in real life, he's super jacked. So I know again, like his favorite color was red. I needed something kind of to like punch it up a little. So I think of other colors that could work with him. First body armor is thinking kind of, yeah, pretty standard dark color to kind of suggest like a leather almost. We have a Teresa here in the chat. She, she's getting deep. What have you learned from each other after collaborating on this project? I learned I don't want to work with you anymore. The big part of I think what we both learned, I might be speaking for you, I'll speak for you was learning each other's process. Not only our process, but like project approach timelines projected timeline for our process, whether it's deliverables for, you know, scheduling and things like that is really highly administrative things that we learned from each other because we were already familiar with the style, each other style, we knew how to work around that. The biggest challenge was, was all of that other stuff project management. What do you think, Graf, am I, am I close? Oh, I learned a lot more from you then apparently. Yeah, I already knew how you work but I was like really curious how you kind of like, I didn't understand, I didn't know completely how you get to places, because because your work like blows me away and just know like just seeing you work is crazy. Hopefully we can get there real soon as soon as official this. Yeah, we can't, we don't live in each other's world, it's always fun to see. And oh, and when we would present to cool arts, for example, the presentations were very different, right, because we have different training. I mean, it's important because then you have two different perspectives on, on world building. And that collaborative process is what makes comics work. You know, you bring, you bring that to film and television you bring that to literature, you know, it takes a village to make something make make something like that work. Right. What I'm doing. So like one of the cool things about his powers, even though it's something they requested kind of do like multiply themselves. We, it was still our job to like figure out the mechanism which their powers work in our world. It's not like we can use forward in action. So, for me, I thought it would be cool that by introducing like these tattoo designs that the Koolings was kind of like the mystical power that was the source of his ability to multiply and just taking some of these elements where you again these are one to one, because otherwise you've drawn you've drawn this characters, like 100 times on a page. So, I'm over where you have to be like, how can I design them. Oh yeah, that wasn't that was another big thing. I'm thinking or interpreting a design of a character that raft, raft drew, right. And then like putting it on this page and and turning them around and being like, oh what is, what does that angle look like on a design that not that didn't necessarily address every single square inch of that attire. So, we'd have to just kind of interpolate or extrapolate or whichever one of those would apply in this case, we'd have to guess. Yeah, what's happening and just general in broad strokes just suggest how the how the character looks in movement or how the fabric looks in movement. Basically, there's like the hardest part was like, what did you intend. I guess for me, I'm not, I'm not rendering everything to a degree where it's necessarily easily discernible what kind of material it would be. But one thing I really like doing with these characters is kind of giving a turnaround so so when when Don does use these characters I've designed that can have a better understanding what it looks like in different angles. Instead of kind of filling in the gaps himself and see that that's part of the craft that I'm still working on right here is character turnarounds, because it's not part of my training and Usually, or my training was like a nude figure like we just did hundreds and hundreds of hours of that. So like character design or costume design was the thing that kind of gravitated towards because it was a new frontier for me. It's funny seeing this and then thinking about Anthony Francisco's work on the door and melange for. Yeah, right for Marvel Studios, he talked specifically about their design work and how in indigenous print and a tire was woven subtly into into those things and from other places to actually there was a bit of I think that was a pattern in one of the loincloth pieces for them. I remember when that came on Black Panther came out and I was blown away. I was like, dude, but a little bit a little part of it was like, don't I've been doing this already. They stole our routine. But yeah, we've had we've had a tremendous amount of support on that on that front and agency on that front to to go ahead and you know spotlight the elements we feel would help the project so you know we're always open to feedback about Oh, was that was that handled correctly. You know it's like it's an ever evolving conversation in terms of visual elements. But as you can see from a raft is doing at a certain point you just use that as a long thread and then you go you just you have to put you into it. It's an important part of this process. As you aren't handling it responsibly I think one of my instructors, one of one thing I remember from my instructors at Penn State was, he said, the more perfect you try to be the more perfect you have to be. And that kind of that kind of galvanize my approach to anything in the art world I was like, Okay, well if you want to get that figure right and you're trying to do it photo photo real, or you're trying to hit that design pattern right you're trying to have to go by exactly what you see. And unless that's the mission and then there's no there's no message behind it there's there's there's no substance. So if you don't infuse it with yourself, or if you're not honest about why you're creating that, then what's the purpose. Yeah, well speaking of purpose I think this is the most purposeful my arm. Nice. Wow, speed of thought how you think really slow. So you're telling me if that came out with the speed of thought you'd be like, yes, you didn't like relish in the, the process. No, because there's other places I want to be at. Right. I want to be drawn see because with with this step, this, this could take hours for like every character. And where I want to be already like a meeting because I don't know about you I'm very impatient like I want to be telling that story. But I need to get here first. Especially along with writing. You know, like I can't just make up a story I need to wait. So I can't just help start drawing these characters I need to know what these characters are, how to address what they're wearing. Anyway, that is a rough design on a man right here. Again so everything's on layers for the initial body color. I'll just do color D goes asking what are your thoughts on Marvel's Filipino character arrows design. Wait, who. I just know wave. I don't know arrow. A arrow. How do you say that. Oh, do that again. So you can see the layers here. What are you talking about. Now, are you part of the camp. When you were highlighting each layer you can tell you can you can inspect your the different processes. There's the color layer. There's the line layer line art. And then what do you have the details. For those who are not familiar with the workspace for Photoshop. But I'm pretty much. So that's that's pretty much it in terms of character design. There is for for me the next step is kind of like moving these characters this character or characters I'm working on kind of like see how maybe figure this is just like just to get an initial feeling but maybe I will just continue doodling it's like maybe a better pose or not kind of convey him better. But it's just more explanation. But along that, again, something to reiterate like, again, I think of silhouette and color to just make them as iconic and kind of like understand them right off the bat. You kind of see that a lot in video games. And I think it's a good approach when coming with a character, but but drawing it out allows you to like understand where things go on his on their outfits. How it's how will be presented because like it might look decent in one side. But then if you turn it around like will it still look cool like well, will that move that shirt still look like a shirt on the back or something like that. Yeah, how does it connect how does it great how does it wrap. Yeah. Sometimes I have problems with X men designs, whatever. Like, I'm going to doodle real quick but um, yeah, there was a there was a beast design. Where, where much. I think I know the one you're talking about. Yeah, but like it was like, um, he had like an X design on his chest. Right, but blue. Oh, there's beast. Yeah, but then he had this weird thing going on on this costume like, like how does this like how does this section of of the costume of his shirt, stay up. Is there a wiring under the structure. Oh, I don't remember that when was that one. But yeah, I mean there's other characters like Emma frost outfits that don't make any sense. Oh, well, I'm frost outfits are amazing. I think in terms of making an iconic design you want to keep it as streamlined as simplified as possible. I think one of the best examples that I don't think I don't know how you could recreate this was like Ryu from Street Fighter, like white torn up and can't because if you see a character now just rock and no shirt with a white torn up key, everyone's going to think Street Fighter, you can't immediate that design is. But yeah, anyway, I'm just going to see that. And I'm going to stop sharing. I hope you guys enjoyed that. Absolutely. Diego just said wave. How do you feel about waves design. You know it's got peaks and valleys like a wave. I think I like waves design but I think there's some elements I would strip away from it because I don't like her. I think her her gauntlets are too, too difficult to to just draw over and over. I wish her like her tiara her headpiece was a bit simpler too. Is that right. Yeah, okay so as he's thinking about that. I rigged up a system here because I'm going to try a different process just to give everyone a different feel here. My process is on the iPad so I'm going to go right into the peripheral. Sorry, I'm going to be blocking my hand and you might not see exactly what things are supposed to look like, as you've got, you've got screen and camera here, as you're looking at it. And now everything sort of changed on here but with with the procreate for example if you guys are familiar with it. It's built on the whole layer process and brushes process. So if I, I begin with line work as well. So if you look at the menu up here, you can see sort of the layer one layer two. It's built to be much more streamlined and Photoshop because Photoshop gives you full control over every single thing and this this is made to be much more immediate just kind of like a sketch pad. But professionals have kind of turned this tool into something that's much more powerful than I think it was originally it was intended for. We'll see just to give an idea. I'm going to go off the cuff here. I'm much messier with my with my work I think I I'm not I'm not calculated enough or confident enough and what's supposed to happen at the beginning to know exactly how something is going to go. So I'll usually begin with a particular focus of a character like it's going to be looking over to the side or something. I think I, I'd like to connect emotionally to the character. Maybe I'm speaking to meta here, but I'll, I'll go by gesture. And I'm not really, I don't, I don't usually plan unless I'm hold hold. Unless I'm, I have a particular commission that I'm working on or something. I don't really plan what's going on. And then later I just, I kind of rearrange things as I need to. So I have a basic gesture here of a sitting person. I'm working with female. And already I was going to have her look this way but now I'm going to have her look the other way. So you're drawing are very organic as you create. Totally it's the only way I can make sense of it. Because then I can problem solve as I go. And it's why sometimes I don't like showing too much process because I'm like, you're not going to understand my chicken scratch. I'm not clear on it until I start going into some detail. How did you ever feel like when you draw in a sketchbook, people look over your shoulder and be like, what are you drawing? Oh, you know what? And I wanted to bring that up because you spent time there too in Italy. I think we talked about this wrap and I both spent time in Italy. And one of the things when I when I said, okay, I'm an art I'm going to Italy for a semester they said okay if you're an artist in Italy and you sit in a square and draw. Just be ready for kids to come up to you and point at your work and say that's wrong and that's wrong and you should move that over there because those kids grew up around like classical art. And they were very vocal like did you go through that experience to No, everyone didn't necessarily point out what I was doing wrong but only I was doing amazing things so. Okay, well that's that's nice we have very different experiences then. Yeah, so I'm not I'm not used to it but what I do like is drawing with other people like other artists around because you know, it's nice to connect in that way they are all sort of in the process. Now because that's essentially what's happening. Yeah, so. I'm going to go really messy on this so I have the basic gesture, and I'm not going to put in hands or feet because I don't really know what they're going to do yet. I'm sort of just kind of. Okay, so. Huh. Oh yeah just kind of just kind of put a blob in there. It's sticking out yeah. So one thing that that immediately I noticed was different in our two processes I'm going to go through a separate layer here is I go into color. More closer to the beginning. Yeah, that blows me I don't get it that's crazy the way you color. Because I want to I want to get, I'm trying to get lighting and draping all at the same time like I try to multitask because I, that's the way I do things and I'm going to keep my own but for later but. So, here, I'm going to bring in an element that is worn. Oh cool. So, so there's the. There's this cloak that's worn, where it's open at the top here in indigenous attire, and always like that's a little bit. And it's it's much more stylized here but, and then the cloak is kind of. Kind of rounded at the front, and then drapes around, and then wraps around so it's with with clothing, I like to be expressive with drapes and stuff if you see my work and I've gotten some some feedback on they're like oh that's too much draping but I'm like I like the drama of it so I'm going to keep doing it. So immediately go into that. And then when I play around with okay so how is, how is, for example, the expression, and then I'm like okay so I'm going to leave the expression for a bit because I've suggested enough of it. So I'm going to go into maybe hair, and I'm going to borrow a little bit from the do so. They've got this beautiful head piece. That's born that sits at the back of at the tip of the bun in the back, and stands out like a crown. You've seen it right. Yeah, yeah. So, for example, this is to referential to what you would see. So I'm going to change that up but I'm going to lay it in there just to signal to myself okay that's where it's going to sit, as you then start creating the other elements of this person, and what they're eventually going to do. Again, it's organic right so I'm like okay so I haven't really addressed what they're going to wear on their feet so maybe their feet are going to be maybe she's going to be barefoot right here. And then, I don't know what she's doing there maybe she's holding something up. As you continue to draw this character we do have a question, which I think applies now. Hopefully, maybe not but Angelica is asking, what do you usually do when you feel stuck with a character, do you tend to try to just make it work or scrap it. I do this, I go back to the mainstream, and I pull up something else, and I'll go do that for a couple hours because that is the only productive way I know to, to, to let that kind of problem solve itself. And I know you just like, you're saying you just leave it alone and let it do till something else hits you. Totally yeah I have to because I know I'm just going to talk myself out of out of choices, and that's never healthy because then it just turns into mud, which is never good for an artist. So okay so at this point it's gesture enough that I can that I have my basic drawing and nothing is set in stone, but I think the difference between you and me it's like I already combined these layers into one. So, I couldn't do that because I'm still, I'm still at that point where I can't trust myself with ruining it, I need that layer of the safety net of layers. You're just flat. So, I also don't trust myself yet now. But in my head, if I have this grounded, then it actually begins to direct the piece more for me, like, I am going to live with that choice, which is more speaks to how I was like trained right like you put paint down, you're going to have to live with that. So, I use that because for me, for example, it's, I will correct it later. So like, the lesson here is live with your mistakes. Live. Yeah, you're gonna have to live with the mistake and it's kind of, it's kind of therapy so So this is the multiply layer so what I am starting to do now is I'm trying to starting to embed a little bit of shadow. Because I got a, I got a map out where, and as you can tell, it's still really messy. But at least with the shadow, I know where the light source is, and that's going to be up here, up here. Let's see, maybe confounding to a bunch of people but sometimes I'll bring in some temperature. Is this still a multiply layer. Nope, this is overlay now. So, like, I'll make a certain area hot to then suggest light source or even shape. Because for me, I'm like, okay, if I'm not going to make a choice in terms of line, I'll make a choice in terms of shape suggesting the, the area around it, the negative space. And then I'll do the scary part, which is going in with solid paint. And this is where, for example, if I was going to work on this section right here. Again, this is usually a much longer process but I'll literally start chiseling out the shape. You ever sculpt on, because this is like, you know, where you kind of one piece, the whole chopping away at something. Yeah, no, well, I do custom action figures but you know, I guess that's the whole thing. Yeah, but like classical soul thing. No, not so much. And here, here, since I don't have a plan for this, this and this is definitely some play. This is where I get to be like, okay, I wonder what that will that will look like. So I start to agree. I'm trying to create a shape that's a little more specific for this up here. Again, the more you try to be the more perfect you have to be. That's always in my head. I'm just like, okay, that's not gonna be perfect. Fix it later. But then you bring in some, some highlight here. The thing is, Raph, do you always work the same way? Like the same same process or do you try different things? You try different process like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna work in just color first, like flats, and then try to build in the line. Yeah, I did that in school. Because you had to for an assignment? Well, no, well, yeah, actually, but you know, I was, I know that's given now like where time is so such a commodity like something we need to be aware of. I can't do that because for me that takes it's too much. Yeah. It's too much experimentation to know the project won't be done in time. That's the hardest part about, I guess, being an adult doing art. You know, you can't require to find to justify those moments where you allow yourself to explore something different and something new versus something that you know you can do and can do within the time constraints. But yeah, like even now when you're working, I already in my head, I'm like, that's a finished piece. But you're, and you're probably not even. Yeah, no, I haven't even gotten to like what I really want to do with it. But for example, like it then it just, it gets to be fun after the, like that's, that's what I wanted to do. I just want to go in and begin with different shapes. Okay, maybe that won't work. Maybe that won't work. And then eventually I was going to go in. That's cool. You know, put in, put in different glimmers and things like that. And again, once that part's done that I have these shapes down. I'm getting on time here. I will sometimes I will flatten everything you see here and tell myself, okay, now live with that. That's crazy. And I, yeah, knowing knowing full well, I will go in and, you know, you still I have to tell myself you still have full control, you just, you still have control. How often you tell yourself that. Oh, yeah, right. That's, it's a little much for, for what we're doing today. That'll be on the next podcast. And it yeah so draping and fabric and stuff like that. That's always really fun. There's a drama in the way things are worn and things are. You know, that kind of problem solving just the way just the way fabric looks and feels is takes much longer than the time that we have here but at least I can address some of that right now. You ever do a drapery where you look, look at it after you've rendered it that it doesn't make any sense. Yeah, absolutely. Almost every time. You do watch how I'm doing this right. You just keep hacking at it till it till it feels right. Yeah, or like, you know, I'll move the leg over or something like that but I know no it's not knowing it's not it is anchored but I still have the choice to do it. For example, I could lift this leg right now and have it cross cross and then have the other hand over here to trade, which I already like better, but it took a long time to get here with it but I'm like this is actually the faster method than to go in as calculated as I used to and, you know, having to live with it that way. But yeah, hopefully, hopefully you get to see a little bit of what I was intending. I don't know. Maybe. I don't know what she's looking at, but she certainly is interested. And I always like the the long, the long the idea of the long hair of the traditional Phillipina. Long, long hair, maybe to the floor. What's your story telling like when you're drawing you, you tell yourself story like well obviously we were given stories for a lot of our characters but In terms of like doing a character exploration. I want to draw them in a situation opposed in a way that would make sense like if the characters cocky, kind of have, you know, very, like a chin up looking down kind of feel oh the right the posturing That's kind of what I that in terms of that like the design like character designing is just playing around with the attitude of the character that I want to come through. What's the funnest part about, or what's the funnest part of the drawing. The end, the end, finishing or like finishing touches, finishing, finishing touches, definitely. So yeah, yeah, finishing touches. So yeah, I think I gave suggestions of like different, different phases of how I draw but of course it would be much lengthier than this and parts like parts would be much more, more solid than that. Yeah, I think I'm gonna continue with this one. Maybe next year. You don't have a podcast to you that was just a joke, correct. Yeah, that was a joke. Okay, just clarify people out there who are now requesting your podcast on maybe that podcast. Raph has been wanting to do a podcast forever but we're like we don't know what to do. Maybe they'll just watch us some record brains doing administrative work that's always fun to watch. How are you doing drawing demo when they can just watch you do our taxes. Yeah, but anyway, um, haven't named her don't know her story, but there we go. That's awesome. See here I'm going to switch back. I guess it's Q and has it been Q&A time technically. I think so. There we go. Now we're back. Thanks. Thanks for letting us do that. Thanks everyone. We really appreciated that. Well, it's nerve wracking but it was really fun to see what would happen. Yeah, we don't often get the opportunity to do that for such my audience. So I know we've been taking questions. So I guess, technically this is the actual Q&A, which is fine. So if anyone has any questions out there, feel free to ask us. And for me, Rodrigo Salazar, this guy again. For pieces that have no deadline or personal works, how do you know when you're done with it? Do you see what a Teresa wrote after that? No. She seems to be very curious about that question too. I was asking you. Well, let's see when you're done with it. You know what? With fun pieces, it's when your actual freelance work says, hey, what about me? That can be through an angry email from a client who sees that you're updating on Instagram and not working on their thing all the way to, hey, there's a deadline tomorrow that we need your stuff right now. So that's when you say, okay, X-Men, you're done. You're just going to have to be done because you know you either can't work on that for another year or you're just like, I ran out of ideas for this thing. But not every piece is going to make it out there. I'm actually interested to know the treasure trove of things that made it into your bin, but like never gets out to the public. It's like, oh, some sketches or musings. Usually it's anything I want to draw. I'll draw to a point where like, you know, usually you have some me time to draw and try to find it, right? Pocket dimension. Well, that would be useful at that moment. But as soon as that time expires, it's for me, it's at that limbo where I'll finish it when I get more time, when I have more time, or that's it. Like it's just never going to go beyond that point. Because the next time you have the time to draw for yourself, it's like, do I want to draw something new or do I go back to an old piece? Or like eat dinner or something. Like you have to. You don't need to eat as an artist and you don't need to sleep as an artist. Oh, important one about storytelling. Do you come up with the story or the characters first? The story first. Because like when like designing my characters, I need that base, that figure to put clothes on to. And so in a broader sense to these characters to the world they live in, I need that story to inform who they are, what they're going to wear, why they look the way they do. You know, like how, why do they act that way? What's their place in this world? So story for me, even if it's just like a one-off drawing for myself, you'd be amazed like all these small sketches. There's already a small enough world to help me start drawing or designing that character. Even if no one else knows about it. Don? I agree. Story first. Characters and things like that will come to you in dreams or the story will reveal to you what's needed to fill that world. But yeah, you need a message. You need a purpose to your creation. It's a small reason, right? Don't just put pouches and shoulder pads in there just for this take of having pouches and shoulder pads in your character design. They got to carry something, right? Like the weight of the world or you know, I don't know. Maps and pellets and stuff. Stories do you have on the bag burner that you'd like to tell because of that, you know? And I think that's it. We have our Instagram. I'm putting them in chat just in case. We have Instagram for both of our art as well as in Hiatus Studios, which is our shop. Come visit us downtown San Francisco 582 Market Street Suite 100. We're right on ground floor. Walk in. Come say hi to the dogs. Two of us have dogs. They're usually at the shop and let's see. CoolArtsSF.org is our commissioner and they advocate for all performing and visual arts as well as literary arts and they're very involved. They have something going on pretty much every week. So please check in with them and see what they're up to this week. And you have a favorite character you've created? HiatusStudios.com. What's that? You have a favorite character you've created? I do have a favorite character, but it's a love-hate relationship with the title or the main character of my comic Rise. I've written enough about her on her for her that she's starting to take on her own like-ness. I have conversations with her when I'm writing or drawing her, so yeah, that's my favorite. She's a good mirror on my craft and my personality. How about you? Me? I don't think I have a favorite character. Oh, we got to wrap up. Okay. All right. All right. Thanks everyone. This was a blessing. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you to SF Public Library for having us. You all have just fans and stands and everything. So thank you. This was fantastic. And you're so talented and you should start a podcast. And we would be happy, happy to share that and continue to be a platform for your artwork and, yeah, the stories and just all of the things. So thank you both. Any final words of anything? Whether or not you're an artist, go create something. Create. Keep creating. Come visit us. We're vaccinated. It's okay. Yes, totally vaccinated. If you are an artist or you're aspiring to be an artist and you're always worried about not being an artist, just keep drawing. That's all I'd say. Just carry a sketchbook. Even if you don't do digital, just keep drawing. Wonderful. Wonderful. So thank you viewers out there for keeping those questions rolling and staying engaged. And this was a pleasure just to be a part of this. So if you love today's program, you can check out our calendar for future virtual API events. This will also be available on YouTube. So share that with other folks. And that's all. So we hope you take good care of yourselves. Stay safe. And we hope to see you all again soon. That's it. Thanks, everyone. Bye.