A trip to my earlier days…

I was back home for Christmas, I have been feeling kind of torn among things, and I thought I would look into some old boxes trying to unearth art projects I did years ago, when I was just a kid. I picked out a few that I find to be my favorites and that have ended up being defining and the groundwork for what I do now and what for I want to do in the years to come.

I  was also fascinated by history, and you can see that in most of the drawing I did when I was younger. I guess a lot of boys like drawing combats and fighting, I took that to a new level when I  started  the “Epic Battle”. I don’t really remember what went through my mind but I started this when I was 8, and worked on it till I was 10. On and off for three years, it started from a single drawing and then I would attach more and more pages and the project ended up being a huge papyrus roll.

(click on the image for scale and view image in full detail)

Over time I had pasted together 23 A4 pieces of paper, expanding the battle to a huge epic, thousands of men fighting in land and sea. A battle inspired from the Greek War of Independence. Getting very gruesome, dead bodies, dismemberment, decapitations and also black humor.

I have made a lot similar ones around the same time period, this the “Siege of Messolonghi”

and an untitled Medieval Battle

Moving onwards to middle school, I continued making drawings in the same mindset. (see below) The influence from the comics that where a big part of my upbringing had also motivated me to start my first graphic novel, being inspired by many medieval fairy tales and legends, and I ended up completing about 10 pages of what I called in “Lost Civilization”. Around that time the “Lord of the Rings” frenzy was going on, so I also started making a novel inspired by the books and movies.

First 8 pages from “Lost Civilization”

Lord of the Rings adaptation inspired by the books and movies, early 00s

Everything so far is more than ten years old. Around that time I also started a very time-consuming hobby, I painted miniature soldiers, and most of my effort went into that. My drawing in early high school were more minimalistic and that’s when I started doing caricatures. I would usually do many of teachers and musicians I liked.

I also developed ideas and character sheets for comics I never ended up doing, but it was fun non the less coming up with them and building up their traits and personalities. Again like most comics I made and still make characters being influenced from family, friends and my old school teachers.

 

 

At this point I started going to drawing school on weekends, my skills started improving significantly, which helped in getting accepted to a school in the US for my undergraduate studies.
The next six years finally shaped me into the artist I have become today.