Juan's Art

[Juan Maestas]

I originally wanted to be a comic book artist, but life happened- got married and had kids! I wouldn't change a thing, though. I would illustrate off and on for freelance. I really got into animation in 2004, but I didn't understand camera angles, moves so I started studying cinema and I caught the filmmaking bug and spent up until last year making live action short films... and although I was asked quite a bit to storyboard other independent films or to come up with concept art, I always something was always amiss- I wasn't satisfied. I had grown apart from my drawing roots, my focus of why I had even got into filmmaking in the firstplace.

Last year I've made it an effort to get back into illustration and back to what I originally set out to do when I started learning filmmaking language- to get back into animation.

I'm trying to loosen up with my artwork- simplify especially to animate in mind... but I thought I'd show you some of the stuff from my progression since last year (in no particular order):

http://www.lostskies.com/artwork/skypirate.jpg
http://www.lostskies.com/artwork/magicgirl-color.jpg
http://www.lostskies.com/artwork/spaceace-color.jpg
http://www.lostskies.com/artwork/securityguard.jpg

More to come...

[Juan Maestas]

Some pencil and pen studies:
http://www.lostskies.com/artwork/doodles.jpg
http://www.lostskies.com/artwork/doodles2.jpg
http://www.lostskies.com/artwork/crowfoot.jpg
http://www.lostskies.com/artwork/spaceranger.jpg

[Juan Maestas]

more stuff-
http://www.lostskies.com/artwork/eroded-crew.jpg
http://www.lostskies.com/artwork/heiress.jpg
http://www.lostskies.com/artwork/barbarian.jpg



A big part of what I need to learn is to make my characters ACT. To give them better expression and have them do stuff! That right now is my weakest point. I'm always trying to brush up on anatomy (yup, lots of anatomy issues with some of this stuff :)

[Juan Maestas]

For some reason the forum kept telling me I had five images in the last post when i only had four. Weird. Anyways, I posted three in the last one and here's the fourth, plus one other :)
http://www.lostskies.com/artwork/starfleet.jpg
http://www.lostskies.com/artwork/soulchasers.jpg

[Juan Maestas]

Lots of swords and guns. I hope that doesn't offend anybody- the swords are made of paper and the guns shoot water :) One of the biggest influences in my life is Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars. I actually know people who worked on Pixar's upcoming Princess of Mars movie.

Feel free to critique me like crazy! Let me know what you think!

[andrew sharp]

Wow man your works are great, that spaceman rocks:)

[Juan Maestas]

Thanks Andrew! Yeah- I was inspired by Don's "Space Ace", thinking, what would Ace's space suit look like?

[Ben Sword]

Hi Juan, I really like your drawings, the first two you posted look like caracters that would be on cards in the Magic The Gathering trading card game.:)

Some of your drawings are a little stiff though. Try loosening up more with your lines. Other then that I'm not really sure what else to say. Sorry I'm not very good at critiquing peoples work. :o

[Juan Maestas]

Thanks Ben! And it was a decent critique- I appreciate it :) Yeah, I totally agree- my stuff can be stiff. I get caught up in technique and my stuff really tightens up. I've been watching Don's vids regarding on loosening up and what the character is feeling, and I know that's a big part of what I need to work on. Most of these just start out as a character design but there's no emotion to it- they're just striking a pose.

[Juan Maestas]

Some stuff I've been working on for a current freelance project:

http://www.lostskies.com/artwork/ttnbc-village.jpg
http://www.lostskies.com/artwork/ttnbc-livingroom.jpg