the road to San Jose 🇺🇸

hoping for a colorful ride

I finished the Promethea commission decided to further explore color pieces. Colors bring emotions, changing the mood of a black and white composition. If I had done the image in black and white, it would give a different impression, but if I had only done the line work of the magical staff in blue, there would already something magical in the image. It would glow.

I think there’s something to do with using the brush to ink that makes this transition to color feel a bit natural. When I ink, there’s already the brushstroke making me accept that not everything will be outlined. A lot is just suggested. The gesture of my wrist becomes part of the equation. In bigger drawings, the gesture made is by the arm. All these elements carry on to the coloring part, and now more mysteries are introduced: How will this color work against that one? Will this transparency work? What, in color, can I suggest without inking it first?

The place

I wrote before that I’m going to a convention this year. I’ll be at the Galaxy Con in San Jose, California, near San Francisco. I’ve never been to that corner of California, which I think is a little overdue considering that one of my first books published in the US, Smoke and Guns, was written by Kirsten Baldock, who lives in San Francisco. I used to bump into her every year in San Diego during comic con, but I never stretched any of my con trips to San Francisco back then (too many pages too draw, and a million other odd jobs at the same time, always made me hurry back home). The convention happens from August 16th to 18th, and I’ll probably be hopping around San Fran in the days prior (I’m probably going to stop at the Isotope Comic Lounge one of these days, Wednesday maybe, and catch up with my buddy James Sime).

At the convention, I’ll be hanging with my super friend Gustavo Duarte. Come say hi. Besides signing the books you bring, we’ll both have original are to sell and will be doing commissions.

Commissions? About that:

The list

Prior to packing my bags and going from the Atlantic to the Pacific, I’m opening a new limited commission list this Wednesday, June 26th, at 1PM ET. This time around, the nice folks at Kinetic Collectibles will help me coordinate everything, so I’ll be able to make commissions for people to pick up at the convention as well as pieces to ship anywhere and everywhere. There won’t be many spots available, as I still have a bunch of work on the new book from here till August, so be ready to make your move when the list opens.

I’m so excited about opening for the first time the option of color commissions that I did the image below as a warm up.

(I’m also getting emotionally ready to finish Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom)

I’ll still offer black and white options of commissions, as my love for black and white image haven’t diminished, but I wanted to have the opportunity to push myself in a different direction this time.

This Black Hammer cover I did a few years ago (an homage to DKR in a book that is Jeff Lemire’s homage to super-heroes) would never have worked the same way if it was just done in black and white.

One thing I played a little on this Adventure Time cover was using colored line work. Greens and oranges and reds helping the back light glow even more, and the ludic aspect of that color lines of the Promethea staff works here in the same way.

Over the next weeks, as the trip comes closer, I’ll share the commissions I’m working on. Since the pages we’re drawing here at the studio (from both the project I’m doing with my brother or from Bá’s new Umbrella Academy pages) can’t be shown yet, it will be nice to have some fresh images to decorate my next letters. Every time I show a drawing a did some time ago (like the Black Hammer or Adventure Time pieces), it’s like I’m time traveling back to how I was feeling when I created those images. Now, working on new drawings from scratch, I’ll share with you the road I’m currently traveling towards what my future work looks like. The experimentations, the discoveries, the failures and the conquests, all that I live pours through my art, and the faster I share it, more you will feel it, too.

Be safe. Be kind. Be curious.
Pa-ZOW!

Fábio Moon
Moon Base, São Paulo
June 24th, 2024