After Pencils and Inks And here is the final colored He-Man illustration is complete!
This was much more of a moody piece than Teela, I hope I got it right.
I'm also posting a detail, as even if pretty big, some details gets lost at web size.

I will probably do more of those, as I said when I posted Teela, I'm considering doing one for each of the statues done by Pop Culture Shock (BTW, the He-Man statue is still available here!)
Also, most likely I will have this available as a print at conventions this summer, I'll keep you updated.

Following pencils from yesterday, here are the inks!

After finishing my Teela piece a couple of weeks ago, I was still so pumped about doing some new MOTU art (and extremely flattered by the overwhelming good response), that I wanted to do more right away!
I'm loving these Pop Culture Shock statue so much that I decided to take on the man himself, He-Man! (hem...)
Inspired by the great statue they are producing, this was a real challenge. Not super difficult per se, but I had to make justice to the most iconic image of He-Man, the transformation from the cartoon. I hope I succeeded, or at least got close enough.
Like for Teela, I'll post the three stages in 3 days: today the pencils, tomorrow the inks and the colors on Wednesday.

After Pencils and Inks And here is the final colored Teela llustration is complete!
Sorry if it took three days to post all this, but it was fun. I had completed the entire piece in 2 days, and it was ready on Friday. Still, even if I said an artist needs to know when to stop, thanks to my friends Alessandra and Emanuela, I went back and fixed the nose and adjusted the background colors a bit.
I'm sure you're wondering, will I do more of those? Maybe, I'm considering doing one for each of the statues done by Pop Culture Shock.
Also, most likely I will have this available as a print at conventions this summer, I'll keep you updated.


Coincidentally, Pop Culture Shock released pics of the final painted statue that inspired this illustration yesterday, and it looks amazing.
If you love it as much as me, you can Pre-order her beginning on Monday February 10th at 3PM Pacific Standard Time from the Pop Culture Shock website.

Following pencils from yesterday, here are the inks!
I haven't been inking for a while, and I get tired really fast when inking, because I want everything perfectly clean and sleek. But when the result is what I want, it's very satisfactory.
I took a lot of inspiration from Adam Hughes, but also from the work of my good friend Emanuela Lupacchino.
Stay tuned for the finished colored piece tomorrow!

Inspired by the upcoming Pop Culture Shock Teela statue, and by Adam Hughes' Cover Run book I finally decided to buy, I started and finished, pencils to color, a Teela image.
I wanted to go back to the old comic book style inked image, which I haven't done forever.
I'll post the three stages in 3 days: today the pencils, tomorrow the inks and the colors on Monday.
It was fun, and reminded me of my love for MOTU (and for Teela, on which I had a crush when I was a little kid...)

I was looking for pictures of Lou yesterday, to find one that felt right for remembering him.
And I came across this one, taken at the BCI booth at the San Diego Comic Con in 2006. It was the second time I met Lou and this photo really says what I felt this man was: a wonderful, funny and sweet person, that has been part of my life for many years, even if I didn't get to meet him until I was a grown man.
I'm leaving to people much more closer to him and much more expert than me to remember his amazing life and achievement. James, Andy, Tom have written wonderful words about him yesterday, after we all have been saddened by the news of his passing away.

I can probably talk better about how Lou effected my life. See, to me He-Man had a few dads. Mark, Ted, Lou. All of them brought something to the world of Eternia. Lou brought the heart.
I was already a fan of He-Man when the MOTU cartoon by Filmation was released, and it took me some time to accept it. Over the years, I realized though how fondly I always remembered that show, and how much it had actually contributed to my beloved characters. But only until I got to really study it and understand the cartoon and Filmation, also thanks to my friends James, Alessandra and Andy, during the years of the work on the BCI DVD, that I fully realized the full impact of Lou's studio not only on the franchise, but also on me.

I'm not going to exaggerate things. Lou didn't do everything by himself. But that was one of his great merits. By what I can read in his friends and former employees' words, he was a great leader. He was able to surrounds himself with great creative people that he treated like family and made feel at home at Filmation.
And he had a vision. And through that vision, and the talents that worked with him, he contributed to shape magical worlds, awesome characters and wonderful stories.

My family was great, they gave me so much in terms of education and morality. But I know, I know, that deep down, the good heart of the Filmation Masters of the Universe touched me and thought me so much. And I know it must have been the same for many people around the world. Lou was a very open minded individual, and through his cartoons, he was able to transmit that and show kids how to embrace and accept diversity, how to be stand up people, how to sympathize for and take care of others. Filmation cartoons may seem a bit naive now, but if anybody take the time to look past the stock system, the slapstick humor, the simple stories, it will become apparent not only the amazing amount of talent the people at Filmation had, but the heart that everybody poured into the company and its productions. He touched all of our lives and also taught something to each of us at the same time.

I think that is an amazing accomplishment for a man.
Lou to me is one of the giants of animation, I will never forget the time spent with him. He was sweet, gentle, and kind. And made us laugh, which is something that should never be underestimated.

Lou was the voice of Orko.
I now like to imagine how Orko looks under the hat, and imagine he is actually looking like Lou.
Maybe Orko was just Lou all the time, fooling us all, because he could go out there and play the part of little kid, and be the kids' pal that invited us in his magical world.

Without Lou, I feel like there are less colors on the painting palette today.
Even if I'm not religious at all, I like to think he rejoined his beloved Jay, just in time to celebrate his birthday with her.

Addio Lou, grazie ancora di tutto.

Josh, Mark Taylor and Me

Okay, almost a month: from September the 20th to October, 15th, I've been travelling in US. Needless to say, about 95% of my time has been spent as a MOTU fan. Yeah, shocking news, I know.
Being out of He-Man.org didn't diminished my passion and my commitment to MOTU in the slightiest and I was lucky to do a lot of cool stuff and make a lot of great experience as a fan during the month in US. And even if I have tons of stuff to do, I'm gonna bore you with a small journal of what I did there!

First stop was Los Ageles, where with my pal Josh Van Pelt we immeditaly went to meet one of the most influencial artist in MOTU. Nope, not Rudy Obrero, and not Bill George (even if we had the pleasure to meet both of them later on during the trip) An artist which remained a mystery to many for 30 years, and still, all He-Man fans are familiar with his art. The amount of art he created for MOTU is probably 4-5 times what George and Obrero did together. Thanks to Mark Taylor, we got in touch, and we had a wonderful time at his home. We'll soon reveal more about him on The Power and The Honor Foundation website, for the moment, let's say he's an incredibly sweet, humble and nice person, who also let us borrow all his art and take it with us at the hotel in Torrance, where we spent most of the following 2 days scanning like crazy.
During Power-Con, many friends stopped by our room to take a look at the historical pieces laying on our beds during the scanning process. They all had the same shocked look I had when I first looked at that art, and they have been extremely lucky to share with us that incredible sight.
Don't worry, you know why we did all that. Years ago I promised I wanted to wait to present all those toy design pieces we had, to make it right. Rest assured we want to do make justice to this artitst and his work too, so just keep your finger crossed!

The PAH Foundation crew!

Oh, right, Power-Con.
Or the lack of it. I won't be hypocrital. That was a bittersweet experience. I was officially cut out of anything Power-Con related, barely allowed inside and with silly restrictions. My plan was not to go at all. Still, I went in a couple of times, mostly to say hi to friends there. And that was the best part. The words I heard most where "I'm glad you're here". I felt the trust people put in me and their love was still intact and that was really heartwarming and made me feel a lot more relaxed.
The sad part that being officially excluded, I was not allowed to share lot of things with my friends and hang out with them as much as I wanted. And I don't mind admitting I enjoyed the work I did last year at Power-Con, which I missed this year.
Sad part aside though, everybody has been wonderful and I so loved the time I had chance to spend with all my friends: Danielle & Magoo, Karla, Arnoud, James, Tom, Chuck, Josh B., Pete, Mike and Englebert, Nate, Dan, Leanne & Rod, Israel and last but not least Eric, Jim, Owen, Shane and Sherri from the Four Horsemen Studio, plus all the great fans I met or met again (too many to list!)
If I forgot someone, you can call public shame on me when I'll post this on FB (but a couple of German guys may want to wait for Part 2...)

Martin Arriola was a blast as usual, now joined by Ed Mosqueda, which showed us a few great pieces he worked on (including purple & black haired tytus and Eldor test shot!) Larry DiTillio was sweet as always and speaking of Filmation, this year I also got to met Rob Lamb! Rob was one of the higlights of the days in LA for both me and James, and thanks to him now the Foundation now has lot more very cool art!
I had also the pleasure and the honor to intruduce Rudy Obrero to William George. What a moment!
Oh, and I sold out of my prints in half an hour!!

On Saturday, we had to stop scanning earlier and set up the room for the Friends of  The Power and The Honor Foundation Foundation Reception.
Thanks to the art loaned from friends, we had some amazing stuff on display. Some never-seen before art (with very cool surprises) and a huge homage to (and thank to) Mark Taylor. For us, that was the best way to celebrate the 30th anniversary of He-Man.
We also had the He-Man Power Tester on display, but we coudn't manage to make it work properly. Oh well.
The reception was successful: a nice, relaxed, small thing, with a few friends and guests that chimed in all night to say hi and check out the art. I'm glad we did it, and I'm glad so many friends showed up and donated to be part of it :)

The Cake Ricky made for us!

Our pal Ricky also brought us a great and tasty cake skillfully made with the vintage MOTU cake pan!!

In the afternoon, while setting up, looking at all the cool stuff by Mark, I decided to give him a call at home to describe him the view of the room and say hi. Mark was very happy to hear it was looking good and asked me where we were. I told him the hotel's name and he said he would have joined us for the night.
My mood immediatly jumped and I told everybody we were going to have a very special surprise.

Everyone was captured by Mark's stories!

Mark and his wife Rebecca arrived later during the dinner and spent the rest of the night with us the fans at the reception. Everybody was listening to Mark's stories about He-Man and toy industry and I was just sitting back chatting with Rebecca and thinking there was nothing better for He-Man's birthday party to have his dad there. Fans loved Mark and Rebecca. Both me and Josh are extremely grateful they joined our little thing and I'm sure all the fans feels the same. It was a wonderful time and I'm so grateful also for Mark and Rebecca trust and friendship: another thing I will never forget.

And those were just the first 3 days!
But before we move to Palos Verdes, I gotta get back to Transformers, work is calling!
Stay tuned for Part 2, (hopefully) soon!

For my non-appearance at Power-Con, I have prepared two new prints to complete last year's set of Filmation style Heroic Warriors and Evil Warriors. Fans really wanted me to complete the two missing factions and my trip to Los Angeles was the perfect occasion to finally do them, and have the Great Rebellion and The Evil Horde in quality art print form, totally Filmation style!


Even if not allowed to have a table at Power-Con, I'll be around  all the time, and the prints will be available outside the Convention floor and at The Power and The Honor Foundation reception.
I will also bring back the few copies left of last year's prints, you can see them all below here.
Each art  prints measures 42 x29,7 cm, and it's printend on high quality paper.
See you in LA!

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Update!
Since I've got many advance requests for these prints, please refer to this page for all the instruction!
Thank you!