The Art of Pinto

So new Star Wars art always seems to have a bigger audience and response. I wish there was a better story to go along with this post. Unfortunately, this was a bit of a disappointment. As many of you may know, Star Wars holds an event every two years called Celebration. They don't have a usual artist alley, but instead have a handpicked group that a jury selected of artists that have worked on LucasFilm properties before. You need to apply in short. So a few of my friends have been encouraging me to do so for some time. About a year or so ago, I decided that I would and began work on my submission. Oh. If you were curious about my LucasFilm credentials, I have worked on quite a bit of Star Wars themed M&M's work as well as designing two official t-shirts for the old Star Wars Weekends held at Disney. So I obviously chose Obi-Wan as my subject as he is my favorite character from the Star Wars franchise and I had an idea that I thought would be pretty cool. I set about my w…

Every so often I get asked to do some commission work. And 90% of the time it's for something totally out of the ordinary. I get it. People are asking for what they want and can't find anywhere else. I guess a drawing of a classic style Superman is too commonplace. Hence the requests for "Batman with a ski hat and a Hawaiian shirt". I don't usually post things of this nature because I feel that it's a personal thing for the one that requested it and that it probably lacks a widespread appeal. So I recently took an "odd" commission and to be honest I took it because of two reasons. Things have been weird and I've lost a huge amount of income this year due to the Covid, and that I have known the person who requested it for more years than I can remember. It was for a wedding gift as well. So the commission, as you can surmise based on the title of this post, was for Boba Fett with Ursula from the Little Mermaid, done in a pin-up style, standing o…

Back when I was a kid, I was enthralled with TV heroes as you may already know. Everyday after school the best hour was the Adam West Batman re-runs and The Adventures of Superman with George Reeves! This was before the Christopher Reeve movie came out and for a kid locked away in the fall season due to allergies, these shows were pure gold! I still enjoy watching them today.
I actually started working on this a few years back after I completed the 40th anniversary poster for Superman: The Movie. If you remember, in that one, I posed Christopher Reeve in the iconic pose of Superman found on his first issue. So for this one, it just seemed to be a natural to pose George Reeves in the pose of Action Comics #1! So I began to sketch and layout thumbnails and as it happens, nothing was clicking and my motivation waned and it wound up on the shelf. I would take a peek every now and again but to no avail. Then, I recently opened it up and looked thru the reference gathered and tried a few mor…

I have been a fan of NASA since I was a really little kid. My parents were big fans as well and it was the joke in the house that my brother and I were named after famous astronaut, John Glenn (my brother's name is Glenn). My nickname growing up was "Buzz" and I was born on May 5th. I would also drive by the sign that commemorates Oradell, NJ as the birthplace of Wally Schirra every day on my way to high school. If you are a fan of NASA then you know what all those references mean. I remember more about visiting Kennedy Space Center as a kid than I do Walt Disney World and when I first moved to Florida, I convinced a whole group of people to go to Cocoa Beach for the day to watch a shuttle launch. I can now actually see enough of the booster rockets on a launch from the front of my house.
So when Space X recently launched their first manned crew to space, I was ecstatic! I was glued to the TV and raced outside to catch a glimpse in person! With my passion for NASA re-igni…

I did a John Carter piece several years ago and actually still pretty pleased with how it came out. Someone recently saw it for the first time and asked me about it too. Right after that conversation I found myself doodling on my iPad at night in front of the television and what I got was a sketch of John Carter. Sometimes these things just surprise you and you go with it. That's a blessing and a curse as you get the wild inspiration to fuel you but it also often lacks the proper planning of a picture that I normally prefer to do. So then it becomes trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Art isn't always relaxing, in fact it's usually more frustrating! Like when I decided to add the other characters! First I added Dejah Thoris and was into the inking stage when I realized I didn't care for the pose and scrapped her and started over. Then she looked like Storm of the X-Men circa 1979 and had to make more adjustments. When I added Tars Tarkas I wanted to emphasize h…

I’ve always been a big fan of Mike Mignola and he always inspires me with his art even tho I draw nothing like him. Who does?? His posts of late have been so much fun that I thought I would try my hand at drawing The King in the best “Mignola” I could do. I am sure that the experts and Mr. Mignola himself could easily spot the differences but I am not in the business of making straight copies or styles. I hope to grasp at least one aspect in order to incorporate it into my own "stew".
Enjoy!