The Writer’s Block Kids love to cosplay (Well, let’s be absolutely honest… the whole Cosmic Family except maybe for Grandpa ‘Thulu love Cosplay) and at the beginning of July, I decided to do a short run of them dressed up as some very epic sci-fi characters. Can you name them all?
Writer’s Block is Mandi Gordon’s and my baby. We’ve done almost 150 strips so far, and we’re going for more. And we both love our angels.
Now, Mandi also loves Calvin and Hobbes, so she challenged me to try and do a more comic strip-style for the cast. While I didn’t do the Horsemen (yet), I did all the kids. And I think that it’s a fun and quick style, that I might use one day in the strip. Or in another project.
Maybe.
I adore the Cosmic Family. They all have a specific role to play (even the one who hates the idea of having a role to play). I’m considering making this a print for conventions, what do you guys think?
(Oh, In case you wonder the order: Granpa Ch’tullu is Mama Chaos’s father. Mama Chaos is Janna, Thanatos, Mahlon, Carmen and Dad’s mother. Dad is the father (and mother) of Lucifer, Gabriel, Raphael, Michael, Cassiel and Ariel)
I love, love, LOVE Steampunk aesthetic. One of my dreams is one of these days to make a steampunk story. In the meantime, I get to play with the cosmic family. So here are all of them in a steampunk version that well, suits them all very, very well.
The Horsemen of the Apocalypse, older siblings of Dad in Writer’s Block, have quickly become my favorite characters: From long suffering Mahlon, to apparent eternally cheerful Carmen, from zen-like Thana to coffee-maniac Janna, I adore them all. It’s a pity we rarely see them in their work clothes (especially Mahlon as he looks really cool), but in exchange, here are these illustrations I made for double sided bookmarks last year. Hope to finish the whole family set this year.
As part of my daily drawings, I made a series of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse from Writer’s Block dressed in the 1900 century fashion, one per decade. This was so much fun, that I ended up deciding on another project around period clothing, since at times, it was hard to decide which horseman went with what decade (Let’s be honest, Janna-war kind of monopolized the last century), and what clothing they should wear. The only constant was that Carmen wore mexican fashion, because well, it’s her favorite place on Earth.
So… we’re in the final post of the year. First year I told myself I was going to be constant with my posting on social media, and I re-started my own site and brand as Calico Chimera. It’s been a bumpy ride, to be honest, but I am happy with the results, especially as well, it’s the first time I am able to fill one of these Art Summaries with one image per month (and choosing some months was HARD), and I’m really happy with the results.
(BTW, the blank template is from DustBunnyThumper at Deviantart. Credit where Credit is due)
I did notice that I forgot to post some of the images here. Sure, I decided that Deviant Art would be mostly for fanart, and everywhere else for everything, but I never posted the Horsemen and Squires in Art Noveau borders here! That was a big overlook! (So I guess I will post them in 2018, just for competition sake). Also, I have to balance more my finished color original pieces and the fanart since this year it looks as I did more fanart (But of course, that doesn’t count comic pages, or sketches)
Most of this comes, of course, thanks to the amazing support I’ve had this year. And since this is the last post of the year, I can’t let it go without thanking Mandi Gordon, Writer’s Block writer and Dream Keeper Robin’s editor. Half of the illustrations here wouldn’t exist if she hadn’t supported me, pushed me to my limits, and kept pushing me from under my drawing table.
In any case, thank you for reading this, thank you for being with me and supporting me through 2017. Here’s to 2018 where I hope we all have a much better year!
Writer´s Block Volume 1, or Parenting is Hard Work.
Writing is HARD. And for Dad, the creator of everything in our world, it´s a bit harder as he has to take care of his six sort of teenage angelic children. Things do not get easier as he recruits his older siblings, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, to try and get some calm.
All he wanted was to create the world, is too much to ask some peace and quiet?
Parenting is Hard Work is the first print collection of Writer´s Block, and it includes all the strips from our first year.
Written by Mandi Gordon, and drawn by Adalisa Zarate (yours truly), it is a pocket size book, 32 pages total, in black and white with a color cover. It only costs $4.00 USD in our stores (Kaliko Dragon will be up soon, promise), and is the very first Kaliko Dragon produced book.
The first edition is almost gone, as we introduced it at Spooky, so grab your copy now! Don´t make baby Velociraptors cry.
On October 27 to 29 I had the chance to be with Mandi Gordon (my writer on Writer’s Block and editor for Dragon Run as well as my dear friend) in our very first american convention as sellers, Spooky Empire at the Hyatt Regency in Orlando.
We went as Kaliko Dragon, our joint effort (As hers alone is Dragon Crest, and mine… well, you’re here in Calico Chimera) and had a blast. We had Dream Keeper Robin 1 and 2, Dragon Run and the very first Writer’s Block compilation for sale, as well as a ton of brand new prints (seriously, the only “old” one was the Sugar Skull Horsemen, that is still available in Mexico through my Calico Chimera store and will be available for everywhere else soon at the Kaliko Dragon store)
Now, Spooky Empire is a convention specialized in horror. So I wasn’t quite sure of how things would work and a bit nervous. Still, Mandi didn’t need to pull me out from under the table at any time and I even go to the Celebrity autograph hall on Sunday without being poked too hard by her so that was a win against my usual anxiety. But people did like our stuff, and they were all very nice when talking to us. I saw a Ton of great cosplay, some of which I had never seen before -ok, so there was an overflow of Pennywises. That was to be expected. But they were great Pennywises. Funny thing about the Pennywises… at some point, they started to lose their balloons. So the roof of the Hyatt was filled with floating red balloons. Between that and the Freddy Krueger mannequin that I swore was moving on it’s own as every time I lifted my head was in a different position, the atmosphere was amazing (Later I found out that Mand asked the people with the mannequin to move it, just to freak me a bit. I loved that because it proved that I was right: it WAS moving)
We were joined by the amazing Amelia Poole, Harlequinarts (https://www.facebook.com/harlequinartscosplay ) as our official Janna, Horsewoman of War. And she was perfect! I am almost 90% sure she didn’t kill anyone or started some conflict at the times she didn’t have coffee, but trust me, Mandi and I could have a full spinoff Janna strip with all the hijinks going around. You can check her page for more pictures, but at the end of the post you can see some (she still won’t tell me how she got those red balloons).
I could only see Richard Dreyfuss from afar (he had a TON of people all the time), and didn’t have the chance to see John Cusack, Molly Ringwald or Anthony Michael Hall. Fairuza Balk looks JUST as she did in The Craft, I swear (I also saw her from a distance). On the other hand, Eileen Dietz is a great lady, really funny, and Ken Foree already had me as a fan for life, now even more so. John Kassir was really fun, and, to my eternal glee, Jamison Newlander bought Writer’s Block! That made my day. I also had the chance to say hi to Jaeden Lieberher, Wyatt Oleff, Jeremy Ray Taylor and Sophia Lillis. All of them were amazingly professional -still staying long past the time they were supposed to sign autographs in order to accommodate everyone-, and really nice.
All in all, I loved the experience and can’t wait to go back to Orlando again. Florida man stories aside, everyone was really nice and welcoming! So if you’re a fan of horror, definitively hit the May edition of Spooky. Can’t promise Kaliko Dragon and Calico Chimera will be there -as we’re totally doing Conque in Mexico- but I can assure you you will have fun.
(BTW, all the pictures taken with an obviously better camera and an obviously better photographer were taken by Mandi Gordon)
The Pennywise Parade…
And now… some fun with Janna
The horsemen of the Apocalypse, Hunger, Famine, Pestilence and War.
They were supposed to be supporting characters in Writer´s Block, but they’re so fun to draw (And, I guess given Mandi’s scripts, to write) that they started to appear more and more so now they’re sometimes shown more often than the actual main characters.
These were some of the very first color illustrations I made of them. They were made individually, for last year’s Day of the Death. It started with Thanatos, because, of course Thanatos would look amazing as a Catrin, then Carmen (who had been already established as LOVING Mexico and Mexican food), then Mahlon who was still finding his personality, and finally Janna whose white hair sometimes is a challenge to draw.
These images can be bought as bookmarks in our site, and pretty soon we will also have the print for sale too.