Portrait of an Artist: Pat Carbajal
by Rich Handley
The first time I ever saw Pat Carbajal's artwork, I was
floored. It was a sketch for the cover of my first book, Timeline of the Planet of the Apes: The Definitive Chronology, and
it was simply amazing. Since then, we've asked Pat to create covers and interior
illustrations for all of Hasslein Books' projects to date. His artwork has to
be seen to be believed—and he's one heck of a nice guy, to boot.
Pat has become an invaluable member of the Hasslein team, creating sketches of each author's headshot for posting on our About page. These proved so popular with our writers, in fact, that we've taken to calling the headshots "Carbajalized," and several have used the sketches as their social-media profile photos.
Recently, I sat down with Pat (electronically, since we're on different continents) to discuss his work and what excites him most as an artist.
Pat has become an invaluable member of the Hasslein team, creating sketches of each author's headshot for posting on our About page. These proved so popular with our writers, in fact, that we've taken to calling the headshots "Carbajalized," and several have used the sketches as their social-media profile photos.
Recently, I sat down with Pat (electronically, since we're on different continents) to discuss his work and what excites him most as an artist.
HASSLEIN BOOKS: Pat,
your ability to recreate a person's likeness is simply uncanny. How do you
manage to so perfectly capture the faces of everyone you draw, every single
time?
PAT CARBAJAL: Thanks!
It's not easy; portraiture is, I think, the most difficult aspect of my work.
Every single portrait is a design challenge, but it's what I like to do the
most. It's difficult to explain how to capture the likeness of a person; it's
more like a feeling—it's almost emotional. I look at every detail of the
subject's face, or the photo of the person, but I also close my eyes and use my
mind's eye—how I remember the person.
Especially the eyes; they're the window to our souls, as they say, and THE most
important part of a portrait.
Technically, I see faces as geometrical figures and lines. First,
I sketch a rough with the distinguishable features exaggerated, and then I
start to tighten the sketch to make it look as realistic as possible. Sometimes,
people say about my work, "Wow! It looks like a photograph!" as a
compliment, and I know they mean well, and I really appreciate it, but I
secretly hate it! It's not my intention to recreate a photo, but what they
really mean to say is "It looks alive!" which is what I try to
achieve. I stay away from the "photographic hyper-realistic" style in
illustration, because I find it stiff. I like stains, splashes of paint and
pencil traces within a realistic style.
HASSLEIN: How did
you first discover your talent for illustrating? How old were you at the time,
and how did you develop your craft over the years?
CARBAJAL: As far
as I can remember, I always drew. I guess I started when I was three. Every kid
doodles, I think—all kids are artists. Most grow up and move on to other things;
I, like every artist, took it to the next level and never stopped, and tried to
get better as I grew up, because I enjoyed it tremendously and people seemed to
like it and encourage me. Most kids, when asked about what they would like to
be when they grow up, say fire-fighter, astronaut, police officer or veterinarian,
but I knew perfectly well that I was going to be an artist, come Hell or high
water!
Comics and cartoons were a great influence, and I copied
from comics and from the TV. I still use TV as reference; it's the best "live"
model you could get!
HASSLEIN: Were
you always interested in comics—both as a reader and as an illustrator? What are
your favorite comic characters to read, and to draw?
CARBAJAL: Comics
were my obsession as a kid. I couldn't get enough of them. I particularly loved
John Romita's Spiderman and Marshall
Rogers' Batman. I remember Garcia
Lopez's Superman, too.
HASSLEIN: How large
is the comic book industry in Argentina? Is there a lot of work for you there,
or do you mostly work with companies outside your country?
CARBAJAL: Sadly,
now the industry is quite dead, but it used to be massive—hundreds of titles
and plenty of jobs for artists, writers and editors. At one point, the rates in
Argentina were higher than in the U.S. The industry imploded in the '90s, though,
so when I started to look for work, there were no comic book publishers to go
to. Yes, now all my clients are in America, and a few are in Europe, too—both
publishers and collectors—which is really cool. People actually want to buy my
stuff! Thanks, collectors!
HASSLEIN: Please
describe the process by which you create a typical cover painting—those you've
done for Hasslein Books' Planet of the
Apes and Back to the Future
titles, for example. What is involved in producing such a detailed work, from
conception to final product?
CARBAJAL: The
first Hasslein cover was Timeline of the
Planets of the Apes. Our pal Ed Gross suggested me for the cover. The first
thing I did was re-watch all the Apes
movies for inspiration. Guidelines from the art director are what really get
the ball rolling. In this case, Ed wanted Caesar playing chess with
the characters from the saga, so I did a sketch, it got approved and I started
to work on the final painting for the cover. I really wanted to put Nova on the
cover, but there was no room for her, sadly. I liked how Taylor looks on that
cover; it's a tiny Charlton Heston portrait, just one inch, but the likeness is
there.
For Back in Time
and A Matter of Time, the Back to the Future timeline and encyclopedia, the original idea was the DeLorean flying through time with a lot of
iconic items from the trilogy flying around. I did about four or five concept
sketches but neither worked, less is more, so the lone DeLorean with fire and
lightning was the winner.
HASSLEIN: Who or
what are your favorite subjects to draw, and why?
CARBAJAL: Sexy
girls! Or portraits of people with an interesting face, with character, not
necessarily beautiful or pretty people. People like Bette Davis, Ian McKellen, Charles
Bronson, Lee Marvin, Peter Cushing, Boris Karloff, Peter Falk, Jackie Cooper,
Danny John-Jules—faces that tell a story. I did a portrait of Robert Davi as
Sanchez from the 007 film License to Kill;
now there's a guy with an interesting
face, and Davi liked it so much he used it as the promotional art for his show
in L.A. I was thrilled!
But mostly, sexy girls.
HASSLEIN: What
sort of reference materials do you typically use? Is your house a massive
museum of art resources at this point?
CARBAJAL: Yes, I
have so many art books, magazines and comics that when I need something, I don't
know where to start! For reference, I usually use photographs, either existing
stills or I take them myself. For instance, on the Planet of the Apes timeline cover, that's me as Caesar with Roddy
McDowell's face playing chess. And TV as well—I pause the DVD and use a pose or
expression from the characters onscreen.
I have this pet peeve with reference photos, particularly
with movie-related art. Fans can always identify the photo that the artist used
for reference, so now I use one pic for the face, come up with an original pose
for the body or use a completely different still to depict lightning and
shadows, and then I use a frame from a movie—anything but copying from an
actual photo.
One example: For the Strickland entry in the BTTF encyclopedia, I used a close-up of
actor James Tolkan from the movie Top Gun
and the body from a single frame in the first BTTF. Tolkan has no frontal close-ups in the BTTF trilogy!
HASSLEIN: You've
been creating a number of illustrations for Alan J. Porter's upcoming JamesBond lexicon, which you've expressed great enthusiasm for. What is it about
James Bond's characters and technology that you find so intriguing, from an
artist's perspective?
CARBAJAL: I
remember seeing, for the first time, a mammoth billboard of this guy in a
dinner jacket with a gun, a girl with a lot of arms, a small jet, sexy girls
fighting, and explosions, and I asked my folks "What is that?!" "It's
the new James Bond movie. Let's go see it," they said, and I was hooked. That
was it for me—Bond and comics. I went home and started to draw 007, and I've
been drawing Bond ever since.
What I find intriguing, as an artist, about the world of
Bond is the same thing as everybody else: the perfect cocktail of adventure,
action, fantastic gadgets and cool villains. And that's what I love to
illustrate. And sexy girls!
HASSLEIN: In
addition, you recently illustrated Paul Giachetti's Red Dwarf lexicon, which required you to immerse yourself in a
franchise with which you were previously unfamiliar. What do you think of the
show, now that you've watched it in its entirety—are you a fan?
CARBAJAL: Oh,
yeah, Red Dwarf. I loved it—definitively
a fan. It was a challenge, because I was completely in the dark about the show.
I didn't know it even existed! Right before starting work on Total Immersion, the RD encyclopedia, I caught a couple of
the final season episodes during a trip to England, but I didn't really know
what the show was about until I got the DVDs and saw the complete series. One
of my favorite portraits is in that encyclopedia: Danny John-Jules as Cat. I
think it's one of the best things I did; maybe it's because Cat is sooo cool!
HASSLEIN: Finally,
please tell our readers what other projects you are currently working on, and
what you have lined up for the near future.
CARBAJAL: Right
now, I'm working on two graphic novels for Checkmate Comics. One of them is
called Bud Colbert, Time Travelling Janitor,
a satirical sci-fi adventure, and I'm working on new Oz books based on the works of L. Frank Baum. I'm also designing t-shirts
for Rotten Cotton, which means that people are actually wearing my art.
Hopefully, sexy girls!
HASSLEIN: Where
can fans see your work?
Labels: artwork, Back to the Future, comics, James Bond, Pat Carbajal, Planet of the Apes
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