Utada Vector Art

I saw a cute picture of Utada Hikaru, that I thought would be fun to try and vectorize to see if my ability had not deteriorated too badly. It came out all right.

Tokyopop Alumni Set 4

In the rare instances of free time, I managed to squeak out a bit more of my former co-worker portraits…

This is Bobo, aka Bowen Park, the former production artist also known as Postino, the world’s first Post-It Mutant. He was able to create artistic masterpieces with post-its. All the while able to sing songs and ask me to ‘take it away’, when I did NOT know what the hell he was singing. And he was somewhat deaf, after asking “Huh? What?” to everything I would say… He went on to work in his parents’ “import/export” biz, which has mafia written all over it. But whatevers. Haven’t heard from Bobo since he left, but sure he’s misquoting songs somewhere or another.

This is Candice Uyloan… She’s at Viz Media now, and she’s Candilicious. Very Candilicious. She’d be up in the gym, just working on her fitness. He’s her witness. That’s all I have to say about that.

Carol Fox, a big fan of Sgt. Frog. She went to Tpop, to Viz… And then she went abroad for vacation. We collaborated to make an awesome “Witch of the Red Pooh” logo. And it was great seeing her again in SF when I went to visit Viz’s offices…

Jessica Chavez is one of the peeps that hung out with my supposed BFF John Lo, aka Mr. Phone, aka JLowah. I think she shared the same opinion of him that I did (I hate him and I want him to die). One of my favorite stories he told me about her was that she whooped him in ping pong, and I believe she actually said what I had in the word balloons to him. She’s good peeps.

Jennifer Asuka Mori Tun, is one of my favorite people that I worked with TPop. She loves Miyavi, so I put him in the background. And she cos-played once as Dark Haruko from FLCL. The pic was interesting so I drew her as that.

Elain Chang is my favorite MISSING cover girl. She and I had many conversations, but I never felt the same way about her as I felt for Esther Kim. I hate Esther Kim. I want her to get hurt, like that time she chokeslammed me. That was uncalled for. But I like Elain. I like her a lot. Maybe the reason we got along so well, was because she wasn’t like Esther Kim. And she never chokeslammed me. One of these days, I’m going to get her back for that…

Eric Pineda was one of my favorite fellow retouchers. As another illustrator, he inspired me to go on to work on things that I never thought I’d be able to. We’ll have different opinions from time to time, but he’s still one of my favorites, and still I’d recommend him in my top 5 of any illustrators that I know. He rocks the casbah. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Gavin Highlight and I used to ride the bus together to get to and from TPop when I wasn’t driving. He wrote a comic called, “Motor City” which he managed to get published and reviewed. It was a good book, and I’d love to be able to work with him somewhere down the line, creating some good stories. I did some artwork for flyers for his brother promoting “Tune In Tokyo”, which I’ve posted before. And most of the girls around him are from the artwork I did for the flyers.

Mike Estacio was also known as Gundam Mike and Toshi. He and I shared many a wrestling joke, and we still wonder why the Macho Man Randy Savage isn’t wrestling anywhere anymores. And why Heero Yuy always told his closer friends that he wanted to kill them all the time. And why the God Gundam in G-Gundam’s main attack was the perverse-sounding “Burning Finger.”

This is Grace Sun. I didn’t actually know Grace all that well when I worked with her at Tpop. But I always heard nice things about her, and when I set out to draw her pix, I just pilfered images from her facebook profile that I thought would be fun to draw. And she came out looking super sexy. Because I picked the super sexy images to draw from… Because I’m evil. I got to her know her afterwards, at the occasional TPop get together, and she’s a great person. So I hope these pix do her justice.

Courtney Geter and I love the cartoon Metalocalypse. Daily Dethklok quotes were the thing with him and I. AND we even attended the Dethklok concert when they hit up LA together. It was METAL! They make everything METAL. Blacker than the blackest black, times infinity. But he’s an excellent photographer. I only wish he took a picture of me being evil so I can also post it up and relish in my evilness.

Tim Beedle was one of my first friends working at Tokyopop. I had the fortune of distracting him in the middle of his work many a time, and working with him on many of his titles when I started out. One of my better friends in the biz. And yes, I had the fortune to letter that issue of Battle Royale where Keith Giffen exchanged the original japanese sound FX for the dialogue, “Shot the kitty.” Which became a running gag in the office with me and some of the peeps for quite a while.

Paul Morrissey was another one of the first friends I made at Tokyopop. His attention to detail and work ethic often inspired me to greater things. And now we work together on projects for BOOM! comics. I guess there’s something to be said for building some sort of reputation… LOL.

This is Yoohae Yang! One of my favorite letterers that I had the fortune to show the ropes. We hung out and had a lot of fun. She went on to get married and onto better things. She’s a great karaoke singer. She can do a brilliant rendition of Hikaru Utada’s song “First Love” that made John Lo bust out in tears, openly weeping.