August Guest – Ron Salas!

1) What was your first published work?
First published work was a pin-up in The Black Coat #4. Black Coat is a period adventure comic co-created and drawn by Francesco Francavilla.

2) Who or what inspires you?
Pretty much everything I see visually inspires me. It used to be just comic art but as I grow older that has expanded to films, animation, classical art, photography, etc. At the moment, I am devouring the art of Gene Colan, an artist I had been a big fan of since I was a kid but had lost touch with as I got older. I'm sure it'll be something and/or someone else next month.

3) What would be your dream job to illustrate?
Most likely Batman. He's been my #1 hero for as long as I can remember and I would love to contribute to that legacy in a meaningful way.

4) Tell us a bit about the illustration you've sent?
This piece was done as a commission. This shows my approach to high-contrast black and white. I really wanted to showcase movement and power in this piece. As a result, I filled it with special effects like streams of lightning along with lots of secondary movement like the streaming cape, hair, and the flying rubble. I also used an inverted triangle composition to give it a certain instability.

5) What can we expect to see from you next (what are you working on)?
Well, I'm still contributing to the group blog, Comic Twart. Also, I am working on a couple of creator-owned projects that I can probably talk more about in the near future. One is for print and the other for web.

6) If you hadn't become an artist what do you think you'd have ended up doing?
I am not sure. I've tried a bunch of other jobs (customer service, shipping, retail, telemarketing, web design) before getting work in art so I probably could've done anything.

7) Where can we see more of your work (web links)?
You can see more of my art at www.ronsalas.com and www.comictwart.com. I sometimes post sketches on my twitter feed at twitter.com/ronsalas