Mang Kepweng Returns

Mang Kepweng was a gag comic strip in the 1970s to 1980s about a village healer and his quirky patients, created by Al Magat.
The success of the comics led to a series of movie adaptations with one of Philippine cinema's great funnymen, Chiquito in the title role.

The movie versions incorporated local folklore's mythical staples like diwatas, kapres, manananggals and aswang and a healer using dark arts or black magic as an arch-nemesis for Mang Kepweng.

The new movie, "Mang Kepweng Returns", shown last January of this year (2017) continues the Chiquito series, now with Mang Kepweng's son played by Vhong Navarro taking over as healer after inheriting his father's magical bandana, with my favorite model turned actress, Kim Domingo as his love interest.This sequel plays out as much as a continuation and tribute to the series for the older audiences and as an update of the franchise for new and younger viewers.

Mang Kepweng Returns marks the director and co-writer, Giuseppe Bede Sampedro's debut into the mainstream film industry after a successful string of indie movie projects.
Direk Giuseppe, or "GB" (read GeeBee) as he is known to friends and in the showbiz industry was a high school and college batchmate of mine who I only got back in touch with after a recent Letran Homecoming event. He contacted me to draw up a couple of sequential pages to tell a comic book - type origin story of the old movie version of Mang Kepweng.

The pages were to be used to introduce new audiences to the concept of the movie as an adaptation of a comic book but in the same "universe" used in the old movie series rather than the original gag strip so we could use Chiquito's more familiar likeness in the drawings and give the old followers of the cinematic version a sense of nostalgia and to show that the new movie is a continuation and not a complete reboot.

I dug up whatever images of the original comic strip are available online to get in the groove of the humor before I was handed the script for the pages that I was going to draw beforehand, and these are some that I found:

   I went for a more loose drawing style than I usually do when I draw comics so that the pages still pull off a cartoony look that won't look old but also not too modern. Direk GB also wanted to go for earthy colors to Mang Kepweng's costume to keep the old aesthetic of the original comic instead of the trademark white shirt with red polka dots used by Chiquito while still keeping to his unmistakably distinct likeness.

Here's another image that was done for promotional materials.

This is a practice portrait of Vhong Navarro as the new Mang Kepweng.

Here's the trailer showing bits of my drawings:

Trying out new stuff: Typography

So, I've been living in a t-shirt printing shop for the past 7 or so months now.
It's part of an arrangement that had to be made to keep a roof above my head after I had to give up an apartment I couldn't afford to lease on my own after my nephew and niece migrated to the U.S.A. on my brother's petition.
The T-shirt printing gig is part of a business of a couple of friends of mine who offered a room in the shop as my new shelter with my services as an artist/designer in return.
It's a really good deal and not as bad as it may sound to some if you think about the state of artists in general.

I've learned a lot of new stuff that I can use to pad my humble portfolio and I've gotten an interest in something I only used to enjoy seeing in vintage poster designs or books and also a bit sparingly, on shirts - typography.

It seems to be getting more attention of late, hasn't it? because there more and more of it in books and advertising materials.

I started out with a simple typographic design for a t-shirt print that a friend asked me for. It was a short passage from the Christian bible, so adding some elements to the text and also adding slight changes to font style and size was a natural choice to make it more aesthetic and dynamic. I'm glad this first time was met with more approval than I expected.

 It was printed on a white shirt in plain blue ink without the stroke and borders as in the photo, and worked quite well.

I did a couple more designs for the same friend/client for shirts with some quotes from a famous local voice actor and businessman. The shirts were meant to be some sort of merchandise for this man's motivational speaking engagements which is why his quotes were used. I don't think it sold well enough for marketing factors but I still like what I came up with.

These are the actual vinyl-printed shirts as sold in a Christmas Bazaar at the Quezon City Circle.

Birthday portrait for my bestfriend

Wow!
It sure has been quite a while since I posted
anything here.
There is so much to catch up to.
This portrait for my girl bestfriend was done
as a gift for her birthday LAST YEAR. Yeah,
post is damn late but the present was done just
in time and I was able to give it on the night
before.
Friends are a blessing and having a best friend
from the opposite gender, one who understands
you on a deeper, more personal level than
all your other friends is special and keeps
a person even more centered because you get
support and advice from their perspective.
I don't get to see her much these days and I do
make myself scarce on purpose, of course,
because she is a married woman with kids now
but like true friends we're always just one
call away if need be.