Buy This Book.

      If you are an Artist, Graphic Designer, Illlustrator, Web Designer and you depend on your Artwork to make a living, then you have to get this book; that is if you don't have it already.

      It is the Graphic Artists Guild Handbook, Pricing and Ethical Guidelines ($35); almost every page on it has something useful for you from a thourough explanation of Copyrights, how to register your work and how to take advantage of them by Licensing your work or how to potect yourself against Copyright Infringement. Pricing Guidelines to pretty much anything related to Graphic Design such as Corporate Logos, Advertising rates, Publishing rates, Packaging, Writing your own Contracts, etc.

      To me this is my new Bible, I've been using it for only a couple of months but it's been the best investment I've ever made and I highly recommend it. I can almost assure you it'll be the best 35 bucks you'll ever spend.

Sincerely,
Victor Sepulveda
www.VictorSepulveda.com

The Latin Airbrush Gang

      This February 2006, my friend Herbie from Airbrush Nation organized the grand opening of his shop in Long Beach, CA where all of us from the Latin Airbrush Artists Association got together to support him. Each one of us broght a piece of our most recent Artwork to have displayed for the day, we had food, beers and a great time; Like we always do.

Sepulveda on Lowrider Arte...Again.

That's right, Victor Sepulveda is now appearing on Lowrider Arte Magazine's issue of Feb-March 2006; Photographed last year at the Crewest Gallery Exhibit: "Boyz n the Hood" August 2005, You can read the article on the magazine or you can visit Lowrider Arte's page to check out more photos of the whole exhibit. On this photo I'm standing in front of one of the three Hoods I painted for the show. The Hoods were all salvaged and were painted at the 2005 Orange County Fair.

Sepulveda's Trip to Pachuca, MEJICO!!

I went to Pachuca, Hidalgo last November to teach an intensive Digital Illustration course at the University of CENHIES; I was only there for six days, but I had a Blast!, the students were great, they loved the course, and they actually were really good learning what I taught; We even partied together and I got to meet a lot of great places around the area.

I took this first photograph in downtown Pachuca the first day I was there, it's supposed to be a version of Big Ben in London, from what I learned the state of Higalgo's history has some English heritage that dates back to the days it was founded. Later on in the night I also got to visit some of the nightclubs there and I have to say, the girls are very friendly there!

Here I am at the computer lab where I was teaching the course. Yup, that's me in the middle being all serious and professional; As you can see, all of the students were very interested in learning and this was "not" propped up for the photo. Actually all the students were second and third year graphic design students, so they were very proficient in Photoshop and Illustrator , which made the course a lot easier for them, and to me because I didn't have to go over the basics of the programs.

The course was an intensive five days, four hours a day, and this on top of the classes the students were taking during the day so I have to congratulate them for making the sacrifice.
Something I was not expecting was the certificate we all got, me for teaching the course, and the students for finishing it.

One of the students happened to have his camera ready, so he took pictures of each of the students getting their own certificate, I only posted three of them though, or this would be a very big post if I put a photo of each one!, and besides, the pics below of the after graduation ceremony are a lot better!.















This is what happens when you get too exited about graduating from an intensive 20 hours in one week on top of regular classes course on Digital Illustration with Victor Sepulveda.
After the Certificate ceremony, we all got together to celebrate the end of the course, at first we had some Tacos de Asada with Guacamole, but after getting our fill, we moved on to the "beverages" .
Which comes to show the benefits of being the Teacher, look at the size of my bottle!, it's a "Sol Brava" and that thing has a kick! I had never heard of it, so the guys brought me a couple to "taste", and this on top of what I had been drinking before, so as you can see on the last pic, we ended up very "Happy".


    And here we are close to the end of our little celebration, these kids were great to hang around with, and eventhough I was only there for a few days I had an amazing time with them, I still keep in contact with some of them through the internet, and I've seen a couple of projects they've done using the techniques I showed them.


Real Del Monte
My cousin Osvaldo picked me up from Pachuca on a Saturday morning to take me on a road trip all day, we visited Real del Monte, Mineral del Chico, Omitlan, and a couple of other little towns that I don't remember the names; At the end of the day we drove back to Texcoco, which is only about an hour and a half from Pachuca.

This photo is a little town on the top of a hill, it is called Real del Monte, and it is located about half an hour from Pachuca. We had Breakfast there and walked around for a bit. Afterwards we drove to a couple of towns close by.

Omitlan
That little town down there is called Omitlan, Hidalgo. we stopped on the side of the road on a lookout point to take this photo and then drove dowh through the town. We drove through the little town and it was so quiet I think we encountered about four other cars. We did not plan to go there but from Real del Monte, we were supposed to go uphill to Mineral del Chico, instead we headed downhill and ended up in Omitlan, which was not time wasted... we were on a road trip after all.




This is at the top of the mountain in Mineral del Chico, it's a little town well hidden in the mountains and very cold. I love the picture of the left because of the winding road surrounded by trees, and more trees! and when we got to the top, we could appreciate the whole view, with no buildings anywhere near.

Here is the end of the trip, well, the Pachuca trip at least, I still traveled about two more months through the country afterwards, but I didn't go back to Pachuca. This is a picture I took from the Highway on our way to Texcoco, Mexico; That in the center is: La Piramide del Sol, the Sun Pyramid in Teotihuacan and on the right of it, La Piramide de la Luna.

Badass!

Here I am on the set of a movie where I've been working the past two weeks posing with one of the prop guns, What do you all think? I can't talk about what the movie is because I'm under a confidentiality agreement; I can't even show any pictures of what it is that I'm doing there, but I can say that the movie is gonna have guns, girls and blood!

Lowrider Art Show

Last year at the Las Vegas Super Show; Lowrider Arte Magazine had it's first Art Exhibit featuring the Artwork of over 30 different artists, Including Gerald Mendez, Fonzy, Jose Lopez and Victor Sepulveda; I was invited to go to the show but I couldn't make it because I was In Mexico teaching a course on Digital Illustration In Pachuca, But I really wanted to go because some of my posters were displayed along with two pairs of tennis shoes I painted for Pony; shown here in the pictures below. You can see the whole article on Lowrider Arte's issue of Dec 2005/Jan 2006 or you can read the article on the Lowrider Arte's website: Here

I have gotten a few e-mails and calls about these tennis shoes from people who want to know where or how to get them, these are the only two pairs that were painted by me, I painted them as a proposal for Pony to see if they wanted to merchandise them with my artwork but I haven't heard anything from them, and I'm not planning on painting them for individuals because I had a very hard time painting these.

I also appear on the Lowrider Arte Magazine issue of Feb/Mar 2006 on the article for the "Boyz on the Hood" Art Exhibit that took place at Crewest Gallery last year.

AIRBRUSH BASICS by Victor Sepulveda

I get a lot of emails from people who are interested in Airbrushing but have no idea how to get started, so I thought I'd write this post to answer some of those questions; This is a very simple explanation that tells you the basics, there is so much information on Airbrushing I could write a book about it, but for now I'll keep it simple.
The first thing I would recommend is finding out what type of Airbrushing Technique you will be doing; There are many Airbrushes out there, and although you can use any Airbrush for any type or technique (T-shirts, Automobile, Illustration) some are more appropiate for certain techniques, so you have to decide or have an idea of what it is you will be Airbrushing.
AIR SUPPLY
Another important item is the air supply, will you be using a CO2 tank or a compressor?, and if you will be using a compressor, is it an industrial compressor, or a silent compressor?; The CO2 tank is the quietest of all, it makes no noise because is filled with compressed air but you have to keep refilling it every time it goes empty, you can chose two different sizes: 20 lbs. or 50 lbs the bigger one lasts a lot longer, but is not as easy to carry around when you have to fill it.
Silent compressors are great to work with because they don't make a lot of noise, but are more expensive than regular compressors, so if you don't mind the noise and are on a budget you might be better off with a regular compressor.
PAINTS
There are a lot of different types of paints, some of them are already mixed to be used on the Airbrush, and some are not, there are Textile Paints for T-shirts, Urethanes for Automobile Airbrushing, Acrylics for Illustration on board or canvas; These different types of paint have different thickness and diffenent size pigments so you have to learn how to use them and at what air pressure each one works best; Also if they are not pre-mixed you have to learn how to mix them so you can Airbrush with them.

When you have an idea of what it is that you want regarding materials, then you can start by trying out the Airbrush to do some Artwork, most people have a hard time learning how to control the trigger so you can control the flow of the paint, and the thickness of the line; The pressure of the air is very important as well as what type of paints you'll be using; but when you do figure it out and feel comfortable with what you will be working with, then the only thing left is practice, and then more practice, and after that more practice.
Once you are familiar with the Airbrush and how it works, you would have to start focusing on what it is you want to Airbrush, if you want to paint motorcycles then you have to learn how to prepare the surface where you will be Airbrushing, figure out which paints to use, and how to prepare them, also how to protect the Artwork once it is finished; Some techniques are more elaborate than others, for example to Airbrush on a T-shirt all you have to do is place the shirt over a flat board to have it flat and Paint on it your image, and when you finish just heat press it for the Artwork to last longer. On Automobile Airbrushing however, you have to sand the surface you will be painting, and this has to be done after the paint job is finished (unless you have experience with body work and paint) then you Airbrush the Artwork and then have to shoot a Clear Coat to protect it. or have someone else do it.

Well I think I covered the basics, I don't know exactly what kind of experience you may have on your own Artwork, but the Airbrush is just another tool that you have to learn how to apply to your own skills and experience. Let me know if this helps you out, and I'll try to answer any other questions you have, feel free to ask. or leave a comment here and I'll read it.

Victor Sepulveda
www.victorsepulveda.com

Old Sepulveda Artwork Found

    I was doing a search for my name on the Internet today, as I often do just to see where my Artwork might show up, and to see if anyone is using any of my images without my knowledge, when I ran accross these pictures of an old mural I painted about six years ago for "Lethal 79 Tattoo Shop on Whittier Blvd. in East L.A. I didn't even take any good pictures of it back when I painted it, which actually made me glad I found them on the BrownPride.com website. I wrote to the photographer to ask him to put my name on them, I hope he updates the info on it.


    When I painted this mural, I was going to school for Graphic Design at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College LATTC, and I remember I was having a rough time with money, I painted the mural for a classmate who had just opened the shop, but I didn't get paid a lot and I wasn't too happy with the Artwork when I finished it, but now that I look at it after so long, it looks ok to me, not my best work but it works, and I actually noticed on the website that it has gotten very good reviews.