.jpg "Cristino-Paul Fuentes")
Bio
Cris was born in San Antonio, Texas. He is a graduating senior at Thomas Jefferson high school, where he received his certification in Adobe photoshop. Cris is a member of the VIsual Arts program at SAY Sí and an alumni of the Artpace teen council. Cris was introduced to Spider-Man figures as a toddler which branched out into other characters and their respective comics, leading him into the world of art and illustration. While being at SAY Sí has allowed Cris to take a bigger step into comicbook art, he also learned not to be bound to pre-made characters like Batman and Spider-Man. SAY Sí has allowed him to create his own universe of superheroes. Outside of art and illustration, Cris plays the electric guitar and plans on creating his own Metalcore EP inspired by bands like Bullet for My Valentine and Pierce the Veil. After high school graduation, Cris is going to attend the University of Texas at San Antonio with the plan of majoring in fine art. After graduating college, Cris hopes to pursue a career in the comicbook industry by illustrating and writing his own series of superhero books at Image Comics.
Artist Statement
The set of comic book trading cards I’ve created is intended to be the proper visualization of my own superheroes, supervillains, and anti-heroes. For all of my life, I have admired comic book characters like Batman, Spawn, and The Flash. Eventually, I came to the realization that I wanted to use my own creations to make a name for myself as a comic book artist rather than using other established properties from companies such as DC and Marvel comics. Design and story were a huge part in creating these characters. For example, one of my villains, KillVin was inspired by the unit of temperature measurement called kelvin. I decided to give him the ability to have both pyrokinesis and cryokinesis rather than having two characters with opposite powers such as existing comic book characters Mr. Freeze and Firefly. The design of his costume comes mostly from what a thermometer looks like, so I put one on his mask that fills up or goes down depending on which of his abilities he is using. All of the illustrations on the cards started with initial sketches done in pencil and were later traced over with pen, ink, and markers. The overall inspiration for deciding to create original characters came from my favorite artist, Todd McFarlane, and the success of his creator-owned character, Spawn.
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