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The artist
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The artist
Alejandro Gutiérrez lives in México City and works as a free lance illustrator and comics artist.
BackgroundProfessional education: A degree in Graphic Design at Simón Bolivar University, México City. (1985-1989).
Traditional art training: Graphite and colored pencils, markers, Acrylics, oils, airbrush, watercolor and pastels. (1984 to date).
Digital training: Photoshop, Painter, Illustrator, Strata, Bryce for illustration work; Quarkxpress, Indesign for Desktop publishing; Dreamweaver for web design. Macintosh environment. (1994 to date).
At his graphic Design studies, Alejandro used the illustration lessons to develop his skills in main drawing techniques, as graphite and color pencils, felt tip markers, pastels, oils and specially the airbrush, an instrument that was preferred to obtain realistic finishes and bright smooth colors.
His first published works were illustrations for Playboy magazine -Mexican edition-, and were achieved applying mixed media: acrylics with airbrush, color pencils and oil pastels; oils with airbrush (with a proper mask to avoid those nasty fumes) and so on. The drawback of the time was the lack of quality of the final printed images. The scanning process always killed most of the color quality of the artwork, that never looked right.
Later, when working at an advertising agency, Alejandro made contact with Macintosh computers, and immediately understood the creative possibilities of the digital media. The shortcomings of the traditional media now could be avoided. Those first images rendered in Photoshop could be handled more properly by the desktop publishing and printing houses, as the control of the color, hue and shade values were more accurate in the final stages of the process.
Then the first Mac came to Alejandro's studio. A Power Mac 6100, with 16Mb of RAM and a 500 MB hard disk... Those were heroic days, with Photoshop 2.5 with no layers yet. But now it was possible to render the first digital illustrations and also the first comics pages in color, working in the nights after work. The experience obtained during the traditional media days, made the transition to digital easier and straightforward.
Alejandro made many short comics stories for Gallito Comics, a Mexican indie magazine, which also published works of other mexican creators like Clément, Quintero, Peláez, and also many South American end European ones, like Trillo, Giménez, Meglia and Chichoni. In the following years, This magazine published plenty of Alejandro's digital paintings as covers.
After working for some other local clients, a door in the international market was open. Radio Comix, an indie comics publisher from Texas reprinted Alejandro's comics in their Milk! anthology. Two of the digital color illustrations were used as covers too.
Some time later, -now with a G4 Mac- and with the help of his online gallery, Alejandro contacted the owner of Maidenhead Miniatures, an Australian company that sells Fantasy metal figures for wargames and collectors. Then surged the opportunity to do a particular army directly from Alejandro's concept drawings. So the Feral Elves were born.
In more recent times, Alejandro has done works for local clients like Editorial Santillana, Generación cultural magazine, Mexican science fiction author Ricardo Soberanes, rock bands La Vieja Inés and Real de Catorce, among others.
Clients and publications
Comic book/magazine Covers:
Gallito Comics anthology from México (1995-2000)
Comunicando-Graficando anthology from México (1997)
Acme comics anthology from Colombia (1997)
Milk! anthology from United States (2002)
Generación cultural magazine from México (2003)
Concept design:
Character & creature design for Australian company Maidenhead Miniatures (2003-2005)
Character & vehicle design for Mexican CD ROM Novel Lethal Justice (2003-2006)
Comics:
Golem anthology from México (1992)
Comunicando-graficando anthology from México (1996-1999)
Gallito Comics anthology from México (1994-2000)
Milk! anthology from Radio Comix United States (1998-2003)
Beamable.com online comics for PDAs (2003-2004)
Interior illustration / pinups:
Article illustrations and section vignetes for Playboy -Mexican edition- (1989-1990)
Section pinups for Mexican magazine El Huevo (1998-2000)
Article illustrations for Mexican anthology Gallito Comics (1994-2000)
Text illustrations for Mexican CD ROM Novel Lethal Justice (2003-2006)
Web site illustrations for Australian company Maidenhead Miniatures (2003-2005)
All artwork contained here is protected by international copyright Laws. ©1997-2007 Alejandro Gutiérrez Franco. The use of any image without permission is forbidden.Contact: alex-peyotero@excite.com
