The Shape of Water

I'm back!!!!! I mean, I never left, just been busy babies!

Here's a vintage inspired poster for the movie "The Shape of Water". Go see this movie, it's beautiful, sad, and moving. If you love Pan's Labyrinth, you'll fall in love with this new film by Guillermo De Toro.

I wanted to do something fun and reminiscent of retro film and dance posters. Trying to be as subtle and non descriptive as possible in the piece so i didn't draw spoilers.

I love the colors in the film and hope I did it justice here.

see you soonish and enjoy!!

"Licensed to Trek"

I'm Back!!!

New year, new art ... "Licensed to Trek" is my tribute to the Beastie Boys and Star Trek.

The Beastie Boys are my favorite hip hop group and 'Licensed to ill" is always on my phone. But what makes my love for the Beastie Boys even greater is how connected they are to Star Trek. From their Trek references in their songs to their music being used in the new Star Trek films, its just awesome. So I wanted to do a mashup to pay my respects to both the Beasties & Trek.

Heres my take on the Licensed to ill cover with the Enterprise. I wanted to paint this as close as I could to the original plane. I used different brushes in Photoshop with textures and imitating chrome was a challenge but fun. Added some nods to the album in the art for fun too.

Hope you all dig it!

"Licensed to Trek"
Beasite Boys & Star Trek Cover

"Licensed to ill"
Original Beastie Boys Cover

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr Willy Wonka

Back at it again with the blog post

Wanted to show you guys the 1st contribution I've made to the Creature Features art gallery show. This piece was for there Roald Dahl gallery show back in June 26th. I decided to draw the one terrifying scene from 1 of my favorite films, Charlie and the Chocolate factory. I will never forget the insane yet calm expression on Gene Wilder during the boat scene. painting this even gave me the chills, just something about his smile made me uneasy.

Hope you guys dig it, i had so much fun doing this for the show! Whomever bought the original also got a bonus surprise on the back as I painted an Oompa Loompa behind the frame.

The Sailors Way

custom carved "W" and acrylic Oompa Loompa!

Holy Update Batman!

I'm back!!!!

we'll i never really left, just been gratefully busy these last few months. Thanks to happenstance and a bit of good timing I've been doing some art for Creature Features art gallery in Burbank California. If you're in the area this month, check out their Godzilla themed art show, All Art Attack 2!

I've contributed two pieces of art, see below,  for their current show and one is actually painted! Been getting my hands dirty with acrylics and having a blast. happy with how these turned out and I hope to continue painting stuff for their future art shows, i really love that place. You can get limited edition prints of both as well originals only at their gallery so check them out this month!

Gojira - digital

Reptar!

one batch, two batch, penny and dime. - Daredevil season 2

I really loved season 2 of Daredevil on Netflix. Been meaning to draw something since I finished it last week and 1 scene has been stuck in the back of my mind.

Listening to the Punisher explain why he does what he does for his family as he bleed out was a great scene. I hope I was able to capture even a little of that awesomeness in the piece below.

Hello Internet!

Hi io9!

Today is an awesome day, I've been featured in io9! I can't say how happy I am and to hear all the nice feedback from everyone about my art. Since my website MrMauro.com can't handle the power of the internet, I'm going to post some of my more recent projects here.

for anyone interested in commissioning work, feel free to contact me @ MauroBalcazar@gmail.com


on to the work :-)

Here are 2 Mural I designed and painted for the Newark Venture Partners in downtown Newark NJ. I went with a very futuristic art deco meets tron feel. It took almost 3 solid weeks of non stop painting to get done.

I did a movie screening this Christmas and illustrated a poster for my favorite Christmas movie, Jingle all the way. Here's my design for the poster we gave away at the screening. also included is the invite i painted for the event.

                              

Now that the X-Files is back on screen, i thought its great timing to show you a design i illustrated for threadless' X-Files shirt contest. Based off of my favorite episode, "The Unnatural", here's Josh Exley in all his Baseball glory. watch the episode, it will make you cry, sorry not sorry. 

Heres a new take on the "Martian" illustration i did. It's based off of a scene in the book i quite liked with Watney trying to pose for a picture as the Fonz. Really liked the book and I hope it shows in this piece. 

lastly, some digital paintings i did on the ipad a while ago of Iron man. This was a fun way to destress after a long day. 

The Martian

I finished reading the book "The Martian" by Andy Weir and couldn't wait for the film to come out. in between the book and the movie, i did this piece inspired by the novel.

this piece is called "I am completely alone here", which is a heavy theme in the book and something that spoke to me so I wanted to capture that. digitally painted over pencils in paper.

go watch the movie, its just as good the book! :-)

"Shades" - an illustrated look at the famous glasses in pop culture history!

After many months penciling, inking, coloring and designing, my new book "Shades" is here!

"Shades" is an illustrative look at my favorite glasses throughout pop culture history. From the 1933 "Invisible Mans" Motorcycle glasses to the recent tortoiseshell frames worn by "Harry Hart" in the "Kingsmen, Shades captures the gnarliest glasses inspired by my love of films and tv!

As a young shy kid, it fascinated me how sunglasses made people appear so confident and nigh invulnerable. I wanted so badly to be as cool as the characters I saw on tv and felt that a pair of shades would do that for me. Thats what started me collecting all sorts of unique glasses, and as an illustrator, inspired me to draw what made these characters so special to me.

Thats always been the intention for “Shades”, to capture the confidence a pair
of glasses gives a person, the same way I saw these characters in this book as a
kid. I hope you all enjoy the art as much as I did drawing them, it was a lot of fun re visiting these great characters.

If you'd like to see the book in it's entirety, check out my online portfolio MrMauro.com

order your copy via Amazon!

stay Rad!

Mauro

Order a copy of Shades for yourself!

Time Lord Victorious - 10th Dr Who

I'm a Whovian...

Had you asked me what that was 3 or 4 years ago I'd shrug with confusion. But through the magic of Netflix I was able to watch the "Dr Who" series for the first time and loved it. I'm a sucker for what I call "sad Sci-fi", and the Dr is as sad as they come. Maybe thats why I like him so much, were all lonesome travelers out there in space and time looking for the adventure.

What better way to show my love of the series by making some fun art? I wanted to really capture what scared me the most from the 10th Drs' series from top to bottom.

1. Weeping Angels
2. Vashta Nerada
3. Cybermen
4. Daleks

I pondered over a proper layout for a long time and really liked this composition. Has a very rough Hourglass shape to it. Hope you all like it. 

Will be doing a traditional painting of the Dr next!

Retro Rock Em, Sock Em!

Every night in bed i stare at my Rock Em Sock Em robots in my bedroom. not having any real display room for it, it sits on top of a cabinet where I can perfectly see it every night.

I've always been in love with those robots, the designs so simple and beautiful and I wanted to somehow depict that. To show off the cool designs and the "gravitas" of this boxing bout, I wanted to spotlight them from below and show off the cool curves.

Hope you all love this one as much as I do! - M

La Evolucion - The Evolution

This is a piece that I did for an art show a few months ago. I only now realize that I never had a chance to upload it here. It's a very open ended piece and was done in watercolors and then colored a little digitally. I had no real theme when drawing this but wanted to show some sort of progressions with life and technology and music meet.

I hope you all like it

Can't Make the Scene, If You Don't Have the Green!!! - The Mask 20th Anniversary Print

I am Stanley Ipkiss...


well, I was him, for a very long time. When the Mask came out in July of 1994, Stanley Ipkiss was me in grammar school. I was shy, picked on, a hopeless romantic with a love for cartoons. Always quiet, I never got the girl but always desperately wanted to. At 10 years old I felt I was watching myself on screen, letting my imagination run wild as the Mask doing everything I've ever wanted, it was all there.

Afterward, I started wearing my own figurative "Mask" whenever I needed a boost of confidence as a kid. When it came to talking to girls, showing a little backbone or just being social, I'd change my personality and stopped being the quiet shy guy. The Mask encouraged me to snap out of my shyness and I like to think that even now I still wear that Mask from time to time.

It was only very recent that I realized the movie was approaching its 20th anniversary in July, which also happens to be my Birthday. So to celebrate these 2 awesome events I designed a print that captures everything about the movie that I love.

It took me a while to think of a great layout, but thankfully i was inspired to design a coco-bongo flyer for the club. I really like the art nouveau style i've seen online and wanted to try something different I thought would work.

Looking at the design, I hope "kid" me would've really gotten a kick of seeing this. I hope at some point I'll have an opportunity to meet Jim Carrey and give him a poster in person. He is still my hero....


The Mask turns 20 years old, I'm turning 30, and I'm happy to mark this milestone by celebrating a movie that encourage me to be different.

S'mokin'...

-Mauro

"I tried to think of the most harmless thing" Stay Puft - 55 Central Park West

I've always been in love with Ghostbusters. It's a part of my childhood and hard wired to my creativity. I recently found a stack of 17 x 6 watercolor board and really wanted to do something interesting with it. What better way then to utilize the length of the paper by drawing that infamous building where gozer the gozerian conquered (well, tried to anyway).

This was done using ink wash, watercolor, colored pencil, and micron pens. really happy the way this came out.

fun fact. on Saturday April 19th, I visit the Hook and ladder 8 firehouse and donated this piece to the fire fighters working that night. Was a really great moment and I couldn't be happier knowing the art is where it should be :-)

Happy New New Years!

Happy New Years!

Hope to give you all more art in the new year and push my creative boundaries as best as I can!

Have an awesome holiday everyone!

A Halloween that's out of this world...

a little Halloween Art Treat from Me to you :-) ... Happy Halloween Ghoulies!

"Trick or Treat Abduction"