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Artist Profile: Christofis Agathokleous


Cyprus Comic Con welcomes back sculpture artist Christofis Agathokleous to its Artists’ Alley.

Christofis was born in Limassol in 1990, more specifically the village of Agios Tychonas. He graduated from Linopetra high school, where subsequently he enlisted in the National Guard, and served on the Green Line. He studied Sociology at the School of Humanities at the University of Crete and subsequently completed his master’s degree in Criminology at the University of Nicosia. Christofis is an amateur sculptor that creates themed pieces inspired from myths, legends and pop-culture.

He began to develop his skills in sculpture art at a very young age, around the age of 5 or 6. Sculpting has been a recurring passion for Christofis, who continued to practice his art and improve upon it through the process of ‘trial and error’. His creations are primarily inspired by pop culture, including movies, comics, video games, television series, etc. You can see more of his creations on his Facebook page, titled ‘Concept sculpting and hand-shaping creations CY’.

He specialises in two techniques: the first one is traditional sculpting, however incorporating his own aesthetics that approximates the characters as they appear in the comics or cartoons, as opposed to a realistic approach of the human figure. The second technique is hand-shaping, a technique he developed with time and is still developing, which is the creation of figures without the use of armature or any tools other than the artist’s hands.

Today, Christofis lives in Limassol where he currently works and develops his passion for sculpture art. His dream is to spread this type of art throughout the island, as well as to collaborate with people who have developed their sculpture art into different forms and manifestations.

Artist Profile: Orpheus Ganitis (Gun-it-is)


CCC17 welcomes manga artist Orpheus Ganitis to its Artists’ Alley!

Orpheus Ganitis, aka Gun-it-is internationally and Doujima Gyro (銅島ジャイロ) in Japan, is a rookie manga artist, illustrator and story teller. Since April of 2017 he became a university student in one of the most historical art schools in Japan, the Seika University in Kyoto, the same university that created the International Manga Museum. His interest towards manga started with Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し) and since then, Orpheus became obsessed with Studio Ghibli films and anime.

From 5th grade, he has been drawing illustrations and character designs, as well as making his own stories.  In 2013, he move to Japan, following his dream. Studied Japanese for 2 years, passed the N2 level of JLPT (the second most difficult Japanese exam for foreigners) which was his ticket to continue his studies. He then studied manga from April of 2015 to March of 2017 in Osaka Communication Art college (OCA 大阪コミュニケーションアート専門学校). After joining a real manga drawing environment, he realised that his works were still a premature attempt at drawing manga and committed to work hard and improve!

You can follow Orpheus on Instagram and Facebook!

In terms of traditional media, he prefers to draw with pens, water colours, copic-markers and brush pens, while on PC, he uses a Wacom pen tablet. His software of choice, is Clip Studio Paint Pro and some times Photoshop. In order to improve his artwork, he has been taking classic art lessons and more recently, he stared researching other famous manga artists such as Murata Yusuke (村田雄介), Morita Masanori (森田まさのり) and Asano Iono (浅野いにお) from Japanese programs like Manben (漫勉) and Jump Ryu (ジャンプ流).

More recently, he presented his work in various magazines such as Jump +, Jump SQ, Young Jump, Weekly Magazine, Weekly Sunday (etc). He was praised by all editors, especially for his latest work, who found his passion and knowledge towards bird and insects very appealing. It was pointed out as unique and promising for future work. Leaving the good feedback aside, he believes that working at his university under manga artists such as Ouhinata Gou and Tanaka Keiichi, made him more modest, grounded and helped him realise how hard the road to success is. “A dream to live by, a dream to count on“.

Winter’s Verge are returning to CCC17!


Winter’s Verge are back at Cyprus Comic Con!

Following their appearance at CCC15, Winter’s Verge had a very busy 2016, with shows and festival appearances in Israel, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Greece and Romania in support of their album “IV”. The epic, melodic metal band have spent 2017 hard at work behind the scenes and are very happy to announce that they will be releasing their new EP at CCC ‘17!

Titled “The Wolves of Tiberon”, this concept work tells the tale of epic characters, huge battles, and a story that fits within the world created by Winter’s Verge that all of their music and works take place in. A new storyline within this immersive world will excite existing fans, and draw in new ones.

Tracklist:

  1. The Old Man Speaks (Narration)
  2. I am Wolf
  3. “Run” She Said (Narration)
  4. The Gift of a Curse
  5. Becoming a Man (Narration)
  6. The Pirate Hound
  7. The Halcyon (Narration)
  8. For the King
  9. A Wreath of Salt and Foam (Narration)
  10. The Wolves of Tiberon

 

Exclusive Live Performance @ CCC17!

Winter’s Verge will play on Saturday, 2nd September as part of the CCC After Party and will be performing “The Wolves of Tiberonin its entirety as part of a full set performance for Comic Con, featuring special guests and a stage show specifically produced for CCC!

The show will be a must-see for any fan of epic, melodic metal, and indeed anyone who loves good music, great performances and a fantasy universe worth anyone’s time digging into!

Until then, here are a couple of videos for you to watch and explore the beautiful fantasy world of Winter’s Verge:

 

 

Artist Profile: Christos Loizou


Today’s Featured Artist is the young illustrator Christos Loizou!

Christos is a 17 year-old artist that started drawing comics, cartoon and video game characters from a very young age. By the age of six, he started participating in different types of art classes and has won multiple competitions, including second place in a Pan-Hellenic competition as well as a scholarship to Studio 8, School of Art and Design.

He enjoys working with both traditional and digital media, but most of the time he prefers to use acrylic paint, inks and pencils. His inspiration most of the time comes from games such as Uncharted, Metal Gear Solid, Borderlands and a few other indie games that have great stories. His biggest aspiration is to work on an AAA game as a concept artist!

Visit Christos’ page on Facebook to see more images of his work!

 

Artist Profile: Christis Christoforou (Reddo)


Christis Christoforou, also known as Reddo, will be joining this year’s Artists Alley!

Christis is a self taught artist that learned how to draw by experimenting with various manga and anime styles, inspired by titles such as Yu-Gi-Oh!, Bleach and BAKUMAN. He gets inspired not only by the drawing skills of his favourite artists but also by the unique and cool stories that each respective manga artist produces. He says that stories and character developments inspire him the most, rather than the drawings themselves. In the past, he had worked on short films, animating, drawing key frames and other various things that require good hand-drawing skills. He also experimented with tattoo design and graffiti, although nowadays he avoids that kind of work.

To see more of Christis’ illustrations, visit his art page on Facebook!

He spent one and a half years in Japan, learning the language while simultaneously getting as much feedback as he could from magazine and manga professors, in order to improve on his mistakes or bad habits. More specifically, he showed his draft manga to a manga teacher in Japan and an editor of Shonen Jump SQ magazine and was praised for his unique characters that were layered with deep personalities, while his art style was indistinguishable from native Japanese manga artists. The results and feedback he received made him confident that he is on the right track when it comes to manga.

Currently Christis is working his way up in the social media since he believes it is the best source to get attention and publicity nowadays. Furthermore, he is working on a concept for a mobile game, as well as polishing his manga stories. His future goals include to become someone that can produce any kind of project successfully and to live a life where everything he does is equally enjoyable as it is challenging.