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Artist Profile: Elpida Kyriakou (Elysper)

11/08/2017 by

Illustrator and concept artist Elpida Kyriakou is returning to CCC17’s Artists’ Alley!

Elpida (aka Elysper), is a 20-year-old primarily self-taught artist from Limassol. She enjoys working with traditional and digital media just the same and likes to practice both. She can transition from inks and pencils on paper, to colored illustrations or even pixel art in programs like Photoshop. Her inspiration is mostly drawn from the Eastern Asian and Western culture, as well as comics and her aim is to one day create a comic that combines both styles.

She is currently working as a freelance illustrator and concept artist, doing private commissions and working as a character or environment artist in video games like Elysian Shadows. She has also experimented in sculpting, and creating small handcrafts such as jewelry. Meanwhile, she just began her studies in a 3-D Animation and Modeling degree in the University of Hertfordshire, where she has been experimenting within the 3-D world and the opportunities it provides to create new exciting assets, as well as improving her 2-D drawing skills. Her goal, other than creating a unique story and comic, is to be a part of the gaming or movie industry as an aspiring concept artist!

Visit Elpida’s page on Facebook to see more of her work!

Artist Profile: Flor Theodosiou

10/08/2017 by

Cyprus Comic Con welcomes Flor Theodosiou (aka By Trial and Error) to its Artists’ Alley!

Flor is 20 years old, born to a Romanian mother and a Cypriot father, and raised in Limassol. Her creative practice includes mainly illustrating at the moment, something which is evident in almost all of her most recent works, although when she first picked up a marker as an infant, her artistic vision was to become a fine artist, and scribble masterpieces all over her mother’s curtains.

Something that never really changed is her preference to work traditionally the majority of the time, but she feels that aspects of her drawing style are consistently influenced by digital artworks that she sees, such as her line-work and inking—she finds fluid linear styles and crisp designs the most rewarding and immersive to work with. For this reason, while she enjoys experimenting with different media and techniques in order to discover new effects that she can marry together, she often tends to lean more towards materials like markers, gel pens and predominantly ink, due to the continuity and cleanness of the lines when drawn using liquid. She says that ink can be a little unpredictable at times and has a mind of its own, but she truly believes that they have slowly forged a stubborn friendship that can turn accidental spills into something that looks almost intentional!

To see more of Flor’s illustrations, visit her Facebook page.

Furthermore, putting aside the experimental illustrations and video-game/movie inspired drawings, she enjoys narratives, fairy tales and storytelling. She likes symbolic and metaphorical themes or elements in life, and therefore likes to incorporate that in her own stories—sometimes in quite a hyperbolic and gibberish way that’s delivered in figurative techniques which appear very literal. In fact, she very often catches herself strategizing with her colour choices to carry the plot of whatever story she is trying to tell.

At the moment, Flor is working on completing her studies at a local college and getting an HND diploma in the Animation pathway. She has been accepted into a Classical Animation course in Vancouver, along with her partner, Fares Zoghlami, AKA Approtis- and is hoping to attend the course with him next year. Together with her partner, Flor is currently working on creating some art pieces for Comic Con, a combination of Superhero/ Fantasy themes, and they feel that it will be a learning experience to help each other with their art, as they are both proficient in different aspects of it, even though they primarily stick to inks. They had collaborated together on past pieces, but this will be the first time that it’ll be intended to look professional, and to be sold. They are also planning to create a short comic in the future, and hopefully a graphic novel at some point, of a short story they have been writing and illustrating.

Artist Profile: Fares Zoghlami

10/08/2017 by

CCC17 welcomes back talented illustrator Fares Zoghlami to its Artists’ Alley!

Fares is a 20-year-old artist, half Tunisian, half British and has been living in Cyprus for the last three years. He is 6’4 (the average height for most Video Game RPG Protagonists), yet still unable to reach the hoop while playing basketball. He is fluent in British, American and Australian English, and dabbles in a bit of his ancestor’s Arabic tongue. He claims to be an avid film buff and a huge fan of Sci-Fi, Ancient Gods, and the good old Rom-Coms, while he spends most of his free time watching any animation he can find, because he has a profound love and appreciation for the moving arts. One of his recent guilty pleasures has been watching every single DC-Animated film released so far, because who doesn’t love seeing Batman punch Superman multiple times?

He has been drawing since a very young age, with the help of his architect dad and because of his ever-present influence, he has adopted a unique appreciation towards incredibly detailed line work. Fares has been drawing semi-professionally for the last couple of years, working on covers, commissions and illustrations, and so far through all of that, he observes that his style hasn’t changed all that much, except that his technique and proficiency with the materials he uses has increased dramatically! His earlier works from last year were mainly focused on figures and compositional pieces, which at the time he found challenging, but now, it’s just a matter of carefully planning it out. Recently however, he discovered his love for perspective drawings and of scenic and urban visuals (following in his father’s footsteps), and has tried his best to adapt his personal style to fit the new technique, and so far, he is extremely thrilled in how it is turning out!

Visit Fares’ Facebook page for more samples of his illustrations!

Fares recently attended a foundation course in art during which he learnt a new digital techniques which he tried to apply in unison with his existing work in order to make it pop with colour, as he realises that his work sometimes tends to be flat and monochrome. After this Summer finishes, Fares and his partner have both been accepted into the Vancouver Film School’s Animation course, which will hopefully be a fantastic learning experience for both, aiding them on their journey to becoming professionals in the field of illustration and animation.

Having attended the last couple Cyprus Comic Cons as an artist, Fares says they were some of the best days of his artistic adventure, meeting new people and making friends, as well as getting critical input on his art from other attendees and visitors.

 

Special Guest: Rumen Petkov

09/08/2017 by

Cyprus Comic Con has the honour of announcing Rumen Petkov, animator and director of Cartoon Network’s Johnny Bravo and Dexter’s Laboratory, as one of our Special Guests for CCC17!

 

Early Comics & Animation

Rumen Petkov was born in Sofia, Bulgaria in 1948. After graduating from Sofia Art School in 1967, he began his career as an animation director at the Boyana Animation Studio. He also obtained a Masters of Literature from the University of Sofia in 1978. He became one of the main contributors to Bulgarian comics magazine DUGA (“Rainbow” 1979-1992), which was loved by several generations of Bulgarian children. His most famous comic creations are the characters “Choko” and “Boko” from the popular 70’s and 80’s cartoon ‘The Adventures of Choco the Stork and Boko the Frog‘. While working at the Boyana Animation Studio, Petkov directed over fifty short animation films, including ‘Friends of Gosho the Elephant‘ (1968), as well as the first Bulgarian full-length animated movie, titled ‘The Treasure Planet‘ (1982).

He was awarded the Grand Prize at the Ottawa Animation Festival and the Palme d’Or at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival for the short film, ‘Marriage‘ (1985). His film, ‘Monkeys‘ (1981) was named one of the ten best animated films in the world at the Hiroshima Festival in Japan.

The Adventures of Choco the Stork and Boko the Frog
The Adventures of Choco the Stork and Boko the Frog
The Treasure Planet

Cartoon Network & Other Popular Animated Series

Petkov continued to direct films in Bulgaria up until 1990 when the Animation Film Studio ‘Sofia’ closed down. This caused him to move to Los Angeles with  his family, in search for new opportunities. He began working for a small studio called ‘Animation Cottage’ focusing on 30-minute films for ABC television and subsequently worked for Warner Brothers, Universal and Klasky Csupo. In recent years, he worked as a writer, storyboard artist, animation director and director on episodes of Cartoon Network‘s popular animated series ‘Johnny Bravo‘, ‘Dexter’s Laboratory‘, ‘Cow and Chicken‘ and ‘I Am Weasel‘.

Furthermore, he helped revive classic characters such as Tom and Jerry in the animated film ‘Tom and Jerry Blast Off to Mars!‘ (2005) for which he was an animator and timing director, as well as Woody Woodpecker, in Universal Cartoon Studios‘ ‘The New Woody Woodpecker Show‘ (1999-2002). He was also one of the artists for Nickelodeon‘s popular animated series ‘Rugrats‘.

He has said about animation: “Animation will never die because it’s like music, because it’s like running with the wind, because it’s funny.”

Dexter’s Laboratory
Johnny Bravo
Dexter’s Laboratory
Johnny Bravo
Cow and Chicken
I am Weasel

Painting & Illustration

Other than animation, Petkov enjoyed working in graphic design and illustration, but his true passion had always been painting. His work has been presented at national exhibitions in Sofia and at the Biennale in Luca, Italy.

Visit this page for samples of his traditional art.

 

Artist Profile: Gregory Grozos

08/08/2017 by

Gregory Grozos is returning to our Artists’ Alley with his magical miniature worlds!

Gregory Grozos is a miniature artist and calls his project “Miniature Worlds” because that is exactly what he makes, tiny miniature worlds, either as jewelry or individual works of art. He tries to make every piece an entire miniature closed world, with tiny people and complete, tiny scenes inside.

Most of Gregory’s themes belong to the steampunk and fantasy genres, with entire tiny factories making imaginary machines and mechanical robots, floating cities and crazy inventors.

Visit Gregory’s page on Facebook to see more of his creations!