Gonna kick  this year off with more interviews and here's another great artist I have met online.  The guy has a very unique style, and he is one to keep and eye on for sure.  On to the interview!  Water introduce yourself!

Aight, my name is Cristian Santos aka walkonwater77 and I am a comic book artist from Inwood Heights New York.

What are your earliest memories of what first got you into art. What made you say...that is what I want to do!

I can pretty much always remember thinking I could draw.  Like as a kid I can remember drawing a lot of crappy stuff, but I didn't get into comics style art till i picked up my first comic.  I was about 11 and I remember getting a "Batman Detective" comic at a newsstand.  That was my first comic. I still actually have that comic somewhere.  Not to long after that I picked up my first "Uncanny X-men" and it was over for DC comics for me,"make mine marvel".  I think it was during Marc Silvestri's run a little before Jim Lee came on.  After that, I was hooked on comic book art.  At first I used to trace because the art was to complicated for my skill at the time.  Than I started just being able to recreate the art that I saw from scratch, and I got pretty good at that for a couple of years.  Than later in my mid teens something just clicked and i was able to draw from my head.  So that's basically when I first started thinking I can be a comic book artist...but it wasn't till 05 that I got really serious.  On January 12th of 05' I was shot in the head at pinpoint close range with a 9mm gun by a hitman.  Now a days I sport a permanent black eye on my right side and a crooked smile cus my lip is a little paralyzed and I have lost 75% of my vision in my right eye, but I was the lucky one.  My oldest and closest friend of over 20 years who was the intended target was killed  After that I realized that a comicbook artist is what God made me and I couldn't waste that anymore.

What is your background in art? (School, self taught etc.)

I am definitely a self taught artist. Alot of artist claim that, as to brag, but when I say I am a self taught artist its mostly as a regret and nothing I am proud of.  I regret being so much of a screw up in school as a kid that I couldn't get into any art schools.  It was straight to my local high school for me, and that didn't last to long.  My high school career lasted a whole 2 months.  Not to long ago I actually got accepted to "The Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art", but couldn't attend for personal reasons.

What video game systems do you have currently and what are you playing these days?

I been playing video games since Atari 2600, I had a Nintendo when it used to come with "Gyro" and "Duck Hunt".  Extra points goes out to whoever remembers Gyro!  These days I own a PS3.  I am a big fan of the "God of War" franchise,"Prince of Persia","Assassins Creed","Devil May Cry" The Drake games, Final Fantasies and of course the greatest video game franchise of all "Street Fighter"!  So you know I am playing "Super Street Fighter 4"...

How can an artist drastically change (improve) their style over a time...what steps would you recommend to them.

From here...

To Here...

Well for me I just felt at one point that if I was really going to do this thing, and be able to make a living off of my art I was going to have to drastically improve.  I wasted so much time in the streets and not practicing my craft, and I humbly realized that I just wasn't at the level of art I should have been at that point in my life.  So it was time to catch up!  At this time I bought a few sketch books filled them to capacity with non stop sketching. Revisited all my old influences, Jim lee, Mad, Bachalo, Portacio, Turner, and a lot of others that don't come to mind. I looked at tons of photos, from magazines and tons of different photographers to learn how to properly draw the human form and realistic looking backgrounds.  At this time I also taught myself to color using Photoshop. I did that by going through the countless tutorials you can find online and just picking up whatever I could by studying the work of all my favorite comic book colorist. I still feel like I got a whole lot of catching up to do, and that's why I am constantly doing something art related.  I have to spend no less than 6 hours a day working on my craft.

How long does it take you from start to finish to complete a project.

Example

Well one of the things I am constantly trying to improve is my speed.  The pencils don't really take me that long.  Well maybe sometimes the layouts can prove to be rather time consuming, but most of the times it just takes me like 2-3hrs from sketch to finished pencils.  Now when it comes to the digital stuff, that's where all the time goes for me. To color an illustration it takes me any where from 2 hours to 13-14 hours.  Digital inking same thing for me.  So the digital stuff can be very tedious and time consuming.

What are the long term goals for you as an artist. Next 3 years where would you like to be on your journey?

My goals for the next 3 years is to have my comic out there.  I have a comic called "Forever-Night" that deals with all the "occult/creatures of the night" type stuff.  It's like a cross between the "The Town/Takers" meets "Supernatural" meets "Underworld".  It's something I've been working on since I was like 13.  It's going to be real cool!  I am definitely not talking your little sisters vampires here, if you know what i mean...I plan on doing it as an on online comic with very limited runs of print collected after every arc.  Also I am right now in the process of starting "Delusions Of Grandeur Studios" with a kick ass team of artist.  I also have plans of starting an online comic company/universe.  I think there is so much awesome talent out there that for some reason the big companies ignore, and I definitely want to give these guys a home where they can come work.  So those are my goals for the next 3years, to have all that successfully up and running.

What would a dream project be like for you?


My original dream project/job was to have like a 15year run on Uncanny X-men. The way Claremont was there for all those years as a writer, I wanted a run like that as a penciller.  I wanted my name to be synonymous with X-men forever.  Now a days my dream project would be to bring something based on my characters to tv or the movies.  Whether it be an animated series, a movie, live action series, that's my dream right now.

What games are you most excited about that are not released yet?

Well I still haven't gotten the latest "Assassins creed"."Brotherhood" I think it's called.  I definitely need to get that. Also gotta get that new Naruto game,  I am kinda skeptical cus the last one sucked.  I wanna give that new Castlevania a shot too.  There are only 2 games that haven't been released yet that I am very excited and looking forward to.  The first is "Batman Arkham City" that first installment was a certified classic and I expect nothing less from the sequel.  The 2nd game I am super excited about to play is of course"Marvel vs Capcom 3: Fate of 2 Worlds".  Now I am not going to lie, I was never a fan of the original franchise when they started including the SF2 characters. For the fact that I thought it was a game for the lesser skilled traditional SF2 players.  All of a sudden these combos that would take you countless hours of playing time in SF2 to master you could do with just pressing 2 or 3 buttons at the same time. I thought that was super cheap and that always kept me from giving the game a serious chance, or giving any respect to the gamers who were good at the game.  But now it's a different time. No more arcades.  So I decided I am going to enjoy this installment for what it is, just awesome fun.

How would you survive a Zombie Apocalypse?

How would I survive a zombie apocalypse? Thats a tough one...I dont think I would.  I am not very fast anymore!

Thanks again Chris Great interview for sure!  Be sure to check out his gallery!

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