Growing up with cartoons and comics made me fall in love with drawing and creating stories. I'm mostly self-taught, although I took some painting classes when I was very young. Between my job as a software developer I am a freelance artist and photographer and always look for opportunities to meet people as passionate for art as me. Surrounding yourself with the right people is very important! Keep in mind big opportunities almost never happen because of hard work only, but having the luck of the right people seeing that work, so don't be afraid to put your work out there!

If you'd like to learn more about my journey and see my work, feel free to check out my timeline for more details!

Unfortunately not... Although I'd love to! I am aiming to attend the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City to further my education and develop my artistic skills like few of my idols and inspirational Artists.

An art style is a combination of all the things you like, your perception of the world and the influences that you've been absorbing, learning and incorporating to your art throughout the years and it's something that will come naturally to you with time if you just keep drawing. Try to figure out what kind of art you want to create, what are the things that you love, that spark your interest? Build the knowledge and fundamentals and look for different sources from which you can learn and feel inspired. Don't stress about it, your skills and also your taste will evolve and change constantly over time, so focus on creating and having fun. You'll eventually have a recognizable way of drawing and you'll be doing things in your own way, promise!

I think it's important for us artists to show ourselves and get our work out there. I know it can be scary, but it's essential in order to grow, connect and eventually, get contacted by clients. Some of the things I did when I was starting out were attending to cons as a regular visitor, giving my business card to all artists or publishers I came across, sending emails with my portfolio, going to workshops to learn and meet fellow artists, doing personal commissions and building my audience in different platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. Most importantly, practicing a lot at home and generating a big chunk of work I loved doing. Your real art style will find you when you're not looking for it anymore and you're focused on creating, practicing and getting better instead. As you get better, the people who your art resonates with will find you and will want to support/hire you, that's for sure!

My early inspirations were cartoons and comics. l used to watch Cartoon Network and Disney Pixar movies almost religiously so that had a huge influence on me when I was a child and was definitely the spark that started it all. Nowadays there're many artists that shaped my art style throughout the years as well, like Stan Lee, Gretel Lusky, ViziePop - Vivienne Medrano, Dana Terrace and Todd Nauck to name a few!

I honestly don't know if my art would fit a genre in particular; I feel my influences are all over the place, but I think what they have in common is many of the themes I'm interested in.

I found that the best way to overcome art blocks for me is simply looking at photos, using references and copying what I see around me. That way I'm not putting too much pressure on my mind or forcing myself to come up with great ideas, but I'm still exercising and learning! Most of the time the idea of creating and trying/incorporating something new is what keeps me motivated to pick up my pencil and draw.

Black Viper is the artist alias I chose to represent me and the concept I want each piece of art I create to relate back to. Black Viper is about materializing random thoughts you have in the middle of the night into a tangible piece of art. It's about feeling joy, or love, or sadness so strong and feeling like you could explode but allowing it to flow from your head to your hands to a canvas.

The name BLACK VIPER is a reminder of the transformative power within all of us, where each creation is born from something old, shed away, and reborn with renewed purpose. BLACK VIPER is both the force that creates and the one that destroys—an eternal cycle that fuels the artist’s evolution and inspires others to embrace their own transformations.