Komiks Manila Artist Spotlight: Jonathan Ledesma

As I looked at yesterday’s post this morning, I thought to myself: this is the kind of post I wanted to avoid posting! (Except the one about Leinil Yu)

Several years ago, when I first tried out this blogging thing, I ran a blog that served as my online journal during those times.  But then it came to me later on that I can’t write personal details about my life for the entire universe to read (not that I attract a lot of readers, but you get the point). Other people can, but not me. I was and still am a very much private person.

So what transpired as I tried to keep updating the site was I ended up writing mostly about stupid things. Well not really stupid, but they were nothing very substantial, so I decided to stop blogging until I have better stories and articles to write. I eventually closed the site down as it got trashed by spammers by the hordes.

From now on I’ll try to feature an artist instead of putting up a new trailer, viral clips or even worse, meme’s. I won’t be spending a lot of these features on the past masters and veterans as a lot were already written about them in other blogs. I’d be only repeating what they already wrote, right? Instead, I’d rather focus my articles on the young bloods; the less popular bunch, but not a single ounce less as awesome.

I ran on several choices and at the end, finally picked this man:

The sindikato have put more funding to the now much bolder street kikil kids accessories.(Disgaea, J. Ledesma and bakanekonei)

Jonathan Ledesma –a friend and a co-worker in IAS and Komiks Manila. Lucky I didn’t have to look far!

Armed with a very powerful style infusing manga, western cartoons and highly detailed realistic rendering, Nats’ drawings are unlike no other. He owns every character he draws. May it be of any style and genre, our guy converts them into his own unique version.

“Rock na rock na ba’ng porma ko inay?” (Goblin Death Liege, J. Ledesma)

A prolific artist, he never stops drawing –Which is good for me because I get to see him do his stuff and every step of his tedious process to perfection. Perfection because on many occasions, he just snaps from out of nowhere and starts tearing up a near finished artwork. Dumbfounded, we ask why he would do it, he’ll say he missed out a detail that he wanted to show in the picture and he starts over again from scratch. The rest of us can only shrug our shoulders and go our own ways.

King Leonidas: “Look! Behind you! A giant!”  the Persians: “He-he… Lumang istrok na yan, boy!”(God of War Fan Art, J. Ledesma)

A veteran animator, he worked on many animated cartoons and specials for different animation studios in the country. But nowadays, he works as a penciler for Interactive Arts Services Manila Studio; there he draws kick ass storyboards, constantly laughs at my corny jokes, and gets infected by my LSS (last song syndrome). Recently I heard he’s become a major threat in our upcoming Wii Sports Bowling tournament!

“Palimos pooo…”(Trap Jaw Fan Art, J. Ledesma)

Jonathan Ledesma is known as the heart throb, Shun-008 in DeviantArt. And read his interview with www.RedFriction.com