Excited About The Afterlife?

If the afterlife is anything like it’s portrayed in Disney/Pixar’s Coco, I can’t wait! Scratch that. I can wait. I can wait a long time. But if it’s truly as colorful and full of adventure as the Land of the Dead in the movie, I’m gonna have a blast when I get there.

What all this indicates is that, yes, I’ve rewatched Coco and am just as inspired by the art direction, animation, and storytelling this sixth or seventh time through as I was the first time. And so, for this week’s project — a rushed project, honestly, because we’re on a tight deadline for a different project — I grabbed my colored pencils from the art shelves, dusted them off, and sketched out a quick Hector Rivera.

“Remember me…”

I don’t use colored pencil often. But I get a little practice in now and again. With the Hector Rivera sketch, it was all about blending colors with layers, blending with solvent, and blending with the burnishing method.

I wonder if we’ll get to keep practicing our art in the afterlife. In Coco they do. Coco’s depiction of the afterlife features music, art, dancing, and celebrations. It’s like a never-ending street fair or arts festival. Hector still plays his guitar. Frida Kahlo goes absolutely bonkers with performance art. Who wouldn’t want to hang out there for eternity?

Downside? It seems like most folks still worship celebrities over there. And, as in the land of the living, some of the celebrities can be real jerks. Not to mention you still have to wait in lines in the afterlife. Nobody figured out a way to fix that yet? Also, you walk around as a bone-rattling skeleton. I don’t blow through four hundred dollars worth of face cream a month to wait around in lines to meet arrogant c-listers without my baby-soft skin on for the rest of forever. So maybe I’ll pump the brakes on this afterlife thing until they work out all the kinks.

“…each time you hear a sad guitar…”

In the meantime, I can still work on my art and try to get better. If you wanna see me do that, you can watch our Hector Rivera/colored pencil process video below.