Creating Terminators With Luis Diaz (Artist Sketch Cards for Terminator Salvation Trading Cards)

With the announcement of the TERMINATOR SALVATION Movie Trading Card series from Topps - came the introduction to Artist Sketch Cards. TRE had the opportunity to chat with one of the contributing artists; Luis Diaz [www] whose amazing artwork I'd come across on his DeviantArt.

[CLICK THRU to read the Q&A and for more peeks at glorious Terminator-artwork!]

TOYSREVIL: For the benefit of collectors (completists & hobbyists alike) - How many sketch cards did you do for this series, Luis? And how did the gig come about?

LUIS DIAZ: I usually do 50-100. I don't have time to really do more than that. I like to make each card as unique and full of detail as I can. So this time I did 100. I was asked by Jeff Zapata from Topps who I've worked with on Garbage Pail Kids and other projects.


TOYSREVIL: 100 uniquely drawn cards is quite an adventure, looking at the artwork posted here! What was the inspiration behind your sketches? What was the concept you had wanted to portray?

LUIS DIAZ: Well I wanted to be as creative as possible and bring as much of that love I've had for the prior movies and a little comic book love from the 90's when I was growing up into the mix. I did some in pen & ink and wash and others in watercolor and acrylic paint. If you get any of those you will literally feel the acrylic on your finger tips. Really thick. You generally shouldn't really touch art, but I think with trading cards you are allowed. Lol! I did some research and decided to try and go beyond the reference I got and did about a million screen captures of the trailers. I unfortunately got too excited I drew a few Bale humans by mistake which wasn't part of the contract and then I had to paint them over. So Skynet won on that one.


TOYSREVIL: Bale/Borg-hybrids would've been cool too LOL - And I like it that you did not just "restrict" yourself to the portrait-format of the cards, and explored the landscape-canvas (IMHO). What was the medium you used? And how long did they take? Are you happy with the result?

LUIS DIAZ: These cards were grey so I was kind of unsure what I was going to do with them when I first got them. They stayed in my studio for a few weeks just sitting there because I was working on some Sports cards for Topps. So I started doing some in pen & ink and wash and slowly migrated to painting in acrylic and watercolor. Some days I would be able to crank out 30 cards a day and other days would be like 5 so it depended on what I wanted to do to a particular group. I also used some stencil and airbrush to the mix. I haven't used airbrush for cards until this point.


LUIS DIAZ: I was pretty happy with the diverse look I did. With sketch cards you have the chance to try new things. If you don't personally I get really bored fast. So I colored some in a 70's Topps look with a little Basil Gogos touch and others a 90's Bisley inspiration. I think the pen & ink stuff is my favorite cause it just takes very little effort and it's something I just have been doing for so long. With the gray cards you really get nice ground to work with for both pen & ink and painting. You don't have to cover everything like you do with white, but again watercolors don't look as sharp so that's the only issue. Another one of my favorites was the stencil cards I did with the new robot in white. I think those are cool. There about 11 of those.


TOYSREVIL: Which Terminator movie from the past was your favourite? And Why?

LUIS DIAZ: Oh I loved them all. I know people hate the 3rd, but it had some really good storylines in there. The characters weren't as blockbuster like the first two with Cameron's, but it was the beginning some something. It just didn't appeal to some reason like the 2. I guess the female Terminator wasn't as cool as the liquid guy. The first one had it's really embarrassing moments though. When the Terminator (Arnold) was looking at himself in the mirror after getting some wounds from a previous battle there were really archaic special effects makeup and mannequins used in transition which were far from flawless. It was kind of silly, but you forgive that cause the movie was so damn good. The second was almost perfect. The kid was a little annoying, but you believed him. The effects and Arnold look great and the amount of destruction was sick. The third was more psychological. It just lack that personality, but it went in deeper. Arnold was starting to look more like the Governator at this point.


TOYSREVIL: Are you for Skynet? Or are you with the Resistance?

LUIS DIAZ: Oohhh that's a tough one. I just don't see any hope for the Resistance. I rarely like the good guys. I have a Decepticon air freshner in my car and I've always been rooting for the Bad Robots to take over so I would have to go for Skynet. Long live the Governator! I want to move to California one day BTW. Not cause of Arnold either. I'm not that crazy.

TOYSREVIL: Dude, you had me at "Decepticon air freshner" ~ LOL! Thanks for taking the time to answer this Q&A, Luis! And in closing, please do share with us: WHO IS LUIS DIAZ?

LUIS DIAZ: I'm an artist/designer and I've worked doing all sorts of work for a diverse market as an illustrator and graphic designer. What I think I'm most popular for has been the All-New Series Garbage Pail Kids by Topps. I started in 2003 with Series 3 and since then I did around 40 paintings for The Topps Company. I've worked on their Hollywood Zombies and Wacky Packages lines as well. Since last year though I have been doing sketch cards for their Sports line and recently their Terminator: Salvation trading cards. In between work for Topps I've worked as an illustrator for education newspapers and magazines, local papers and national papers like The Miami New Times & Village Voice.



[Fish Circus Album Cover]
LUIS DIAZ: I've worked doing storyboards for advertising agencies usually for car companies like Ford or Volkswagon. I've had work featured in several magazines as of late like Dangerous Ink Magazine and artists features in Corel Painter Magazine. Recently I've had work accepted in Ballistics Exposé 7 and previous years in Spectrum 13 and Ballistics Painter. I've done some advertising work for Bang Productions and appeared in IDW's Wynonna Earp trade paperback.


I've been part of local and national art shows including the "For Love of Munny" and "Osaka Popstar's Devil Dog Show" which happen to be painted vinyl figures of Garbage Pail Kids of the 1980's. I'm also going to have my first solo art show this October at the Harold Golen gallery.