3DTotal: Where do you draw your inspiration from for your fictional characters?
Coro: I draw inspiration from all over the place. I live in downtown S.F., and am surrounded by very colourful people. I also draw from friends, family and myself. I am real big on working things from my life into my work - even if it’s in small, obscure ways.

3DTotal: Can you give us an example of fitting your daily life into one of your works?
Coro: I have been working on a little personal project for a while, about the homeless. I have plenty of people that I draw inspiration from daily. This one features a lady who walks around asking for 5 cents all the time. I mean, every time you see her, even if she just asked you, she’ll ask. So in this, I have her walking with her friend.

    
3DTotal: Throughout your life, is there one particular moment, or event, that really boosted things for you and your career?
Coro: Not really. I think of my career as a series of small victories. I don’t think of myself as especially talented or lucky. I worked my way up from the very bottom. There are guys half my age who paint circles around me. But I’m consistent, and I’ll work my ass off. And that’s what’s got me to a point where I can do this stuff professionally. I think if you live it, and you aren’t a pompous asshole about it, people will respect that, and doors will open up. As long as you don’t screw it up, you are up another rung of the ladder. That’s the industry in a nutshell.

3DTotal: And the rung you are on now, is it the top of your ladder or do you have plans to go higher?
Coro: Well ultimately, I’d love to be handed a huge pile of money and retire, but since the reality is that there have been maybe like 5 guys who have actually retired off doing concept art, I’d like to eventually transition myself into doing more fine art related stuff. Not yet of course, because I still very much like drawing robots and monsters! Whilst I do love the challenge of commercial art, it would be nice to make work that I made all the decisions on. I love to oil paint, so I’m hoping I can do that more exclusively one of these days.
    
    3DTotal: What current preferences do you have for mediums, and why?
Coro: I do about 90% of my commercial stuff digitally. I use Photoshop almost exclusively, but I also use 3DS Max and After Effects as well, from time to time. A lot of the time I will start a drawing analogue in pencil, scan it, and paint on top of it. I still feel like I can design better on paper, but you can’t beat digital for “workability”, and on the fly changes. I do most of my fine art work in oils. I love oil paint; it’s amazing for learning colour relationships and edge stuff. I find keeping one foot in the analogue world keeps me experimenting in my digital stuff, and vice versa. I work in other mediums from time to time too; ink and gouache being another two of my favourites.
   
3DTotal: Final question: if someone walked into your studio now, with your dream commission, what would it be?
Coro: Oh oh...let’s see, hmmmm...I guess there is the whole “do whatever you want” fantasy, where a client just lets me run absolutely wild on something...or the “polar bear in a snowstorm” assignment, where I wouldn’t have to paint anything...but I guess the ULTIMATE dream gig would be to design currency. Talk about making a mark in society with your art!		  
 
 
 
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