Press "Enter" to skip to content
Carlos Gomes Cabral

Talented illustrator and designer Carlos Gomes Cabral talks about his achievements so far

Carlos Gomes Cabral is an experienced illustrator and author who has developed his passions from a very young age. With a plethora of projects both behind and ahead of him, Carlos also finds time to give back and contribute to training the next generation of artists and designers. He has recently launched a drawing course “Mastering Faces and Expressions for Characters” on Class101.

Here is a beautiful example of his work:

Carlos Gomes Cabral art work
Art work by Carlos Gomes Cabral

Below, Carlos answered some questions.

How did you first develop your passion for illustration and design?

Everything started when I was about two years old when I scribbled all over our house’s wall with the crayons that my mother had bought for me. Like everyone else, I wasn’t great at drawing but was really dedicated to it. I eventually mastered it with a lot of practice. I started my first “business” when I was about 15 and accepted illustrating a children’s book for a professional pianist lady. Since then, my interest in animation, games, and comics has shaped my personality, and I eventually ended up making a living in the design world.

What are some of your proudest personal achievements in your career thus far?

My company has done work for some of the biggest Brazilian clients out there and helped out minor entrepreneurs who want to get their ideas out of the paper. As an entrepreneur myself, this alone is quite an achievement. In all honesty, every time I receive a ‘thank you!’ for a piece of content that I share on my social channels, that really means a lot to me. Design and illustration is my passion, and I believe people are still starving for high-quality content around these topics. Being able to be a top voice in this industry is definitely my proudest personal achievement.

When did you decide to create “Whoosh! 250 Ways to Get Motion into Your Drawings”, and what level of artist is it aimed at?

I was invited by the Quarto Group to pitch an idea for the Barron’s Education Series since my online drawing tutorials were gaining high traffic at that time. The idea immediately got the go-ahead from publishers, and I started to work on the book content right away.

The book is aimed at all kinds of artists, from beginners to professionals levels. The idea – like everything I try to do – is to explore subjects that are overlooked by other illustration books in this category, so I focused more on things like drawing gestures, movement, and action poses rather than spend too much time only on the fundamentals.

One of the coolest things about this book is that we brought some industry leaders on-board to share their knowledge with bite-sized tips between the chapters. So we have Laura Braga from DC and Marvel Comics, Brittany Myers from Disney and Netflix, Donna Lee from Sony Pictures Animation, Jason Chatfield, and many more.

The book was translated into at least four languages as far as I know and, recently, its English version has reached almost 6000 sales in the US alone through Amazon.

How have you structured your course “Mastering Faces and Expressions for Characters” to be practical for students?

This course is a partnership with Class101, a new online educational platform. The class’s purpose is to help anyone who had an interest in getting better at drawing and teach them how to build faces and expressions for any characters from the ground up. I’m known for my expressive and compelling characters, so even for those already familiar with the topic, I guarantee they will find many hidden gems throughout the class. And, of course, for those who are beginners, I got them all covered.

The course has two things that set it apart from its peers. The first one is that it covers both comics and cartoon styles, so students end up expanding their knowledge range. The second one – and most important – is the fact that students will have access to me for 20 weeks, which means they are able to regularly collect one on one feedback over their drawings. Not many platforms do this because they offer the course as a wrapped product. In our case, the course will constantly be evolving over time because we gather every student feedback in order to improve the learning experience.

How did you become involved with Abacomm as a creative lead?

I always liked technology so, instead of going to college to study art, I decided to get a degree in computer science. In fact, Brazil always was a bad place for artists, so it was a no-brainer for me at the time. As a self-taught artist, be involved with technology brought me a lot of advantages.  I was able to merge my design abilities with logic and programming so, after working at Abacomm for a few years, I ended up becoming a partner of the company to lead the creative team as a whole.

Abacomm is now one of Brazil’s fastest-growing tech studio, and we truly use ROI to measure the success of our clients. We’ve been helping clients with services that include mobile apps, games, and web design.

What types of projects are you working on at the moment?

I’ve done character design work for many clients over the last years. But now that my course is fully launched, I really want to get back to my social channels. Primarily on Youtube, where I want to build a new audience there. I really want to explore more that type of content. I like being out in the public eye, showing my personal opinions, and helping people shorten their learning path. I want to keep providing enough value to my market for as long as I can.

At Abacomm, the board is also discussing expanding our offerings overseas, which implies increasing our structure, find more talents to add to our team, and so on. So I definitely think this year will be challenging. In a great way, obviously!

Do you have any more training courses or educational books planned for the future?

Since teaching has become my new passion, I’ll be probably creating more courses from now on, based on the increasing demand of my audience. I still don’t know what topics I will be covering yet, but they will certainly come at some point.

On top of that, I have plans to continue offering free tutorials and art resources for my fans and followers. There are some cool things on the way.

What advice would you give someone interested in a career like yours?

I always end up my postings with the same phrase: Keep practicing. It’s by far the best advice I could give to anyone who wants to thrive in any business. In the social media world that we live right now, it’s getting more and more difficult to stand out in the crowd. You have to come up with something different so that people will recognize you as someone who has something new to say to them.

Also, don’t forget to share your work and thoughts on the internet. It doesn’t matter if you want to be an entrepreneur or work in the company of your dreams. There’s an increasing number of people that aren’t even trying to improve their communication skills. Post your creations, and don’t be afraid of criticism. Criticism is important to your growth and to help you get out of your comfort zone.

And if you need further assistance to make the leap forward, don’t hesitate to check out my courses.

Carlos Cabral

Thank you Carlos!
You can follow up with Carlos Gomes Cabral at carloscabralart.com and IG @carloscabralart