Jon Sibal - Up Close and Personal - JONSIBAL DESIGNWORKS
About a week ago, we were lucky enough to get some seat time with the talented Jon Sibal. Some of you may have never seen his face, but you have most likely seen some of his work. He's a bit of a mystery.Jon has done several comic books and automotive renderings for companies such as, DC, Meguiar's, LeftLaneNews, RWB, and many more.You will also find Jon's creative designs in many automotive publications.Jon is humble, friendly, and prefers to stay behind-the-scenes rather than in front of it as his work speaks for itself.ENJOY!
DaYUUM: Hi Jon, thank you for your time. Tell us a little bit about JONSIBAL DesignworksJon Siball: Thanks Denny. JONSIBAL Designworks focuses on Automotive designs and Illustrations. We design concept renderings, liveries, to full body kits for clients all over the world.DaYUUM: How did you get into automotive designs and illustrations? We hear you also do some dabbling with comics, do you care to elaborate on that?Jon Sibal: Drawing cars has always been something that I enjoyed since I was young. When I was finally able to afford my own car, it became the subject of my many artworks. Being in the import scene here in So. Cal, it was crucial for me personally to have a unique ride. I liked a lot of different body kits in the market but at that time, nothing really stood out. So I started mixing up different body parts and combining it with my own designs. It would be very expensive to just fork out the money to buy these parts without knowing if it will look good or not so I went and learned Photoshop so I can create a photo-realtistic rendering of what my car would look like. I also learned that this helped tremendously with conveying my vision to my body shop. This worked out well and started to do more automotive designs from there.I'm a comic book artist by trade, since 1992. I started with Image Comics working with Top Cow and Extreme Studios. Then later went freelance and worked for Marvel Comics and DC Comics.List of titles that I've worked on are:-MARVEL COMICS-Uncanny X-MenX-MENX-23SpidermanFantastic FourSupreme SquadronSupreme PowerThe AvengersFantastic Four-DC COMICS-SupermanWonder WomanSupergirlAction Comics-IMAGE COMICS-Tomb RaiderFathomMidnight NationDarknessThe last book I worked on was the graphic novel BATMAN Earth One with Gary Frank written by Geoff Johns. Although currently, most of my work is Automotive-related, I still love working on Comics as much as drawing cars. It's truly a blessing to do both.
(INKS Courtesy of Jon Sibal)DaYUUM: Impressive resume! Were you the type of student that doodled on your book covers and folders? And did you ever think as a kid you were going to illustrate as a career?Jon Sibal: Yeah def got in trouble as my notebooks were filled with "Voltes V" drawings.I never really thought this is what I would be doing as a career. If you're Filipino, you pursue Nursing lol j/k. I probably should've have as it's better pay and benefits. But in all seriousness, although there are plenty of challenges, I love what I do and wouldn't trade it for anything else.DaYUUM: What inspirations did you have growing up? Personally I loved Voltron, Transformers, and Spiderman.Jon Sibal: My biggest influences and inspirations came from the Japanese Anime in the late '70s to the early '80s. From Voltes V to Mazinger Z , you name it, I was captivated by them.DaYUUM: Let me Google on who those are and maybe I can produce amazing art... haha... You're big into the automotive scene and you currently produce a ton of renderings for clients. Tell us a little bit on how you start your latest projects.Jon Sibal: Haha, yeah, if you're pinoy and you grew up there during that time, those were you're heroes no doubt! Every project requires a different approach but most starts with a lot of research and studying about the subject matter.DaYUUM: Let's talk about your Challenger, how do you start the project and how do you decide what parts are installed on it.Jon Sibal: Pretty much the same way actually. I'd like to do a lot of reading and researching before I move forward with any upgrades/ mods. This part of the process gives me a basic knowledge of my options. Then it's a matter of figuring out the proper combination of parts for cohesiveness.
DaYUUM: You seem pretty in tune with fit and finish. The colors on your challenger is a nice matte black with gloss stripes on them. Is that a wrap? Also, tell us a little about your wheel and suspension combination.Jon Sibal: It is a wrap courtesy of WRAPTIVO from Meguiar's. It's a 3M Matte Black with DINOC film on the roof of the car. To break it up a bit, I had Josh Daley from Daley Visual apply a Gloss Black racing stripe across the front and rear end of the car.The wheels are SSR SP1 Professor 3-pc wheels specifically made for this application. They were powder coated in Vintage Matte Gold to give the car that retro look. The suspension is from Air Runner air suspension with a capability of adjusting ride height via iPhone.
DaYUUM: Awesome, JDM parts on a domestic car must ruffle some feathers with the purists. What do you have as power adders for engine?Jon Sibal: Yeah I got some heat from those who didn't like the idea of Japanese wheels on Domestics but the SSR SP1 5-spoke designs combined with a step lip barrels were exactly what I wanted. I'm just glad that they made it in 20" and in 5x115 bolt pattern.The added power comes via Vortech Supercharger, certainly one of the mods that made me fall in love with this car again.
DaYUUM: How much boost are you running? And, how did it change the drivability of it?Jon Sibal: The system is set at 7psi. The drivability when off-boost didn't change much actually. Very civil on the streets until you stomp on the gas pedal and boost kicks in. Then the size of your grin becomes proportion to the RPM and Speed lol.DaYUUM: Vroom vroom... haha.. One last question, what new build can we see from JonSibal in the near future? Any personal builds in the pipeline?Jon Sibal: There are plenty of builds I wanna do but then reality kicks in and I realized I'm broke so I think I'm just gonna try to get my E36 back up and running someday.DaYUUM: Is there anyone you would like to thank? A mentor? Anyone?Jon Sibal: I wanna thank everyone that had supported me, my family, friends, my car crew and to all my sponsors that believed in my vision. And above all, I thank God for all of it.Thanks Jon, we appreciate your time and good luck to you on all your future projects. To browse Jon's work, you can find him on his social outlets. FACEBOOK , Twitter and Instagram at @jonsibal, or at www.jonsibal.comThank you!
For some dynamic visual stimulation check out the works of Mikey Dang[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtvqIONr1vg&w=540&h=330]
