Leviathans, a comic about a reality show dragon hunter named Cherry Nine, is one of RBA's most successful action adventure series so far. Let's take a moment to talk to the series artist Ana Bruno.

Talk about yourself. What is your artistic background?
Well, obviously my name is Ana Bruno. I'm originally from Puerto Rico. I was born in Bayamon, but raised in the hills of what was used to be know as Guaynabo in "el valle escondido" meaning hidden valley. I moved to Orlando when I was 10 years old, and moved to Tampa bay when was in my early 20's. I've always been into drawing since I was a kid, but I didn't really take in seriously until I graduated High School. From there I became a caricature artist working for Kaman's Art Shops at Sea World when I was 19 years old, and started my college education at Valencia Community College in Orlando. There I got my A.A. in fine arts in 2002. This was followed by another A.A. and a B.A. in computer Animation from the International Academy of Design in Tampa Florida, in 2005. Since then I've been involved in many small and big projects, such as commercials, indy films, animation shorts, and graphic novels.

What is Leviathans about?
Leviathans is a fantastic story about a woman who has a talent for dragon hunting. Her story takes place in a very familiar modern day, and just like our celebrities, her life is always in the public eye. What is really awesome about this story is not only the cool dragons I get to draw, but the fact that you get to see her on camera and off camera. You get to see her ups and downs, and how much of a regular person she is while living the celebrity life and being hated and loved by their audience.

What attracted you most to do Leviathans?
Honestly the dragons! ...nah, just kiding. I like the concept of having a female hunter dragon hunter. Everytime they show a woman warrior they always make her look like she walked out of a "Death Salon". Like she just got out of battle without a single scratch. I like the fact Cherry has a very gender neutral personality. Most girls in my industry have very independent personalities without coming across as butching. In a way I see a lot about my self in her. Plus, I've always been a huge fan of the "crocodile hunter", and "man vs. wild", and "survival man."

How have people reacted to the first issue of the series?
I'm one of those artists that do a lot of work and often many people don't realize that it's me. So it's still kind of weird to me how I just make something for fun and people are just going crazy for it. I've been hunted down on a weekly basis for progress on the second one. It still has not hit me that people really love it, as a mush as I loved to draw this book. But yes, so far the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. I'm very happy you guys like it.

Do you have a different artistic approach in this comic than on other projects? Are there any specific artistic influences?
For the most part I've tackled this project the same way I tackle every animation project I've done. Granted it's a different media but the principles are always the same. Great communication with your crew, taking a time to rough out the pipeline for maximum turn around, put 110 % in to your work, and always try to be open to suggestions even when I'm dead tired.

As for my influences, well I have a lot of them... I have to say my passion is for classic cartoons such as classic Disney, classic Loney Toons, and Tex Avery cartoons are my original influences. In illustration and art the classic masters, followed by modern influences as Frank Frazzeta, Borris Ballejo, and comic book artists such as Pat Broderic (college mentor), Scott Cambel for his perspective on his paneling, and recently I loved the art off ALESSANDRO BARBUCCI who drew an awesome thing called Sky Doll. Love it, love it, love it!

How do you see the transition coming from story to visual? Describe the creative process.
Since I've been a storyboard artist for several projects the hardest part for me was too cut down on the panels. I want to literally want to do the motion in several panels and I have to cut down to one or two.

To most artists, I always tell them to start drawing for real life. Drawing elves, and action heroes are cool, but not when they look like they have a 12 pack when humans mostly show a 6 pack. Start drawing your friends walking, sleeping, eating, playing games. Whatever you need to do to strengthen the ability to draw people proportionally. Learn basic proportions, proper muscle structure, and how the body flexes. From there, practice drawing all kinds of stuff, cars, guns, animal, building, and textures. Once you build up your skill then start moving on to basic stuff such as 1, 2, and 3 point perspective. Proper perspective makes a huge difference.

The easy key is to train your mind to visualize the situation first. If you have to start with stick figures to figure out the best placement, then do so. From there you must look at what is happening in the scene. Meaning: what is the mindset of the characters before and after the current scene. This is followed by finding the proper posture that will clearly tell the reader what the emotion your character is trying to portrait with his/her/it's body language.

I know this answer sounds like a lecture but that's pretty much the process.