Carlos Diez pin-up artist

b.1966

Beautiful women from all over the world call at the studio of Carlos Diez - they want to become pin-up girls

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"By 2002, thanks to the internet, I began to show my artwork more internationally and I began to receive messages from all around the world, from people who appreciated my art, foreign editors, and buyers"

Carlos with model, Lena Gasol

Carlos Diez was born in Madrid in 1966. After finishing elementary school he enrolled in the University of Fine Arts and School of Applied Arts to begin his artistic training, quitting a year later after discovering that it didn't fulfil his creative expectations.

"Since I was very young, I was very interested in Science Fiction films and series.

"I remember very well the first time I saw one, in black and white, because those days we didn't have a colour TV - it was Space 1999. I recorded the episodes on audio tapes (we didn't have a VCR either) and played them over and over again.

"Without even guessing the irreversible consequences for me, one fine day my Dad took me to see Star Wars. Those days there was Mazinguer-Z on TV, the great super robot that fired his fists. This made an explosive cocktail that changed my way of seeing life completely.

"In those days, thank God, we didn't have all the merchandising that invades us today. So the only way to prolong the excitement and pleasure of seeing those films was to use my pencils and colour crayons. To continue those stories full of magic on paper enormously stimulated my imagination, it was a way of obsession and evasion through which I created a new world full of possibilities. That's how I began to draw my first monsters and comic strips. I was about I0 years old.

"Some time later something unexpected happened and I saw the light. I discovered that it was much more appealing to draw Princess Leia or Barbarella, the heroines of those films, than the masculine stars.

"So, all the paper that went through my hands started to get filled with curves and more curves, trying to recreate the image of those beautiful women, who so powerfully caught my attention.

"To all those events another very important one was added, an Alberto Vargas book fell into my hands and I told myself: This is more or less exactly what I am trying to do! And I understood that my small artwork of that time fitted into a genre called "Pin-up" and that other artists like Olivia de Berardinis or Hajime Sorayama are still cultivating it today.

"My career was progressing. Because of the orders I was already receiving and the demands of my clients, I often had to mix Fantasy and Erotica. Because of that I studied the art of Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo and Alfronso Azpiri, with whom I started along the road of colour, and Luis Royo, great master of erotic art from whom I learnt the richness of detail. Without forgetting Sorayama, Geiger and so many others who are represented in my bookshelves. The work of all these masters for me was a great stimulation that helped me grow as an artist.

"Especially, I have to mention Robert Bane, who asked for my originals to exhibit in the prestigious Tamara Bane Gallery in Los Angeles. I flew to meet him. Also in this trip I met Kevin Eastman and my collaboration with the famous American magazine Heavy Metal began.

"Robert said something that freed my mind from the demands of the market: "Paint want you want, what sells is your art and not who or what you paint." From then on I have fled from the orders that don't satisfy my artistic desires."