BIO:
Early Life
Born in the Fort Apache section of the bronx in 1971. James was born to recently imigrated parents from Ecuador. His mother a former school teacher and fashion designer and his father a former army sargent and mechanic. Both his parents started working in the garment industry. His mother a seamstress and his father a fabric cutter and manager. Due to his father's work, the family moved a year later back to Ecuador. After 3 years James returned to New York at age 4 to start his education. Inspired by a PBS drawing show he started drawing at the age of 4 and has not stopped since. Not being the popular kid in school his escape from the bullies and the life in school was his art. Teachers in his school in time began to notice that he excelled in the arts and began to push him to attend an art school. With the help of several teachers as well as his parents he was accepted to the High School of Art & Design in Manhatten's east side. There he graduated with a certificate of excellance in cartooning. While there he also meet fellow artists BUZZ, Jamal Igle and Wilson Ramos Jr.
Next attending the prestigius School of Visual Arts in New York, were he studied under comic legends Walt Simonson, Joe Orlando and Kluas Janson. He also meet and graduated with future fellow comic artists Phil Jeminez, John Paul Leon and Chis Batista. Graduating in 1993 with a BFA in Illustration and a minor in Film he soon began his freelance carreer.

Early Carreer:
One of his first jobs was in fact not in the art world but instead in film. Working as a production assistant on an NYU Thesis film called "Corner Store Blues" he served in many capacities. From Set dresser to assistant art director, dolly grip and gaffer. He would work on 2 more independent films in the same capacity. His first job in the art field came in 1996 at Gem Studios an art advertising firm. Only working there a short time he then left to form Round Table Productions, an independent Film Production Company as their Art Director and Production Designer as well as cameraman. Working on various projects the company soon folded due to finances only to reform later as Latin Alliance Productions and becoming the producers for the "SAL SOUL" comedy troupe, who preformed at the famed "CAROLINES" comedy club.
He also served as the assistant Stage Manager and lighting and sound tech for the Stage production of criticlly accalimed "LATIN LIVES" which ran for 2 years. Soon there after he rejoined some old Latin alliance members to create "ABOUT TIME PRODUCTIONS" a latin film producing company. The first major project is the film "THE WAITING" a romantic drama dealing with letting go. http://www.the-waiting.com Serving on the production as Art Director, Production Designer, Storyboard Artist as well as Assistant Cameraman. The production shot on location in Long Island as well as Philadelphia. Due to the special effects the film is just now in the last steps of it's post production. Over the time he served in all these productions, James also has written several screenplays that he hopes to go into production in time. Soon after the end of the production of "THE WAITING" james began to doodle around with the ideas that would lead him to create several new comic book concepts.

Pages and Lines
After a long hiatus from drawing and working in film james soon returned to his first love...comic books. He had been involved in comics ever since graduating college. His first taste of the industry came in 1992 when he was hired to work on the comic "XENYA" where he meet fellow artists Dave Ryan Richard Kane Furgoson & Louis Small Jr. Only doing some pin-up work he made his first convention at the Philadelphia Comic Con in 1993. Some time after with his friendship with Jamal igle he started hanging out at Billy Tucci's Studio at Crusade comics. There he meet one of his future collaborator's Mark Mazz.
Soon thereafter Mark would give James, his first major job in comics by doing a pin-up for vampirella which was used for one of the Vampirella newsletters. Later on he was approched by Defiant comics to possibly take over the title "WARRIORS OF PLASM". However before he was able to start on his first script the company folded. After some time he meet Keith Murphy and the Comic Artist Guild. The group had been just over a year old when they had started on the idea of an anthology. James was tagged to draw the first wrap around cover for the Comic Art Guild Anthology #1. http://www.comicartguild.com Soon after, he reestablished his illustration studio NOVASTAR STUDIOS. After making his first guest apperance at a convention in many years at the 1st Madison Square Garden Comic Con. At the 2nd annual Garden show he attended with the Comic Art Guild, there he met his soon to be collabrator Philip Clark. Phil had been shopping around his comic idea "Quantum:Rock of Ages" a time travel, alternate timeline rock and roll sci-fi adventure. He already had an artist working on the book and was showing the concept around to see if it was a good concept.
During that time James had started working on a concept for a latin anti-hero who he hoped to make into a full blown book. However after laying out the 1st 20 pages of it he got stuck and was not sure where to go with it. He then started working on other things in the meantime till he was able to break through that creative wall. However soon an oppurtunity would come that he could not pass up.

Time Lines & Teen Angst
In 2003 James was approched by "Quantum:Rock of Ages" http://www.quantumcomic.netCreator and writer Philip Clark to take over drawing duties on the book after the original artist bowed out. After a short meeting at a local diner the agreement was made and James would take over the duties of penciller starting with issue #3. Soon thereafter James would work on issues 3 to the current issue #7. Quantum soon became a labour of love and as slow as the issues came out the goal is to complete the story arc of 12 issues. During this time James started to develop stories he had been working on and off over the last few years. The first of which was a dark latin charecter named "NAVAJA" which means the blade in spanish. The story didn't develop very far so he put in on the back burner. However as he placed the title to the side he started thinking and skecthing out the idea of a normal unpopular high school girl who has super powers and does not want them. Soon enough the story of "The Chronicles of Sara" so began to take off. Sketching out the story and writing out the plot the story just flowed. Taking ideas and incidents of his own youth and mixing in teen angst he created an idea which he calls a cross between "My So Called Life"/"Dawson's Creek" meets "Green Lantern". He has been working on the title for some time now drawing charectar sketches and designs for locations among other things. He is planning for a 2009 summer release till then he is also working on with several other artists a 2009 calender. He is also developing other stories in which he will serve as writer and editor but he is passing on the drawing duties to other talented artists among them MIchelle St.Martin & Ken Okabyashi. You can see and read about updates on his myspace site as well as here.
http://www.myspace.com/novastarstudios