Rain Dance

Okaaaay, Tyler said I could post this, so I WILL. This is one of my background paintings for the film Rain Dance by Nate Swinehart. It's my favorite one so far! I'm actually working on my LAST ONE for the film currently! OOOOH SO EXCITED!!!!! :D You can view the animatic for the film HERE.


If it looks like a bunch of evil hills.... that's what it is. :D

OH, see.

Lest anyone think I've died, A POST. A lot has happened since May 20! A sort of brief sum-up (which will probably explain my lack of time for updates lately):

Since May 20, I have become an alumnus of the Savannah College of Art and Design. Though I have left many friends behind, I am still working on a lot of their projects; currently that includes background paintings for Nate Swinehart's film Rain Dance and concept art for Gary Blackburn's film Elyn and the Pirates of Sunderland. I have moved from Savannah back to Ohio, and have yet to get all the stuff from my apartment in Savannah into my old bedroom. I have also driven to Vermont and back, Oklahoma and back, and Indianapolis and back (twice for that one). I have acquired a job in the marketing department of a good company, and so I spend most of my days pretending to be a graphic designer and learning more about farming and mining equipment than I ever thought I would. This job also happens to be an hour away from my current home, keeping me away from my REAL work for eleven hours out of the day. But I'm still drawing whenever I can - obviously, mostly concerning the two projects mentioned above, but I'm still working on my own comic book series Band Quest! Just a couple days ago I completed the script for book 1; it will be about 71 pages long. And the script for book 2 is currently about 60% done.

And now I should really get to painting, so I'll leave you with these:

Item 1: character concept for what will hopefully be a future animation project directed by me.
Item 2: doodles on post-it notes. CLASSY. Oh look, there's that character again. I really hope this project pulls through; she's so darn cute.
Item 3: one of my concept sketches for The Pirates of Sunderland film. I've only just started, and this is the best sketch so far; there will be many more (and better ones) in the future.
K bye. :D

Professional Wordage

More talking cats for you! These three got their words courtesy of several professors here in the SEQA department at SCAD. Never a dull moment. :) I now have strips for three books of talking cats; be looking for them if I make it to a convention near you!!

Adventures in screenprinting

Okay... If you've been around me in the past several weeks, you'll know that I've been screenprinting an entire book, like a good little masochist. now that I'm near the end of production on these things, I thought I'd share a bit about them!

The book is called "That's Amoure!" and is based on a true story. Elves included. So, I got the idea to screenprint the whole thing from Duncan last quarter - it's all his fault.

The biggest problem was getting this:


successfully onto a sheet of brown paper; two colors. my biggest trouble arose from just getting the two colors lined up. by the bye, a HUGE thank you to SCAD's working class studio for letting me use their pressure washer and exposure table!!

I went through a LOT of transparencies for the guts of this book, as you may well imagine.


And, having THIS happen to my scanner while I was printing;


courtesy of THIS silly creature:


complicated things, but TO NO AVAIL!!! I was able to complete enough good pages for 29 copies of the book. here are the covers, laid out to dry:

Just seeing that monster stack here is enough to make me proud, but once they're really finished...

Ah! it is a lovely feeling. Mind you, I still have 15 copies of this to board and bind, but they'll get done. hooray for PVA glue! and THANK YOU to my awesome roommate Renee for letting me borrow her drill!!!

And nooooooow my brain is shutting down. If you'd like to buy a copy of the book, shoot me an email at Laurendsparks (at) gmail (dot) com. woooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhooooooooooooozzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

Cats Talking

So, for many, many years I have been in the habit of writing words down that my friends have said. Words are a recording of a person's brain! and, when taken out of context, can be sometimes amusing.

So lately I've been listening to my friends, writing down their words and making cats say them. because somehow, to me, this is funny. I'll be making a series of minicomics out of these; very short and fast. so that I can sell them at a low price. :) I've already got enough panels for two books, so why not have a sample? Why not two? :D



Also here's a journal comic.

Book of Elf, Vol. 2

This blog has been neglected this last month, and I am sorry readers! Whomever you may be! ;___; This is my last quarter at SCAD, and it has been hectic, to say the least. but nonetheless, I am still producing work for page and screen, and hope to not neglect posting any more.

Here are a couple journal comics from what will be The Book of Elf, Vol. 2. Hopefully I'll find some cons up in the Ohio/Indiana and Northeast area that I'll be able to sell at once i graduate and move back north. :)

Band Quest!

...Is a webcomic that I am working on! It is an episodic quest story that combines elements of fantasy, action and the idiosyncrasies of being a modern musician. I thought I'd make a pitch-post for it. :D

I had another Webcomic idea that I planned on pursuing, but I think this one will be better for starting out with. Right now, I have finished the script for the introduction and have begun drawing it; the introduction should be all drawn by the end of May! And, it will have a short cameo of the guys of Walk the Moon.

The script for the first chapter is also underway; it's probably about 80% finished. In short, Band Quest! will be episode/chapter-based - each chapter will have its own set of main characters. This will allow me a bit of freedom to explore the dynamics in personality between very different sets of characters. It will be drawn in a Sunday-strip layout, and the first chapter will feature a band with a lineup inspired by the great music of the Seedy Seeds.

If you all haven't had the chance to meet me at one of the Conventions I've been to in the past couple months, then you won't have had the pleasure of seeing this little book yet:


I had the idea for this band-questing concept over a year ago, and it first manifested itself in this little book. And I was planning on starting a webcomic up, but with a different story - however, when my friend Pranas read the Radical-Righteous Band Hippie comic, he suggested that I develop THAT concept further. And indeed, when I polled my friends between the two stories, there was much more interest in this Band Hippie story. So, I decided to roll with it. :) THANK YOU PRANAS!!!



Above are my original Band hippie concepts - he'll look most like the top center drawing.

As for technical stuff, the comic will be drawn, as said, in a strip-format similar to newspaper Sundays. The final artwork will be drawn traditionally in graphite and sketchwash/watercolor pencil, and then monochomatically toned in Photoshop. My main reasons for making the artwork traditionally are A. it looks better, and B. so that perhaps later on, I can make that artwork available for readers to buy and have a piece of the story as their own.

I'm working right now on the website design... ooooh, Comicpress is a doozy. But the overall design of the webpage is inspired by the old Bill Graham poster art for bands in the 60s-70s; weird-beautiful stuff!

SO, I will continue to post progress up here under the tag "band quest"; and I hope whoever's reading will stay along for the story. :D