Finished character studies and height relationship chart for my first Space Case Sally story. Drum roll please...
"Space Case Sally and the Suspense in Suburbia"
I will be debuting the first issue at this year's Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art festival on April 10 and 11 in New York. I will give more details as it gets closer to the date. Stay tuned to this blog for more updates!
After dabbling in a few side projects, I have decided to once again re-visit my pet project: "Space Case Sally". After many internal quibbles, I settled on a revised backstory for Sally and one that, I think, will prove much more easily read and understood by my target audience (girls ages 10 to 14). This is just a sneak peek at some revised character designs. I don't want to give anything away until I am totally finished with my script and thumbnails. I have big plans for this project.
Sally's basic design hasn't changed a whole lot since I envisioned the character in high school. Her basic color scheme has stayed pretty much the same. However, with the addition of a new backstory, it was time for a few tweaks. First off, I got rid of the headphones. To be honest, I was tired of drawing them and I could never come up with a reasonable explanation as to WHY she was wearing them. Sally is a punky city girl and I wanted her look to reflect that. She's full of bravado, but doesn't really know when NOT to rush into things. She's street smart, but isn't particularly book smart.
Hoorah! A new character! This is Aimee, Sally's best friend and next-door neighbor. She is meant to be a foil to Sally, as she is cool under pressure and book smart (sometimes to a fault). The Spock to Sally's Kirk, if you will. Aimee is tomboyish and woefully naive when it comes to matters of love and relationships with the opposite sex (something that will come into play later on). Aimee's design is based very much on my roommate Jenn. She is very proud of this fact.
I am still working on the character designs for the rest of Sally's family (her parents, her younger brother Oliver the Pest) and Shawn, her crush. The only character who isn't going though the wringer is Percy; the cat. Actually, he hasn't changed at all since the first time I drew him in high school.
The plot is something like Little Lulu meets Nancy Drew in THE FUTURE and I am ridiculously excited. As Kate Hudson said in Almost Famous; "It's all happening!"
And speaking of Kate Hudson, I am loving this trailer for Nine. Read a few entries back for my blurb about my love of musicals. Suffice to say, I am looking forward to this movie with great anticipation.
Keep checking in for updates on Space Case Sally as I get my act together.
Anyone who has met me, or who knows me very well, knows that I have a penchant for large, dangling earrings. I don't remember when it started, but it's gotten to the point that I feel almost naked without them. Inspired by recent viewings of classic monster movies during Halloween, I decided to undertake a project: the making of my own jewelry. It's been an uphill battle, but I am pleased with the results.
The earrings will go up for sale on my Etsy account for $12 a pair starting next week (the first week of December) and I will post the details here next week. In the meantime, if anyone is interested in pre-ordering a pair, please send an email my way. I would be more than happy to oblige.
The earrings are 2 inches in diameter, and hang about 1 inch from the bottom of the earlobe; 3 inches in total. The discs themselves are wooden with black satin ribbon around the outside and a wavy design on the back. I must say, I am extremely proud.
I didn't actually start collecting comics until I was well into high school. In fact, I had not read many comics up until that point. The first single issue that I ever owned was issue #12 of the current run of Teen Titans. That certainly explains my almost unwavering loyalty to the title for several years. As the years have gone on, I have amassed a rather sizable collection of comic books. Most of them sat in my closet for years collecting dust until finally, when I graduated college and moved out of my parents' house, I started to separate the wheat from the chaff.
I managed to cut about 40% of my collection, hauling the rest to my tiny Queens apartment where they again gathered dust. This week I decided that enough was enough. I was going to gut my collection, keeping only the titles that I absolutely HAD to keep, and work by artists that I admire. The rest were to find new homes.
Thankfully, I don't form the same sort of attachments to comic books that I do to other objects in my life. I had no problem putting 90 percent of my stack of current Teen Titans books, muttering about how burned I had been in the past by guest artists like Rob Leifeld, and lamentable storylines like "Titans East". I felt no sadness as I parted with them. The book will never be as good as it was when I was 17 years old and I was foolish to ever think that it would be. I don't know why I put up with it for so long.
This whole experience, as trivial as it may seem, has been akin to turning over a new leaf for me. Whittled down to only the essentials, I can look forward to adding only the best to my new collection.
Okay, so that is a gross exaggeration. This is, however, the first non art-related post in a while.
For those who may have missed my previous post, my new portfolio website is up ASHLEYQUIGG.COM. Go there to see my best and my current work. I will be posting new stuff every so often here, but from now on this will function as more of a blog rather than a portfolio website. Keep checking back here and my website for more artwork in the future.
Moving on, I recently signed up for NetFlix in the hopes that I might catch up on some of the movies that people have been pestering me to see. A co-worker recently recommended David Lynch's 1990 cult classic "Wild At Heart". I am sorry to say that I found it a bit too bizarre for my tastes. Thanks to NetFlix, however, I simply returned it, and should hopefully be getting a new movie today.
Putting together a list of movies that I would like to see has certainly shed a new light on my own tastes in films. Up until now, I never really thought of myself as stuck in one particular genre. Looking over my queue, however, there is an awful lot of 1940's and 50's film noir as well as classic and foreign horror. I never thought of myself as a horror fan, and in fact I'm not. Strangely enough, though, most of the films that I have wanted to see for a long time happen to be thrillers. Granted, most of them were made pre-1970's (Val Lewton's "Cat People", "Les Diaboliques", etc.) I am interested to see how it all pans out in the end.
I was surprised at the LACK of musicals in my NetFlix queue. I was raised on a steady diet of Rogers and Hammerstein, and a good 25 percent of my DVD collection is comprised of musicals. So why, then, are there so few musicals that I really want to see? I don't really know.
In the interest of science (or not), here are two clips from two of my favorite musicals: 1950's "An American in Paris" and 1945's "State Fair". I always thought that if my life were a musical, it would probably be a mixture of those two films.
From now on, that's where most of my artwork will be. I will occasionally post it here, but from now on, this will function as more of a personal blog than as a professional website. Keep an eye out for more stuff from me, and be sure to check the website often for artwork updates.
I am a recent graduate of The School of Visual Arts with a BFA in Illustration and Cartooning.
View my portfolio at http://www.ashleyquigg.com
Contact me at ashleyquigg@gmail.com
(left to right) Oliver, Percy, Aimee, Shawn
