Artist Bio
Justin grew up just south of civilization in a tiny town which housed a great public school and little else. Nearly ten years happily married, he earned his AAS in Visual Publications in late 2006 and has worked as a graphic designer at a local paper ever since. Illustration is a favorite past-time hobby of of Justin’s, followed closely by either playing video games or watching television. You know; social activities.
The first online project Justin launched was “Tales of Dereth”, a humorous written saga using doctored screenshots that followed Justin’s adventures in the online video game world of Asheron’s Call. He was contacted a few months later by Shawn “Kwip” Williams to bring his style of humor to the N3 Enterprises humor website. Justin began writing articles and drawing comics involving the N3 staffers as they adventured in various video game worlds. A few of these were eventually published in both video game magazines and strategy guides officially making Justin a published comic artist.
In 2003 he tried going solo and launched his own strip titled “Beta Station” for the Warcry Network. The comic was short lived, ending the same year it launched. Justin returned to N3 and continued developing his skills.
Learning from his mistakes with Beta Station, Justin debuted his newest comic Chipmunk Bay in 2004 and continued through late 2006. He had to take a ‘short hiatus’ from the strip which ended up lasting a little over 4 years, but he's back now and once more doing what he loves.
How's He Do That?
Probably the most frequent question I get is in regards to my comic creation process. Stuff like what tools do I use, what Photoshop tricks can I share, do I use a Wacom tablet, and of course, where do I get my ideas.
So I'm going to take you all through the entire process, as best as I can (sorry, I don’t have a video of my process like other creators have used). I'll go into as much detail as possible, and hopefully by the end, you'll know... stuff.
Wallpapers
- Fullscreen (1920×1440) • Widescreen (1920×1200)
- Fullscreen (1024×728) - that’s it, sorry.
Audio Interview
This is painful for me to listen to (humorous personality I am not), but hopefully you’ll like it better than I do. Recorded shortly after the launch of Chipmunk Bay (back when I hosted my work on www.sevenskulls.com), I did an interview with Shawn “Kwip” Williams of www.neenerneener.net. It’s a good insight into my thought process on creating these comics, as well as how naive I was about how successful I should be with my online comics after merely six months. You can also hear all about my awesome plans for the future that never came to fruition. Check it out ››
Mouse House
Way way back when I first started drawing comics I created a comic strip called “Mouse House” based on myself, my best friend Shawn, my imaginary friend Ninja Monkey, and a giant green monster named Super Hulk. That’s right, Super Hulk. I actually thought that I could get away with infringing on the Incredible Hulk copyright if I just put a cape on him (so nobody would recognize him).
I drew up a few pages of strips and shipped them off to the various syndicates. I got every single submission back within a week, complete with the accompanying (and well deserved) rejection letters.
Years later when developing a new comic strip idea I realized that I had really enjoyed writing for these characters (even though these strips were so bad), so I updated my art style a bit and re-launched it as Chipmunk Bay.