What can be cooler than being able to call yourself a comic book illustrator? Telling people your dad is one.
“My daughter thinks it’s cool. She tells everyone, ‘My dad draws Star Wars,’” said comic book illustrator and Orcutt resident Lance Sawyer. “I’m lucky—my kid’s first word was ‘Batman.’”
Sawyer has wanted to make a living from his drawings since he was a child himself. His artistic sensibility began in the third grade, when his subject matter was stuff like the General Lee from Dukes of Hazzard. Then other kids started asking him to draw projects for them. By the time he was 15, he was selling his work.
Sawyer went on to study art and drawing, but knowing he wanted to go into comics, he was forced to develop his style on his own.
“My art style I taught myself because they don’t teach you how to draw Batman in school,” he explained. “Now there are schools that do this, but at that time you were learning how to draw a tractor in a field.”
He turned to the artists he admired and studied their work; people like Matt Wagner and Mike Mignola of Hellboy fame and Jim Lee and J. Scot Campbell.
As Sawyer honed his craft, he also spent years pursuing his drawing career while working in other art-related fields. He worked as a graphics artist and a tattoo artist, but realized it wasn’t really his calling. Then he got into sketch cards and selling his work on eBay.
Then his big break came. He put together a Star Wars set of sketch cards and e-mailed a submission to an art director at Topps. In less than 24 hours, he received a reply.
“He said, ‘I love your style, how many can you create?’” Sawyer said.
Since then, he’s consistently worked for Topps. He’s now considered a Lucas Films artist. He’s also done work for Upper Deck, Sad Littles Production, and 5 Finity.
Sketch cards are trading cards featuring hand-drawn art. They’re one of a kind and randomly included in trading card sets.
“The thing I love about the sketch card industry is the diversity,” Sawyer said. “The art is photorealistic or super cartooney—it’s just a huge amalgam of artists who work out there.”
Sawyer said his work is all about shape, much like another of his influences: Stephen Silver, lead character designer for the Disney cartoon series Kim Possible.
Over lunch recently at his favorite Japanese restaurant, Sawyer demonstrated his use of shape. He pulled out a clean stack of sketch cards and put pencil to paper.
“The torso is a rectangle, the hips are a triangle, then the legs, and when all these shapes come together you’ve got a dude standing there,” he said. “It’s just learning how to manipulate that shape so that it turns into something.”
And shapes aren’t the only things coming together for Sawyer these days. The Internet has really brought the art community together as well, he explained. Sites like Deviant Art (where Lance shows his work) and eBay (where many artists buy and sell their sketch cards) have helped bring exposure to up-and-coming artists and provided a supportive community.
Sawyer also uses sites like Ustream to host a show in which he draws, and viewers can ask him questions in real time via a chat box.
Being approachable has always been Sawyer’s intention as he begins to find more success, because the artists who influenced him have always been approachable. He also believes in giving back. Sawyer said he likes doing charity work and most recently donated a piece to Pediatric Treasure Chest Foundation.
He’s getting set to debut a comic book he’s working on with his brother Sean Stoltey and friend Andrew McClane, called In the Name, about a priest in the ’50s who was a chaplain in World War I. Sawyer described the character as “a really big, bad guy. Think Stone Cold Steve Austin.” He’s the man the Vatican sends in the case of paranormal activity no other priest can handle.
“It’s a lot of action,” Sawyer said. “A lot of bang, pow, crash.”
And if that doesn’t keep him busy enough, he’s also working on a children’s book with his wife. And he’s developing a webcomic to pitch to an animation studio based on “The Hank and Harold Show,” a short Allan Hancock College film project he did with his brother and a friend.
With all the work coming in, Sawyer still makes sure to give time to those who have been his biggest fans.
“I will always put down my pencil for my daughter to take a bike ride,” he said. “I don’t want her to resent it, because she’s good at it, too.”
Arts Editor Shelly Cone has three sons and a lot of bang, pow, crash moments. Contact her at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 28 – Feb 4, 2010.