After doing licensing artwork for Crystal Skull I went on to do some vampire cards for White Wolf, and WWII propaganda-inspired comic book covers for Red 5's Zombies of Mass Destruction. I've done Topps sketch cards for Heroes, Lord of The Rings and Indiana Jones.
When I'm doing images for print I almost always do the final image in Photoshop. I love building layers and textures. For sketch cards I use pretty much exclusively Prismacolor markers and colored pencils. Even for the black and white pencil sketches I build up the shading with grayscale markers first.
What was the project that was the most challenging?
Sketch cards are pretty challenging. You have to do a 100 plus cards in a short period of time. I have a goal to draw every ship used in The Clone Wars. Between The Clone Wars sketch cards and Galaxy sketch cards, I'm pretty close. But now with the cartoon I'm getting a little behind.
What was the most rewarding Star Wars project you worked on and why?
I have to say the Galaxy sketch cards have been the most rewarding. I've always wanted to draw Beggar's Canyon and also characters from Knights of the Old Republic. Galaxy gave me the opportunity to play in lots of different eras of Star Wars and try out lots of different styles and approaches.
One of the first things I do is go back and look at how illustrators of the past approached problems. I look at old pulp magazines, and the golden age of illustration constantly for inspiration. I then develop thumbnails often thinking of my color palette at that time. From there I scan the drawings into Photoshop and play with the elements and composition. Often I'll print that out then paint over or draw over the Photoshop image. Then it's scanned again and the process repeats itself until it's done.
With sketch cards I'll often make a pre-sketch in a similar fashion before I actually start working on the card. Then I break down the shades and values of the colors and map them out with Prismacolor marker; then draw over the marker image to bring out the details and highlights.
How is it like meeting the fans? Meeting fellow artists?
I love drawing for kids at conventions. It is so exciting to see there faces light up when you draw them a Yoda or a Vader. Meeting artists has been unbelievable. Everyone has been just awesome. From meeting a major inspiration like Dave Dorman to people I really admire like Grant Gould, Cat Staggs, Randy Martinez, and Mark McHaley. I'm fairly new to the professional Star Wars world but everyone has been so helpful and inspirational. It is its own community and they are all really still fans, and that makes it great.
I really want to stretch myself into doing some sequential comic stories. It is so different than illustration and is a whole different set of skills. I looking for to doing more period pieces and of course there is always the wish for being involved in more Star Wars projects. I love the idea of perhaps doing earlier Star Wars time lines in a style that fits my love of early illustration using old paper.
What do you know now as an artist that you wish you knew when you first started?
Well it's hard, really hard. I quit my 9-5 job at the art museum and now my weekends and nights are times I'm always working. You feel guilty when you stop to take a break. It is completely worth it though and the times when you are eating just Ramen and peanut butter sandwiches you still are thankful that you have the opportunity to draw your childhood heroes.
What advice do you have for budding artists?
Keep trying and improving. As with my experience, your art might not be what they are looking for at the moment but it could be exactly what they are looking for down the line. Constantly draw any moment you can get. Even now I'm constantly striving to be better and am always practicing and sketching.
Check out more of Ballard's work on his site Nekokaiju.com.
