The countdown to the Phoenix Comiccon is ON!  Stop by and see me at Table T140 in the exhibitors hall and check some of my new art, illustrations, shadowboxes, sketchbooks, and grab a commission.

Here’s a quick commission that I did on the collectable sketch cards from last years Fan Days III convention in Texas.  This gave me an excuse to use some of the Stamps that I designed for Zazzle.

You can commission your own sketch card from my online store HERE.

I think that we are all familiar with the epic duel between David and the “giant” Goliath from the first book of Samuel. Twice a day for forty days, Goliath, the giant champion of the Philistines, comes out and challenges the Israelites to send a champion of their own to decide the outcome of their conflict in single combat. The Israelites are afraid of him, but the boy David steps up to the challenge. Armed only with his staff, a sling, and 5 stones, David faces Goliath and his armor and sword and shield. He strikes Goliath in the head with the first stone from his sling, and the Philistine falls on his face. David takes Goliath’s sword and decapitates Goliath.

While this story is an example of faith and trust in God, it has also become the rally cry of the entrepreneur. One person CAN compete. An individual can stand up to the big man and over come the odds to win. In this story we see that there was only one person in the whole army that was willing to take a chance, but those numbers are changing. With today’s technology an individual can set up a business and be a success.

As I am working to understand more about this changing market and my place in it, I’ve found a prime example of this principle on the internet. With the popularization of web and mobile applications, there is a rush to cash in on the next big iPhone app. The iTunes store seems to have its favorites, its Goliaths, that gain in popularity as they are pushed to the front lines, but where are the Davids? How does a little guy compete with that ocean swell? That Gigantic corporate structure with it’s herd of fans doesn’t know me or what I might want but my friend Blake has an idea.

Blake is David. He’s the guy with the idea. He recognizes that there is a vast ocean of opinions about these different applications so he’s made a way to turn to and trust his friend’s opinions called Appteria. By tying into his social network on Facebook, and inviting his friends to join together with their social networks, he has made a way to get a more trusted recommendation on new applications. Check out the site and find some great new programs. It’s such a great idea that Apple decided to make their own fan page on Facebook.

Goliath is not as tall as we once thought, and the stones in my sling just got better.

Back in 2004 Garrett Barati had beat out 500 contestants for a shot at his dream job as a professional Lego builder. He didn’t get the job, but he kept on working at it. Sometimes spending up to 12 hours a day hunched over a mound of Lego blocks.

Then, in 2008 he won the “Built By Me” Movie Contest sponsored by LEGO and Nickelodeon. He received $25,000 to create a brand-new original animated short for Nicktoons Network using LEGO bricks and minifigures. The animation was showcased at the Nicktoons Network Animation Festival, on-air and can be seen on Barati’s YouTube channel here.

It wasn’t this accomplishment that brought him to my attention. It was his fantastic 2:00 minute retelling of the Star Wars Original Trilogy. Barati states that he created all the sets and animation for this while Lego provided the script, cg, and audio. I haven’t been able to find out much more information about Barati, but I’m super happy that he seems to have found a way to do what he loves.

In a fantastic combination of technology and geekery comes the TomTom portable navigation device with turn by turn directions from none other than his royal Lord of the Sith, DARTH VADER!  Over the next few months you will also be able to download the voices of C-3PO, Yoda, and Han Solo. The Darth Vader voice module costs $ 12.95 and can be downloaded from their website here.  In the video below, you can a taste of how difficult it was to work with Vader on this project.

Here’s a peak at the process that I went through in the creation of this new commissioned image of Oola the dancer from Jabba’s palace and Salacious Crumb. I started out with some quick sketches of the pose.

When I FINALLY got a pose I felt was decent, I enlarged it to make draw in the details. Once the pencil sketch was done I used a light table to make an nice clean ink drawing.

I scanned the ink drawing into the computer and then used illustrator to convert the bitmap lines to vector lines and then I colored it in Flash. I had done some other illustrations of Jabba’s dancers, so I re-used one of the backgrounds for this illustration.

This was an experiment in doing a digital commission. You can order your own commissioned art in my store, or buy some of my licensed Star Wars art from Zazzle.

Uh Oh Oola by starwars_spencerb
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