Creating a Graphic Novel : Art – Food – Photography

Back in 2010, I showcased some artwork of Chasen Grieshop. He was also nice enough to provide his time to answer several questions as well as fantastic Grimm Fairy Tale Cover 01 to showcase.

Coloured :

Sketch :

So Chasen, tell me about yourself. Where were you born?

I was born in Florida where I grew up in an air force family. My dad was in special operations stationed at Hurlburt field where I also worked later in life in Civil Service. My mom home educated me, until I went to college at 15 years of age. When I graduated high school I also graduated with my Associates degree. I continued on to receive my Bachelors degree majoring in communications from the University of West Florida.

When did you start your company Particle9?

Upon graduation I laid the initial ground work for my company which I called Particle9 Productions. I have been working in the visual arts field ever since. My skills include comic penciling, and coloring, graphic design for both web and print, modeling photography, Film making, acting, CSS html and java coding, and advertising including branding and logo design. I’ve also recently started doing some modeling myself but don’t tell anyone haha.

Modelling? Wow that’s awesome! So what else do you do for fun?

On a more personal level, I enjoy dating, a lot! overall I just like spending time with women. I’ve been told I’m a really good listener. I figure its because I’m very patient.

Sorry but I have to interject here. That’s fantastic that you have the chance to date a lot. I should grab some tips for you. Anyway please continue.

Oh! I absolutely dislike flakey women haha. Its one thing to cancel on someone, but flaking out, without a phone call and then hearing from the chick a week later with a lame excuse is just rude inconsiderate behavior. That is one of my biggest pet peeves. I’m not a religious kind of guy, but I am a believer in Christ, and I take the Bible as being the absolute truth, and I do my best to live my life by the principles set forth in it. As for political views lets just say if what the government is doing doesn’t line up with what George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin intended for this country to be, I’m not exactly excited to see it happen.

I love to ask this question. How would you describe your artwork?

Hmm. I would describe my work as being in progress and transition. Always changing and hopefully improving. That is after all what experience accomplishes.

Are you self-taught or did you attend any art school / courses?

Yes actually I am self taught in everything I do professionally. I mentioned earlier about having a degree in communications, but to be honest I’ve never done a thing with it. In the entertainment world, it just seems like no one really cares about it. They care about your folio. If you can produce work that is marketable to a wide enough audience to justify spending money to produce your work and sell it on a large scale, than that is what matters. If you can’t look at your work and say… ” people will buy this on a massive scale” than the odds are strong that the people you are pitching to will agree with that assessment.

I am a firm believer that the training is nothing. Your own personal drive to achieve your goals, and your will power will be what determines how far you can go. If you need a teacher to push you to learn, then you’re not passionate enough about what you’re doing. Whatever you do, do with conviction, dedication, and passion. The biggest thing that holds people back is fear. “what if I mess up? I need someone to show me how!” I certainly didn’t have anyone there showing me. I sat there and studied the work of others, and then I did some critical thinking of how I could accomplish the same task with what I had to work with. I believe if I can do it. Anyone can. God gave us all hands. It’s our choice to discipline them and make them do what we want.

I have to agree the strength of your portfolio is more important than where you trained. Do you have any specific artistic influences?

My artwork is very Michael Turner inspired. When I was about 17 years old, I had been obsessed with Sonic the Hedgehog. I even had a pet hedgehog named Sonic. But I was drawing Sonic all the time. I got this crazy idea that maybe I could do Sonic comics. I figured it would be fun to draw what I liked to draw and get paid for it. There was this one artist at the time named Spaz that I REALLY loved. So I learned to draw in his style as best I could just by studying his work. One day I told my cousin my grand plan, and he ridiculed me and said there would be absolutely no way I would ever be a comic artist especially since I don’t draw people. So I went to the local comic shop, a place I think I had been to one or two times before, and I searched the shelves for anything that struck me.

Was there a particular comic which grabbed you?

The absolute only book that stood out to me was Michael Turner’s Fathom issue # 5. from that point on I was hooked on the man’s work. As I got into learning to draw people from looking at Michael’s work, I found a couple other artists I really admired too such as Mark Silvestri and J Scott Campbell, and I tried to incorporate some of their style elements as well. However, Mike remained the strongest. I think his work inspired me in particular because being from a coastal town, I’ve grown up around the water, and sea life. While the rest of the comics at the time seemed to all have dark, twisted and demonic themes. His stuff had this light hearted but sexy quality to it that focused on the sea. And that spoke to me. I think anyone who sees my work will definitely see the Turner influence, but I think they’ll also see a lot that’s not Turner in there too.

Any published works currently out in the market?

Absolutely! I’m currently working with Dynamite Entertainment on their newly acquired Stargate property doing covers. They should actually be in comic shops right now. If they aren’t you can always order them from Diamond Previews, or request your comic shop store to put in an order for some. Probably one of my favorite more recent published pieces was the cover I did for Zenescope’s Grimm Fairy tale books. So definitely check out any of the stuff that’s out there. Y you can find me on Facebook under Chasen Grieshop and shoot me a friend request. I’d love to hear from you.

Thanks for your time!
Wish you all the best and will keep a watch out for more of your work.

Check out more of Chasen’s work :

• http://www.particle9productions.com
• http://www.myspace.com/particle9productions
• http://www.particle9.deviantart.com/
• http://www.modelmayhem.com/59438