Creating a Graphic Novel : Art – Food – Photography

Shelby Robertson is a 15 year comic veteran. He received his first professional gig at 17 years of age at the hands of Rob Liefeld back in the Image Comics and Maximum Press days. His first submission pin-up actually became his first published work in the medium. It was a Black Flag piece of Rascal jumping at you with his gun which was published in Black Flag #4 (Maximum Press).

Showcase piece :

Shelby provided an amazing showcase piece of Red Riding Hood with an inked background of the Big Bad Wolf’s presence. The details on Red Riding Hood is fantastic! The background is the show stopper with Shelby using a negative effect to create the trees. He was awesome enough to provide a detailed step by step on how the image was created!

Final Image :

How would you describe your artwork?

I’d describe my artwork as part Marvel, part DC, and part old school Image.

You mentioned music is important to your work.
Care to elaborate?

I generally pump my ear drums full of music of all sorts, became a hardcore hobby for me early on as an artist, collecting music. I like to create an environment when I work otherwise I go stircrazy. I’m not a huge fan of talking on the phone while I work, but do enjoy regular conversation while throwing down lines. I’ve picked up some music production of my own for fun. I’d describe it on the lines of between Synth-Pop and Industrial. I’ve always had affinity for the 80’s sound in the vein of Depeche Mode, which seems to be making a comeback.

Have you done any formal training?

Nope, I’m very self-taught. I had been going to college, ala-art school dropout.

Who would you are as your artistic influences?

My biggest influence would have to be Alan Davis, hands down. I don’t emulate him a whole lot but the guys work back in the day on Excaliber made me want to draw for a living. I emulate a bit of Michael Turner, Art Adams, Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri, and Frank Frazetta I’ve been told. All of which I’m a fan of. I think the underdog artists I enjoy would have to be Travis Charest and Terry Dodson. They’re both fantastic. I’d have to say that I wish Travis would stop doing that disappearing act however.

I noticed you’ve self published a comic called S-Unit.
What’s the about? What was your inspiration behind it?

My inspiration is actually a handful of mini-series proposals I had ready to go on Avengers. I always wanted to show ‘my take’ on a bunch of characters I enjoyed and decidedly created a bunch of characters I could swipe my OWN concept for my own project. This decision came as I didn’t hear back from a few of my previous proposals on X-Men, so here we are.

How do you get a copy?

I’ll at times list the S-Unit books on ebay (details below), @ 5.00 or so. I only printed 2,000 copiesfull color so it’s a kind of rare book to come across. I only have a few hundred left so being frugal with them. You can email me direct for one though, I love to deal with people directly, get their input and so forth.

Thanks so much for your time and your amazing step by step work! Wish you best of luck in your future endeavours.

You can reach him by email :
shelbyart247 [at] hotmail.com
anelektrix [at] yahoo.com

Check out more of his work at :

• American Dischord
• Shelby’s Deviant Art Page
• Shelby’s eBay Page