Student Lauren Halvorson takes her artistic talents, creates web comic
Daniel Reynolds
-Staff Writer-
Alex Kendall
-Art & Life Editor-
Littered throughout STLCC-Meramec student Lauren Halvorson’s art book are drawings of Pokémon, comic book heroes and anything else creative that comes to her mind. Her web comic “Duat Squad” along with the saved files of many of the digital paintings she has done over the years crowd the screen of her computer.
“I like to draw, I like to play video games a lot and I read comics all the time,” Halvorson said.
Halvorson said her passion for art and drawing began when she was a child as she began drawing Pokémon. Her artistic talent expanded over the years into the fields of graphic design, animation and painting. According to Halvorson, painting has been the biggest influence on her artistic work.
“It takes a while to do it but I like [painting] the best,” Halvorson said. “I like doing line art but it looks better when it’s a painting and finished.”
While she has worked in the traditional, physical forms of painting, Halvorson said she prefers the digital medium.
“For one thing you have an undo button. You don’t have to pay for all this crap all the time,” Halvorson said. “That’s the crappy thing about traditional art. Anytime you want to do anything you have to buy twenty books of materials and if you want to show it you have to buy a frame or buy wood to make it yourself. With digital you can just do it and that’s it, it’s done.”
Halvorson said that her biggest influence in painting has been Drew Struzan, famous for his movie posters for movies such as “Star Wars”, “Indiana Jones”, “Harry Potter” and much more.
“He’s the guy who did all the movie posters like ‘Back to the Future’ and he has a really cool style with colored pencils and washes of acrylic paints over it,” Halvorson said. “It looks pretty cool. A lot of posters just use Photoshop, they try to do the same kind of thing and it just does not look that good.”
One of the largest tasks Halvorson has taken on right now is her web comic “Duat Squad,” a comic that Halvorson describes as “an Egyptian supernatural version of ‘Hellboy’ except with incompetent college kids and more snark.”
“Right now I’m mainly working on my comic. I can usually get two pages in a week but right now I’m working on all the action scenes and I usually don’t draw action scenes so now it’s taking longer,” Halvorson said. “I put a little bit of myself in my characters, usually not that much, just tiny little things. Sometimes I put quirks of my friends but it’s mainly just cut off.”
With the popularity of comics and graphic novels such as “The Walking Dead” and “The Avengers” on the rise, Halvorson said she has found most of her inspiration in two of her favorites, “Watchmen” and “Transmetropolitan.”
“For a straight-up graphic novel it would be ‘Watchmen’ and as for an ongoing comic series it would be ‘Transmetropolitan’. It’s pretty weird,” Halvorson said. “They influence me a lot. Not just art-wise but story telling-wise, too.”
Darick Robertson, co-creator and illustrator of “Transmetropolitan,” has influenced the character design for “Duat Squad,” according to Halvorson.
“The thing I like about his art is that he doesn’t make super models in all of his art. In all these super hero comics they all look ridiculously attractive, even people on the street,” Halvorson said. “Darick Robertson draws a lot of normal people and I like that.”
Halvorson said that the one thing that has improved her drawing ability is the repetition in drawing each panel for her web comic.
“Draw comics if you want to get better at drawing. Drawing comics makes you a better artist very quick; you pretty much have to draw everything,” Halvorson said. “The good thing about it is that instead of a blank piece of paper where you don’t know where to start it, [with comics] you have a story to work off of and it’s broken down into tiny little panels so you don’t have this intimidating white space to work with.”
With an emphasis in comic design or video game design, Halvorson said she plans on taking her skill in drawing and painting and applying it to a career.
“I’m probably going to go to another school [after Meramec]. I’m thinking about that Saint Louis Art Institute that is opening up,” Halvorson said. “I’m going to try and make it in art somehow.”
Halvorson’s comic can be seen at http://duatsquad.thecomicseries.com/comics/first/
