Location

Petersburg, VA

Birthday:

January 12

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A SHORT AUTO BIOGRAPHY OF ARTIST/ ILLUSTRATOR ROGER C. SHEPARD Born January 12, 1954 Fort Lee, Virginia On my 17th birthday, 1971, my mother and I took a trip to Disney World Florida, at it’s brand new opening, in 1971, and thats where I announced to myself, with all of this Disney influence, “I WANT TO BE AN ARTIST”! After graduating from Petersburg high school, I found an art school in Silversprings Maryland called “the MARYLAND COLLEGE of ART & DESIGN”. It is a vary good school. I wanted to go to a school that taught art . My father was helping me with my tuition but could not continue because of lack of money. So I had to drop out after 9 months. So at the end of 1974 I enlisted in the U.S. Navy which helped me qualify for a G.I.BILL. After my discharge from the Navy in 1977. I went back to art school on the G.I. BILL and graduated in 1979 with an Associates Arts degree. I decided to return to the Petersburg and Richmond VA. area to find work as an artist. I must say, trying to find a job in the Richmond, Petersburg area, in 1980’s VA., is like trying to find water in a burned out desolate radioactive wasteland of dust! I got a job working for the government in Richmond. I tryed to get into the art department, but no breakthrough. By the early 80’s I realized that in the world of art, you more or less have to create a job for yourself. I would try to get jobs at art companies, but no one liked my style. I would work on canvas paintings, drawing layouts for comic book art work to send off, and draw portraits of friends and relatives. As time went by, only a handful of art companies stopped to take notice of my work and signed me on. I would do my art from home and send my work to the companies. I worked as Tshirt artist with the Backwoods T-shirt Prod. in Maryland and the Mobile Mdse. Co. in England * I designed T-shirt logo’s for certain government office organizations * Old World Prints Co. is a company where I hand colored fine B & W art prints in Richmond, VA. I Worked as cover artist for writers for an online publishing company called, “Keep-It-Coming” * My present study for the past 10 years is drawing Caricature Portraits, People would sit before me live, or send me photographs to work from. In 1998 the government had down-sized me from my job. At my age, jobs are vary slim. By the year 2000, I was in desperate need to learn how to draw on computers. So I dived in, credit card first, into a three months graphics arts class advertised in the news paper. I bought myself an “iMac” to work with from home. My latest project, at present, is writing and drawing an epic comic sci-fi adventure. It’s like a bit of “Milton Caniff’s TERRY and the PIRATES”, with a dash of ‘INDIANA JONES”. High on sci-fi with mysterious biblical undertones. And yes, an unlikely hero, is being throne, into extraordinary situations. This story maybe coming to you on my NING website. I’m Also struggling to put together the website to showcase my online on going comic adventure. But first of all, I’m writing a series of on going short stories for Mind-Wing Publications of the adventure because writing, is a bit faster than drawing and writing. Back to work for me. ROGER SHEPARD COMIX rscomix.ning.com TAKE CARE ~~ Roger C. Shepard http://rscomix.ning.com