The Chronicle stops the presses- Play offers new twist on classic story
- Students create illustrations for Georgia Ports Authority
-
Graduate student channels classic horror in thesis film - Alumnus creates mobile gallery
- SCAD libraries hold artist’s book competition for students
- Griffis discusses development of Arthur legend
- Noted author speaks to students
- The Green Scene: 'We have a dream'
- Personnel File: New staff members join SCAD-Savannah
- SCAD hosts regional IDSA conference
- Titus Kaphar to speak at SCAD
- The Bee Line
- Women’s lacrosse sets records in Kennesaw State win
- Athlete Feats highlights for Feb. 22
- Baseball takes series from St. Thomas
- Women’s basketball wraps up second place in Florida Sun
- Athletics updates for Feb. 15
- Baseball off to best start in program’s history
- Big third period leads lacrosse team to victory
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
Class in the Spotlight
|
Phillips draws on sequential art background for storyboarding class
 Photo by Jeremiah Jossim Benjamin Reid Phillips demonstrates drawing techniques to students in his Drawing for Storyboarding class in Anderson Hall April 3. By Monique Bos Published: Friday, April 6, 2007 Many people attend graduate school specifically because they want to teach. However, for Benjamin Reid Phillips, a drawing professor in the foundation studies department at the Savannah College of Art and Design, the process was the opposite: His interest in teaching stemmed from experiences he had as a Master of Fine Arts candidate in sequential art at SCAD. “I had no intentions to teach when I started graduate school, but [foundation studies professor] Avantika Bawa was looking for some grad students to do workshops for her 2-D Design classes, so I did a couple because it seemed like an interesting challenge,” said Phillips, who graduated in 2002. “After that I was a teaching assistant for [sequential art professor] David Gildersleeve for a quarter, and then did watercolor demos for Materials and Techniques for Sequential Art ... After all of that I realized that I enjoyed teaching, and so I decided after a few years to work in the academic field.” Phillips teaches Drawing for Storyboarding, a course that focuses on perspective, composition and staging. Although he utilizes his sequential art training, he also seeks to provide his students with a comprehensive sense of drawing for a variety of fields. “You have to be able to draw anything and everything. Comics require the artist to be an excellent designer, draftsman, storyteller, to have a solid knowledge of perspective and the figure,” he said. “So I [tell] my students [to] draw everything and draw all the time. Don’t worry about ‘style’ (a word and concept that I loathe) and don’t draw from comics and cartoons; there’s a whole world out there to draw!” His undergraduate education provided him with an extensive background in the arts, and he applies that knowledge base in his classes. As a student at Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts, he focused on illustration but took courses in other areas as well. “We took classes in graphic design, typography and photography … so it was pretty well-rounded,” he explained. “I spent most of my electives on film history and printmaking.” To his students, he stresses the importance of learning to see as an artist. “I remember as an undergrad, they mercilessly pounded all of our preconceived ideas about how to draw out of us and then taught us to really draw and paint what’s out there,” he explained. Phillips also has a broad range of experience in the comics industry, from self-publishing to working for established companies such as Archie Comic Publications and Devil’s Due Publishing. In graduate school, he started “King of Pain,” a self-published zine. “‘King of Pain’ was an anthology that I would put together to highlight my studio mates’ and my own humor comics,” he explained. “We would do the comic conventions and practically give them away to get noticed. These led to my short-lived zine imprint called Static Press (with fellow SCAD alumni Scott White, Angie Bantel and Jason Axtell), which published minicomics like ‘Lost Letter / 31404,’ ‘Jackpot,’ ‘Whetbrain’ and ‘Warstories.’” Phillips also utilized District, the SCAD student newspaper, as a forum to publish his work. “I was doing an adventure strip called ‘Dr. Dead’ … kind of a poor ‘Terry and the Pirates’ meets EC Comics-type thing,” he said. Getting his work out to as many viewers as possible paid off. “During all this I got my first break when I was featured in ‘Storylines: An Anthology of Emerging Cartoonists’ by Fantagraphic Books and ‘Little Moments,’ another anthology that was picked up by Top Shelf Productions,” he said. “After awhile, I moved my printing over to LuLu Printing and put out ‘Chronicle,’ a collection of three short stories, and was featured in the second and fourth volumes of the LuLu creators anthologies.” More recently, Phillips has worked as a penciler and inker on Devil’s Due Publishing/FOX TV’S “Family Guy” comics. He said he enjoys the independence of self-publishing, but he also appreciates advice from editors. “For me the draw to comics was always the freedom,” he said. “With comics and cartooning I can say what I want and how I want (one of the reasons I’ve always been into self-publishing or going with someone who leaves me alone and lets me do things my way). Nobody else gets to put their two cents in or make me change it — well, except for editors, but I find their advice to be quite helpful.” He has retained his ties to the sequential art department at SCAD, working for department chair John Lowe as an assistant inker on “Betty” and “Archie and Friends,” produced by Archie Comic Publications. His story “Breakfast” was featured in “Senses,” the 2006 SCAD sequential art anthology, which is distributed nationally by Top Shelf Productions. In addition, he is pitching “Where the Buffalo Roam,” a new comic that he and Gildersleeve created, to publishers. Understanding how to visually develop a story is crucial to teaching Drawing for Storyboarding. “Most of our projects are directly related to the motion picture industry. For instance, many of our early projects … are concept designs for film environments. These are perspective-based projects but they also impart skills like lighting an imagined situation, building believable images using reference and imagination, and creating the illusion of reality,” Phillips explained. “The later projects are real-world storyboarding problems; students work from actual movie scripts, put together boards for television commercials and work on animation boards for televised cartoon series. I try to show them that all of the drawing and storytelling skills that we learn are applicable to any major involved with motion pictures.” Phillips said he finds building a rapport with students to be fairly easy. “It’s really about showing them how what we are learning applies to what they are trying to accomplish as artists and being open to their ideas and needs,” he explained. “I find that the students here are very driven to succeed and are willing to work to achieve their goals in life.” And he said his biggest achievement as a teacher comes when he can share with students the importance of what they’re learning to their future careers. “My greatest success? That would have to be imparting to students why these concepts are important to what they want to do as an artist,” he said. What else does Phillips want people to know about him? “I really do enjoy drawing as much as it seems,” he said, “and I’m only half as crazy as I look.”  |
|
|