| Department for Enchanted Fingers |
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| "Well, I'm mid thirties (argh!). I'm tall, blond and handsome (hey, you're not posting my picture are you? we haven't decided yet - the editor). Okay the blond bit is the truth... the rest you'll have to consult the wife. More of her later. ;-) I work at a college, teaching and supporting students doing photoshop work as well as coming up with courses to keep them occupied. I'm a collector of collections: from my action figures, mostly SF related; visual effect books; annoying electronic toys (so the wife says); Ty beanie dogs (I have no idea how I got into that one) and pens (I've collected them for absolute years and I have no intention to open a pen shop). |
| Keith Lawler's SPOOFPARK |
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| Regulars know that I have a weak spot for South Park - not really for the stories (mostly ewww.) or for the makers (ewww ewww) - but for the toons themselves. There are various "Southpark goes Stargate" toons out there, but the "Starpark SG-1" ones of Keith Lawler, to be found on "SPOOFPARK", are by far my favourites. So the question when he would turn up in our "Artist's Showcase" department wasn't "if", but "when". Answer: now! As he knows himself best, we let him talk himself. Not only will this provide you with a more detailed picture than we could paint, but it also saves us a lot of work, and hey, you know what a lazy bunch we are! |
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| I've attended and been crew on a number of cons including SFX 2002 (paper plates a speciality), SG-4 (oh, yeah the last Michael Shanks con. He's just plain ugly... but Lexa Doig, hubba, hubba... ehem) and SG-5 (it wasn't my fault about the Meridian video... I was asked to play it again and again). I will now promise to cease and desist in the number of brackets used form now on. (Probably!) I do remember going to see Stargate the movie way back in 1994/5, though I wouldn't call that fandom. The first time I saw that SG-1 show was on some fuzzy video copy shown at a convention, and except for one bit in it, I wasn't impressed. The unedited version... of course. I still wasn't into fandom at that point. In fact even now I don't think I'm in that Stargate fandom place... though my wife makes up enough for both of us. It was her that "encouraged" me to do the SG-1 spoofs. For anyone that knows her on various forums and newsgroups, she's the "I'm not in the least bit shallow" one. You're better off flaming her than me on the groups as she spends most of her time at home on the computer. I only usually see her if I spin my head around 180 degrees as she sits on her computer behind my comfortable settee watching anything that isn't Stargate. But I must admit I've been watching the current run of Stargate and quite enjoyed it... unlike the wife who constantly treats it like a pantomine whenever Jonas appears. Half expecting Daniel to show up and shout "It's behind you!". Though all you Americans out there don't understand the whole concept of men dressing up as women, women dressing up as men and old TV variety of women playing young men in tights. Anyway, back to the Stargate issue and my wonderful website doodaa. |
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| The whole concept of Spoofpark started way back in 1997 when South Park came out. One particular episode in the first season was about halloween and a number of the schoolkids ended up wearing Chewbacca (Star Wars) masks. I then had the idea to South Park other Star Wars characters from the ground up creating cute superdeformed kiddie versions of all of the main cast from the classic three Star Wars movies. |
| At the conventions I frequent I do like to get the likenesses of the guests down on paper so they can sign their names next to them. I can remember the eve of SG-5 and Elaine was holding me at gunpoint to get Peter Williams finished on the Usual Suspects toon. When we got there and found that Jacqueline Samuda was a suprise guest it really made the cartoon. Douglas Arthur told me off for not including Hrhrhrhrrrhrhrhrhrhrhrhrhrhrhhhrh... whatever, so he drew himself on. Peter Williams made me write down the web address and Jacqueline also pinched it as I was recently contacted by the webmaster of her own website. Michael Shanks and Amanda Tapping thought they were cute when they signed at SG-4. I usually get two lots signed so we can post one as a competition prize on the site. I'd had a few mentions in SFX and the like but nothing compares to this interview with Pink... hmm... what are you called again? ;-) |
| HEAR YE ARTIST |
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| I started to post some images to a college website for those that were interested. I was a network technician at the time and we were setting up our very first college website. Not many people were interested in the college's site, which I also put together, but we started getting lots of hits to the South Park pages. So many in fact that it kept bringing the server down. It was soon after, that I was contacted by Jedinet (www.jedinet.com) who offered me a sub-page off their main site, and Star Park www.jedinet.com/starpark was born. I've been there ever since. Oh, and for the record, this was a couple of years before the now defunct Park Wars came onto the scene. They did actually contact me early on and asked if I wanted to be involved but at the time I was studying for a degree and didn't have time. 1999 came along and in one week in May we ended up having 77,000 hits. Due to Episode 1. |
| After a while I wanted to branch out into other areas. I started posting other cartoons that were not Star Wars related to Jedinet such as Buffy and Stargate but I figured we'd have more visitors if I set up another website that dealt with a whole host of SF related spoofs. So, Spoofpark was born nearly a year and a half ago. |
| Stargate was one of the subjects my wife, Elaine, yes she has a name, wanted me to do. Once she'd begged enough and bought me enough sweets. I gave it a go and the first Starpark SG-1 group shot was born. |
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| My favourite character has to be Daniel due to the number of looks/hairstyles he has. I mean you can go with a) Daniel with short hair and t-shirt. b) Daniel with t-shirt and floppy hat. c) Daniel with t-shirt and bandana. d) Daniel naked. (but Leah beat me to that one!) e) Daniel in combat gear. f) Daniel in combat gear and floppy hat. g) Daniel with long hair, glasses and ... you get the idea. I still haven't got around to doing Daniel and his ethereal sweater as yet (yes, you have! - the editors). I just love that sweater. |
| Though I did enjoy putting all of the artwork on the Stargate ring... I've got everything from Pacman, Union Jack, to Darth Vader and an X-wing fighter in there. You will never know when they need to dial up R2, Darth, Intel Inside, Earth, My initials, stick man and lock on the old British Rail logo to get to P3X-475. I may even run a competition based on them one of these days. |
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| I use photos of the cast as reference and even sample hair/skin/environment colours from the photos to get a really close match. I usually start with the shape of the head and work my way down, snipping and tucking here and there until I've got the characters complete. It's fairly quick to put a basic cartoon outline down because I keep all of the character and their costumes in a library. I usually have to create the backgrounds from scratch unless its part of Stargate command... I've just got to get that Chevron guy done some time. The actor Gary Jones is a complete maniac after meeting him at SG-5. My "partners in crime" ... well, I blame my wife. Does that count? She does come up with ideas and if I like them, I twist them and make them mine. She keep harking on about some "Jaffa Tree!" joke related to Stargate and Lord of the Rings but I don't buy it so far. I do have a buddy based in California, Trevor Grove who does the Buffy and Indiana Jones toons on the site and helps me with other stuff, but all the Stargate stuff is all my fault... blame me solely." (we do! - the editors) |
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| How do I do it? I use Photoshop, I use a mouse and the rest kinda just happens. Don't ask me how. Some day I'll restore the tutorials and show all you frustrated Stargate toonists how I do it. I'll even provide a character template for you guys and gals to play with. I could imagine the gals playing around with Daniel ... and yes my characters do start naked and have clothes added in layers afterwards. I'll tell you a secret no one else knows.... I have a big red 'X' across their... bits. Though I'm proud of Carter's belly button. Maybe one of these days I'll reveal the belly buttons when I get around to modelling the topless swimsuit editions. |
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| (c) for all artwork on this site is with spoofpark and used here with permission. Please do NOT use any of these pictures without prior written permission of the artist. Thanks! |