James Lightle is a graphic artist and musician raised in San Francisco, California. He became a freelance artist at age 14 while studying fine art at School of the Arts High School. Lightle’s drawings featuring original characters, popular celebrities, and popular video game characters, lead to his first on-going assignment with neighborhood watch group OMI-NIA (Ocean View, Merced Heights, and Ingleside Neighbors In Action). He designed, distributed, and photocopied promotional flyers advertising quarterly meetings and annual events like Christmas In April.
School of the Arts provided an unique environment encouraging students to expand their creative horizons. Forming friendships and alliances with students from majors lead to starring roles in three student films. Lightle proved to be a horrible actor, but during his senior year he learned how to play the piano by ear. After graduation, he scored "Ultra Turbo Ninjas", a small play based on the popular television show "Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers". Even though the production failed to book theatres and closed two weeks after it’s opening, Lightle used his experience as an actor with the aid of his ASR-10* to compose melodies to invoke specific emotions.
Despite his success as a freelance artist and his growing love for music, Lightle decided to study Merchandise Marketing at FIDM (Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising). A class assignment requiring a business plan and employee handbook for " Chop n’ Spunk’s", a fictitious pet food store named after his pets reconnected him to his creative roots. He attended the school’s lab tutorial hours to receive help from graphic design instructors to learn Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop to design the company’s logo. The logo inspired him to create a jingle advertising the store. After receiving rave reviews, music and original art became class presentation staples. His presentations earned him respect from his teachers, staff and fellow students.
To differentiate himself in a competitive job market, Lightle continued to invest countless hours at the school’s lab hours to strengthen his skills. Lightle received his first return on investment after being promoted from a stock assistant to a graphic designer. He used his marketing background and past experience designing flyers to create point of purchase advertisements, store signs to assist visual merchandising activities. Even though he enjoyed and was thankful for the opportunity to use his creativity to help others, there was still something missing.
The missing element was discovered while watching Sonic fan character videos* on Youtube.com. James Lightle returned to his freelance roots collaborating with Sonic The Hedgehog fans modifying existing fan characters. One of the first collaborations was a Youtube video featuring a fan character named Bluezy Blue. The experience ignited James his desire to resume creating his own characters and create his own animated music video featuring Sonic The Hedgehog characters. The task required him to create storyboards to coordinate sequencing and Adobe Flash to rotoscope animate the characters. The end result was “Love Story” an animated music video featuring Sonic character Amy Rose and numerous Sonic fan characters cameo appearances including Bluezy Blue, Savannah, Jihan, and Agnes The Hedgehog.
James Lightle continues to strengthen his skills while acquiring new skills in the process. He learned Adobe Illustrators’ Gradient Mesh tool to create a series of photo realistic portraits expanding his diverse visual range.He his currently learning two computer music programs and will release his first instrumental album during the first quarter of 2011.
Who is James Lightle? Is he a musician? Is he graphic artist? The answer: He’s a being on a quest to expand creativity and ultimately share his art with the world.
-James Arnez Lightle
*ASR-10-Music synthesizer and workstation
*Sonic fan character-Original character based on Sonic fan characters.
Example: Agnes The Hedgehog Fan Group
http://www.facebook.com/james.lightle1#!/group.php?gid=116432421700922&ref=ts
