Stedroy Cleghorne is a Digital artist, with a traditional art background. Born in the island of St.Kitts and raised in Brooklyn NY, Stedroy began his professional art career at the age of sixteen, when he wrote and illustrated “Space collision” for the science fiction magazine Heavy Metal. Since then, his work has been exhibited at “Talking Heads” group art show in Soho and the ridge Street Gallery in New York.
Stedroy is the CEO of The Stardus Group Ltd a multimedia company that has produced digital and motion art for the fortune 500 companies as well as the independent film industry. In 1995 Stedroy published his graphic novel “Crime” which he wrote and illustrated. He then published a motion comic app in 2013 of the same title.
In 1995 Stedroy published his graphic novel “Crime” which he wrote and illustrated. He then published a motion comic app in 2013 of the same title. Stedroy won an Award of excellence from the Puffin foundation in 1998 for the Painting “Distant Voices” a painting based on the early Africans in New York from the 16th thru the 18th century.
In 2001 Stedroy received certification from the Digital Film Academy in New York, where his short film Hues of desire won first place. In 2009 Stedroy Illustrated a series of comic books for the Emmy award winning show “We Are New York” written by Kayhan Irani
Stedroy is currently an assistant adjunct Professor at The Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, teaching digital Image editing for the Photography and Illustration Department.
Photo Bill Zules
Press:
New Word Article:
The Stedroy Cleghorne Interview: New Word Magazine1992
By Franklin Sirmans
We were first introduced to excerpts of the Crime graphic novel on the pages of New Word magazine. Now meet the producer-graphic novelist Stedroy Cleghorne. Cleghorne works and lives in the close comfort of his Clinton Hill Studio, close to where he grew up and saw firsthand the world of drugs, violence and corruption that fills Crime’s pages. Cleghorne’s place is filled with artwork (in bags under the couch, etc.) and two desks, (where he works between the computer and the drafting table), cluttered with the works in progress. Before we even break down the formality, Cleghorne asks, “Have you ever shot a gun before?” What?
He then proceeds to pull out a small cache of facsimile weapons including handcuffs, an uzi and a heavy .9mm pistol. “Props,” he says, grinning and aimVing the nine like one of his characters might do. He goes on to passionately explain the process of his art , which is called digital illustration. Cleghorne’s method involves interviewing and selecting actors who play out a script while he shoots stills from the scenes on a 35 millimeter camera. He then sketches the scenes and adds his art through a computerized image to digitally illustrate his novel.
Although graphic novels such as Crime have a small audience in this country, European and Japanese presses have been up on the potential of these Illustrated book-length stories for some time. Cleghorne has been drawing all his life. He did his first comic book in 1975 while he was a student at Laguardia High school of music and Art, in manhattan. The style was characteristic of the thriving graffiti scene, “all the people doing graff liked my stuff, but I couldn’t get with running around painting the trains and all that” says Cleghorne. “Its always been a very personal thing for me.”
After working at various jobs such as messengering and preparing fast food, Cleghorne began to put his graphic skills to work. Prior to discovering digital illustration, Cleghorne’s passion was working with an airbrush. He completed about twenty airbrushed painting in 1982.
SWING Magazine:
Cleghorne is currently shaking up the fantasy-filled world of Superman and Wonder Woman with a dose of grim inner-city reality. Crime, his testament to the true life on the streets, is not only one of the world’s first digital-graphic-art comic books but also the first to confront the causes and effects behind today’s drug-plagued landscapes.
“My plan was to show the hard life of crime on the sheets,” says the 35-year-old former illustrator and writer for Heavy Metal magazine. “I wanted to have a young kid look at this book and get discouraged rather than enticed by the drug world.”
The $4.95 black and white magazine with a full-color cover looks more like a home video from the dark side than a comic book. Computer-enhanced images merge photographs and drawings, detailing the lives of street toughs. Cleghorne photographed his friends in the roles of dealers and cops and drew the scenery by hand.
As in the teal world of drugs, people are shot and lives are destroyed. “There’s a scene with a young girl in a closet selling herself for a hit,” Cleghorne says. “I wanted to show that in a graphic form. I think that’s more shocking than just reading about it.”
True, but the most shocking thing about Crime is that it exists at all. When Cleghorne tried to pitch the project, publishers questioned whether the comic world could sell. So Cleghorne decided to publish it himself at a cost of $3,500.00. The result? Ned Brewster from Forbidden Planet, a comic book Mecca in New York, says independents don’t usually move, but this one is really moving! In just six months, Cleghorne sold more than half of the 2,500 he’s printed. Cleghorne says he’s already onto his next project: Crime part II is due out this summer.
-Ken Baron, Swing Magazine
Swing Magazine, June issue 1997
Shades of Gray Documentary Clip:
