Sean “Cheeks!” Galloway The New Face of Comics and Animation
“CHEEKS!” Defined
CHEEKS! (chēks!): a term Sean and his friends came up with to describe a good piece of work without having to go into detail.
From the Beginning: Sean posted several of these photos on his blog and deviantart page, even mentioning that the one he took with ‘Spider‐man’ is where it all began.
before he was ‘CHEEKS!’ Sean joined the Navy in 92’ to save up money for community college in San Diego, CA. He received little encouragement from several of his art teachers in regards to his goals, and had to teach himself how to draw the way he wanted to.
Inspirations While not a comic artist, one of Sean’s major inspirations was Norman Rockwell. His current style was shaped from his interest in Disney and Anime style…remind you of anyone?
3 Big Clients
He did cover illustrations and illustrated a few issues of the comic based off the series Teen Titans Go! while it was still running on Cartoon Network.
He also did a few covers for Pixar’s The Incredibles comic while it was in circulation following the movie’s release.
While many may overlook his earlier work since they were for youth comics, it was quite an accomplishment to have done work for DC, Marvel, and Disney.
A Hellish Breakthrough! Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy, wanted a different look from his for the animated movies. Out of all the styles researched and submitted, Sean was selected by Mike Mignola himself as the conceptual artist for the entire cast.
Since Sean was selected for the character design of the Hellboy Animated series, but had no experience as an animator, he became the conceptual designer for the two movies. However, little to no modifications were made to his conceptual designs.
The Spectacular Spider-man
Shortly after his work on Hellboy: The Animated Series, Sean became the lead Character Designer for another comic book hero based animated series, The Spectacular Spider‐man.
In these designs we can see how much action and movement Sean can create through his style to convey the character’s personality and spider‐like abilities. If you’re wondering about Peter Parker’s mole, that’s actually based off a mole Sean has next to his left eye.
Style
Sean draws in Silhouettes and Shapes, and creates the characters from them both for warm‐ups and when re‐designing characters.
Just for Fun
One of many renditions of the Thundercats characters you’ll find in Sean’s deviantart gallery and blog.
While similar to some of his other character line‐ups, this was purely for the fun of it.
Character designs for the Comic version of Teen Titans that he worked on.
It’s not the Style, it’s the Artist
These extreme sport pose sketches are part of his daily morning excersizes.
Why CHEEKS!?
I admire his ability to take shapes silhouttes and use them as the base for the majority of his character designs. Despite people discouraging him from comic art, he’s now one of the more recognized comic artists on the scene and has done character designs for two animated series.