By Caroline Andrade
Academy of Art University School of Visual Development Online Curriculum Coordinator Jeremy Saliba was recently featured in the ASUS ProArt Series after the company took notice of his licensed “Star Wars” artwork.
“They have this new line of computers that are targeted at creative professionals, so they’ve been doing a series with people that they feel are at the top of their fields to show how they are using the ASUS computers,” shared Saliba. “So, they asked [me] if I would want to do a demonstration of my work—one of my art pieces on one of their computers and then tell them about my experience.”
Saliba is a Lucasfilm Ltd. licensed artist who has been creating licensed artwork for the past two years. Instead of recreating a scene from one of the movies, he enjoys pitching fresh ideas and producing one-of-a-kind works that resonate with “Star Wars” fans. When a pitch is approved, Saliba further develops those works into eye-catching pieces before submitting them back to Lucasfilm Ltd.
“They make sure [that] all the details are correct and then they sell these licensed prints in limited, high-quality museum-print editions and put them up in galleries,” explained Saliba, who has been “most excited so far” about his work being showcased at gallery shows in Disneyland Park, The Launchpad Gallery, as well as in Disney California Adventure Park.
The ASUS ProArt Series video features Saliba discussing the ProArt PA90 workstation mini PC and the ProArt PA32UC that he used to work on his “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”-inspired project created for Dark Ink Art. “It’s a similar approach that you would have for most setups like this,” explained Saliba. “I transferred the document that I was drawing on an iPad over … to the PA90 and began scaling up the resolution very high. That’s one of the things that a lot of computers will get slow when I do these paintings, because I have to work with very high resolution. [T]his computer was great because it was so powerful, it didn’t slow down at all, it actually sped up my process.”
Saliba added that the ASUS team was impressed with the curriculum and output of Academy student work. “I showed them some of the classrooms and they were impressed with what we teach, and how we teach it in our facilities and everything,” he said.