Professor of Illustration

Savannah College of Art and Design

Savannah, GA                                                                                      Aug 2019- Present

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• Prepared and taught lessons for four or five courses each quarter.

• Developed assignments for various illustration markets for both “Introduction to Illustration” and “Illustrating Beyond the Page: The Narrative Experience” courses.

• Shared a love of character development and creation in “Contextual Character Design” classes, preparing BFA juniors and seniors focusing on concept art and illustration.

• Taught and demonstrated a variety of techniques including dip pen, gouache, acrylic, oil paint, Photoshop, and Illustrator for “Materials and Techniques” classes.

• Art Director for students in a SCAD collaboration with AirBNB to create over 100 illustrations for their visual library.

• Served on several Graduate Review Committees to assess graduate portfolios and thesis proposals to determine the students’ readiness to progress through the graduate program.

• Served on several thesis committees – mentoring, helping, and guiding grad students through their thesis projects.

• Recognized for excellence in online teaching during the pandemic. Because of this, my virtual classes and methods were recorded and used as examples for fellow faculty members.

 

Freelance Illustrator

Savannah GA, Provo and Salt Lake City,                                    UT Aug 1997- Present

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• Developed art pool books relating to Hasbro’s franchise.

• Illustrated children’s books: , and several of the series books.

• Designed and illustrated several book covers.

• Created illustrations for over 30 magazine articles for magazines for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

• Wrote lines for interactive Mickey and Minnie Mouse toys for interactive toy and tech company, Ubooly.

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Senior Artist

Walt Disney Company - Disney Interactive/Avalanche Software Studios

Salt Lake City, UT                                                                             Feb 2002 – July 2016

 

• Concept artist for many characters, objects, and worlds in the game.

• Texture artist for game assets and worlds in the video game.

• Member of cinematic team responsible for story of the game or play set; collaborating with producers and designers to develop the story conceit, wrap it around the gameplay throughout the game development.

• Visited sets and studios and met with directors, artists, and writers of Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Lucasfilm to learn as much as possible about their projects to become a property protector, ensuring that our game developers maintained the integrity of the franchise during game development.

• Conceived of and wrote the story for several games, including the in-game cinematics, character dialogue, and on-screen text.

• Drew storyboards and created animatics for cutscenes, pitches, and adverts for various games.

• Interacted and directed the voice talent for our video games, ensuring they maintained their character and delivered the necessary lines for our games and promotions.

• Developed in-game cinematics – directing and editing the animation, voice-over, sound effects, visual effects, and audio for each cutscene and some online promotional material.

• Represented the studio in interviews, conventions, and promotional events – speaking in panels, demonstrating gameplay, and promoting the video games.

• Sent to speak about game development, characters, and story to several university classes in and around the state of Utah, creating presentations and assignments for college juniors and seniors.

 

Projects worked on:

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• Rugrats Royal Ransom (2002) – concept art, modeling

• Tak and the Power of Juju (2003) – concept art, texture artist

•  Tak 2: The Staff of Dreams (2004) – concept art

• Tak: The Great Juju Challenge (2005) – story conceit, storyboards, layout concept art

• Chicken Little (2005) – layout

• Chicken Little 2: Ace in Action (2006) – story conceit, writer, storyboards

• Meet the Robinsons (2007) – writer, layout, storyboards

• Hannah Montana: Spotlight World Tour (2007) – game designer, story conceit, director Bolt (2008) - layout

• Disney Original Fantasy Project (2009, Shelved) Toy Story 3 (2010) – writer, concept art

• Cars 2 (2011) – story conceit, storyboards

• Disney Infinity: Pirates of the Caribbean (2013) – writer, storyboards, concept art

• Disney Infinity 2: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) – writer, storyboards, concept art Disney Infinity 3: Twilight of the Republic (2015) – writer, storyboards, concept art

 

Writer, Editor

Disney Character Voices 

Writer/Editor, Casual hire during the illness of a full-time employee,

Burbank, CA                                                                                   June 2014 –Sept 2014

 

• Concept artist for many characters, objects, and worlds in the game.

• Texture artist for game assets and worlds in the video game.

• Member of cinematic team responsible for story of the game or play set; collaborating with producers and designers to develop the story conceit, wrap it around the gameplay throughout the game development.

• Visited sets and studios and met with directors, artists, and writers of Disney, Marvel, Pixar, and Lucasfilm to learn as much as possible about their projects to become a property protector, ensuring that our game developers maintained the integrity of the franchise during game development.

• Conceived of and wrote the story for several games, including the in-game cinematics, character dialogue, and on-screen text.

• Drew storyboards and created animatics for cutscenes, pitches, and adverts for various games.

• Interacted and directed the voice talent for our video games, ensuring they maintained their character and delivered the necessary lines for our games and promotions.

• Developed in-game cinematics – directing and editing the animation, voice-over, sound effects, visual effects, and audio for each cutscene and some online promotional material.

• Represented the studio in interviews, conventions, and promotional events – speaking in panels, demonstrating gameplay, and promoting the video games.

• Sent to speak about game development, characters, and story to several university classes in and around the state of Utah, creating presentations and assignments for college juniors and seniors.

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Improv Comedian

ComedySportz Utah

Provo, UT                                                                                                June 2000 – 2006

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• Performed weekly with an improvisational comedy troupe, entertaining audiences of 50 – 1000 people.

• Led improv workshops for various groups of people

 

Adjunct Professor

Brigham Young University

Provo, UT                                                                                                June 2000 – 2006

 

• Taught figure drawing courses to the advanced illustration, Animation, and Fine Art majors at BYU

• Focused on line, shape-making, light, shadow, volume, form, and modeling in the human figure.

• Prepared lessons, performed drawing demonstrations, graded sketchbook assignments, and presented lectures.

• Shared classic methods of studying basic shapes, direction, wrapping around the form, and line to help students apply the knowledge acquired in figure studies to their other work.

• Worked personally with my students to help them understand and improve individually.