About Me

PURPOSE: To work in a highly creative environment where my artistic ability, innovative ideas, and positive attitude can be utilized to its full potential.   


WORK EXPERIENCE:
     
Book Layout Designer/Writer/Editor                                                            
March 2008-October 2009
Adco Media/ Encino, CA
• Responsible for lay out, including writing and processing of photos, for three different bi-monthly magazines including: American Home Today, Family Health & Fitness, and Tri-Star Entertainment Previews.
• Responsible for creation and daily revision of several restaurant marketing books.
• Compile approved ads and change files from Illustrator documents to EPS files to be laid out on book templates
• Research articles to place in templates of Home Improvement and Health & Fitness books
• Create original design covers for multiple publications on a monthly basis 
• Duties include finding hi-res photos for cover as well as accompanying material for related story. Additional hi-res photos are needed to accompany general release film page, video game screen-grabs for game page, new CD release spotlight as well as Blu-Ray screen grab, showcasing the latest releases 
• Research upcoming films: Responsibilities include writing brief behind the scenes stories, cast or crew bios, special effects secrets, and sneak peak segments that focus on films currently in production   


• Graphic Artist                                                                                     
May 2007-October 2007
Third Degree Graphics/ Ventura, CA
• Designed and supervised advertising for “The Star Newspaper” 
• Created advertising collateral and design professional logos for clients based on individual business needs
• Created original illustrations for use in marketing announcements, pamphlets, and posters in auto advertising department
• Isolated and resolved potential file issues including resizing ads, ensuring images are high quality and CMYK or BW when necessary, and fonts are imbedded in the document



• Graphic Artist                                                                                           
July 2003- May 2007
Ventura County Star, Thousand Oaks, CA
• Designed and constructed all newspaper advertising
• Oversaw entire ad process including processing photos, gathering clip art, setting type, and converting file-types to workable assets for print, etc.
• Designed original “spec” ads for prospective clients
• Upgraded and updated current ads for existing customers
• Edited and re-touched photographs based on concepts provided by sales representatives including color correcting, and grayscale conversion
• Isolated and resolved potential file issues including resizing ads, ensuring images are high quality and CMYK or BW when necessary, and fonts are imbedded in the document


• Graphic Artist                                                                       
September 2001-December 2002
Affinity Group, Ventura, CA
• Designed and produced all marketing material for use in yearly “Trailer Life” catalogues
• Gathered and organized advertising ele-ments including clip-art, and photos
• Worked closely with salespeople to edit ads based on the clients’ wishes to ensure individual sales goals were met


• Graphic Artist                                                                          
December 2001-February 2002
Trade Express, Oxnard, CA
• Created professional and contemporary ads and sales material for weekly magazine
• Gathered and organized necessary ad elements, including clip-art and photos
• Processed raw jpegs into hi-resolution ready-to-print tiffs
• Worked closely with salespeople to edit ads based on the clients’ wishes to ensure individual sales goals were met


• Staff Artist                                                                                      
September 2000-July 2001
Carlow Design, Santa Monica, CA
• Solely illustrated and created storyboards for:
• “Space Center Bremen,” a theme park project in Bremen, Germany
• Movie advertisements
• Mattel and Applause Toys (Toy concepts)
• Major footwear retailers including AD-1 footwear
• Video game companies
• “Big Apple” television show (opening credits)
• LA Unified School District’s “Kid Intuition”




EDUCATION & TRAINING:

The Art Institute of Los Angeles, Santa Monica, CA.
Graduate with Honors, Computer Animation (3-D) and Graphic Design, 2000

LACC, Los Angeles, CA
Cinema


SPECIAL SKILLS:

• Accomplished and highly creative artist who specializes in sketching, animation, character design, caricatures, and storyboards
• Responsible, motivated team-player and leader who thrives in a creative environment
• Proficient in Adobe CS4 in an Apple OS X 10.6 environment, Photoshop, Illustrator, In-design, Quark XPress, Acrobat, Final Cut Pro HD, Word, Excel, iLife incl: Pages and Numbers 
• Certified -BA, 2-D and 3-D Animation 2000 and Graphic Design


• References available upon request
• Salary history available upon request
• Also available for freelance jobs

Sketch Book

Storyboards

Character Design

These are designs for an animated TV show titled The Incredibly Strange World of Johnny Armani. Here are just a handful of characters who appeared in it. It dealt with Johnny Armani and his travels through various seedy dance clubs and the exotic characters that live in that world.

MR FRANKIE

Mr. Frankie is an intimidating looking man who tends bar. he suffered a stroke so half his face has no expression. He has a scary exterior but turns out to be quite a softy who hopes to open a sandwich shop.

ATOM BOMB 

Atom Bomb is a club DJ who also happens to be a vampire. He is dating Johnny Armani's long lost daughter who also works at the club. Atom is not very bright, mispronounces way too many (big) words and reads a LOT of science fiction.

 

Marker Comps

Marker comps are a lot of fun. I work with Prismacolor marker and Prismacolor pencil. I can't believe that a lot of people can't control marker. Some people think that these are watercolor, as if watercolor were more controllable. Is that even a word? I usually begin by skething lightly with pencil, darkening that with some sort of fine tip pen and then coloring with marker. I use both cool and warm grey for the shadows depending on the color of the overal comp and bring out the highlights with colored pencil, white colored pencil and yes, whiteout.

JAWS BOOK

Here is sort of an exploded illustration of the left to right shark from JAWS. Below that is the platform that the shark was attached to which barely allowed it to role back and forth through the water. There is a lot of resistance in water. The boys at Universal never counted on that.

This was created to better illustrate the different layers, parts and hoses that made up the pneumatic shark in a book that I am putting together about the men that worked on JAWS.

USH JAWS ATTRACTION

JAWS Attack opened during the spring of 1976. Here are some marker studies that I did for the book detailing the various sharks (above), colors and layout of the Amity island set.

LOGOS

The Real Archaeologist logos. These were for a show that was pitched for the Discovery Channel. See more under Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator.

 

TOY DESIGN

Here are a couple of marker comps. The first one is a Goofy plush from the Goofy Movie, below that is Ariel's daughter from The Little Mermaid II. Toy concepts are fun. I've done it a few times. Well, actually I've done it not enough.

ZOOBILEE ZOO

Zoobilee Zoo was a traveling interactive theme park carnival thing with computers and technology and stuff... I think. It was fun to create. I did a mountain full of stuff for something that never got built. That's okay, I never got paid for it. That'll show'em!

Caricature

I have always loved caricature. It's a mystery to me how it works. MAD magazine and Mort Drucker were my first heroes, Disney's Nine Old Men and ultimately the king himself Al Hirschfeld are all influences.

TV SHOWS

Here is the cast of Everybody Loves Raymond. They signed it for me and it's framed in a closet. One day I'll hang it on the wall again.

Below is the cast of the show Yes, Dear. It used to be on CBS before Raymond. I remember that I was going to see them and try to get their autographs but it never happened.
The cast of My Name Is Earl were going to be at the Paley Festival at the Director's Guild. That meant one thing - caricature! My Name Is Earl had a pretty good season one, weird season two and just lost it after that. The cast dashed for the exit when all was said and done. Never got this autographed.

The Big Bang Theory is on CBS. It features four nerds and one hot dumb girl. It's funny. I have this signed by the cast, except for Sheldon -- the dude who is doing that weird Trekkie thing in the background.

CELEBRITY
Dixie Chicks. I was going to see them in a little theatre in LA for the taping of their VH-1 special. Near the end of the show my friend got Natalie Maine's attention. They signed the final version which still hangs in my room. Emily thought her chin was too long. This is one of many studies that I sketched before the final.

George Lucas was at the Paley festival at the Director's Guild on Sunset. After his interview he signed this sketch. I have it framed. The autograph looks like a weird scribble.

Okay, technically they belong in TV Shows, Marshall Dillon and Festus from Gunsmoke. But when was the last time you saw them on TV/ I don't think they're on TV Land anymore. Matt Dillon below them and a handful of celebs including Will Smith and Mel Gibson from a horrible scan. I'll have to do that one again! These are more straight ahead MAD magazine style caricatures. I think that the Gunsmoke and Matt Dillon comps were requested by fans.

Good Day LA is a wacky morning news show here in Los Angeles. This is a study of the three anchors - Dorothy Lucey, Jillian Barberie (Reynolds) and Steve Edwards (two versions).

ORDINARY FOLKS

Here is a caricature for someone that I worked with simply titled Bob. This is what Bob looked like. I think I spent 10 seconds doing this. it shows. Below him are people that I worked with.

This is the first design group that I worked with. I was primarily an illustrator here and did a lot of cool stuff like storyboards, theme park and character design.

This is a group that I did for a newspaper art department that I was part of. They are all gone. Well, actually I think that a couple of them still make ads for the paper, otherwise our jobs were sent overseas. *sigh* I like how I recycled myself.WEDDING INVITE
Here is my wedding invitation. Created it in Illustrator. One of the few times that I used artificial means when I could have used a pen and markers. I was going for a Shag style. I'm not really a fan of Shag but he was doing a whole series of Disneyland art and we were getting married at The Happiest Place on Earth NOT Where Dreams Come True.

Pencil Sketch

I used to draw my dreams when I woke up. Kept a sketchbook of drawings. Later I would write them down and I wrote two screenplays based on dreams. This comp is based entirely on dreamy images.

TOY CONCEPTS

These are a couple of sketches that were created for various booths and displays for Toy Fair back in New York.

These are a couple of Winnie the Pooh sketches that were created for Pooh frames. They never went further than the sketch phase as far as I know.

MARKETING
Various concepts for shoe displays and such from a variety of jobs.

SPACE CENTER BREMEN

Here are concepts for a logo to be used for an indoor theme park called Space Center Bremenin Germany. Since then it has built. Never been there but I'm sure it's cool. 

 

KID INTUITION
The LAUSD started a program in which a kid used a lot of common sense in everyday situations. Oh, and he was a DJ and liked to pose like a gangsta - no lie. Anyway, here is a model sheet of the kid. These poses were actually used in the Kid Intuition book.

WEBSITE

My cousin Franklin (right - Silver Surfer) needed a Marvel comic inspired sketch for his bands website KFD. I started the drawing but never had time to finish it. It may show up in a more complete form soon though. Okay it's not exactly a website, but it's supposed to be on a website.