Updated Toy Design Portfolio Download

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I’ve made some long overdue updates to my Toy Industry Portfolio.

For over a decade now I’ve been working on projects in the toy biz for clients including Hasbro, Disney, Toys-R-Us, Crayola, Chick-Fil-A, and several smaller companies. I’ve helped design toys for brands including Angry Birds, Toy Story, Star Wars, Sesame Street, Marvel, Play Doh, and Littlest Pet Shop, just to name a few. I’ve illustrated packaging for Mr. Potato Head and Crayola, I’ve done control art (turnaround) drawings for Frozen, and I’ve illustrated stickers for My Little Pony.

If you need a concept artist or illustrator for a toy related project, or you know someone who might, please download this free PDF portfolio. Email it, share it, or print it out to bring to a meeting. I’d love to hear about your project and talk about how I could meet your needs.

Download Toy Portfolio
Download General Portfolio

‘Polar Pranks’ Kids Meal Illustration for Kid Stuff Marketing

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Kid Stuff Marketing specializes in kids’ meal menus and toys for restaurants. I’ve done a few projects for them now. Recently they hired me to create a multi-purpose illustration using a line of polar bears that they refer to as “Polar Pranks”. They asked me to take their original polar bear designs and put my own spin on them. They wanted to update the look of the brand while still keeping it somewhat recognizable.

The layout was a bit tricky because the image had to be able to be sliced-and-diced in different ways. We designed it so that this image could work as a placemat, or as a a wrap-around paper sack (so no action on the folds), or with segments lifted for use on plastic cups.

Final result: Here’s how the sacks and cups turned out…

Haunted Mansion for Kid Stuff Marketing

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Kid Stuff Marketing creates happy meal-style toys and games for restaurants. They hired me to illustrate a “flashlight find” game with a haunted mansion theme. It’s a simple but very clever toy. Here’s how it works:

The artwork is printed on transparent plastic, then glued into a cardboard sleeve over a black background. When the transparent image is laid over the black it’s almost impossible to make out anything. (I was asked not to make the colors too bright to aid this effect.)

On the back of the frame is a punch-out “flashlight” with a white circle at the end. You slide the white circle into the frame, between the art and the black background, and boom! You can see the image.

I made this TikTok video to show it in action:

On the back of the cardboard sleeve are several questions (“How many cobwebs are there?”, “What is popping out from behind the couch?” etc.). It’s a simple but super fun gimmick! My kids loved it and said it blew their minds. They couldn’t figure out how it worked without any lights or batteries.

Kid Stuff Marketing does a lot of fun work and I’m honored to help them out. Here’s a few details from the illustration I submitted:

Happy Halloween!

“3-2-1 Penguins!” Photo Illustrations

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For the most recent episode of 3-2-1 Penguins! (titled “Pratical Hoax” and directed by Tom Bancroft), the script called for photographs to appear in various scenes. Since the show is built and animated in 3D, and since each photo would only be seen on screen for a few seconds, and since television deadlines are so brutal, rather than to build the characters and backgrounds in the computer the best solution was for me to just illustrate the photos. Since this is a cartoon show with wacky humor, we could get away with cartoony illustrations rather than realistic 3D images.

Television production is pretty fast-paced so I had to crank them out quickly. To help them feel more like photographs I experimented with a new technique. I avoided outlining anything. Instead I drew each shape in Photoshop with the path tool , selected it with the magic wand tool, and then on a separate layer I threw in some flat color. Once I was satisfied with the overall tonal balance of the colors I used the airbrush tool to paint in the shading and highlights on yet another layer.

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This “photo” was projected on the ship’s monitor screen for a gag about a peace treaty between a planet inhabited by dogs and tennis ball aliens. In hindsight I wish I’d have made the sling and bandages a little darker and less washed-out.

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In this episode the main characters fill in as substitute teachers at “The Academy”, which is their old high school/college. Since the show takes place in outer space, the student body is composed of various aliens (lifted from past episodes of Penguins). In one scene the camera pans a series of framed photos showing Captain Zidgel as a young cadet. I illustrated the above “photos” as part of that series.

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Finally, we also see some photos of the villain, Bert the Hamster, during his days as a young cadet. Here he is posing with an early version of his invention, the Galeezel (a device used throughout the series to shrink and enlarge things). The idea was to show an early version of the device using 1980’s-era technology. Looking at it now, I should have made the tabletop a darker color so that Bert’s feet and the computer would stand out a bit more.