According to Chelsea Kenna in her bio, “I majored in illustration and graduated with a BFA from Laguna College of Art and Design. I’ve worked in social and mobile gaming as a Lead Artist and concept artist, and currently work as a freelance illustrator.” And maker of fine prints and art portfolios as well. Her collection book The Art of Chelsea Kenna Volume 1 is available on her web site, as are her prints and an ever-growing collection of sketches. Check this: She also does pet portraits.
Chaos in Color
VanAnnies is the official web site of the artist Annie Dunn. She describes it like this: “This site hosts the BLOG for Chaos Annie, the artist behind Chaos in Color, a fine art shoppe of good humoured magic and mythology.” And lots of full-on portraits of animals in fantasy settings, too. She has a large selection of prints available for most of her work.
Cowabunga, Dog!
TikiPaws.com is an on-line retail store that’s best known for their colorful Polynesian-themed clothes and toys — for pets. Yes. They also have Hawaiian-print dog collars, and they even sell supplies to help you actually teach your pet to surf! But moving beyond that, they also offer a line of pet-clothes for the comic book geek who wants to bring along a little 4-legged superhero to the next convention. How about that? Now you can anthropomorphize your own household companion!
Art With Issues
“Sebastien Millon is an artist. His work is noted for its lack of vision and his art is usually muddled in a turbid stew of crockery.” That’s what the artist says about himself! We don’t think you’ll agree if you visit his web site and see his surreal (to put it mildly) collection of art and comic strips. Funny animals abound… often enough, all over you! Some of his more pithy stuff is also available as prints or on t-shirts. Go play outside more often.
Spyro and His Friends Come to Comics
This arrived in our in-box from the folks at IDW: “In conjunction with Activision, IDW Publishing is proud to announce the first-ever Skylanders comic-book series, penned by renowned comic-book writer Ron Marz with Mike Bowden and David Baldeon as lead artists. In the world of video games, Skylanders is a global phenomenon and the best-selling kids’ game franchise since its launch in 2011. Now fans have the opportunity to follow the adventures of all their favorite characters from Skylands through the magic of comic books. The first issue, a prequel to the Skylanders Trap Team™ storyline, actually provides fans an inside look at where some of their favorite Skylanders came from, and even gives them a first look at a few all-new characters from the upcoming game.” There’s lots more background information at Comic Book Resources.
Stylish Kitties
Cynthia Petrovic is an artist and illustrator who has worked as a story-board artist at places like Warner Brothers Television Animation. Branching out on her own, she created a line of artwork and other products called Red Tango, based around her fascination for critters — especially rather slim and stylized felines. She has a very animated interactive web page that includes not only her current products but also samples of her story-board work.
Fuzzy Cloth People
Taking a cue from the life and work of Jim Henson (who else?), Gordon Smuder and his associates formed The Puppet Forge back in 2001 to make and perform with puppets for a variety television and other media projects. Since then they’ve appeared in commercials for the Minnesota State Lottery, The Choo Choo Bob Show, Transylvania Television, John Kovalic’s The Dork Tower Project, and many other places. They also travel the land to various fandom conventions to sell puppets and teach about puppetry. Their web site has much more — and a plethora of pictures. Like this one…
Two Dogs in Time
Okay, this gets complicated, so follow along: Shiprock & Achordog is the name of an acoustic band that specializes in using music and lyrics (even rap!) to educated children about animals. It’s also the name of a comic book series they have created following the adventures of two dogs with that same name, Shiprock & Anchordog. In their first adventure, the canine companions travel back in time and befriend a family of dinosaurs. The band’s official web site explains it all more fully, as well as other educational programs they’re involved in. The comic was written by Evan Curran and illustrated by Gregery Miller, who also has his own web site devoted to this and other illustration projects (which he seems to have a lot of!).
She Gets Around
Talk about a well-rounded Artist! Zoe Moss is a graduate of CalArts in Southern California who now works as an artist, experimental animator, character designer, storyboard artist, puppet fabricator, and voice actor. (Oh is THAT all??) Her humor is on display regularly at Pizza Day Comics, which has also recently been gathered into a comic book. Then there’s her main web site, with the unlikely title of Brainfarto. Yes really.