Born and raised in the midwest, I have been drawing since as early as I can remember. It started with profiles of cars from being around my dad's race car at the race track and evolved over time into cartoons, video game characters, comic books, and eventually illustrations. It wasn't until I attended college that I realized I wanted to be an artist and that there were so many possibilities that lay in front of me. At the end of college I took an interest in sculpting and mold making, which was probably rooted in my earlier days of building model cars when I wasn't drawing. I graduated from the Columbus College of Art and Design in '98 with a Bachelor's Degree of Fine Arts and within two years I moved to New England to take a product design position.

A few years after that, I joined the Hasbro model shop where I painted toy prototypes for almost all the major Hasbro brands. It wasn't until 2006, where I was hired full time, that I became Sr. Model Artist for the Transformers line. For the next four years, I worked with the Transformers team on movies 1 and 2, the animated series, video game, Classic, and Universe items providing finished prototypes for packaging and manufacturing purposes. The examples I have in the Hasbro section are just a few among hundreds that I've done over the years. It's possible to see more if you view the back of a Transformers package during the series stated above. There's a good chance that I painted the model that you see.

I have since left the toy industry and will continue to focus on my artwork as a freelance artist, illustrator, and designer. There are many things that I would like to do or try, like getting one of my ideas published as a book, or breaking into the video games industry. But the one rule I want to adhere to is to keep it creative. While I don't like to limit myself to any specific genre, I do enjoy science fiction the most. I am a huge space fanatic and can't help but sit and ponder over what is and what could be out there. It's a great scource of inspiration.

Inside the galleries, you will find a little bit of everything from my themed series of illustrations to some of the earliest projects I did while at Hasbro. Over the years, I have made the transition to the digital medium in my illustrations as it helps take care of some of the clutter that builds up in the studio. I find the digital medium easier to handle and easier to manage since most art ends up digital anyways. Plus, I may just being saving a tree somewhere.

I will save a more detailed explanation for the individual galleries but here is a brief rundown on the themes I have going on right now. By the way, all illustrations can be viewed together in the 2D gallery.

Galactigraphics: This is a theme I started that spawned from a single idea for a contest I saw online that never ended up happening. I want to take it in the fun and educational direction and make posters, hats, and t-shirts along with illustrations to capture kids interest along with adults who may find scientific articles to hard to follow. This will help explain some of the basic fundamentals of our known universe, especially our own solar system. I would very much like to see these end up in science museum gift shops as well as classrooms across the country. In early 2012, they were among selected pieces that made it into the science online 2012 art show and were presented to a crowd of over 450 people at Duke university in North Carolina.

C.E.O.B.S.: Art for the corporately challenged. Need I say more?

The Other Sun Saturdays: I took on comic strips in August 2011 when I was asked by Richie Pages of nosemilkmedia.com to draw his Saturday scripts for The Other Sun, a strip about one human kid growing up in an alien world very much like our own. It follows the adventures of Cory, the human kid, Tweezle, and Tweezle's friends and family. Each strip will be posted here with permission only after it has been published on its own site www.theothersun.com.

Samsin & Itch: These two guys have been bouncing around in my head for quite some time now. They are two "tech" devils that were specifically assigned to me to make my life with computers as miserable as possible. Their surreal world consists of the innards of my technology. The always grumpy Samsin is convinced that the mythical big book of viruses (for devils!) is real and that by finding it, it will eliminate me once and for all. He's on a mission to be the best, and most clever, of all devils. He wants to rule them all.

Itch is a tag-a-long of sorts. He doesn't actually have a mission but enjoys Samsin's energy, enthusiasm, and company, even though he doesn't quite understand it all the time. As harmless as he may seem, and unknowingly, Itch is actually the more effective one in disrupting my daily computer abilities while Samsin takes all the credit.

Look for upcoming strips as I begin to write and create my world through their eyes.

-Mike