When I was in junior highschool, the highschool art teacher (the very talented and unconventional George Humes) saw some potential in me and allowed me to sit in on his art classes. There my artistic horizons became much broader. Whether Mr. Humes was working on portraits of Native Americans, pro athletes, or drawing wildlife scenes; I was trying to do the same. My sophomore year, he allowed me to borrow his book " The Art of the Brothers Hildebrandt." I was already a big fan of their work from the jigsaw puzzles that I used to put together as a kid. It was that book that set me off on the quest to learn how to paint.

It didn't go very well at first. At that time, I was trying to paint like the Hildebrandts, working in acrylics on a large scale, sometimes as large as 3'x4' on masonite panels. I would start a painting, realize fairly quickly that it wasn't going to turn out well, and decide to start another one. I was creating dozens of unfinished paintings but slowly learning in the process. My abilities, at that time, were not able to keep up with my ideas.

I was finally able to put together enough finished pieces to send a portfolio out to some art schools. I was offered a scholarship to attend the Columbus College of Art and Design in Columbus, OH. When I visited the school and saw that they had a three dimensional illustration program that taught how to create the foam latex creatures that you see in the movies, I was sold. The summer before my graduation in 1996 and for a brief stint afterward, I worked for a company called The Scarefactory here in Columbus. They create props for haunted attractions around the country. At the time they were specializing in very realistic gutted bodies; however, most of the work that I did for them involved creating torture devices, gargoyles, and other assorted scenery. I met my wife Lora around this time. We were married two years later and decided to stay in the Columbus area.

I was sending out samples of my paintings to a large number of publishers and collecting many polite rejection letters. A few companies did express some interest and I tried to make the most of the opportunity. Over the last ten years I've been very fortunate to work for a lot of great companies and many very talented, genuinely nice people. Rather than list them all here, I've tried to credit them in the captions of the paintings. My paintings have been used on many book and game covers. They've also been featured in many magazines and reproduced for collectible card games.

In terms of the future, I will always enjoy painting fantasy and science fiction themed work. Recently I have been able to work on some more personal work that I hope will appeal to a larger audience. It is mostly western stuff for now. If I can get enough paintings together I plan on showing them in galleries. I eventually want to illustrate scenes from the Bible. I can hear the snickers already - especially with some of the content of this website. The paintings will be respectful: I have many of them in my head already. There are a few major hurdles that I need to overcome; the main one being that I need to find someone to model for the most important figure. So, if you've been told that you look like Jesus and plan on being in the Columbus, OH area please get in touch with me.

I appreciate you visiting my website, please come back for updates and new artwork,

                                                                                                                            Sincerely,

                                                                                                                                        Dave