Dave Leri has been working as an illustrator for the last 20 years. He lives in Columbus, OH with his wife Lora and cats Mia and Zoey. A graduate of the Columbus College of Art and Design, he started his career working for a company called The Scarefactory that makes props, scenery, and latex monsters for Halloween attractions.
As his illustration work began to pick up, he decided to make the jump to freelancing full-time. After about two years of life as an over-caffeinated zombie, He decided that the freelance life was not the dream he imagined it to be and found that having another part-time job to smooth out the rough patches was a good solution.
Over the years his work has been used on many book and game covers, for collectible card games, in magazines, etc. In recent years he has gradually drifted into doing more commissions for private art collectors and personal work.
In terms of artistic influences, his high school art teacher Mr George Humes was a great one. He saw some potential in Dave while he was junior high and let him sit in on his classes. Whether he was painting Native American portraits or wildlife, Dave was trying to the same. One day Mr Humes brought in his "Art of the Brothers Hildebrandt" book to class and that ended being the turning point that led to here .