Foundation & Design Track

Yves Yumol

Concept Artist

Yves Yumol is a freelance concept artist and art instructor based in Los Angeles, California, working in the entertainment and game industry. He has taught at a variety of private art schools and currently co-instructs at Concept Design Academy in Pasadena, California. In his spare time, he enjoys sketching outdoors and plein-air painting. His clients range from video game and visual FX companies such as Swihart Studios and various indie developers.

Poe Tan

Concept Artist and Illustrator

Poe Tan has worked for Walt Disney Animation Studios, Warner Brothers Animation , Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Fox Animation, Sony, and many others. He has done designs for hit shows Ben10, Rugrats the Movie, Johnny Bravo, He-Man Masters of the Universe and many more. Areas of expertise include background design both relating to animation and game design. Poe has received his MFA in 2014 from Academy of Art and has been teaching at many famous art institutes including Art Center since 2008.

Robert St Pierre

Production Designer

For over 22 years Robert has worked as a Production Designer, Vis. Dev. Artist and an Environment Designer. Robert has worked for Disney Feature Animation, Direct to Home Video and Television divisions, Warner Brothers Feature Animation and Video division, Focus Films and many more. His credits include Production Designer on "Mulan 2", "Lady and the Tramp 2", Background Layout Artist on Disney's "Winnie The Pooh", "Princess & The Frog", television series, including "Sofia The First" and "Phineas & Ferb". He has also lectured at the Disney Studios, and is currently an Assistant Professor at CSU Northridge.

Jon Messer

Architectural Illustrator

Jon Messer is an illustrator with 30 plus years of architectural rendering, illustration, visual development and painting experience. He has produced award winning renderings for architects, urban planners, developers and has produced illustrations for advertising, print, and children’s books. He works in watercolor, pen and ink and digital painting.

Asa Enoch

Illustrator/ Concept Artist

Asa Enochs is a freelance illustrator, concept artist and art director with over 15 year of experience. He has worked for large and small companies, from EA and Sony to small 7 person teams. Asa has also spent the last 10 years teaching students to create illustration and entertainment art and enjoys helping future designers on their path.

Scott Caple

Production Designer

Scott Caple has been working in the animation industry for 30 plus years as a designer, layout, and story artist for such companies as Lucasfilm, Don Bluth Productions, Disney, Pixar, Blue Sky, SPA among others, with credits including: Klaus, The Little Prince, The Incredibles, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Legend of Mulan, Tarzan, Fantasia 2000, Atlantis: The Lost Continent, All Dogs Go to Heaven, Inspector Gadget, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Trek II, plus game design for THQ for The Incredibles, The Incredibles:Rise of the Underminer, Ratatouille, and Wall-E, The Little Prince.

Other interests lean to such as calligraphy, painting, drawing, modelmaking, history and many things that require a lifetime to even begin to learn - sailing, fencing, arms and armour, movies, not to mention all these new things being served up by our digital age. In all of this he has learned that good reference is indispensable to creating good art.

Dmitry Sorokin

Concept Designer

Dmitry Sorokin is a freelance concept designer working on video games. Dmitry holds an engineering degree in oil & gas industry. And after 10 years career in that field he switched gears completely to pursue his passion - creating worlds. After acquiring Entertainment Design diploma in 2014 he worked with several video games and concept art companies including Arkane Studios, Bethesda, Bohemia Interactive and West Studio; and participated in production of several games with PREY being among the others.

Pat Marconett

Layout / Background Designer

Pat Marconett is a background design / visual development artist based out of Los Angeles. He loves drawing old architecture and historically inspired things. Currently he is working on Big Hero 6 at Disney TV Animation. In the past he worked on Sofia the first, Wingfeather Saga, Be Cool Scooby Doo, Veggie Tales and several others. He has also been developing his own children's book series.

Patrick Ballesteros

Concept Designer

Patrick Ballesteros is a designer based in Los Angeles, California. He works as a freelance illustrator/concept artist for the film, game, and animation industries. He also conducts workshops, guest speak, and teaches at the Concept Design Academy in Pasadena, California. Some of his clients include High Impact Games (Jak and Daxter the Lost Frontier), Magic Pixel Games (Carnival Island),

Margaret Koo

Illustrator & Concept Artist

Margaret Koo is a freelance illustrator and concept artist based in Los Angeles, California. She has worked for a variety of studios and companies such as East West Entertainment Studio and Koi Art Boutique, among others. She has also taught for a variety of art and design schools including Concept Design Academy in Pasadena, California. As an artist who loves the outdoors, she enjoys sketching and painting from life at any moment possible and discovering new ways to incorporate learning from the natural world around her.

Dzu Nguyen

Concept Artist

Dzu Nguyen is a freelance concept artist and illustrator currently working the in video games and entertainment industries. In addition to freelancing, he also teaches at the Art Institute of California. Some of his past video games projects for Sony Computer Entertainment include Warhawk, Resistance: Burning Skies, "Sorcery", Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale, and Destiny of Spirits.

Ron Lemen

Illustrator and Instructor

Ron Lemen is a concept artist and art director for the games industry. He currently is a full time freelance artist and has worked with numerous clients such as Blizzard, Lucasarts, Transworld Media, Activision, Upper Deck, Dragon Lance, White Wolf, Time Warner, Wizards of the Coast, Image Comics, Birdhouse Projects, Ride Snowboards, Disney, and more.

Rey Bustos

Illustrator and Instructor

Rey Bustos teaches anatomy through ecorche' and life drawing at his Alma Mater The Art Center College of Design, Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art, California State University at Los Angeles and at Disney Feature Animation. He also has a private teaching business "Go For Baroque" where he teaches art to kids(of all ages) at their home. He recently finished publishing his own anatomy book, "Rey's Anatomy" by Design Studio Press, available through his website. In his spare time he prepares for his classes and has a sandwich.

Lanny Markasky

Storyboard Artist

Lanny is a freelance storyboard and concept artist working in the advertising and film industry. Developing an interest early on in the work of the golden age illustrators, he set his focus on figurative drawing and painting, and creating art as a means of visual storytelling. After graduating from CSULB with a BFA in illustration, Lanny moved to New York where he is currently represented by Famous Frames. Aside from working as an artist, Lanny continues to study at various art schools, create personal work on his own, and is about to release his first instructional drawing book “Mastering Realism”.

Christian Nacorda

Concept Artist and Instructor

Christian Nacorda is a concept artist, sculptor, and instructor starting teaching in 2005 Art Institute Orange County, He currently teaches at Art Institute Inland Empire and Norco College. Previously held a position of a sculptor at Atomic Monkey working on various titles such as Simpsons, Family Guy, Uncharted, Halo, Bioshock, Chicken Little, and Meet the Robinsons.

Patrick Jones

Illustrator

Patrick J. Jones is an award winning artist, author and teacher. He has worked as a concept artist and book illustrator for many publishing companies and his work has featured in major U.S. exhibitions, both in NYC and Pennsylvania. His oil paintings and drawings reside in private collections worldwide.

Patrick is the author of four best selling art technique books: ’Oil Painting: Masterclass' and ’Sci-fi & Fantasy Oil Painting Techniques’, ‘The Anatomy of Style' and ‘Figures from Life’. His work has also been collected in a hardcover volume, ‘The Sci-Fi & Fantasy Art of Patrick J. Jones’. His next book ‘The Lying Eye: Drawing from Photos’ will be released via Korero Press in 2022.

Mike Wiesmeier

Mike Wiesmeier has been working in the animation industry since 1991. Mike’s production work has included interactive, commercial, games, and feature animation projects, including six features at Walt Disney Feature Animation, work as a supervisor on a traditionally animated feature film in Barcelona, Spain, and most recently on a AAA game, interactive theme park ride, and Netflix series projects in Montréal. Mike’s teaching career began while working at Walt Disney Feature Animation. In the years since he has taught animation, life drawing, animal drawing, and figure sculpture at institutions worldwide including The Art Institutes of California, The Getty Center museum, The Huntington Library, Gnomon School of Visual Effects, Syn Studio École d’Art in Montréal, and Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy.

Tyler Edlin

Concept Artist and Illustrator

Tyler Edlin is traditionally trained with a Bachelor of fine arts and certificate of illustration from The Art institute of Boston. Notably he has worked many indie projects like Fall From Heaven and the Therion Saga to the larger productions of Tinkerbells Fairies from Disney Interactive and Chivalry: Medieval Warefare from TornBanner studios. Tyler has worked with studios including Disney Interactive, Hitpoint Studios, Studio Virty's, Fantasy Flight, Paizo Publishing, StarDock Industries, Tornbanner Studios, and Activision.

Bernardo Araujo Machado

Character Designer

Bernardo is a Luso-Brazilian Character Designer/Illustrator based in London UK. He graduated from Arts University Bournemouth in Illustration and Animation Production and has worked in the industry since 2017 in Commercials and Tv Series and has worked with Cartoon Network, Nexus Studios, The Line, Netflix, Blinkink Feed me Light and Ritzy Animation.

Arne Billen

Concept Artist

Arne Billen is a concept art teacher at Syntra AB Belgium as well as a freelance game concept artist. After finishing his master's degree in physiotherapy he decided to take a new turn in life and pursue his passion for art. He has made over 1200 paintings and has become a part-time lecturer on figure drawing and anatomy, digital painting and set & prop design. He loves to explore new methods of creating art and is still hard at work at getting better every day.

Kevin Scarborough

Lead Background Designer and Painter

Originally from New York, Kevin Scarborough is a background designer/painter currently living in Los Angeles, CA. His primary role has been Lead Background Designer and Painter for Stephen Colbert’s “Late Night Cartoons” studio at CBS. Also, Kevin has contributed to projects at Titmouse, Nickelodeon, Netflix, Cartuna, King Games, and Keyframe Digital Productions. He has a strong foundation in traditional animation and experience in 3D applications such as Blender, Maya, and Sketchup. An avid hiker, Kevin believes in the importance of painting and sketching outdoors and from life as much as possible.

Lane Brown

Concept Artist / Illustrator

Lane Brown is a concept artist and illustrator working in the entertainment industry. His past projects include work for video games, tabletop games, theatrical poster art, and book cover illustration. Previously working as a concept artist and art director for Goldfires Studios, Lane now works as both a freelance illustrator and fine artist from his home in South Carolina. He specializes in both digital painting and traditional charcoal drawing.

Samma van Klaarbergen

Illustrator and Concept Artist

Samma is a freelance concept artist, art director and illustrator that loves anything related to color and light. As a self-taught artist, he is always exploring and figuring out what makes a good picture or artstyle. Samma has worked with Studios like Insomniac games, Ubisoft and Submarine animation, and is currently art directing multiple projects, including one of his own. He mainly works in Photoshop, but also uses 3D and VR in his workflow.

Chris Brock

Art Director

Chris Brock is an art director at DreamWorks Animation and is currently working on "Boss Baby 2". Prior to that he worked as a visual development artist on "Abominable”. Since 2006, Chris has been instrumental in the design and look of many of DreamWorks films such as Kung Fu Panda films 1,2 and 3, Boss Baby, Monsters Vs. Aliens, and Flushed Away. Prior to that Chris worked as a Background Painter on many other projects at Warner Brothers, Cartoon Network, DreamWorks and Disneytoon Studios including, "The Iron Giant", "Samurai Jack", "The Road to El Dorado and "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas". Chris studied Illustration at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA.

Rachel Elese Morales

Visual Development Artist and Illustrator

Rachel Elese Morales is a visual development artist and illustrator who is passionate about storytelling, color, and light. She has worked for studios such as Nickelodeon, Dreamworks Animation, and Warner Bros. Animation where she has contributed to developing characters and environments for 2D and 3D productions. Currently, she is working at Dreamworks Animation as a visual development artist on an unannounced series.

Axel Sauerwald

Concept Artist / Illustrator

Axel Sauerwald is a freelance concept artist and illustrator, currently living and working in Germany. While being a part of the team at Atomhawk Design in Newcastle he had the chance to contribute to games such as Mortal Kombat 11, Age of Empires 2:DE and various other unannounced projects, mainly creating character and costume designs, illustrations and marketing art.

Mehreen Bazm

Creative Director

Mehreen graduated with an undergrad in Graphic Design and a Master's Degree in Motion Media Design from Savannah College of Art & Design. After graduating, Mehreen started her career in Manhattan & Brooklyn, NY where she was given the opportunity to work with well-reputed companies such as Motion Picture Company-NY, Vice Media HBO, NBC Universal, Hogarth Worldwide, Ogilvy & Mather, Beehive, Loyal Kaspar, Click 3x, Spontaneous, Sirius XM, Transistors Studios, Animated Storyboards, Joule, Now what, Launch/Charlex, Eyeball.

Now she resides in Denver, Colorado freelancing with companies like Starz Entertainment, Motive Design Studio, Spillt Agency, Milkhaus, Blue Pony, Indiana and many more! Some of the clients that she has worked with include Vida, Bitter Sweet, Ford, Rocky Mountain Institute, Charter Support, CMT ID Logos, The Profit, SharkTank, VICE HBO, Comedy Central, New York City Opera LED screen projection-Moses in Egypt, GE, Harley Davidson, La Soiree-Theater New York, CNBC Networks.

She also taught Motion Graphics at Art Institute of Colorado and re-wrote the motion graphics online course for Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design. She now successfully teaches 2D animation online program at RMCAD as well. When she is not working she is hiking the Colorado mountains, soaking up the sun, traveling, drawing, painting, making music, dancing, or simply being a curious nerd!

Sergio Castaneda

Concept Artist

Mexican artist Sergio Castañeda is part of the One Pixel Brush team, creating concept art for titles like Last of Us Part 2, Call of Duty Mobile, Arena of Valor, among others. Starting his career as a 3D technical artist, he decided to jump into the professional concept art world in the last years starting from scratch. He is constantly looking for new tools and techniques that allow him to move quickly and get the job done in a short time. Always searching for the best way to tell the story in every single image. He enjoys challenging projects but also family, movies, music, and dogs.

Anne Pogoda

Freelance Illustrator and Concept Artist

Anne Pogoda is a freelance artist and instructor whose client list includes ImagineFX, Phoenix Film, Teamworxx, FremantleMedia, Grundy UFA, UFA Film & TV GmBH, RTL Group, Pro 7, Ronin Film, Ballistic Publishing, Falkemedia, Cornelsen, Imagine Publishing, Focal Press, Zenescope Entertainment, Virgin Lands Animated Pictures, Kinesthetic Games, Gamomat GmBH and btk-ak

Ricardo Guimaraes

Keyframe Illustrator

Ricardo Guimaraes is a freelance Keyframe Illustrator with several years of experience. A Fine Arts graduate, he has a deep passion for the visual arts and he has worked for both the game and film industries. Among his clients are: Blizzard Entertainment, Square Enix, Wizards of the Coast, Type AB, Gunpowder and Sky, Ghost VFX, Axis Studios, Mindbender, and many others.

Ognjen Sporin

Illustrator and Concept Artist

Ognjen Sporin is a freelance illustrator and concept artist. He studied illustration in college, but dropped out to start pursuing professional art full-time 3 years ago, and never looked back. He currently lives in a small village in Serbia and mostly works on fantasy projects and his personal art. He's done illustration, concept art and visual development for video games, animated movies, books and tabletop games, and his notable past clients include Netflix, Wizards of the Coast, Marvel, NetEase and Volta.

Forrest Imel

Illustrator/Concept Artist

Forrest Imel is a professional freelance illustrator/concept artist with 6+ years of experience in the games industry. Over those years he's worked with clients such as Blizzard, Riot Games, Wizards of the Coast, Valve, Disney, and more.

Peter Han

Concept Designer

Peter Han is an entertainment and concept designer who graduated from Art Center College of Design. His client list includes Sony, Konami, Cheyenne Mountain, Trion, Vivendi Universal, and many more. His titles include Warhawk, Spyro the Dragon, Stargate Worlds, Silent Hill Experience, and Defiance.

Mauricio Abril

Art Director and Concept Artist

Mauricio is a former scientist turned concept artist living and working in the Los Angeles area. He graduated from UCLA with a degree in Molecular Biology before studying Illustration and Entertainment Design at the Art Center College of Design.

Since then Mauricio has worked on a variety of projects in animation, film, video games, children's books, theme parks and more with notables clients such as the Walt Disney Company, Ubisoft, Games Workshop, Simon and Schuster, and more. He's also taught classes in illustration and concept art for the LA Academy of Figurative Art and Brainstorm.

When not working at work he can be found working at home on his own author/illustrator projects which include two well-received animatic short films, a successfully Kickstarter-funded children's book and a whole assortment of fun whimsical illustrations for the imagination. When not doing any of those he's probably thinking of pizza.

Anthony Christov

Art Director

Anthony Christov has been an industry professional for over 30 years. Starting at Disney on "Rescuers Down Under", working on various projects through the 1990s, his career culminated with art directing for Pixar for the last 18 years. Anthony has art directing credits on films like "Finding Nemo", "Wall-E", and "Incredibles II," as well as countless legacy shorts and roles on many of the well-known Pixar hits. Through the years, he has witnessed the industry change and evolve with technology, and as such he brings invaluable experience and perspective to the students at CGMA.