Star Trek, & Comic Book content was the first stuff I started drawing in elementary school where I also started winning First Place Art Awards and winning First Place in various professional competitions. This winning streak (due to mostly luck and some talent continued through Junior High, High School, College and until today. Though not as much.
In junior high my luck had me featured in local Art Museums and Galleries, doing our school Yearbook cover. Frank Frazetta, Boris Vellejo & John Byrne were my inspirations, and I was always drawing Conan or Wolverine.
In high school I was heavily involved in creative classes and was taking Vocational Commercial Art classes 50 miles away every day (You could fill up your car on five dollars then). As well as working on producing book publications, cartoons and creative writing for my school as well as cartoon and editorial illustrations for The University of Colorado at Denver's 'Advocate' newspaper. There was also recognition by the State of Colorado for being the youngest working professional artist in State History. More awards came and the luck continues to see me graduate High School with THREE DEGREES: A High School Diploma and two Baccalaureates. With a scholarship I would get my Bachelor's where Walt Disney did. The Kansas City Art Institute.
When you start running with big dogs you start realizing there was a lot of luck and some talent to get you there. Sharing the small Kansas City Art Institute with up to only 500 gifted artists at a time was humbling but an opportunity to rise to the occasion and stand out by being chosen to organize and decorate for KCAI Social Events, to create commemorative KCAI Beaux Arts Tee-Shirts for each of my four years. While also continuing to be recognized as a First Place Winner on weekly Illustration challenges and local professional competitions. Graduating in the TOP-TEN I received my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree for both Illustration & Design with minors being Painting & Printmaking.
A post college art career has been mostly Freelance work where I have helped many clients reach award status. Yet I was interested in computers and went to San Jose California to learn how to build, repair, network and create art on Personal Computers. The money being so good I spent many years working in Technical Support rather than on art but started turning things back around by 2001.
My time with Gateway Computers as a highly awarded Top-Ten Technical Support Professional came to a sudden end in 2001 when the market changed, and they left town. Instead of jumping back into Tech Support or IT I started looking for lots of freelance work of any kind, big or small and started getting some high praise, recognition, graphic novel and movie contracts for myself from PLATINUM STUDIOS, MARVEL, DISNEY, DREAMWORKS, and for many of my clients; including awards for: Best Logos, Best packaging Design, Best Ad Campaigns.
Other Creative Projects ( Usually under the Internet Persona / Broadcast Name: KINNEAS I was heavily involved in as a producer, manager or creative lead were non-stop from 2005-2018: The ST:Oned Web Comic, The Hailing Frequency PodCast, Fleet Radio Multi-Media segments, Star Trek Game Developer & Celebrity Interviews, Star Trek Convention reporting and interviews, Music Videos, Subspace-Radio.net, Audio Drama productions, daily LIVE Broadcasting (thousands of hours), TREKRADIO.com. Guinness Book of World Records: "Most Dresses Trekkers in One Location"... ...
There is so much more but that covers most of what luck and a little bit of talent has brought me so far in life. I'm over Fifty years old now and am hardly working on anything at all other that my own creative drawings or paintings. I'm also in love with Flight Simulators and have been learning as much as I can about getting real world licenses for a few years now.
WIth a prayer to my muse, and one for luck and one for talent, I hope I am not finished yet and still have some great work ahead of me.
Please use the drop down menus under ART to view various portfolios of work: Drawing, Graphics, Illustration, Fine Art...
- BEST!
-- Tony Tuthill