Mike has been drawing, sculpting, writing, teaching and dreaming about faces, characters and monsters since he was a child of the glorious 70's. The worlds of Harryhausen, Star Wars, Dr. Suess, Edward Gorey, Looney-Tunes, Ultraman and low-fi comedic monster movies fueled his love for unique, simple, odd and mythical character stories. Mike spent many years at Industrial Light & Magic where he sculpted maquettes and props on films such as Starship Troopers, Frankenstein, Galaxy Quest, Space Cowboys & Star Wars Episode 1. He was invited to join epic Art Departments at Skywalker Ranch, where he designed a multitude of characters, Jedi’s, bounty hunters & creatures of all shapes & sizes on Star Wars Episode 2 and 3. In 2007, Mike returned to a love of stop-motion at Laika Studios in Portland to help visualize sets for the movie Coraline...and character sculpting on the zombie infested Paranorman (Fall2012). His credits also include sculptures for PDI Dreamworks on Madagascar and Megamind, Fox's Monkeybone, Fantastic Four, and ABC's Bump in the Night (TV stop-motion series). Mike is currently a member of the intriguing art group C.I.T., The Cardboard Institute of Technology. His 1992 BFA in Illustration at Cal State Long Beach and his current teachings center around brainstorming, anatomy-figure skills, design theory and storytelling. He is a character, a character designer & sculptor, as well as an excellent teacher.
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