Thad Hendrickson

I've been a full-time staff illustrator at 15-person studio called Flying Rhino, specializing in entertainment and education for children for the past 16 years. Most of the time, I get the requirements, goals and initial style from my creative director, and then I return to him with developed visual concepts and specific examples of how they would appear. Upon approval, I largely direct myself through asset creation, in communication with colleagues who are contributing to my work, and with those who will be receiving it for implementation. I work primarily in Flash - now Animate CC, sometimes in Photoshop, and have worked with Illustrator in the past.

My most common tasks are:

- Researching the project subject matter both visually and informationally

- Developing and proposing conceptual and stylistic solutions, sometimes alone, but regularly with colleagues and leadership as well

- Illustrating backgrounds and props for animation; creating illustrations for web pages, apps and game environments; and occasionally creating storyboards for interactive picture books and short animations

- Repurposing visual assets, both within their evolving project of origin, and for new projects as well

- Adding to the character pieces and turnarounds designed by colleagues

- Extending and adding to graphic design campaigns developed by colleagues

- Improving and standardizing the visual work of colleagues through the modification of composition, lighting and color

- Occasionally improving educational scripts by rewriting, with an eye toward clarity, accuracy and a little bit of fun