Brock Rizy Email & Phone Number

Greater Chicago Area

Concept and execution of comic book anthology, short film & music video projects, animation, and prose for a variety of audiences. Designed site, edited Wordpress theme, updated content on regular basis from 2009 to 2012. Writing, animating, illustrating, producing, directing, cinematography, editing, color-grading, designing toys.

Greater Chicago Area

Quickly conceptualized and animated/shot/edited/color graded high volume of motion-graphics and live action video content for online casino games, targeting new user acquisition with mobile ads and player retention through social media. Art directed local and remote talent's (domestic and abroad) production of animated and video advertising.

Greater Chicago Area

Concept and execution of in-game slot machine art, including character animation and motion graphics, illustration, typography. Design complete art packages, choreograph complex bonuses, provide art support and art-direction. Collaborate with software engineers for functionality and asset optimization.

Designed and executed site aesthetic, mascot, icons, interface, and promotional materials.

Austin, Texas Area

Executed illustration and graphic design, including typography, to emphasize lesson points and increase learning fun in video textbooks for middle and high-school students.

Dallas/Fort Worth Area

Managed, trained, and scheduled floor staff; ordered for project booth and concession stand, organized projection booth print trafficking, 4 promotions in 18 month period....I took a regular part-time job shoveling popcorn so I could pay the bills, and dedicate a set amount of time to the pursuit of completing and publishing a graphic novel (it worked). This quickly lead to one promotion to floor manager, then to three additional promotions during an eighteen month period, including film projectionist, assistant manager, and first assistant manager. I trained and managed floor staff, ordered supplies for the projection booth and concession stand, and quickly acquired the necessary skills for operating relatively complicated film projectors. I was responsible for the trafficking, building up, and breaking down of high-dollar-value film prints in the days before movies were delivered on hard drives. I made the weekly employee schedule. There was the praising of employees' good efforts, the unfortunate need to respectfully reprimand low-wage workers who weren't performing to company standards, the occasional need to mediate intra-theatre conflicts, and there was acting as a compassionate buffer between occasionally frustrated employees and the indifferent top brass. I would have moved back to the creative workforce sooner, but I formed lasting friendships with proper movie nerds and fell in love with the projection booth. There was an abundance of free movies. Through press screenings and festivals, we were privy to some terrific features far in advance of the public. I had keys to the place and knew how to operate the projectors.

Plotted action; created additional characters; penciled, inked, colored sequential art; laid out 144 page graphic novel....I worked with the talented writer David Hopkins to develop the universe and characters for a 144 page graphic novel, titled Emily Edison. After designing his written characters, creating additional villains, and establishing an aesthetic that meshed with Hopkins's clever original concept, I drew thumbnails to plot the layout of panels from his script, then was left to my own devices when plotting the exciting action sequences. When our submitted sample was approved, the book deal came with a very tight deadline, so I plotted and illustrated the majority of the 144 pages during a 3 month period. My responsibilities included typography and layout of the cover and title pages.

Dallas/Fort Worth Area

Illustration, toy design, storyboarding, promotional product design...Upon my return to Dallas/Fort Worth, I spent some time as a freelancer, or more like an art temp, by way of the Art Squad, who connected me with as-needed odd jobs for a creative professional. I worked for a handful of companies on a variety of assignments. The toddler toy design experience in Louisiana lead to me designing riding and electronic toys for the three to six year old age set. I designed original riding toys, toys that fit within the limits of licensed style guides (Spider-Man tricycle, Batmobile for babies, Care Bears car), and adapted existing artwork to new products. There were also educational toys like talking alphabet puzzles. For another company, I made concept illustrations to pitch promotional tie-in products, like when a Ketchup bottle's cap is Batman's head or CG Yoda is printed on a bottle of hand soap saying “Dirt is the path to the dark side. Dirt leads to grime. Grime leads to bacteria. Bacteria leads to food poisoning.” For the Dallas Morning News, I made a storyboard pitch for an ad about their coverage of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team. I learned much later that it was approved and produced when I saw the commercial on a local animation studio's portfolio website. I'd been asked to animate it, but was not equipped to as a lone freelancer. Around the end of my first stint as a full-time freelancer, I took a meeting with David Hopkins about collaborating on the project that would become Emily Edison, published by Viper Comics.

Monroe, Louisiana Area

Designed toys and illustrated prints for sippy cups and other products for young children....During my brief stay in the cultural wasteland called Monroe, Lousiana, I designed some adorable toys and illustrated a few charming illustrations to be printed on products for the infant and toddler age sets. The toy design process included creating a wide variety of sample sketches, another round or two of sketches based on feedback from the bosses, then providing technical full-color turnarounds (I've heard some people call them control drawings) of the toys. These drawings depicted the toys from key angles to inform the shape and proportions and indicated the preferred Pantone colors. The drawings were sent to some factory in China, which made prototypes that should have looked like our drawings. Mostly they did not, so we took photographs or used photographs they'd sent and drew over the images to suggest improvements of proportions, colors, and other fine details that were subject to interpretation. They would use these notes to revise the toy, then we could approve or send more notes to suggest further changes. I established a style guide for pre-existing characters, and designed a few new characters to be made as toys and printed on sippy-cups. I don't actually know which of these super-cute products ended up on store shelves, because I don't shop at Wal-Mart. The high heat and humidity of Monroe, combined with the malodorous emissions from the adjoining town's paper mill made stepping outside feel like taking a swim in a toilet filled with cabbage. Due to that and the disgustingly common casual racism, I felt the town was not a good fit for me. When my father had surgery to bypass two of his blocked coronary arteries it was easy to make the decision to move back to Dallas/Fort Worth and be near my family.

Dallas/Fort Worth Area

Animation, character design, background illustration assistance, ink and paint....At a start-up interactive software studio, I was hired to act as an assistant to the background artist. However, my preliminary task was to complete full-color character turnarounds based both on line drawings by other artists, and my own designs that fit with the established style. The art directors saw potential in this area, so I was quickly moved to character design and animation. Beginning with limited traditional animation experience, I quickly and adeptly matched the pace of highly experienced animators. Before long, I was expediently and skillfully moving expressive characters with both humor and weight, while meeting difficult start-up schedule deadlines. Eventually, I did what I was hired to, and contributed additional backgrounds for cut scenes I'd been animating. Additional responsibilities included initial ink and paint, working with ink and painters for quality control of scenes I'd animated, writing and storyboarding original animated short films which would have been included as featured content on the product's constantly evolving website. The company, Doodlebug Online, folded after its funding ran dry during the period of fallout after the dot com bubble burst. For a short period of time, the project was in the process of being purchased by the start-up Ultra Mega Entertainment, who employed the best of the Doodlebug artists until their funds were depleted.