Welcome to the Griffin Park Studio / John Nunnemacher Artist for Hire page.

I've got over a decade of experience in art, animation, and visual storytelling, and a degree in graphic art and design. Please read through the information below to learn more about the services I can provide. Use the links to the left to jump ahead to a particular section.

Also, feel free to browse the Portfolio & Sketchbook section of this web site for just a few samples of my work.

Comics are an excellent way to tell a story or explore characters in a visually exciting and appealing way; yet they can be produced for a fraction the time and schedule of an animated cartoon. A comic book could be perfect for you:

• If your business or organization has a character or mascot you'd like to give personality to and see brought to life.
• If you have a message you'd like to get across to your employees or your clients in an entertaining way.
• If you're looking for a promotional item to give out to help increase and improve awareness of your company's assets.

Franchise Building: Comic books can be a terrific tool in building a franchise, generating interest in who your organization is and what they do. They are economical: They can be written, produced, and printed for a fraction of the budget of an average television cartoon. And the interest and awareness they generate, and the stories they develop, could help pave the way towards larger future projects, including fully animated videos or television series, video games and interactive material, or toys and collectibles.

Education: If your organization is involved in education or children's programming, studies have shown that comic books can actually help promote literacy. They tend to stimulate reading enjoyment in children, making it more likely that they will continue to read more, and more difficult materials. Some teachers have used comic book material in classrooms, including with reluctant and at-risk readers, generally with very good results across all social and economic classes.

Production: In college and afterwards, I have made much study both of the technical aspects of creating comics, and of their use and value as a literary and communicative device. I can work with you through any or all phases of production, from developing and writing the story and defining the visual style of the book, through all phases of artwork, lettering, and color, to producing electronic files ready to deliver to a printer.

With experience in television, interactive and film animation, I can do many of the stages of traditional hand-drawn animation and flash animation, as well as storyboard and character layout.

Animation is the art of capturing motion. Traditional animation is still a useful tool for film and television, commercials and advertisements, interactive video games and educational software, and much more. I can do every stage of traditional animation, including rough animation, inbetweening, and clean up. I can also create pencil tests of rough or cleanup animation, and deliver them for approval either on videotape, or as Quicktime files transported on CD-ROM or over the Internet.

Flash is a software environment published by Macromedia capable of building animation and interactivity using vector-based graphics. Because the graphics are vector based, large and elaborate animations can be created using files of relatively small size. These files are suitable for both distribution on the web or within interactive projects.

Character Layout is useful when you need to ship your animation to another studio, but would like more control over the finished product. Something like pose animation, character layout lets you precisely determine how characters will sit against the background, and how they will be animated. Character animation can be used for television and video projects as well as interactive video games and educational software, giving an extra level of quality control to the finished product.

Storyboarding is a powerful means of visualizing a story in pictures (much like a comic strip) before production begins. This is a crucial stage for animated projects, whether theatrical, television, or interactive in nature.

Storyboards can also be used to save money by pre-visualizing live action productions, including movies, commercials, and television series. With a well-thought story reel, the director can see how his story flows from beginning to end, and can begin to think about tricky shots and camera angles, long before a set is built or an actor steps on the soundstage.

As an experienced artist, I can create cartoons, illustrations, logo design, etc. in a variety of formats and media, both physical and digital. In either case designs can be prepared and ready to hand off to a printer.

Illustrations or cartoons can add color and visual interest to your book, web site, software application, and so on; or a design or character can be created to represent your company or oranization, or to be printed on merchandise such as T-shirts or product packaging.

With experience in both print and web design, I can talk to your printer if necessary to ensure that any digital or physical artwork is prepared in the proper format and to the correct specifications for their needs.

If you are looking for a personal commission, please look in the Original Art section of the Studio Store on this website.

That page will have the most current information on availability, prices, and other things you need to know for a commission request.

With a bachelor's degree in Graphics and Advertising Design and a decade of experience in the graphic arts, I can help you produce both print and web media.

For print media: Combining text, illustrations, and photos, I can design single items like a business card, letterhead, or flyer; full-scale projects such as newsletters, books, and magazines; or even specific items such as a box or package design, or an advertisement designed to be inserted into the newspaper.

Keeping up with the latest technology, I use a full suite of software (including Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign) which I use to create PDF files ready to go to press. I can even talk with your printer if necessary to make sure everything goes smoothly.

For the web: Using a suite of Adobe and Macromedia products, I can incorporate text information, artwork, and photo imagery to create a cohesive and visually interesting web site, with five pages or five hundred pages. Multimedia elements such as Flash animations or Quicktime movies can also be added.

I maintain the following web sites myself:

• Griffin Park Studio web site
• Truckstop Earth web site

In addition, I have developed on these other sites:

• CAAT Studios web site
• Josh Barnett's Lightasmic web site
• Class Menagerie Classic web site

If you have questions about what I can do for you or whether I'm available to help you, please contact me.

And don't forget, you can see samples of my work by browsing the Portfolio & Sketchbook section of this web site.