Check Out John Donahue’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to John Donahue

Hi John, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I was born and raised in the San Gabriel valley. I’ve been drawing and creating for just about as long as I can remember, some of my earliest memories being copying comic strips from the newspaper. I’ve always been enamored with anything fantastical or anything having to do with the creation or unique happenings of different worlds. For this reason fantasy or sci fi content always appealed to me, also comics and animation were things I gravitated towards. My family was always very supportive of me drawing so when it came time to go to college I decided to try to make a career out of it (my father worked in construction and always told us to try and get jobs with air conditioning, haha!). I first started taking the animation courses along with general ed at Mt San Antonio College in the late 90’s (Mt Sac had some amazing teachers who were industry professionals) and then transferred to LCAD for further study in drawing and painting. While in my last year at LCAD I was recommended by my professor Ron Brown to a makeup fx company called Captive Audience. At the time Captive was working on Pirates of the Caribbean, Van Helsing and the Passion of the Christ. Working on those films was a dream come true; I got to learn a ton about the industry and met some amazing artists who’s work I grew up admiring in the 80’s and 90’s (Greg Cannom, Miles Teves and many more). Producing concept illustrations for Captive was my first break in the entertainment industry and it lead to all the different and varied projects I’ve been fortunate to have been a part of since. For the past 20 plus years I’ve had the privilege of creating artwork for film, television, video/casual games and print. In addition to working in the entertainment industry I’m also proud to teach drawing courses at Mt Sac as an adjunct faculty member. My high school sweetheart Sharon and I settled down in Pomona (the San Gabriel valley has always been home for the both of us) where we work and raise our four awesome kids, Liberty, Riley, Bobby and Jack.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Honestly I have been pretty blessed in that the road turned out to be pretty smooth most of the time. There was definitely lot’s of hard work and long hours in terms of learning the skills to compete in the industry (thousands of hours of learning and drawing), but I was very lucky that I had some amazing and professional instructors both at Mt Sac and at LCAD that helped me along. In addition to that, everyone I have met in the industry I have always learned something from, and most have went out of their way to teach me things. I am extremely grateful things have gone so well for me over the years.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I tend to do a bit of a wide range of things honestly; film fx design that tends to be more realistic (and on the horror side actually), but also my work in casual games and lately specifically online educational products has more of a simplified and playful style influenced by the vector medium and of course the target audience. Most people I have worked with really appreciate the fact I can kind of shift gears and delve into different styles when needed. I love so many different styles of art I really love being able to jump around and do different things. I would say I’m most proud of being able to do that, as well as just getting the opportunity to work on many different types of projects.

What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
I would say just learning to work hard at your craft. The ability to compare what you are producing at present to where you want to be and critically analyze and assess what is needed to get you there and then work hard on it. That ability isn’t as easy at it sounds and it has to be learned. Also the idea of trying to focus on getting good at the fundamentals and not getting distracted by style or flash or technique. I had an awesome instructor at Mt Sac named Lou Police, he told us to just focus on getting as good as we could at drawing and painting (the fundamentals) and that from that point things would fall into place. I think that was the best advice and one of the best lessons I ever had.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.donahueart.com