John Shroades
Biography
John Shroades
John grew up in central California and as soon as he could hold a crayon he loved to make art. All through school it was his favorite pastime and always his goal to be better. John’s favorite subjects were people, aircraft and surreal ideas. He also loved making aircraft models and spent much time gluing and painting over a hundred of them.
Upon reaching Fresno State University he took fine art, advertising graphics, illustration and art history. With little money and big ambitions he packed up and moved to Pasadena to attend Art Center College of Design as an Illustration major where he won an illustration scholarship and graduated with distinction in 1991. While in college he did many varieties of freelance illustration.
After college John immediately went to work in the computer game industry where he applied his talent to a wide variety of artistic pursuits including background painting, character design, environment design, animation, 3D modeling and art direction. After 13 years and contributing art to 12 published games he decided to turn an emerging dream of being a freelance illustrator focusing on children’s books into reality. John has worked with clients such as Harper Collins, Scholastic, Random House, Dutton, Lobster Press, Disney, Blue Sky Studios, Upper Deck, Innovative Kids, Bella Sara, Highlights and many others.
John’s work has appeared in many games, game box covers, magazine covers, articles, limited edition lithographs and fine art galleries.
He loves to create whimsical images of people, monsters, animals, robots and contraptions that express the many different moods we all feel.
John lives in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains in North Bend, Washington with his wife Connie and two boys, Jacob and Adam. Outside of art John likes to bike and hike between the rocks, ferns and evergreens of the Pacific Northwest trails eventually reaching the mountain peaks to dream. He also listens to many kinds of music and enjoys playing games and make things (like model airplanes) with his kids.
John Shroades
