After life kicked him in the head a couple of times (if ever became famous, the made-for-TV movies would give the details), Todd decided to have his mid-life crisis early, and got the notion to go back to school... art school. Turning down a lucrative full-time-plus computer job, he chose to enroll part-time at Kendall College of Art & Design, taking a demeaning underpaid part-time job to pay the bills. But to the annoyance of the Registrar, he lacked the decisiveness to pick a major, and persisted in taking a mixture of Graphic Design, Illustration, and Digital Media classes. Hence the wide range of works, including everything from logos to web sites to animations to illustrations to portraits to landscapes.
This combination of classes forced Todd to experiment with media he would never have otherwise touched (or at least not for more than 5 frustrating minutes). He used a lot of graphite pencil, markers, colored pencils, FreeHand, Photoshop, and photography... media he was already comfortable with and enjoyed. He found a few new tools he also enjoyed, such as conte crayons, Flash, and Cinema 4D. But there were also assignments using charcoals, watercolors, gouache, pastels, and oils, which Todd started out hating, but in the end, simply harboured a stern dislike for. Some of his work from this period bears the shallowness of a typical homework assignment, but some suggests an even greater shallowness reflective of the artist himself.
Where will Todd go from here? Damn hard to tell, actually. But wherever it is, you can be sure of one thing: Todd VerBeek will be there.
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