Chris Ayers Design

The portfolio of freelance character designer Chris Ayers, who is also the author & illustrator of the Daily Zoo books.

This image of Earth suddenly occurred to me on a muggy July afternoon in 1975. Not long after, I discovered a magical wand made of wood called a "pencil." Through trial and error and lots of practice, I learned that these clever little gadgets allowed me to unlock the worlds of my imagination and put them on paper in visual form.

During my early formative years, my spongy brain absorbed as much as possible of the fascinating world around me, especially the animal kingdom, dinosaurs, Sesame Street, Star Wars, Disney, art, mythology, closet monsters, spaceships, Robin Hood, Ray Harryhausen, pirates, alien friends and foes, Jules Verne, Dr. Seuss, Bill Pitt, comic book heroes and villains, animation, cartoons…

Fast forward about twenty years to the spring of 2000. With my Toyota Tercel nearly full, I drove west from Minneapolis to Los Angeles. I had always dreamed of working in film one day, and at 24, it seemed like the right time to give it a try.

Fast forward another nineteen years and I’m still driving my Toyota Tercel on the busy freeways of the City of Angels. My dream of working in the film industry has come true - and then some. As a character designer and concept artist, I’ve had the privilege of working on challenging and interesting projects such as Men in Black II, The Fantastic Four, The Santa Clause 2, Penguins of Madagascar, and currently serving as the lead character designer for the upcoming Disney series Monsters at Work. I’ve learned a lot about myself and my art while working in the fast-paced, demanding acting industry, and have met some incredibly talented and truly wonderful people.

I’ve kept my bio short on purpose to avoid boring you, but I feel that even a brief bio should include a few sentences about my battle with cancer. Cancer survivor is not my only identity, but it is a part of me and plays a big role in how I now view the world around me. In the spring of 2005, I was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML - a blood cancer). It has been a scary and painful journey for me, as well as my friends and family. Fortunately, things have been going well so far, and I continue to strive to live each day to the fullest, grateful for the many “gifts” that the cancer experience has given me.

Among these gifts is a renewed passion for making art, exploring my imagination, and nurturing my creativity. In 2006, on the one-year anniversary of my cancer diagnosis, I began a sketchbook called The Daily Zoo, with the intention of drawing one animal each day for a year. I hoped that, in addition to being challenging and fun, it would aid my recovery process by giving me the opportunity to focus on appreciating the gift of each healthy day. You can read more about The Daily Zoo here. The project originally began as a personal endeavor, but I have since had the opportunity to publish several books in the Daily Zoo series, most recently The Daily Zoo Volume 3: Healing Together, which came out in June 2015.

So, this is me: a brief introduction to who I am, where I am, and how I got here. I don’t know exactly where I’m going, but I do intend to enjoy the journey.