Tell us about yourself.

My name is Todd Huffine. I am the Senior Digital Artist at Applied Art & Technology. I started at Applied Art as an intern nearly 10 years ago. The majority of my day is spent animating and designing for video. My tasks include concepting, designing, art directing, creating digital effects, tracking shots, green screen replacement, and animating. I have had the opportunity to work on all sorts of projects. I’ve created content for corporate events, sporting events, commercials, and websites.

In the evening I spend my time creating fine art. Traditional painting is my main focus but I have been getting into fluid pours, resin, and the airbrush. My biggest drive comes from curiosity. “What happens if I do this or that?”, kind of thing. Many of the insights I gain come from trying out new things and following this curiosity.

What were you like as a child?

I was a pretty average kid. I was, and still am, horrible at sports but I have great hand eye coordination. This did come in handy a little later in life for bar games such as bags, darts, and shuffleboard. When I was bored I would draw. I had an attraction to the line drawings of cartoons, logos, tattoos and spent a lot of time as a kid redrawing artwork that caught my eye. In high school I got my hands on Photoshop. I spent a lot of free time playing around in that program. It was a huge step up from MS Paint!

When did you realize being an artist was something you had a passion for?

Drawing was always something I did for fun. Art class was always enjoyable and easy for me. The only college major I could find that applied to art and was said to make money was graphic design. So, I became a graphic design major at Grand View College. Design came slow to me at first. It was a completely new way to think about space, shape, line, color. There are all sorts of rules but sometimes you’re supposed to break them. Once I developed an understanding and reasoning for why one does a thing one way or another, my skills started to develop much more quickly.

While at Grand View, I was urged by a professor to get into painting. It wasn’t an instant attraction but color was a new element that kept me practicing long enough for it to stick. An interesting difference between drawing and painting is that when one draws they tend to begin from the foreground and work toward the background. In painting it is reversed; one works from the background and ends at the foreground. This perspective shift was key in my development as an artist and designer.

Where do you draw your creativity from?

I would say creativity comes from exploring the relationships between things. I have an obsession with shapes, proportions, colors, and perspectives. I’m fascinated with the fractal aspects of nature and how patterns emerge and fade. With both professional work and personal work, the goal is to convey information. The more a piece reinforces the main theme throughout all of the smaller parts the better the information is conveyed.

What are you most proud of?

I am most proud of the growth in my thinking. Each project is a way for my mind to work through visual ideas and complexities. In each piece I learn how to better build the next piece. Without a developed mind the hand wouldn’t know what to do.

Besides being creative, what else do you do in your free time?

I enjoy watching movies, playing video games, bike rides, and playing board games on occasion. Though, I would say that the majority of my free time goes to making art.

Where can we find your work & support you?

I have a page on Facebook. The art of Todd Huffine. This is the best way to contact me for original artwork. I also sell prints and other merchandise through Society6. My shop can be found at Society6.com/Pegasus515. And I am hoping to get an Etsy started early next year.

I currently have some of my acrylic fluid works hanging up at Dickinson law firm in downtown Des Moines.