How did DinoToons® Start?
DinoToons® started as an idea for a class I planned to take in school. During a morning journaling session, I jotted down some quick ideas for Character Design 2, and didn’t come up with the working title DinoToons until a few days later.
That class ended up being one of many canceled that semester, and I eventually withdrew from the art college I was attending. Instead, I continued studying independently with a few professors and began developing the characters on my own, outside of school.
In Spring of 2020, I took a class with one of those professors now at Fullerton College -Children's Book Illustration, with Marshall Vandruff, who I still study with today. In that class, I started to really develop ideas for both comics and books. There, I laid the foundation work for "Here Comes the Moon," which was published over a year later in December 2021.
When it came to including the LGBTQ+ themes of DinoToons, I was uncertain. I had come out in 2016 as a transgender man, and I had formerly close family distance themselves, saying they didn't want their children to be "confused." Every day I wish I'd had the right words to help my family be less fearful of transgender people, and honestly, bringing that side of myself to this project has been both healing, and very scary.
I believe that there are simple, child-friendly ways to explain LGBTQ+ concepts - and I hope to make those a little bit more accessible for the people who want to understand.
Picture of the journal entries where I was first ideating on DinoToons!
What's available for DinoToons?
DinoToons has a series of books out - five for now, more to come if all goes well. I also do a monthly comic strip! There's hope for Animated Shorts too, in time!
There's so much you can explore already!
Start with the comics to see if you'd like the books!