The Card Industry
Back in early 2018, I was given an opportunity that honestly felt a little surreal. I started illustrating sketch cards for Topps Trading Cards. At the time, it was simply a chance to contribute to something I had loved growing up. I don’t think I fully understood then how much that one door opening would shape everything that came after.
Since then, I’ve been fortunate to work across a wide range of licensed properties including Garbage Pail Kids, Star Wars, Stranger Things, Marvel, SpongeBob SquarePants, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Looney Tunes, Disney, Night of the Living Dead, and more. Each project has challenged me in different ways, pushing me to adapt, improve, and slowly find my own voice within worlds that so many people already care deeply about.
Over the years, I’ve worked on dozens of sets within the trading card industry, and while the scope of the work has grown, my mindset really hasn’t. I still approach each piece the same way I did in the beginning. I just try to create something honest, something memorable, and something that feels like it belongs alongside the cards I grew up admiring.
Starting in 2024, my role began to shift in a way that means a great deal to me personally. I moved beyond sketch cards into creating final art for Garbage Pail Kids, while also contributing finished artwork on projects connected to Disney and LucasFilm. It’s the kind of work I had quietly hoped I might one day be ready for, and stepping into that space has been the most fulfilling work I’ve ever done.
At the end of the day, I’m still that kid who loved opening packs and seeing what was inside. There’s something special about these small pieces of art, how much personality they can hold, how they connect with people, and how they stick with you. Being even a small part of that world is something I don’t take for granted.
If you had asked me as a kid what I’d want to work on one day, Star Wars would have been at the top of the list. In 2018, I got the chance to do exactly that when I was invited to work with Topps and Lucasfilm on my first licensed project, illustrating 30 portrait cards. Since then, I’ve continued working as a regular artist on Star Wars sets. The cards below are a sampling of my work.
Garbage Pail Kids
Working on Garbage Pail Kids has been a major part of my career, and it’s hard to overstate what that license means to me. I’ve always been drawn to horror and darker imagery, and that naturally finds its way into a lot of my work. But one of the things I’ve come to appreciate most about working on a property like this is the range it demands. Not every piece leans dark, and learning when to pull that back, when to lean into humor, or when to keep things more playful has been just as important as the horror side of what I do.
Garbage Pail Kids is one of the most recognizable and influential trading card properties ever created, with a style of humor that helped define an entire era of pop culture. That tone has roots in the irreverent, satirical spirit of Mad Magazine, where pushing boundaries and embracing the weird was part of the identity. Garbage Pail Kids carried that forward in its own way, blending gross-out art with sharp parody and unforgettable characters. Being able to contribute to something with that kind of history and personality, especially something I grew up aware of, is something I take a lot of pride in.
I’ve had the opportunity to contribute to Marvel trading card sets through my work with Topps, illustrating a range of characters from across the Marvel universe. The diversity of the material has allowed me to explore different approaches while staying true to each character. The cards below are a sampling of that work.
One of my favorite projects I’ve worked on was working with Topps and Nickelodeon on their 2019 project “The Art of TMNT”, which celebrated the art of the original issues of the comic. Each artist on the project created over 30 illustrations that were packed in collector boxes and sold around the world.