Name, Age, and State: Dennis Jones, Indiana… (Indiana Jones!)

Job-title: Freelance Illustrator

Web/blog site URL: http://thedennisjones.wordpress.com/

Give us your job description in 25 words or less. Clients ask me to make pictures for their products. After accepting a job, ideas, roughs and finished artwork are sent back and forth via the internet.

Describe a typical workday. I work at home. I typically go downstairs in the morning, have some breakfast, and then I go to my third floor studio and draw humorous pictures for clients all day.

What led you to realize that you wanted to do this type of work? I have always loved to draw. I drew the entire time I was in grade school and high school, and when it came time to go to college there was no doubt in my mind that what I wanted to study was illustrative art.

Did you have any heroes or mentors in your industry that you admired? When I was a kid, I always enjoyed looking at my big brother's Mad Magazines and became a fan of both Mort Drucker and Jack Davis. I also read Marvel Comics and loved the artwork of John Buscema and Neil Adams. There's not enough room on this page to name all of the artists that I admire today.

What type of education or training was required to land your job? I got aBachelor Of Fine Arts degree from Southwest Missouri State University, however, this degree alone never landed me a job. My clients are really only interested in two things…can I deliver a quality product and can I get it to them on or before their deadline.

What do you love most about your job? I love to draw pictures and I draw pictures for a living. What could be better? What one part of your job do you wish you could hire someone else to do? Probably hire someone to do correspondence for me. I get a lot of email, then I get behind on answering the email, and then I just don't answer the email at all, which I know can be really frustrating for people who have taken the time to write.

What advice would you give to teenagers wanting to get into your field of work? I love football. A lot of people play football, but only the very best football players become professional football players. They don't become the best accidentally, they work very hard at it. In a similar way, a lot of people want to be professional illustrators. In order to achieve this goal, you need to work very hard at developing your artistic abilities.

How does your job allow you to use your God-given gifts? In college I was not sure how God could the quirky pictures I drew, but I committed the artistic ability He had given me to His service and over the past several years I have been blessed with the opportunity to illustrate Bibles, Bible story books, church curriculum and all sorts of other Christian items.

Do you have any hobbies or off-hours pursuits that teenagers would find of interest? I play the guitar and bass, play in an adult ice hockey league on the weekends, and my favorite hobby is drawing pictures in my sketchbook.