Rafael Zentil

With this wonderfully vibrant painting titled Bed-Stuy Kickflip we are transported into the imagination of artist Rafael Zentil. A native of Southern California, Rafael was raised on a steady diet of skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding and playing guitar in punk rock bands. At the ripe age of eight, Rafael began taking oil painting classes, as a teen he made short films with super 8, video, and animation, and as a starving college student he worked as a portrait and caricature artist at Disneyland, making thousands of visitors from all over the world laugh and cry. He went on to receive a BFA from Cal State Fullerton University and started his first animation gig in 1999 as a character designer on the TV series Rugrats, where for fun, he used to "sneak in" his friends as background characters for many of the episodes. After transitioning into the story department, he storyboarded on an Emmy Award winning Rugrats episode for Outstanding Children's Animated Program. He also worked on Rocket Power, As Told By Ginger, and pilots for Klasky-Csupo. During this time, he also exhibited a series of paintings in Los Angeles art shows. In 2003, Rafael moved to New York to join Blue Sky Studios as a Story Artist. His contributions can be seen in Robots, Ice Age: The Meltdown, Horton Hears A Who!, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and the upcoming 2011 release, Rio. In addition to the features at Blue Sky, Rafael is also co-directing a new short film within the studio.

For more of Rafael's art and sense of humor please visit his website.