The world can be a scary place. At times it can seem filled only with terrorism, financial crisis, children being abused, job stress, and just plain ol’ mean people who go out of their way to hurt others. It’s enough to make you want to curl up in bed and never leave the house.
You and me, we’re different. We won’t contribute to that world.
But we can’t simply remove the horrors of the world. We can’t pretend they don’t exist. But we can flip it around. We can change our own personal outlook and bring a sense of lightheartedness into everything we do, even when times are tough. Especially when times are tough.
This is the spirit that drives the Sparky Firepants bus. We inject our brand of positively goofy funkilacious art into the madness, tipping the scale in our favor.
We’re the positive ones. We’re the ones who daydream about giant monsters sharing a snack in downtown Toledo. Our fish ride unicycles and our pirates drink juice boxes.
Welcome. We’re glad you came.
Wearing the Firepants
David
Chief Pants, Designer
David’s artwork has appeared in Highlights High Five magazine, The Electric Company, Smilebox, Wired, Blue’s Clues, and all over the web. His work has won super duper awards, including a Daytime Emmy nomination and an animation production award that was created specifically for him.
David creates fantastic illustration and funky designs for:
- Licensing on products
- Editorial
- Marketing materials
- Presentations
- Skateboard decks
Sparky Firepants designs are created both digitally and by hand. David’s tools of choice are the Adobe Design Suite on a Macbook Pro, pencils, Uni Posca paint pens, acrylics, and watercolor.
David speaks for himself, momentarily
Ever since I can remember, I’ve been an observer. My eyes are constantly scanning the world around me, sorting shapes and soaking up colors. Being an artist is only partially about the technical skills of my craft. The real work is constantly experiencing little details in the world around me – the ones that most people miss – and storing it for later (sometimes unexpectedly). The medium and the tools are not important. At the heart of everything I create is every experience I’ve had in my life, funny, boring, and tragic.
A few other things you would never guess
David has flown cargo all over the world in the military, maintained million-dollar databases, created and presented graphics for high-profile courtroom trials, and managed a national graphic design firm.
David also:
- is addicted to acquiring new shoes (Vibrams next)
- hung out with Mel Gibson on a movie set. Mel was in a pink bathrobe. David wore camouflage.
- has appeared in two commercials, one TV show, one movie, a radio spot, and starred as the Tin Man in fourth grade.
- met his wife in high school
- was mistaken for an Olympic athlete in Lillehammer. Oh look, free drinks.
When David isn’t being Sparky Firepants, he weirds out his three children with goofy voices. He enjoys yoga, zen meditation, chopping wood, brewing beer, traveling the globe, all things Babar, and painting skateboards by hand. If you’re good he’ll tell you about the time he rode his motorcycle through a building. Beep beep.