John Shroades

John Shroades has a vast and diverse work experience in the field of art and game development. John started their career at Sierra Online in 1991 as a Lead Artist, working on various games and handling tasks such as art direction, background painting, animation, and concept drawings.

In 1997, John joined Microsoft as a Lead Artist, where they directed internal and external artists while contributing to concept art, 3D models, textures, and box-cover art. John also participated in acquisitions, analyzing artists.

Moving on, John worked at Sierra Online again from 2006 to 2008 as a Lead Character Artist. John directed artists in a Chinese studio, creating character concepts and models and managing a large character pipeline.

From 2008 to 2012, John served as a Lead Artist at Gazillion Entertainment, where they focused on character concepts, UV's, textures, art directing card art production, and game proposals.

John then joined Amazon in 2012 as a Senior Artist, collaborating on various projects until 2015.

In 2015, John became a Senior Environment Artist at Glu Mobile, contributing their expertise to that role until 2016.

Following that, John worked at Jam City from 2016 to 2018 as a Principle Artist, and at Electronic Arts (EA) from 2018 to 2023 as a Concept Artist.

Presently, John is employed by Fortis Games as a Lead Concept Artist from 2023 until now.

Throughout their career, John has also engaged in freelance work as an Illustrator since 2004. John specialized in freelance illustration for children's publications, working with renowned clients such as Scholastic, Harper Collins, Dutton, Random House, Innovative Kids, Highlights, Upper Deck, Blue Sky Studios, Disney, and Bella Sara. John collaborated with the New York art representative group Shannon Associates for over 10 years.

John Shroades attended California State University, Fresno from 1982 to 1988, where they studied Advertising Design, Illustration, and Art History. John then went on to pursue a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree in Illustration at ArtCenter College of Design from 1988 to 1991.