About the Artists:

Kitty Cantrell
Award-winning artist and environmentalist Kitty Cantrell is known for her striking sculptures of North American wildlife. Intricately designed and detailed, her Mixed Media sculptures capture expressions of animals that have never known human touch. When asked what inspired her to start sculpting, Kitty replied, I've done it since I was little. Its the only thing I'm good at-its what I've done ever since I can remember." Wolves, eagles and humpback whales are a few of the subjects this native Californian has chosen to sculpt since beginning her professional career.
Kitty is one of the few American artists today who has a natural talent for capturing the animals she chooses to sculpt as only nature knows them. Cantrell begins the sculpting process with only a general idea of what she is about to create. When asked where her ideas come from, Kitty confessed that "some of my best ideas come from my collectors." To ensure the authenticity and accuracy of her sculptures, Kitty spends numerous hours researching the animals paying close attention to subtle details such as the wing span or shape of a tail. "I like working on subjects with which I am fairly unfamiliar," she says. "That makes me study up on them and that keeps it interesting. The busier I am, the happier I am."
Kitty produces a rough sculpture out of soft clay to check for composition and form. She then painstakingly forms a master sculpture that is to scale and anatomically correct. This second sculpture is sent to the Legends/Genesis foundry in Los Angeles, California, where a resin cast is made and the manufacturing process begins.
Cantrell believes that her sculptures are a way for people to better understand the earths wild creatures. "A lot of stuff that happens to wildlife is so unintentional. If my sculptures can make people think about wildlife and appreciate the importance of it, then maybe they will feel compelled to help." When asked where she would like to see herself in the distant future, Kitty's love for wildlife and, in particular, wildlife rehabilitation, is at the forefront of her thoughts as she tells us that she plans to be "sitting on a mountain top with broken and battered animals around that I'm trying to put back together." Demonstrating her commitment to animals and wildlife, Kitty donates a portion of the proceeds from her art to the Nature Conservancy, the World Wildlife Fund and the Grounded Eagle Foundation.

Ruben Procopio
Ruben Procopio has been in the animation industry for over 25 years. In addition to the creative skills learned from his father Adolfo, Ruben also received scholarships to both Cal Arts and Art Center. Upon his arrival at Disney Animation, Ruben trained under Eric Larson, one of Disney's legendary 'nine old men,' and began a career that found him working in multiple creative roles on no less than sixteen Disney animated features, including The Little Mermaid, Beauty & the Beast and The Lion King. Ruben's wide variety of skills from the 2-D and 3-D world include sculpture, character design, action figure and toy designs, turnaround model sheets, mold and castings, concept & presentation art, animation, comic book and comic strip art, caricatures, storyboards, and illustrations.

Dusty Horner
Dusty Horner was born in Rochelle, Illinois, in 1974. His early interest in animation and films began as a child when his parents would rent filmstrips of classic Disney cartoons and silent 8mm films from the local library for special occasions. Horner graduated in 1996 with a major in Figure Sculpture and a minor emphasis in Illustration from the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design in Wisconsin. In 1997, he relocated to California and took a position at DreamWorks SKG Animation Studios in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale. In 1999, Horner became a freelance sculptor, eventually being hired as a sculptor for the Walt Disney Classics Collection. Horner's first sculpting assignment for the Walt Disney Classics Collection was of Mickey and Minnie Mouse entitled "Hooray for the Holidays!."

Chris Peterson
Chris Peterson is one of those amazing people who was born to design and create. His family recognized his talent at an early age and encouraged him to pursue a career as an artist. Chris? Aunt worked at the Disney Studio on Jungle Book , Ludwig Von Drake , and the Goofy shorts. She was the first woman layout artist at Disney, where she worked mainly on Baloo . When Chris was a young boy, she would send him drawings from the different animated films she was working on. He would study each one, practice drawing the characters, and then send them back to his aunt.?? At the age of eight, Chris entered an art contest and won a full scholarship to an art academy. They were shocked when his father called the school to inform them that he was only eight years old.
Chris Peterson continues to create many sculptures for the Walt Disney Classics Collection

Bruce Lau
Bruce Laus career in sculpting can be traced back to High school, where he took a ceramics class.  He never entertained the possibility that he would one day make his living out of a hobby that he enjoyed so much.
Mr. Lau studied broadcast communications at the University of Hawaii, continuing his art classes wherever he could fit them in. He felt he received the greatest inspiration from the life drawing studios. He next began working at Landmark Entertainment, where he sculpted toys and theme park attraction merchandise.  Not much later, a friend introduced him to Willie Ito, a character artist for the Walt Disney Company. He agreed to review Mr. Laus portfolio, and shortly thereafter he had his foot in the door, working as a freelance artist with Disney in 1990. Now, Legends is happy to also have Mr. Laus talent creating for The Disney Collection from Legends.

Christopher Pardell
Christopher Pardell, one of the first artists to join the Starlite Family, began sculpting at the tender age of four, and cites his family as one of his first major influences. By his teenage years, Pardell had come to the realization that sculpting was to become his life's work. Influenced by the work of renowned sculptors Russell, Remington and Rodin, Pardell wanted to pursue his passion for realism. His formal education was laid aside in favor of an apprentice mold maker position with a commercial statuary company, and it was there that he received what he considers to be his "real education in art."
As an apprentice to the Italian master artisans who ran the statuary, Christopher rapidly learned the skills that would enable him to excel as an artist and earn the stature that has come with his success. Never sketching his designs on paper, Christopher composes all of his work in three dimensions, in a Marquette. This unique approach explains the unparalleled beauty and detail that are the trademarks of his work. Christopher's exceptional style and special talent have served to impress even the most discriminating collector.
The sense of tragedy and drama of the American Indian has long been a favorite theme of his. "I try to convey the spirit behind the Native American lifestyle. The sculptural nature of Native American dress, their use of dance as a metaphor for their vision of a world in constant motion, and their intriguing way of life, provides a rich field of composition and drama from which he creates, "Pardell says. Upon reflecting on what his art means to him, Christopher states," I try to express myself through sculpture. Its all I've ever done. Its all I know how to do." Respected and admired by fellow artists, craftsmen and collectors of fine art, Pardell tells us that he will always do sculpture because it allows him to live. "Sculpture is very meditative and cleansing for my soul. In the concrete slab that lays by my studio I have engraved the phrase life is a performance artwork, make yours beautiful. That's the principle I live by."
Currently, his artwork can be found in public and private collections throughout the world.

*Artist profiles from Starlite Originals.