Entertainment Design Faculty

Beverly Arce is an illustrator, designer, and Visual Development Artist who has been active in the entertainment industry for nearly a decade. They have worked with a variety of publishers and studios in both illustration and animation. Work credits include: Disney/Marvel Animation, AGBO Films, HarperCollins publishing, Gallery Nucleus, Octopie studios, Lionsgate, and more. They really (really) like Tolkien and re-watching 90's anime.

My career has focused on developing and refining my skills for creating highly detailed models and textures for medical 3D illustrations and animations. I have built my skill set as an artist from a traditional foundation into a network of mentors embedded in the entertainment industry. The education I receive from them is celebrated daily within the work that I do. My ability to grow with industry standards continues to be one of my most valued assets.

With 18+ years of work experience in the medical device industry creating a variety of medical based visuals. I have a passion for maintaining and learning industry standard workflows for 3D development. I enjoy the process and development of 3D animation, illustrations and building XR optimized for the Oculus Quest. I'm proficient in figurative and scientific anatomy as well as traditional and digital execution. I have experience leading a team with building XR (Extended Reality) pipelines and scaling resources to support and service corporate XR deliverables.

Now with the opportunity LCAD is giving me to come back and teach again, I look forward to doing my part to help the students continue to grow into the dawn of their professional careers.

I'm a primarily based 3D artist with a focus on creating props and hard surface assets for the gaming and film industry. While my passion is bringing virtual worlds to life, my goal is to produce high quality assets that help to create immersive and engaging experiences for players and viewers alike. I've had the honor of contributing to projects at Little Bang Inc. and Normal VR!
Originally from Philadelphia, I recently moved to Orange County in my pursuit of the arts. When I'm not working, I enjoy playing cozy games, reading novels, and going on hikes in the local area!

Maria Ferreira Kercher is a visual development artist specialized in material behavior and cultural stylization for animation. She is a professional Costume Designer and an adjunct professor for LCAD Game Art and Entertainment Design programs.

Her expertise is featured in the book, "Talking Threads: Costume Design for Animation, Games, and Illustration", through Design Studio Press.

Maria has also worked as character designer for indie games as well as illustrator for live-action films and brings specialized experience helping connect foreign cultures with an American audience through well researched costume design.

Born and raised in Brazil, she fell in love with the idea of breathing life into a fictional world and came to the U.S. to study animation. Now based in Seattle, Maria is focused on expanding her knowledge of materials and world cultures to better connect audiences to each other.

Juan Garrido is a Digital and Tradition painter with 14 years of experience working with various Animation Studios in Los Angeles as a BG Painter for many TV animated series. Clients include Disney, Netflix, Warner Brothers and many more. When he isn’t painting at the computer desk, he can be found traveling and painting Plein Air landscapes on site, usually in gouache. He has a passion for the Arts but also for passing along the years of knowledge to his students. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Illustration from Art Center College of Design (Pasadena).

Marty Kline has been in the business of creating what “no one has ever seen before” since pixels were “this big”. As the recipient of the 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award for Illustration from his own Local 800, the Art Directors Guild, he has worked in motion pictures, television, video games and themed entertainment for over 40 years. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon and a recipient of an MS in Materials Science, he is also a graduate of Otis College of Art and Design. He is a founding member of the Visual Effects Society as well as recipient of a Ford Foundation Fellowship for the study of Fine Art Lithography.

As Senior Visual Effects Art Director for Sony Pictures Imageworks, he supervised the art of effects on Contact, Stuart Little, Spider-Man, and Beowulf. Other credits include concept illustration for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Dune, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Back to the Future, Parts II and III, The Flintstones, Batman Returns, Jurassic Park and Forrest Gump. He has done video game Art Direction for THQ Games and created user interface designs for Microsoft.

He was born in Brooklyn, NY. That’s significant.

He participated in EPCOT design and Fantasyland redevelopment at Walt Disney's design group, WED Enterprises.

Published in Perspective Magazine, The Journal of the Art Directors Guild, March April 2018; Stuart Little, The Art, The Artists, and the Story Behind the Amazing Movie, 2000, Edited by Linda Sunshine, Marty Kline on Matte Painting, pp. 84-85; and https://www.awn.com/vfxworld/concept-art-and-vfx-managed-collaboration.

John Lam is an alumni of Laguna College of Art and Design where he found his passion for game art and began his roots in 3D sculpting. With a passion for creating creatures and characters, he specializes in high fidelity 3D sculpting for a variety of industry pipelines from: toys, 3D scan and game. After an internship with Blizzard Entertainment, John has gone off to do work for Toyota, Dreamworks, Funko and more.

Bernard Lee was born and raised in Southern California, graduated with a BFA in Illustration from Syracuse University and worked for a time in New York City. As a former Art Director, he has had the privilege of collaborating with countless talented illustrators on award-winning projects. He now spends his days creating illustrations for the publishing, editorial and entertainment industries, and teaching as an instructor in California. His work has been seen in annuals and shows around the world.

Lisa Liang received a BFA with honors in Illustration from ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California. Upon graduation, she worked at ILM, creating matte paintings for films such as Pirates of the Caribbean and Evan Almighty. From there, she designed concept environments for games such as, Call of Duty, Star Trek Online, Neverwinter Online, among others.

She began her teaching in 2015 when she developed an advanced digital painting tutorial on Pluralsight, and her passion for environments led her to create fine art works for exhibitions in galleries, museums and national parks. Currently, in addition to working on commercial and independent projects, she teaches at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.

Rodolfo Montalvo has been working as a children’s book illustrator and writer for nearly a decade and has multiple published books and several more on the way. His published works have been produced in collaboration with imprints that include Atheneum of Simon & Schuster, Viking of Penguin Random House, and Roaring Brook Press of Macmillan.

Rodolfo is currently an adjunct faculty at Laguna College of Art and Design in the Entertainment Arts and Illustration departments, and an affiliate faculty at Antioch University, Los Angeles in the Creative Writing MFA Program.

To learn more about Rodolfo and to view his illustration works go to www.rodolfomontalvo.com.

Michael Overman is an accomplished Creative Director, Art Director and Show Designer with 17 years of experience in Themed Entertainment. He is a graduate of Art Center College of Design with a BFA in Illustration with emphasis in Entertainment Design. Michael demonstrates a passion to create astounding attractions, places and experiences. He strives to lead design and champion creative, all while providing quality art direction from concept through production to installation. He has collaborated, designed, worked and installed many multi-million dollar experiences, attractions, lands and parks both domestically and internationally. He currently works for Hasbro as a Creative Manager in Location Based Entertainment. And has also worked for other Fortune 500 companies such as Walt Disney Imagineering, Universal Creative and 20th Century Fox.

Michael worked on notable projects and held roles as Art Director on ""Test Track presented by Chevrolet"" Epcot, Walt Disney World Florida. Field Art Director on ""Roaring Rapids and Challenge Trail"" Adventure Isle, Shanghai Disney Resort China. Lead Creative Designer on ""Iron Man Experience"" Tomorrowland, Hong Kong Disneyland China. Creative Director on ""Blue Sky Zone"" Genting Skyworlds, Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. Creative Director on ""Avatar: The Experience” a traveling exhibit. Show Designer on ""Epic Universe"" Universal Orlando Resort, Florida scheduled to open in 2025. Michael received two Thea Awards in 2017, both for Outstanding Achievement, Theme Park: Shanghai Disneyland and Attraction: Camp Discovery, Shanghai Disneyland.

Andrew Pena is a Background Designer at Warner Brothers by day and a plein air painter the rest of the time. He paints because it keeps him sane and it's his form of meditation. Whether it is a landscape, cityscape, or interior painting, he loves to focus on the light and shapes that give each location its feeling.

Todd Smith is a seasoned artist who has worked as a concept illustrator and fine artist since 1998. He has worked in film and television in addition to showing his work in galleries. Todd studied Art History at UCLA, Drawing and Painting at Claremont Graduate University, and Entertainment Design at Art Center College of Design.

Andrew Dat Tran is a Laguna College of Art + Design Entertainment Design alum and works in games, film, and television. He has contributed to clients including Marvel, 343 Industries, Turtle Rock Studios, AMC Networks, Comedy Central, Adult Swim, and more. Andrew currently works as a Background Painter at Titmouse Inc., as an adjunct professor at LCAD, and as a Freelance Concept Artist and Illustrator. He loves working in Blender and Virtual Reality and is always on the lookout for new fun tools to create and play with. Andrew is passionate about technology, education, and storytelling, and is a perpetual student who’s always learning.

Renae Wang is a California-based artist working in oil. Her subject matter focuses on nocturnal landscapes and “non-places” like gas stations, diners, and airports. Her work is characterized by exaggerated colors, vibrant artificial lights, and immersive compositions with first-person point of view. These nocturnal paintings explore the universal human condition of isolation, as well as its relationship with public spaces of transience. The viewer either becomes the one observing a solitary figure or the one being isolated.

Renae started receiving professional art training at an early age. She recently received her master’s degree in Painting from Laguna College of Art and Design. Prior to that, she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and had built her traditional art skills at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the oldest art institution in the United States. During her graduate and undergraduate studies, Renae was granted multiple awards for her figure painting skills, which includes the Earl T. Donelson Figure Painting Award, the Susan MacDowell Eakins Figure Painting Award, the Taft Award, and the Campbell Scholarship. Her work in the Annual Student Exhibition at the Academy is collected by art connoisseurs in the Greater Philadelphia region.