Lamont Hunt has been interested in illustration and animation since he was a kid.
After spending his college years at the University of Nebraska and the Art Institutes International Minnesota, he worked for a few animation and production companies including The Jim Henson Company, Overseas Radio & Television Inc., and Duncan Studios.
Now he sells his art under DakotaKid Creations Studio & Shoppe from his Brandon home, and he says he hopes to have the best of both worlds by working on illustrating books and commissions as well as working on larger film productions.
“I love drawing kids books, but I love animating films and seeing them up on the screen,” said Hunt.
Directly from his website, Hunt sells his illustrations in various mediums like prints, pins, apparel, spirit wear, trading cards, books, and more.
“A lot of this art is based on my series called At the Playground,” said Hunt. “It’s showing imagination in what kids think they look like at the playground. It’s not actually a mini Captain America or whoever. They are actually kids showing what they look like in their imagination.”
In this series, there are characters from Disney, Marvel, Harry Potter, 1980s cartoons, Star Wars, Broadway musicals, and more.
“What I get a lot of now is commission stuff of characters, or I’ve had people ask me to draw their family.”
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DakotaKid Creations is a part of Sioux Metro Growth Alliance.
He says he enjoys drawing people in his unique art style and working with clients on making their different ideas come to life.
Much of his inspiration comes from Disney films like Peter Pan and The Little Mermaid and “Saturday morning cartoons” from the 1980s.
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Framed in his office, Hunt has some of his At the Playground series signed by the voice actors or live action actors who played the character.
When he first started working with Overseas Radio in Taiwan, the show he was working on aired as an aid for learning English.
“My animation and artwork was seen all over the world. The first time I saw my animation on the show was in the Netherlands,” he said.
Hunt has worked on smaller projects like children’s books and client commissions, as well as films like The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature. He says this film was his first time animating animals on four legs.
“The first four shots that I was assigned were the first four scenes in the film,” said Hunt about the last time he saw the sequences.
To his dismay when he first saw it in theaters, he says those scenes had been cut due to story timing. Luckily, his first assignments did appear in the outtakes on the DVD of the film.
“It’s rare it happens that late in the production,” explained Hunt. “I was worried I wouldn’t have anything in the film. The rest of it did play and my name was in the credits.”
Sid the Science Kid on PBS is another one of his biggest projects.
In South Dakota, he’s worked with the Brandon Valley School District and South Dakota State University (SDSU).
The Brandon Valley School District asked Hunt to redesign their lynx mascots.
“Animation is the only thing I’ve wanted to do. From elementary school, that’s what I’ve wanted to do. I didn’t always know what it would be, but I knew I wanted to do it.” – Lamont Hunt
“Most people don’t know there’s two of them. Then I found out from some people that there’s actually Leo and Leah. It was so they could have a female mascot for the girls team,” said Hunt.
SDSU goes through Hunt for their new mascot revamp. Now Hunt redesigns the Jackrabbit for different events and apparel.
For more information, visit DAKOTAKIDCREATIONS.COM.
