Meet Durrell Odom

We had the good fortune of connecting with Durrell Odom and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Durrell, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
I started my business so I could create my own opportunities in the professional illustration world. I didn’t know much about the art business let alone, business in general so i kind of aimed to play it a bit conservatively when I first started. I was encouraged by more established artists that I looked up to such as Justin Orr and Ray A. Height to start vending at the popular trade shows or comic book conventions. Developed a theme of stylized portraits that was received very well at my first time vending, but it led to eventually doing caricatures on-the-spot for large and small events.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
My on-the-spot caricature work is high-energy and vibrant. that is not my subjects merely pokes fun at but celebrates their unique features and personality. I would describe my illustration work to be stylized realism but verstative enough to switch to a graphic style too.

Initially I wanted to be a character designer for animation. Though the trajectory didn’t pan out when initially wanted to, is was when I went to a character design workshop ran by the great Stephen Silver around 2011/2012, he explained to the audience that working as a caricature San Diego helped him hone his skills tremendously not only as a character design but an artist overall. This was the first time that I had interest in learning caricature. Over the years of ups and downs, picking up freelance jobs such as logo designs, CD cover illustration, holding down odd jobs, while showing my portfolio or whatever work I had to more established artists at Comic Cons and to get tips on improving my work, I decided to fully immerse myself in the art of caricature in 2015.

What changed for me was buying a table at Designer Can for 2015, Took an online tutorial and developed a series of caricatures of 5 star players of the 2015/2016 LA Clippers. I did great my first time vending and believed I found my niche. Professional opportunites came because of that. Done some illustration work for a film, animated TV show for HBOMAX, and portraits for award-winning musicians for ASCAP too. Over a year later, I met veteran caricature artist, Justin Galloway where he was teaching at a workshop at Art Supply Warehouse in Orange County. Learning on-the-spot caricatures from the whole year, by the end of the year, he invited me to work with him at the Festival of Lights. That is when my career and life began to change. Learning from him about the craft, but also booking fairs and private events, setting up, charging the market value, etc. We worked together almost nonstop until COVID happened.

Over the last several years, I’ve worked fairs and events all through Southern California and have met hundreds of fellow caricature artists from all over the world at the International Society of Caricature Artists (ISCA) convention.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
If you’re ever in the city, check out Downtown Riverside. They have many bars, clubs, galleries and local shops there. It is where the Mission Inn Hotel & Spa is located. They host the Festival of Lights each year during the holiday season. On the same street as the hotel, you have Cheech Museum, Riverside Art Museum, and the Riverside Municipal Auditorium where they have concerts as well as the Fox Theatre.

Riverside has a great hiking destination at Mount Rubidoux Park where you get an aerial view of the entire city by the time you reach the top.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I’d like to shoutout my parents. My mother, who is very creative as well, loves performing comedy, deejaying at parties and dancing. My father always encouraged me to never stop drawing and, is from Detroit, so he gave me that hustler spirit from a young age. My grandmother, for letting me take shelter in her home on days when I needed to be in Los Angeles, while traveling from Riverside, to find or create opportunities with my craft out there.

Website: https://www.durrellodom.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/durrellodomart/?hl=en

Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/durrell-odom-caricatures-riverside

Image Credits
Greg Preston, Shorty Robinson, Louis Orta, ASCAP