Hi, I’m Richard Hoit. I was born in Kent in the UK, but grew up in New Zealand where I live by the beach in the sunny Bay of Plenty. From childhood I have always had a passion for drawing and painting and everything Disney.
Animated Disney films had a great influence on me and I loved every one I got the chance to see. A lot of the fun and quirky characters that I draw are also suited to animation as I visualise them this way for any story I am illustrating.
I have studied art and art history. Norman Rockwell is my favourite artist and it is his influence that has moulded me to give candid individuality to the characters that I illustrate. I enjoy working through the whole character development stage of my illustrations and spend a lot of time getting them just right. It is magic when you receive the finished printed sample of one of your books and you see how well it comes together with the text on the page.
I have worked in many areas of illustration including posters, advertising and packaging. Recently my artwork is appearing in digital applications for the iPad and iPhone. But my greatest passion is children’s books.
I have worked with Sunshine Books for over 20 years. My first book “Fruggles” was in a freehand style. In 1998 I saw that technology was advancing into illustration and so I tackled my first digital story – the Sunshine book “My Dad’s a Jogger”. I never looked back and my most recent work for Sunshine has been in the new Sunshine Starters collection where I illustrated “The Famous Writer” amongst others.
In my spare time I have a passion for anything Star Wars and I collect Star Wars memorabilia. For recreation, I am a gamer.
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