Gary Locke Art Gallery
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Gary Locke
Artist
Who draws those amazing Adventures
in Odyssey illustrations? Gary Locke's over-the-top
sketches have graced projects for Quaker Oats, Pepsi,
Warner Bros., Major League Baseball, Fisher-Price,
Sports Illustrated, and many others. Gary's strong
drawing skills make him perfect for projects that
involve character development or zany caricatures,
especially of sports and political figures. The
award-winning illustrator works out of Rogersville, Mo.
surrounded by family and select friends: his wife and
three children, a balding ferret, one dog, and several
selfish cats. Gary's work is prevalent in all of
Adventures in Odyssey's products, ranging from the
audio series to books.
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History
Artist
Gary Locke became the illustrator for past, present, and future
Adventures in Odyssey albums, beginning with the release of Volume 36:
Danger Signals in 2001 (see below).
Volume 36 was released during a time when cassette tapes were nearly
obsolete and CD's were becoming the new media standard. Albums 1-15 were
only available in cassette format for the majority of Odyssey's formative
years, so when the Gold Audio Series was released—putting
those collections onto a digital format for the first time in Odyssey
history—Gary was the artist responsible for
bringing those illustrations to life.
Gary primarily worked from character designs that had been
developed by artists before him as featured in Albums 1-50. Fans had come to
love the branded illustrations of overweight Whit, green jogging suit
Connie, and nerdy "no eyes" Eugene. They had become a standard for many
years, although many artists were involved with the illustrations for album
releases. As a whole, there was a shift between the look of the earliest
albums to more recent collections. Thus, a lack of consistency and an
overall disconnect.
Enter Gary Locke. The Odyssey team played around with album
formats, including offering half albums for a short time (A and B,
containing six episodes). They finally settled on a package design featured
in Volume 47, Into the Light, released
in 2007. This would be the new standard for Albums 1-50. Each was
re-illustrated by Gary Locke and now the series looks more consistent on
collectors' shelves. And the Gold Audio Series was shown the door.
In 2010, Adventures in Odyssey returned after a brief
hiatus with the release of Album 51: Take It
from the Top. This album represented a fresh start for the series with
new characters, new theme song, new series logo, and new illustrations.
Albums 51 and up feature a rebranded slim Whit, a more stylish jogging
suit-less Connie, and a Eugene without bangs covering his eyes and a trendy
pair of glasses.
Involvement
Artist Gary Locke currently illustrates all the Adventures
in Odyssey album covers, several books, and produces quite a few
illustrations for Adventures in Odyssey Clubhouse magazine. In
addition, Gary illustrates each episode featured monthly at the
Odyssey Adventure Club.
Artist Gallery
Below, we've showcased quite a bit of Gary's work for
Adventures in Odyssey. This showcase is not all-inclusive since Mr.
Locke has such a large scope of work he does for Odyssey, including
individual character designs. Click on a thumbnail below to see a larger
illustration.
Visit Other Adventures in Odyssey Art Galleries
"Adventures in Odyssey" is a registered trade mark of Focus on the Family.
All characters, episodes, products, etc., of "Adventures in Odyssey" are
property of Focus on the Family. All character artwork and product images
displayed throughout the website are exclusively copyrighted by FOTF. See
our full disclaimer
for details.
