Drazen Kozjan was born in Croatia and now lives in Canada, where his family moved when he was young. His career has included visual development and storyboarding for a number of features, including The Neverending Story, Rupert the Bear, Franklin The Turtle and George Shrinks.
He is also an editorial illustrator and children’s book illustrator, with credits for several books, including The Biggest Girl In the World by Joanne Stanbridge, Diary of a Fairy Godmother by Esm Raji Codell and How to Tame a Bully by Nancy Wilcox-Richards.
Kozjan’s crisp, spare style manages to be evocative without ever being labored. His interior book illustrations are often done with fine line and deft touches of tone. His color illustrations, in contrast, frequently feel like they are line drawings with color fills, but are often accomplished with sharply delineated forms instead of outlines.
He works in pen and ink, marker pens, gouache and watercolor, as well as digital media, specifically Photoshop, in which he colors most of his recent work.
His website has galleries for individual book titles as well as other work.
Kozjan also maintains a blog called Hypnotik Eye, in which he discusses his projects and posts personal sketches and life drawings, along with occasional mentions of other artists from the history of illustration whose work he admires.
You can also see his portrait of Rod Serling on Hey Oscar Wilde, It’s Clobberin’ Time! (see my post on Hey Oscar Wilde, It’s Clobberin’ Time!).
There is a recent interview with Drazen Kozjan on Fuel Your Illustration.
