VeggieTales illustrator makes Perry his home

Perry Rotary Club hosted a decorated illustrator, Monday during their meeting. 

“You guys have been awesome in welcoming us,” Greg Hardin, who served as keynote speaker of the meeting, told those who had gathered to hear him.

Hardin and his family relocated to Perry in October 2018 when his wife accepted the position of Economic Director for the City of Perry. Although life in Perry moves at a slower pace than it does in larger cities like Chicago and Kansas City where he’s lived in the past, Hardin said, “I really like living here.”

For over 20 years, Hardin has worked as an illustrator, and his talents have been seen on the big screen as well as in more than 86 children’s books. His journey to becoming a successful illustrator, however, did not come without its challenges. He originally applied to Big Idea Productions (the animated studio for VeggieTales) in 1999 and flew to Chicago to vie for the position, but did not get the job. Hardin said the experience called for him to revamp his portfolio, and when another opportunity presented itself, he said, “I was just fortunate to be in the right time and place and have the skill set and portfolio, and that’s how I got it.”

A graduate of the University of Kansas, Hardin has a design degree and worked with a couple of companies in Kansas City prior to relocating to Chicago in the year 2000 so that he could function in his new role there. While he admits that it was a little intimidating at the beginning, Hardin quickly adapted and worked as a successful illustrator with VeggieTales for the better part of a decade. He took part in movie premiere events and met many popular music, movie, and sports figures in the process. Thirty-five of the 86 books he’s credited with illustrating are within the popular VeggieTales series.

After more than eight years of working for Big Idea Productions and VeggieTales, Hardin moved back to Kansas City to work for Hallmark where he served as an illustrator and designer and had the opportunity to create work using some of the most famous pop culture characters in the world. Following his time with Hallmark Hardin worked as a full-time freelance illustrator, and noted companies such as Disney, Nickelodeon, and ABCMouse.com have employed his creative genius. His illustrations can be found on ornaments, toy packaging designs, and even some of the T-shirts that can be purchased from stores at Disneyland.

“In this industry, companies will need you for a period of time, and then you might not hear from them for a long time,” Hardin explained. “ABCMouse still gives me a lot of work, but currently, I’m also doing the storyboarding for the new VeggieTales animated show that’s coming to cable TV. I’m also working on a graphic novel pitch that’s close to being done. When it comes to freelance work,” he said, ” you never quite know where the next job is going to come from, but you do get repeat clients, for sure.”

Hardin says he can’t divulge much information right now regarding the graphic novel pitch that he’s working on. It’s a project that he co-created with a former “Star Trek” writer, but he chooses not to reveal too much too soon. “During the process of making this pitch, a couple of the ideas that we came up with, we discovered that someone else had it somewhere else and pitched it before us. We’ve had to revamp the story a number of times because somebody beat us to the punch and we didn’t know it. So we don’t want to put anything out there before we get everything registered and trademarked.”

In the meantime, Hardin said that he and his family have settled well in Perry. “We just had our third baby girl about a month ago,” he shared, “so we’ve made ourselves at home.”