Alan Villanueva

Meet the Artist

Alan Villanueva is a professional Illustrator, Character Designer, and Concept Artist with over 15 years of experience in the film and television industry. His career spans well over 50 movies and TV shows to date and has worked on projects with companies like Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. in Hollywood, CA.

Alan’s lifelong passion for art began at age five, fueled by library books like Jumanji, Where the Wild Things Are and The Wizard of Oz, any comic book he could get his hands on and shows in the 80’s and 90’s like Fraggle Rock, Pee-Wee, Mr Roger’s Neighborhood, ThunderCats, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Batman.

These amazing worlds, stories, characters and creatures ensnared his imagination. He was captivated…and his love for it all was (and remains) unconditional.

Although he didn’t realize it at the time, it would come to define his childhood and continue to enrich his journey throughout adulthood, earning a B.F.A. in Illustration from Long Beach State and a scholarship to study art in Florence, Italy.

Teaching art and enriching people of all ages has been in Alan’s blood for a long time. He easily shows his passion, dedication and patience with helping others through his love of art. Not only has he worked with Pre-K to 5th Graders for 7 years doing art projects with the Palos Verdes Unified School District, but he has also volunteered with the Torrance/SouthBay YMCA for 17 years providing counseling and art enrichment with middle school and high school aged youth. Alan was also an adjunct professor at UCLA for a Summer Intensive Class for the Arts Master’s Program.

Now having two young children of his own, he enjoys being creative and doing arts and crafts with them all the time!

Following the emergence of AI in the professional industry, Alan felt a calling to return to his roots. Encouraged by his wife and inspired by crafting with his two children, he founded Make-Believe Machine to share his love for authentic, human-made art with the next generation of dreamers.