Jeff Johnson is a character animator, painter, cartoonist, and sculptor.  He holds a BFA from The Rhode Island School of Design and has animated for most major animation studios; Disney, Dreamworks, Warner Brothers, Universal, Industrial Light and Magic, Film Roman, and Spumko.  Jeff's sculpture of Tom Waits and his video "Sculpting Tom Waits" is featured on TomWaits.com under videos.  He is currently working for The Simpsons, Spumko and on a collection of cartoons for a series of books titled, "500 Fortune Cartoons"  based on fortune cookie sayings.  Jeff was recruited  in 1999 to lend a traditional skill set to the demanding and sophisticated computer animation they were accomplishing at ILM and when asked to be one of the first four character animators to bring the CG Yoda to life for Episode II, he jumped at the opportunity to fulfill a childhood dream.  During the early stages of production he sculpted and bust of Yoda to better immerse into Yoda's character that he claims owes everything to Frank Oz's puppet from Episode V  "The Empire Strikes Back".  This resin cast of Yoda is the first cast and the artist's proof and one of only a handful that exist.