The title of “Build,” a children’s book by Chris Sickels might also describe the Indiana native’s career. From puppetry to stop-motion animation, Sickels is always building in order to express himself. 

“I started in illustration and now I focus on 3D and animation,” said Sickels, who credited Terry Martin, his art teacher, with setting his career in motion. “In rural Indiana, you didn’t just go off and become an artist,” he said.

Sickels now works out of his own studio based in Greenfield, Ind., called Red Nose Studio, working on a variety of projects as a freelance illustrator and fulltime builder. A taste of the Sickels style is available on YouTube.

In his interview with Steve Tarter, Sickels  talks about the toy bulldozers, dump trucks, and cranes  he constructed in the making of “Build.”Those models were made from “chunks of scrap wood, bent nails and springs,” he said to make “wonky versions of those machines.”