Nick Volkert

Illustrator & UX/UI Designer

Greater Chicago, IL

Jolly St Nick Shark|View Work

Hard work and belly laughs

Introduction

My name is Nick Volkert, an artist and creative living in Northwest Chicagoland.

I'm a classically trained illustrator and painter, receiving a BFA in Illustration and an MFA in Painting from Northern Illinois University. I currently illustrate digitally, converting pen and ink illustrations to prints and tee designs.

In my off-hours I like to paint, create comics, attend way too many concerts, play drums, and, in addition I’m a diehard White Sox fan.

I have a lot of comics, illustrations and art to view, hope you find something you like!

Merry Christmas to one and all!

Christmas Designs

A selection of my most cheerful and festive designs from my portfolio! Ho ho ho!

Captain Pancake is dressed as Santa Claus carrying a huge bag of presents.

Created: November, 2017 | Role: Illustrator

Captain Pancake is all decked out in his Santa suit to spread some Holiday Cheer!

Santa Claus shows the agony of his six peppermint claws.

Created: August, 2015 | Role: Illustrator

In a horrible experiment in the frigid North, peppermint was grafted to Santa Claus' bones.

A shark dressed like Santa Claus emerges from the water with presents and candy.

Created: September, 2015 | Role: Illustrator

FACT: Santa shark loves gift giving during Christmas and brings presents to all the oceanic creatures!

Da Designs

Chicago Designs

All of my Chicago-based designs in one handy spot! Da Bears!

A wiener dog with hockey gear on that is in Chicago colors, with a gray mustache and also a bun with chicago-style hot dog toppings.

Created: January 1st, 2020 | Role: Illustrator

Ready to rumble at the Mad House.

Captain Pancake is dressed like a Chicago Bears Superfan, and is holding a chicago-style hot dog.

Created: December 9th, 2018 | Role: Illustrator

Captain Pancake is a huge fan of a certain football team from Chicago, by the lake, of the Midway!

A dachshund wearing a Chicago hot dog costume runs by with a lunch pail that has the Chicago skyline.

Created: November, 2017 | Role: Illustrator

Just a loyal Chicago Dog running down Lake Shore Drive to the Bears game, bringing you your lunch!

Crisp air and crisp leaves

Fall Series

Time to cozy up in your warm jackets blankets and pumpkin flavored things!

A log with a mustache walks by.

Created: December, 2013 | Role: Illustrator

Logs often patrol the forest in the Fall showing off their wooden mustaches!

A scarecrow shark pops out of the water to shoo away the crows.

Created: December, 2014 | Role: Illustrator

The best way to scare away crows is the apex predator of the sea!

An isolated shark dressed as a lumberjack holding an axe.

Created: August, 2014 | Role: Illustrator

An isolated version of my 'Lumberjack Shark' design.

Pen, Ink, and Cintiq!

Illustration

I love making personal works that I use as a vehicle to explore to constantly learn the programs I use on my day to day, and push my artistic abilities.

A shark peeks out of the water wearing facepaint as a skull, surrounded by scores of Halloween candy.

Created: October 31st, 2023 | Role: Illustrator

FACT: Sharks will eat your current and past Halloween candy plunders with reckless abandon because they love them some crunchy, sweet, and gooey candy!

A sharks that has become a jack o'lantern peeks out of the water surrounded by a small group of pumpkins with jack o'lantern faces carved in them and lit up!

Created: October 27th, 2023 | Role: Illustrator

FACT: If sharks spend enough time with jack o'lanterns in the water on All Hallows Eve, they become one themselves!

A shark covered in pieces of pumpkins peeks out of the water to assess all the pumpkin destruction!

Created: October 25th, 2023 | Role: Illustrator

FACT: Don't get in the water and between a shark and it's appetite for some October pumpkin destruction this Halloween!

A small robot that's is a high five with another hand waiting for a high five and also a clamp hand holding a high five waiting for your high fives!

Created: September 18th, 2023 | Role: Illustrator

A robot built to handle all your high fives! It's the High Five Robot! If you see him out in the wild be sure to give him a high five! NO LOW FIVES.

A sharks peaks out of the water with ice cream on its face, surrounded by floating half-eaten ice cream sandwiches.

Created: August 1st, 2023 | Role: Illustrator

FACT: Sharks are known to totally manhandle a box of delicious ice cream sandwiches.

A shark peaks out of the water dressed as an ice cream man, surrounded by an assortment of ice cream cones in the water and sprinkles.

Created: July 23rd, 2023 | Role: Illustrator

FACT: Sharks have taken up jobs as ice cream men and are serving up soft serve ice cream cones...with sprin-kills...sorry...sprinkles!

A blueberry is on a skateboard skating by, while its headphones wires whip in the wind.

Created: June 25th, 2023 | Role: Illustrator

Who loves skateboarding? Little blueberries of course. They also love listening to their Summer jams!

A dachshund in a chicago dog style hot dog costume zooms by on top of a skateboard!

Created: June 19th, 2023 | Role: Illustrator

Chicago Dogs in Chicago Hot Dog costumes LOVE to go skateboarding, of course!

A jar full of bones and skulls trots by for Halloween.

Created: Ocotber 16th, 2022 | Role: Illustrator

Skull jam is definitely a pretty grim form of jam, but hey, it's full of calcium!

Join the Danger Huskie Danger Team

Danger Huskie

Vector works that a fun, cute, scary, and a bit dangerous!

A spooky and sinister man with a Jack O'Lantern head lunges by in a three-piece suit and a dashing cape!

Created: November 25th, 2023 | Role: Illustrator

A dashing cape! A Jack O'Lantern head! What possible evil deeds could this evil three-pieced suit villain have in store for his unsuspecting victims!

A figure in a cape with a head that is a giant Evil Eye lunges at the viewer.

Created: November 21st, 2023 | Role: Illustrator

Donning a purple cape, and a new body, the Evil Eye is lurking about looking to lunge at unsuspecting victims to spread...what could it be? Oh yeah, EVIL.

A yellow vector graphic eye with a red iris points upward to signal that it has just come up with an evil idea!

Created: November 15th, 2023 | Role: Illustrator

Free from an evil eye socket, the evil eye wanders about looking to do EVIL, and voila, an evil idea has landed in this little wandering eye's mind!

I write jokes too

Comics! (Eventually books)

I used to pay the bills as a cartoonist at the Northern Star during my Undergraduate and Graduate studies at Nothern Illinois Univeristy. I’ve always loved comics and was an illustation major to be a comics illustrator (that old cliché). Nonetheless and when the time allows, I love to write and draw works for my friends and social media followers. Big things in the works!

Mondays are the worst

Monday Comic

Just a weekly comic I started celebrating everyone's least favorite day of the week.

A middle aged Midwesterner learns about not wearing gloves in the cold has tragic repercussions.

Created: February, 2023 | Role: Illustrator

That last cold snap really cashed my hands out to oblivion.

A young man disappears into a hooded sweatshirt with the hood up.

Created: September 5th, 2022 | Role: Illustrator

Fall update of my retreat to hoodies comic earlier this year. Huzzah!

A man embraces the new mustache on his face with some pals from the forest.

Created: September 5th, 2022 | Role: Illustrator

Oh, you all saw Top Gun this Summer too? Sweet, me too.

Comics about a wonderful future gal pal

Dear Future Girlfriend

Another weekly comic that started as a series of smart-assed Facebook posts and grew into a comic!

Dear Future Girlfriend: You go all and bust out all your best smash dancing moves for your favorite genre of music: FALLCORE.

Created: October 8th, 2022 | Role: Illustrator

Aint no smash dancing like the smashing of pumpkins, smash dancing.

Dear Future Girlfriend: You'll make sure I'm not sleeping through my alarm clock with that new Texas Chainsaw Massacare chime.

Created: October 4th, 2022 | Role: Illustrator

You'll make sure I'm up for work on time, albeit with an accelerated heartbeat, during cool weather sleepy season.

Dear Future Girlfriend: If things were to unfortunately fizzle out, we'll always be united in our undying hatred of pants.

Created: July 17th, 2022 | Role: Illustrator

If it doesn't work out, we'll at least have this in common, forever.

A helpful little arachnid

Helpful Spider

Always helpful!

Helpful Spider is at the ready with a flamethrower and an axe in case he needs to keep the New Year in line!

Created: June 2023 | Role: Illustrator

Helpful Spider noticed the weather has warmed up and is ready to be helpful for the rest of the year!

Helpful Spider is at the ready with a flamethrower and an axe in case he needs to keep the New Year in line!

Created: January 2023 | Role: Illustrator

Helpful Spider is on the ready in case things get weird, which they probably will, so yeah.

Helpful Spider is on top of a totebag with a checklist making sure all the back to school supplies are in there!

Created: August 2022 | Role: Illustrator

Helpful Spider is can't believe it's August already either! In any case he's manning your back to school list and making sure you have all your supplies!

Comics usually on Thursdays

The Thursday Treat

Ongoing comics that are sometimes funny, of various amounts of panels, subject manner, and typically on Thursdays, not on a more funner day like Friday.

The Thursday Treat puts you in the drivers seat of a successful trip to the dealership and behind the wheel of a wildy un-aerodynamic taco-shaped car.

Created: September 28th, 2017 | Role: Illustrator

Can the taco not only be a great delivery vehicle for meat, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes and sour cream, but also a wildly un-aerodynamic car?

The Thursday Treat supposes a paradigm that a TRex is a drummer and a rocker, and is playing for an up and comic garage band.

Created: July 6th, 2017 | Role: Illustrator

A tale of a TRex drummer that has a heavy kickdrum style, but lacks a bit on hi-hat and snare rhythms.

A wide variety of helpful tips to stay warm during a cold and frigid winter from The Thursday Treat.

Created: February 5th, 2016 | Role: Illustrator

The Thursday Treat is a well of knowledge of helpful, albeit questionable, tips on keeping yourself warm during a frigid Winter.

You Can at least buy some stickers!

Visit my Shops

Nearly all of my personal work is available as prints, tees, stickers and more. Let me clothe you! (Or maybe let my designs hang out as a sticker on your laptop or print on your livingroom wall).

Reading, it's for your eyeballs!

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Created: January 16th, 2021

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A sleepy bear hunkers down for the Winter.

Created: January 2nd, 2021

It's cold, miserable, the roads are dangerous, so it's time to get creative while you're huddled up in your warm home.

A blog promoting the relaunch of nickvolkert.com

Created: October 12th, 2020

A two year effort crafting, JSON, SASS, REACT and CDNs finally live!