Bio

Dylan Yarter is an artist, animator, and self-taught developer based in Bentonville, Arkansas, and the creator of BizarreBeasts, a hand-illustrated universe of art, games, and animation he built entirely himself.

Born in Redwood City, California and raised in Texas, Dylan drew constantly as a child, filling sketchbooks and making his own comic books panel by panel. He wanted to go to art school. His life took a different direction; he studied finance and economics at Baylor University instead and spent the next twenty years building businesses with a creative entrepreneurial leaning. He never stopped drawing. He simply stopped telling people that was what he wanted to do.

In 2018 he and his wife Kate co-founded The Bazaar Studio. In 2021, Kate looked at his sketchbooks full of bizarre creatures and told him, “This could really become something.” The first BizarreBeasts illustrated collections were completed by August 2021, and 45+ canvas paintings and 300+ ink and digital illustrations followed. The work continues to evolve and progress in medium and reach.

Dylan wanted to energize the work with motion. Finding no tool that would move his hand-drawn lines the way he needed, he ambitiously taught himself to code at forty, using AI as a coding partner and with no computer science background. He built a proprietary animation studio of his own design, where the artwork is hand-illustrated and AI drafts motion timing under his direction.

That studio is producing a ten-episode streaming series, premiering on DCP+ at the platform's launch this fall as part of its opening slate.

In February 2026, Dylan left his corporate career to focus on creating BizarreBeasts full-time as an artist and creative entrepreneur, and relocated to Bentonville in June 2026. He is the 2025 recipient of the $100,000 A3 Startup Award from the Arts3 Foundation and Decentralized Pictures, a first-place recipient of the DCP Base Creator Grant, and a DCP Ambassador. This fall his animation “All Cooped Up” appears in Our Art 2026 at the Alexander Gallery at Porter Art Warehouse in Fayetteville, one of 102 works by 86 artists chosen from 659 submitted for the sixth annual juried exhibition of Northwest Arkansas artists presented by Walton Arts Center. He exhibited “Rattlesnake” as a featured artist at RTown Gallery in Grapevine, Texas, in 2023, and will present at the Ozark Media Arts Festival (OMAF) in October 2026.

He and Kate also write and record music together as Dylan & Kate. He has four sons, and lives and works in Bentonville.