His career has spanned over twenty-five years, and during it, he has worked as a freelance cartoonist and contributed illustrations to various magazines and children's books.
By the eighth grade, he knew he wanted to be an animator, and recalls in an interview with Step-By-Step Graphics, that "it was a scene from Pinocchio that helped him make up his mind".
[2] He says it was the scene where "Honest John convinces Pinocchio to run away and join the acting company", and sings the song, it's an actor's life for me.
When he began work on his first trade book, The Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore, he started to use oils due to having a more relaxed deadline.
When asked about this career choice, Gustafson has stated, “The opportunities of animation, in terms of subject matter and creative control, weren’t nearly as interesting or rewarding as those of illustration.
But as an illustrator, you’re responsible for locations, sets, costumes, props, lighting, and character designs, not mention the overall mood and emotion of a given painting.
Some time later, he received a call from New York and worked on a storybook version of Clement Clarke Moore's The Night Before Christmas a few months later.
Gustafson has been commissioned by various publishers and companies such as Celestial Seasonings, Playboy magazine, Saturday Evening Post, The Bradford Exchange, and DreamWorks.
[9] Books by other authors that feature his work include: The Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore, Peter Pan by J.M.
His own works are: Alphabet Soup, Animal Orchestra, Classic Fairy Tales, Favorite Nursery Rhymes from Mother Goose, and Eddie: The Lost Youth of Edgar Allan Poe.