Recreation

Recreation is playtime. Play nurtures my curiosity. While professional work is made to reach a broad audience, the art made during play is meant to satisfy an audience of one: the artist. This playtime reconnects me to my emotion, encourages exploration, and cultivates inspiration. As a leader, what I learn in playtime enriches my decisions and understanding of the challenges at hand. As an art director, I draw on all of my playtime fascinations to innovate and invigorate work.

If artwork needs a sophisticated touch, it’s child’s play!

Dr. Darling | FBC Zine Vol. 2

I painted Dr. Casper Darling--played by Matthew Porretta--as part of a fan zine celebrating the award winning video games by Remedy Entertainment, Alan Wake and Control. Readers confessed that when they reached my artwork, they literally squealed with delight!

The Process

This piece always gets a smile from me. As absurd as it is to have a lab-coat wearing scientist in a pinup pose, it completely fits with Control’s MCM environment design and with Dr. Darling’s innocent demeanor. I researched vintage pinup and pulp artists to create a coy pose typically reserved for women.

Year of the Dragon Furby Triptych

The 1998 Furby toy is a cultural phenomenon that I adore for their bizarre expressions and iconography.
You can project any personality on them! I depicted them as a triptych of Eastern dragons symbolizing peace, serenity, and protection.

Posca markers straddle painting and drawing. I chose the thick-tipped markers to restrict my artwork to bold lines and shape. For these pieces, I also limited my color palettes. Each of these use 2-4 colors plus black and white.

These were so fun to make that I would like to paint one on a grand scale stretched canvas. I just don’t know where I would put it!

Resident Evil 4

Resident Evil 4 is a video game published in 2005 by Capcom to critical acclaim that paved the way for modern action games. This was the first piece of horror media I engaged with, and it had me enthralled and spooked from Leon's first wise crack until the credits rolled.

As an art director I will sing praise for RE4’s design. The playable character, Leon, is overflowing with personality and has a cool hero design that has become a Capcom icon. The environments were dark and wet, successfully crafting an eerie atmosphere that gave the player a sense of uncertainty perfect for a horror genre game.

I painted these Posca pieces in anticipation for RE4’s 2023 remake. The blue monster is a "regenerator," a horrifying lab experiment that slowly paces towards you in a confined stage. Trapped with this unpredictable creature was terrifyingly creepy!

Happy Day

Happy Day is my answer to the thrall planted in me by reading the newspaper comics of my childhood: Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County, and The Far Side to name a few. I write and draw Happy Day as a way to share joy and ponderings to the world through social media.

Special challenges are innate in graphic narrative: Drawings, panels, and negative space must be utilized

intelligently to convey time, order, emotion, and imply the world beyond the page. To become a stronger comic artist (and for play), I study the works of teachers like Will Eisner and Scott McCloud, and read the comics of masters like Kentaro Miura (Berserk), Yukito Kishiro (Battle Angel: Alita), Tove Jansson (Moomin), and Frank Miller (Sin City). Research has never been more fun!

Holy Hatsune Miku

I first encountered Hatsune Miku, the virtual singing idol, in my college Video Gaming Club. I never predicted that today she would have risen to yet greater popularity, propelled into modern pop culture by fans who use her program to create original music.

This piece depicts Miku’s saintly, pure power by referencing Svitozar Nenyuk’s The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. The two fingered gesture holds her sacred leek and sends a blessing to the viewer. A strand of glowing beads encircle her like a rosary. Her pink heart laid bare, Miku

provides comfort and song to her followers worldwide.

It was particularly fun to marry Miku’s futuristic, digital design with Nenyuk’s traditional Catholic rendering. It’s always a tightrope walk to paint a two-dimensional design like Miku in full chiaroscuro. By abandoning linework commonly used in cartoon illustration, even exaggerated anime features begin to make sense in a painting that imitates traditional media.

Dungeons & Dragons

Click through carousel to see the process 👉

D&D has been lighting up imaginations since it first graced table tops in 1974. Gameplay consists of storytelling and improv, making D&D a continuous source of inspiration for me as an artist. Every session I come away with images of mythic beats, grandiose locations, and colorful characters. Of course I draw scenes from my campaigns!

Linoprint

Printmaking is a medium that always intrigued me, so recently I decided to play with linoprint. Carving tools are used to cut a design into a block of linoleum, creating raised and recessed surfaces like a rubber stamp. A thin layer of ink is rolled onto the block, then a sheet of paper is impressed on top to create an inked reproduction.

This is a print of the big-eyed click beetle, Alaus oculatus, a native insect here in Georgia,

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