The goal I set for myself was to visually describe a robot not as a servant to humans, but as a neighbor and friend.
I was invited to participate in Scopomania 2016 at the Second Story Gallery.
"Leap of Faith" is the first of a set. It tells the story of two strangers learning to trust someone new. In any relationship, we must be courageous enough to leave our comfort zone in order to get to know someone. By leaving your world to join someone else's possibilities open up that would not have existed before.
I was invited to participate in Scopomania 2016 at the Second Story Gallery.
"Odyssey" continues the narrative of "Leap of Faith" by exploring the idea of a successful new relationship. The shadows are their former selves, which pale in comparison to where they are going together now that they've met. The word odyssey was chosen because it not only means to journey, but to have a series of adventures over an extended period of time with differing substantial consequences, something that's bound to happen when deciding to trust someone enough to get to know them.
This a personal illustration based on the fairy tale the six swans.
This New Orleans themed snowball design will be printed on T-shirts, mugs, tea towels, and more.
The Client loved the original picture of their dog, but wished that the moment had been captured outside in a pretty environment. Photo-manipulation created the desired result with the added bonus of redefined focus and clarity for their beloved pet.
Corrections: Closed eyes, shadow removal, color correction, background altering, & subject's aesthetics.
This Sexual Assault Awareness Poster Campaign was designed for Haynes Academy for Advanced Studies.
I was given full creative license to design the slogans, mood, and theme of the posters as long as they promoted “Relatedness” as a preventative measure to sexual assault and other societal ails.
After much thought, my personal goal for the series was to base my designs on R.I.S.E. four moral goals for the student body to uphold; Respect, Integrity, Sympathy, and Encouragement.
Teal, the color of sexual assault awareness, is used throughout the designs and certain masters paintings; such as N.C. Leyendecker, Johannes Vermeer, and John Singer Sargent were utilized to lend their timeless haunting beauty and elegance. The posters are meant to be mysterious and alluring to draw viewers into the topic slowly in conjunction with any activities the school performed to promote awareness. This means that eventually the posters would be understood and recognized for what they are without ever loosing the ability to be first seen as a reminder of the R.I.S.E. goals.
This is a Sexual Assault Awareness Poster Campaign designed for Haynes Academy for Advanced Studies. I was given full creative license to design the slogans, mood, and theme of the posters as long as they promoted “Relatedness” as a preventative measure to sexual assault and other societal ails.
After much thought, my personal goal for the series was to base my designs on R.I.S.E. four moral goals for the student body to uphold; Respect, Integrity, Sympathy, and Encouragement.
This is a Sexual Assault Awareness Poster Campaign designed for Haynes Academy for Advanced Studies. I was given full creative license to design the slogans, mood, and theme of the posters as long as they promoted “Relatedness” as a preventative measure to sexual assault and other societal ails.
After much thought, my personal goal for the series was to base my designs on R.I.S.E. four moral goals for the student body to uphold; Respect, Integrity, Sympathy, and Encouragement.
This is a Sexual Assault Awareness Poster Campaign designed for Haynes Academy for Advanced Studies. I was given full creative license to design the slogans, mood, and theme of the posters as long as they promoted “Relatedness” as a preventative measure to sexual assault and other societal ails.
After much thought, my personal goal for the series was to base my designs on R.I.S.E. four moral goals for the student body to uphold; Respect, Integrity, Sympathy, and Encouragement.
This is a Sexual Assault Awareness Poster Campaign designed for Haynes Academy for Advanced Studies. I was given full creative license to design the slogans, mood, and theme of the posters as long as they promoted “Relatedness” as a preventative measure to sexual assault and other societal ails.
After much thought, my personal goal for the series was to base my designs on R.I.S.E. four moral goals for the student body to uphold; Respect, Integrity, Sympathy, and Encouragement.
This is a Sexual Assault Awareness Poster Campaign designed for Haynes Academy for Advanced Studies. I was given full creative license to design the slogans, mood, and theme of the posters as long as they promoted “Relatedness” as a preventative measure to sexual assault and other societal ails.
After much thought, my personal goal for the series was to base my designs on R.I.S.E. four moral goals for the student body to uphold; Respect, Integrity, Sympathy, and Encouragement.
This is a Sexual Assault Awareness Poster Campaign designed for Haynes Academy for Advanced Studies. I was given full creative license to design the slogans, mood, and theme of the posters as long as they promoted “Relatedness” as a preventative measure to sexual assault and other societal ails.
After much thought, my personal goal for the series was to base my designs on R.I.S.E. four moral goals for the student body to uphold; Respect, Integrity, Sympathy, and Encouragement.
This is a Sexual Assault Awareness Poster Campaign designed for Haynes Academy for Advanced Studies. I was given full creative license to design the slogans, mood, and theme of the posters as long as they promoted “Relatedness” as a preventative measure to sexual assault and other societal ails.
After much thought, my personal goal for the series was to base my designs on R.I.S.E. four moral goals for the student body to uphold; Respect, Integrity, Sympathy, and Encouragement.
The Client wanted a personified Fleur-de-lis mascot and logo in one design to represent a tech-savvy New Orleans.
The Client’s Goal for the main characters of the The Forgiveness Bears Children's Book was for them to be cute, but scrappy bear siblings that went on adventures learning about forgiveness.
The Client’s Goal for the main characters of the The Forgiveness Bears Children's Book was for them to be cute, but scrappy bear siblings that went on adventures learning about forgiveness.
Second round of character designs.
The adult character designs for Mama, Papa, and Old Grizzly.
The direction of the Client’s project changed drastically here. The ages of the main characters and Old Grizzly became younger and the desire for a softer, less realistic look to the bears was communicated.
Final Design of the main characters.
The Design for the tree house that the bears live in.
At this point the Client decided the grizzly bear character needed to go back to being an older age, but they wanted a new design than the previous, so this teenage development is later scrapped.
Three working concepts for Old Grizzly.
This is the finalized design of Old Grizzly.
The epic Trilogy was written in such a way as to suggest modern mythology, while including elements of science fiction, and fantasy.
After reading, it occurred to me that the way the various covers were designed focused more on the antagonist than the main character, mimicked something between Mannerism & Renaissance art, which in my opinion did not mesh with the story’s modern myth feeling, and relied on too many background elements without a clear narrative direction. The new reprint covers that were published recently were vague photo-manipulations that left much to be desired.
Out of a sense of nostalgia, I decided to redesign the cover, placing the focus on the main character, Aeriel, Showing her determination as she faces off against the Darkangel, while creating a sense of the wide landscape that the author describes Aeriel journeying through.
Maybe I’ll finish it one day :)
This story was and still is one of my favorite fairy tales. About a girl who encounters the Devil throughout her life and still finds, love, family, and happiness anyway, “The Girl With Silver Hands” is a testament to the joy Faith and love can bring to life despite the brokenness of the world.
Growing up, one of my favorite fairy tales was about a mystical woman who appeared in a town suffering from a drought. Her hair became a flourishing stream that gave the villagers everything they needed. However, the villagers became greedy and tried to take more from her than what was fair. They fought amongst themselves. Grieved, the woman left the village to its own destruction, but the children, who loved her with honest minds and innocent hearts begged for her return and so for their sake, she sent a gift; rain.
Originally, the Greek gods did not make human women, only men, and these men were designed to worship them alone. Prometheus had an alternate view of humanity’s potential. With a name that means “Forethought”, he should. Prometheus’s helping the humans to defy the gods on several occasions, including giving them access to fire, enraged Zeus. To settle the score, Zeus gave Prometheus an eternal punishment, but before he was taken away Prometheus warned his brother not to accept any gifts from Zeus. The brother, Epimetheus, meaning “Afterthought”, agreed to remember the warning. Meanwhile, Zeus gathered together a few gods to create the first human woman, Pandora. She was perfection of heart, mind, and beauty, until Zeus ordered Hermes to place vile words, vain desires, and an order to fall to the curiosity of the “jar” in her possession. Zeus offered Pandora to Epimetheus as a Bride and he agreed, forgetting about his brother’s warning. Pandora proceeded to follow the command seeded in her heart, to fall to the curiosity of the jar and open it, allowing all of the blessings or curses to escape depending on the version of the myth. The only remaining piece left in the jar is hope or “Elspeth”; “expectation” to the Greeks, which could have a positive or negative meaning depending on how it is interpreted. The negative could mean that Pandora allowed Elspeth to remain in order to give humans the pain of hoping for what they could not have. The positive holds that she held Elspeth back to give humanity the ability to expect better and therefore have the promise of all the good that had appeared to have gone.
When I was struggling with an illness I had a vivid dream. Such dreams are not uncommon for me, but this one was clear and had a story that went along with it. I felt the need to write it down, then, to visually tell the story. At least part of it. Sequential art has always fascinated me, but I never spent time developing the skill that goes along with it. So, I decided to try my hand at telling a piece of this story through sequential art…
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The context:
Fantasy, Adventure, Quest.
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Plot:
In a world where every human posses a “Heartstone”, which sometimes provides them with a unique ability, a charming Conman attempts to steal a magically inclined Heartstone from the underground market in order to use its power for himself. No sooner than he has stolen the heartstone, an evil sorceress begins to hunt him down, a revengeful guard from the Brotherhood becomes magically forced to obey him, and a disdained Nopather woman chooses the Path most entwined with his for an unknown purpose.
Needless to say, the Conman is left in confusion. He believed the heart he was buying belonged to an animal that would give him enough magical power to pull a better con, not a human being who’s unique ability is related to darkness.
As he begins a journey to stay one step ahead of the sorceress hounding him and extract the Heartstone before it corrupts his nature, he becomes greatful for his two traveling companions even if their motives are far different than his own.
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Characters:
Conor “Conman”:
A man who has taken on the responsibility of caring for his quarantined village community deep in the woods. He con’s others out of a portion of what they have, but never the whole, believing this makes him “Fair”. He pretends to have magical abilities. As he gets older and his tricks become more commonplace, he decides to try his hand at real magic by buying a heartstone reputed to have magical ability. He believes he is buying an animal stone, which would help him appear to grow crops at a faster rate, but the seller sees his ignorance and gives him the corrupted heartstone of an infamous slaver. This stone, once inside Conman, will slowly corrupt him should he use it. He finds this out the hard way when he is almost arrested by a Brotherhood Guard and tries to defend himself with his new power only to discover that it has a darkness to it he was not prepared for. On top of this, an evil sorceress knows exactly what he holds in his chest and wants it for her own. Conman has always made decisions based on how much he could get out of a situation, but now he has to decide if having power is more important than having honor. Is he really a caring leader or has he always been a villain? Can he change or will he be corrupted first?
Flint “Guard”:
Guard is a man with a violent past. He survived a Brigand takeover of his small town through questionable means when he was a youth, after which he was rescued & trained by the Brotherhood, a roaming group of huntsman and hired swords sworn to uphold family, Justice, and honor. However, he still harbors rage. Most of his life has been spent training for the day he will take revenge on the Brigand captain that stole his childhood from him and filled his heart with rage. The day he chases down Conman in a raid of the underground market he falls under a spell that requires him to obey Conman’s direct commands. He follows Conman in the hope of finding a way to break the spell & Conman is happy for the protection. Guard begins to suspect Conman of being the person who made his community susceptible to the Brigand takeover when he was a child and adds him to his revenge list. They meet Nopather not long after and their journey leads them to the vengeance Guard has been waiting for, but it would come at a price. He could either have his revenge or save children who are in a similar situation to the one he was in as a child. Tarsha encourages him to make the right decision & he begins to form feelings for her.
Tarsha “Nopather”:
A Nopather with a dubious background who attaches herself to Conman and Guard. A Nopather has chosen the path of “Unconditional Free Will”. They wear white robes to symbolize their reflection of all things and their freedom to choose any path. In most communities outside of the Nopather’s own Haven, Nopather’s generally have reputations for being dissenters, seducers, and turncoats. They never stay in any one place long and refuse to work within any system that might force their path, meaning most of them are not accepting of standard community organizations, such as having a government or monarch. Despite this, they are known to love and care for children, because they see them as the ultimate expression of potential and free will. This being the case, neither Conman nor Guard find it odd that she claims to want to “walk a Path” in their direction and they have no complaints as she proves herself quite knowledgeable about many various things including defense, hunting, cooking, and medicinal herbs. Despite reputation, Nopather presents a heightened sense of natural compassion and loyalty. As they journey, she begins to question the reason why she became a Nopather in the first place & wonders if having unconditional free will is the desired state of life or if it is an excuse to avoid responsibility for one’s actions. Conman and Guard give her reason to suspect the later, especially when questions of “does the end justify the means?” Come to light.
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The Comic:
The following scene involves the reason why the Nopather woman, Tarsha, joined Conman & Guard on their journey. She was hunting down the heartstone of the slaver that once owned her with the purpose of destroying it & it’s corruption, but her plan was interrupted upon discovering that the stone was now inside Conman who was innocent of the slaver’s crimes. She could do nothing but wait, growing closer to her two companions in the meantime.
But, now she has a decision to make. Should she continue her journey with them, even if it means never having her revenge, or should she rededicate herself to the Nopather’s creed and stay behind?
She’s begun walking the Resolute Maze, a holy rite of the Nopather Haven, which forces an individuals path to remind them of the reason why they became a Nopather in the first place, choosing unconditional free will. Guard questions the way the maze works and listens as Tarsha explains herself. He is shocked that she has held revenge within her heart, while she spent their whole journey encouraging him to let go of his own thirst for vengeance. Even so, he hopes she will choose to go with them, especially since he’s falling in love with her.
Meanwhile, Conman watches from a distance, understanding that some choices are not so simple.
Belinda looks into the well and sees two futures her path can take depending on her next choice…
