Q: What is your creative process like?
A: I always tend to laugh when I get asked this question because I’m like 'My creative what now?' When it comes to my art, I tend to do a lot of my concept work in my head, which I think drove my DigiPen teachers a little crazy, and then I just sit down at my computer and make the magic happen. I primarily work digitally, using a professional drawing tablet called a Cintiq. To be clear, no AI or generative systems (don’t even get me started on AI). All my work is hand done; I paint/draw in Photoshop. Even when I’m using traditional tools (I love doing pencil drawings), I don’t really give it a lot of thought outside of what materials I need.
I guess with writing, I sort of have a process? I almost always write by hand and it has to be on very specific legal pads with very specific pink pens. Editing is done with very specific turquoise pens. And all my art concept for my books is done on even more specific post-it notes that I order from Amazon Japan (I am not making this up) in a specific purple pen... After that, I throw it into the best writing program ever, Scrivener, and all the book layout and design is done in Affinity Publisher. But I’m not one of those people who actively sits down with a plan in mind or a prompt or some set way of doing things (other than the odd materials quirk).
Q: How do you find inspiration for your work?
A: A lot of times, with my art, the ideas are just there, swimming around in my head. When my brain isn’t cooperating, finding inspiration isn’t all that hard. Whether it’s simply observing the world around me or diving into my massive library of artbooks or just doing a random google image search. I have a monster folder on my computer of images, everything from environment photos to other artists’ work, all of it there for inspiration when I need it. Recently, I’ve been so tied up with cleaning up the artwork for the third book that putting brain power into art outside of that just doesn’t happen. In cases like that, you need some inspiration to get you going and it can be found in the craziest of places. Like I’ve started “redoing” hanafuda cards from my favorite deck, where I snap a picture of the card and then repaint it in my style with some design tweaks as a full, large painting. For anyone not familiar with hanafuda, they’re Japanese cards used to play various games, my favorite being Koi Koi. They’re all based on the seasons and flowers and have great designs/artwork.
