Artist Statement/Design Philosophy:

As a very impatient person, my artistic history mostly consists of what I can create in one sitting. I tend to try to freehand my work, not the most well advised habit but one that I haven’t yet broken. Often I’ll take to drawing art in very strange places, such as in rudimentary sketchpad functions in video games. My most persistent project is, in fact, a series of doodles maintained on a nearly daily basis created entirely using the black-and-white sketchpad in a video game. The precise controls of a touchpad with a screen make me feel more comfortable when creating art, and seeing as I am unable to afford a screen-bearing art tablet and currently have to make do with a laptop trackpad when composing art on my computer, mucking about in a video game is the closest I can really get to having one.

My art is also very simplistic, but in that case it’s due to preference as opposed to impatience. I certainly have no objections with attempting to draw realistic subjects when prompted, as some people seem to. I have taken both a college sketch course and had a few weeks of independent art tutoring in the past, and it’s both highly informative and rather relaxing. I just simply have no compulsion to pursue photorealistic illustration in my free time. As you might have guessed from the first paragraph, I tend to play video games in my free time, particularly video games found on handheld Nintendo systems. The escapism that these games provide often tends to be my biggest muse, and the art styles used by these games are what I in turn try to emulate the most in my spare time. The art in Nintendo video games, as well as that of games from other companies that feel the most drawn to release their titles on Nintendo systems, often toes a line between “anime” and Western animation styles that I find refreshing to look at. I haven’t pinned down quite the artstyle I wish I had, but certainly at least in theory that’s what I try to go for every time I sit down to make something.

Why does this particular artstyle draw me in so much? I think it boils down to visual messaging. It allows you to make things bigger than life by creating exaggerated images and then letting people read in-between the lines. Every expression has more emotion, every movement has more power behind it. It lets you create whole new worlds powered as much by implication as by what’s actually in front of you. The feeling of exploring the unknown, of charging into new frontiers. And it creates a sense of escapism that reaches beyond the subjects themselves, seeping into the very nature of the art itself. Some people find the idea of pursuing anything other than photorealism to be childish, but honestly I find the way that stylized art can push body language beyond normal limits to be utterly fascinating.