Illustration
Freelance Design and Illustration Projects
ROLE | Illustrator, Designer, Narrative Designer
TIME | Variable
A Brief Review of a Lifetime of Doodling
I've been drawing and illustrating since 2nd grade, when my teacher let us make our own picture books and put them in the class library. I don't make crayon stories about Sonic the Hedgehog anymore, but the spirit stays with me. Let's take a quick look at some of my favorite projects over my career as an artist.
Narrative Design and Visual Novels with STORYLOOM
Data Focused Storytelling
I had the incredible privilege of being a Narrative Designer and Content Creator for Storyloom, a subsidiary of Pixelberry, in 2023.
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This meant I was making my own visual novel, under the supervision of a fantastic editorial team. I pitched a cyberpunk future love story called New Metal, which heavily focused on the experience of trans and queer identity by literally starting life over in a new body.
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New Metal hit the top 10 read stories on Storyloom several months in a row, but that wasn't coincidence! I took a data driven approach to storytelling and presentation that kept players coming back.
Attention Grabbing Visuals...
but make it FAST!
New Metal had to post updates at least 3 times per month to qualify for the top 10 most read stories list.
Plus, from my history of creating content for Instagram, I knew from personal experience that viewership drops off pretty harshly if players are forced to wait more than a couple of weeks for new content.
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First off, I wanted to make original art. I knew writers would be using stock art both from Storyloom and stock art sites, so having my own art style front in center would give me an edge when it came to getting clicks.
So to make chapters as fast as possible, I created a cast of characters with simple, straight forward expressions that could be used in the maximum number of situations.
Cool, but, have you ever drawn backgrounds?
Yeah, it takes a little longer.
I knew I couldn't freehand draw full, original cyberpunk future backgrounds quickly enough to keep up with the upload deadlines. So I used stock photography to do some photobashing.
Combining elements of stock photos, giving them a little blur, doing some color correcting, and adding a halftone filter on top and BAM! We've got some fun, stylized cyberpunk backgrounds!
A quick WORD on WORDS
(and how to get people to read them)
The script is pretty long, so let's take a brief section and break down my thought process for making an engaging, interactive story.
Chapter 2 begins here, where we find my first writing rule: every chapter ends on a cliffhanger. Players are more likely to come back when they want to seek resolution. Chapter 1 ended with our main character, Max, seeing a shadowy figure in her apartment.
Take note of how this sequence ends in "I decide to..."
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This helps to clarify the following choices are going to affect Max's actions.
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Players can get confused when choices just pop up out of nowhere, so it helps to have the character acting out these choices give some sort of cue before presenting them.
Option 1
Option 2
Option 3
From here the player gets 3 options:
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OPTION 1 is always something rational, something you'd probably do in real life. Not very exciting, but maybe the smart thing to do. But this choice is really here to make the other two look more enticing...
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OPTION 2 is more action oriented. This option gives the player a feeling of agency. We can directly affect the outcome of the story with some immediacy here. It's good! But not too good...
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OPTION 3 is the high roller option. Literally! Visual novel mobile games rely on micro transactions and in game currency to make a profit, so this option PAID! This option needs to be the most exciting and what the player REALLY wants to do. Punch the bad guy, kiss the love interest, real high stakes stuff!
The hard part is making all these choices sell the product, regardless. I want every player to have a good time, even if they don't pay for the MOST exciting choice.
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And New Metal consistently made the monthly top 10 games on Storyloom by views, so I think most people did enjoy it!
The FINAL PRODUCT
(and what we learned)
New Metal is one of my proudest accomplishments, the amount of creative freedom Storyloom trusted me with and the support they gave me was incredible.
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I learned invaluable lessons about how mobile app users absorb content and what keeps them coming back for more.
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I also learned how to set up design systems for success, as I built these reusable characters and backgrounds to streamline the production process.
Unfortunately Storyloom is no longer around, so the final lesson I learned was keeping a record of the work I'm proud of. I wish I could share the full project with new players, but I can appreciate the impermanent nature of art as well.
Language Learning Illustrations for MEMBEAN
Show Don't Tell
While working with language learning site Membean, I had to provide visual aid illustrations to help students K-12 understand English words without any text. It's like a dictionary, you can't use the word you're defining in its own definition. And some of these words were obtuse stuff, like minutiae and rationale. It was a real challenge, but I loved it. Forcing myself to communicate only visually taught be to be precise and clear in my illustrations. It also meant being aware of accessibility, so all of these images have been crosschecked for various levels and types of color blindness.
Images like the one above for optimist often lent themselves to simple, one panel images. More complex words like companion (to the left), often meant showing several panels that built a more complex narrative. A companion isn't just someone who's with you once, it's someone who is there for your most important moments as well as the mundane. I wanted to tell a story here that made it clear that companion couldn't also be just an acquaintance or coworker or fair weather friend.
Words like aggrandize let me get a little silly with it. Jokes and visual gags make these sorts of aides definitions stick in your mind a little easier. If it makes you laugh, you wanna remember it to tell your friends, right?
The illustrations I made for Membean challenged me to communicate in ways that were clear, memorable, and thoughtful. Not only did I love drawing these, but it felt like I was doing a genuine good by working in the education sector. I hope the kids that learned with these illustrations not only got a better education with them, but also maybe inspired them to draw themselves.
Comic Writing and Illustration for
The OUT SIDE: Trans & Nonbinary Comics
Sharing our Stories
In 2021 I was invited to join a collection of LGBTQIA+ artists in a collection of comics sharing our personal stories of queerness.
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Later that year, we would launch a Kickstarter to get that book printed that would go on to make 220% of its funding goal.
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In 2023, The Out side: Trans & Nonbinary Comics would be picked up and published globally by Andrews McMeel Publishing.
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In 2024, The Out Side: Trans & Nonbinary Comics was nominated for BEST ANTHOLOGY of 2023 by the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards.
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I was deeply fortunate to be invited to share my story with this project. The Eisner Awards are considered the most prestigious award in American comics and being even nominated has always felt out of my reach. I'm so glad I got to work with the incredible editors and publishers, and especially with all the other artists who so bravely told their stories in this book.
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The Out Side: Trans & Nonbinary Comics is available in bookstores globally now.
