Note: In this art section there is a mix of stuff I am proud of, and a mix of stuff I’m not a big fan of any more but I learned a lot from those projects. I’ll give a ton of information on the art, and a lot of reflection on them. I love hearing about processes and seeing people’s work and hearing all the details, it’s a big part of who I am! This website is kind of like a library for myself to look back on and remind myself how much I’ve grown, which is a satisfying feeling. If that’s not the kind of stuff you are interested in, then I’d recommend going to the Portfolio section, to see the best of what I have to offer! With that said, please enjoy!
2D is my personal favorite dimension of art.
I enjoy experimenting in and playing with most forms of art, but 2D art is my personal favorite. Something about imperfections in 2D art is so uniquely fun. I love both working both physically and digitally, specifically with mechanical pencil and pen or within Adobe products, especially in Photoshop. I rarely ever have idle hands, as I’m always doodling crazy cartoon characters.
Below, I showcase various 2D art I have worked on, and I will describe the process for making those pieces.
2D animations can be found in the Video Art section!
Most 2D art meant for video game development can be found in the Game Art section!
One Page Comic - “Lights”.
Within my AVT 341 Comics course, with Professor Kardambikis, during my seventh semester at George Mason University, I was tasked with making a one page comic that tells a self-contained story. In order to tell the story I came up with, I drafted the comic digitally, in Adobe Photoshop, with an X-Pen drawing tablet. Once I incorporated in-class feedback about pacing (which resulted in even more panels than originally planned), and once I felt that the sizing and spacing of the panels felt good, I created a pen and paper version. The image on the left side is the digital draft, lacking in any shading, while on the right is the pen and paper version, where I created shadows and pitch-black areas to serve as motifs of nothingness.
Digital Drawing - “Old Friends”.
For my dad’s birthday, I surprised him by turning one of his favorite photos, of him and his high school friends, into a drawing! This image shows my process in photoshop, from start to finish. I first color corrected the original image, then created the outline of the people. From there, I turned the background into bright pink as I filled in the colors, so I could easily see if any areas or pixels were missing color. Then I shaded in the art, with layers of varying opacities to give the clothing some fun texture. Once I had that finished, I cut out parts of the background that weren’t covered by the teens, and photoshopped those areas into looking like nothing was there but the walls!
Digital Drawings - “Fanboy”, “Together”, and “Graduates”.
Each of these images was made in Adobe Photoshop, using an X-Pen drawing tablet. The first image, “Fanboy,” is a digital portrait I did of my brother for his birthday, after he found love for anime, which is a passion we both share. The middle image, “Together,” is a digital portrait of my two friends and their dog I drew for their anniversary. I drew this one in 24in x 36in, 300dpi, and printed it out onto a full-sized poster for them! It’s really exciting to see your work on a large scale like that. The last image, on the right, is “Graduates,” is another digital portrait of my brother, this time with his friends at his high school graduation. Parts of this piece, the hands and pants especially, were heavily based on a photo reference of the friends, but the rest of the art was done while experimenting with what Photoshop would allow me to do with drawn art.
Video Game 2D Art - “Customers”, “Burgers”, “Dating Sim Characters”, “Geo 3D”, and “HHH Poster”
Each of these images was made in Adobe Photoshop, using an X-Pen drawing tablet.
The first and second images, “Customers,” and “Burgers,” were made for a burger cooking game, which was made in an online group setting, with the limitations of the Nintendo DS system in mind, for GMU’s GAME 330 Computer Game Analysis course, taught by Professor Dieterich.
The third image, “Dating Sim Characters,” is a compilation of all the character art I made for a group project in GAME 232 Online and Mobile Gaming, taught by Professor Nam. I gave the important characters in the dating sim some different versions to match the emotions they feel in certain scenes.
The fourth image, “Geo 3D,” is reference art I made for a showcase game I created all the assets for, GAME 398 Advanced Game Animation, taught by Professor Grimsby.
This last image, “HHH Poster,” is a poster for advertisement of a group final project in GMU’s GAME 310 Game Design Studio course, with Professor Willis.
More stuff on the resulting products of these art, and a ton more game-specific 2D art can be found in the Game Art section!
4 Panel & 1 Panel Comics - “Savior", and “Realism”
Within my AVT 341 Comics course, with Professor Kardambikis, during my seventh semester at George Mason University, I was tasked with making both a 1 and 4 panel comic. The first image here is the digital draft I did for the 4 panel comic, and the middle image is the final version, on pen and paper, titled, “Savior.” The 1 panel comic I drew in pencil, then went over in pen. In both of these comics, I just drew what I thought would be fun to draw, a superhero delivering a swift punch, and a monster breaking through a screen, and then I just wrote a joke around those ideas!
Pencil Drawings - “Storyboards”
For GMU’s AVT 280 Introduction to New Media Art, with Professor Durkin, I was tasked with drawing storyboards from 3 scenes from movies or television shows. This was intended to be an exercise where we payed attention to the camera angles and cuts and how they were used and timed, which was super fun. The first four here are from one of my favorite movies of all time, The Truman Show, then the next three are from Spider-Man 2, another one of my absolute favorites (I can say the lines from this scene by heart). The last 4 are from the Batman: The Brave and The Bold episode: Chill of the Night! which has one of the greatest moments from one of my favorite characters of all time, where Batman confronts the man who killed his parents. A lot of favorites here! The art here is obviously not as polished as my other work, as these were basically just sketches to get an idea of positioning on the character, locations, objects, camera, etc.
Pencil Drawing - “Stacy Concept Art” and
Adobe Illustrator Art - “Stacy the Singing Stegosaurus”
These art pieces are from GMU’s AVT 180 New Media in the Creative Arts, with Professor Boyce, where I was tasked with creating a character based on a famous landmark, and I decided to make a stegosaurus character with the Sydney Opera House on its back for spikes. Once I had her backstory written, I drew 15 possible looks for her character, then combined the best aspects of each into the final version, which is entirely made in Adobe Illustrator.
Digital & Ink Art - “DADa”
Within my AVT 341 Comics course, with Professor Kardambikis, during my seventh semester at George Mason University, I was tasked with making democratic 24 panel comic that tells a self-contained story. In order to tell the story I came up with, I drafted the comic digitally, in Adobe Photoshop, with an X-Pen drawing tablet. I then used a light table and Micron Pens to trace that digital art. Once I had traced all the line work, I printed out many copies of each page and experimented with different ways to shade each panel, until I settled on the best methods. Once I had those methods, I shaded in the original inked panel, for the final version of the comic. This comic was a fun challenge, and there’s a lot of little things to see in this, one example is that the alien child in the 8th panel is eating a burger, and he continues eating it slowly in the 10th and 12th panels. The burger is gone after the rain clears in the 13th panel, suggesting a large passage of time! Last thing to note is that the pitch black areas of the comic are meant represent nothingness, or metaphorical distance.
Miscellaneous Art - “Egg” and “Gifts”
The first piece of art here, “Egg” was made for GMU’s AVT 222 Drawing 1 course, with Professor Del Popolo. For this, I covered an entire paper with black charcoal, then erased in certain areas to create white area. The memories of cleaning up after this project will be forever trapped in my head (charcoal everywhere).
The second piece is a digital art piece I threw together for the 2020 holidays, using Adobe Photoshop and an X-Pen tablet. I’ve had a tradition since 2014 to draw a piece of festive art and have it printed on mugs, which are then gifted to my family every year! Unfortunately, a lot of that early art is lost, but this tradition allows me to see how much my art has evolved over time, which is super cool.