During the COVID-19 quarantine, I revisited my childhood interest in animation as a way to distract myself from the unstable state of the world. I rewatched some of the American and Japanese animated series that had influenced my childhood, and also I began watching new shows. Watching these shows inspired me to read the comic books from which these series originated.
Among these comic books, I noticed a lack of diversity within their characters. I wanted to see a wider variety of characters, including strong female leads, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and those with darker skin tones. To combat the lack of diversity in existing comic books, I began designing some of my own characters.

My characters take inspiration from Western “cartoon artists” such as Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, and Eastern "manga" artists including Tite Kubo, Hiromu Arakawa, and Masashi Kishimoto. Throughout my process, I have learned that it takes so much more than an interesting character design to create a successful body of work: it involves research, narrative, portraiture, landscape, and a complex understanding of human anatomy. I hold the utmost respect for cartoonists and mangakas as I slowly chip away at my own designs.