Oh gosh thank you so much! I really appreciate the love ♥️ I've been drawing uh, since a stupid young age, like four years old, and while I was growing up I'd go "I want to be an artist" and my parents would go "noooo" but it's all right. I don't hold it against them. I could've gone to art school but I ended up choosing University of Virginia for architecture. I kind of stopped thinking of the possibility of art as a career. I'd stopped drawing for my first three years of school because of my workload (and I was a little depressed) but I picked it up again in the final year and I just sort of continued drawing whatever I wanted.

I ended up getting a job as an n-house graphic designer at an advertising company in Detroit, which was notably not what my degree was for, but I wasn't hired for my graphic design skills either. It was my concept art and storyboarding! The stuff that I'd been drawing on the side for fun the whole time. I wasn't passionate about making boards for internal-industry commercials for auto paint and glass, but it was a job that I mostly knew how to do and I do remember really loving doing concept art for a jewelry company.

I was always drawing on nights and weekends and that's where my real growth came from. I've never really been a big "sit down and do studies" person.. It just doesn't hold my attention.. But I've always pushed myself and try new things in projects I'm already passionate about. I'll do things just because I find them difficult and I'm very bullheaded about not starting over or doing it differently. I'll hammer at what's in front of me until I force it to be what I see, or until I'm happy with it lol. Even when my skills were very amateur I was always proud of the outcome. Working on each piece until I was proud of it I think was an important part of artistic growth for me.

After a year and a half I was hired onto the Castlevania team at Powerhouse and spent 6 lovely years on concept and character design (in Austin, where I am now!). Then in 2024 after questions here and there from kind people asking if there was a way to financially support my work, I made a patreon! A few months later it became unexpectedly very necessary as our time at Powerhouse was wrapping up. And in the couple years after patreon becoming my career I've felt myself steadily improving in more targeted areas because I'm just drawing so much. I've made huge strides on environment painting and that's a pretty new subject for me. It's felt very full-circle because I remember my best friend and I in college daydreaming-- I said I wished I could draw boys kissing for a living and she wanted to be a published romance author. I'm happy to report we're doing both!

Halsin... He was such an easy choice. I didn't know anything about the game but my good friend was very excited for the release. She showed me Halsin's photo and I was immediately interested. I said if they let you kiss him, I'll play. I hashed out most of Clover's story during the character creation process so I didn't know anything about the romance choices. But I was already set on Halsin just from the photo! More than anything it speaks to how well the team allowed his character to shine through his design and as a character artist myself, it was an aspirational feeling. He seemed principled and shouldered with some amount of responsibility, but also very kind. And large. I love a size difference so much. It's funny thinking back because it feels like when royals would receive a little painting of their betrothed and it was like... ok... what do you think about them as a person? I was already set on him for Clover. I was absolutely delighted when Halsin actually showed up, then alluded to his friendship with the fey-- that was truly serendipity. And the way that Halsin was the pursuer, it all kind of fell in to place incredibly easily. So much structure around their personalities and stories that clashed and meshed in the right ways that it was like, well, we knew before we knew somehow.

Oh I can't imagine the pain of one loving more than the other 😭 However Halsin did realize he'd fallen for Clover long before Clover came to terms with it himself. He was never someone who denied himself that kind of feeling. The object of his affections was very odd, for sure, a significant part due to just how little Clover wanted to do with him; not even indifference, but fear. Halsin did come to recognize that fear as rooted in something beyond himself. What initially drew Halsin to Clover was more of a desire to understand this odd creature and the look in his eye, his mannerisms, his avoidance, as someone who had been deeply hurting for a long time-- and the thing still clung to his back even then. A long, deep obsession. He's very much a caring soul and it became a yearning for real, actual love when Clover began to open up.

Clover would admit he was in love when Halsin had gently pulled away all those thorns to reveal the soft thing they'd been protecting inside. They both got their share of wounds from it. Clover is difficult but he didn't make the choice to be that way. It was unfair that Halsin had to prove in so many ways that he was in the service of no fey. It was also unfair that Clover had been torn from his family, deceived, hunted, and reduced to a beast living in holes in the ground, knowing sleep was the easiest way to die. Only someone with Halsin's persistence and empathetic nature had a chance of getting down to him. Clover was never the same again. The shadow that clouded his mind and kept him circling the forest seemed to lift in Halsin's care. He was the first person Clover could ever look at and know that what he saw was real.

Different ways of falling in love but perfectly matched ♥️