I used to make these bio things on my site all long and drawn out-- explaining which tools I used, etc.. etc... blah... blah.... As if anybody read those. So I'm gonna try to keep this short and to the point.

I've been drawing since I was very young-- somewhat seriously through middle school, but in high school I began to spend less and less time with it. I didn't usually have a theme of choice-- just whatever I was interested in-- and comic books were not something I was interested in. However, some comic-like characters made recurring appearances in my drawings (such as Mortal Kombat characters). Eventually I did decided to go to college for an art degree, and it again came to the forefront of my life.

Through a chain of events I ended up at the University of California, Riverside in the fine art program (definitely not one of my first choices). However, I made the best of it and eventually became very happy and confident in the experiences I gained in their fine art program. It was here that I was introduced to both digital art (read: Adobe Photoshop) and the idea of looking at comic books/graphic novels as a serious art form. Both of which are still two of the most defining themes of my style.

I graduated with my B.A. in Fine Art in June of 2005. I have now been employed in the graphic design field for nearly a year and a half. I worked with a photography studio for just over a year, focusing on digital color correction, retouching, and manipulation on photographs, as well as the design and maintenance of marketing and advertising materials, including their website. Over the past year+ I have been creating real estate websites for agents and brokers. I have also been doing freelance artwork, graphic and web design on the side for over three years.

I guess an ultimate goal would be creating a living off the artwork that I would create anyway during my spare time. But to be honest I haven't made much effort in achieving that. I really think that no matter what field I am in, whether it is graphic design, web design, movies, video games, comics, etc., etc... as long as I am doing somebody else's artwork for them, it's only going to be a pretty-good-job, and nothing more.

I think this is the part where I list my influences. I am interested in a fairly broad range of commercial and non-commercialized art. But would only list a few artists as true inspirations. It's kind of an odd mix-- from nineteenth century Spanish artist, to contemporary Marvel comic book artist. But, they have all had major contributions to my work in some way. If I listed here everybody who's work I liked-- well... this list would be way too long.

- Chris Ware
- Joe Matt
- Joe Madureira
- Art Spiegelman
- Craig Thompson
- Alex Grey
- Francisco de Goya

- Tool (You say: "What!?" But I promise: their musical artwork has had an incredible affect on my visual art.)

Oh yeah-- and now a little about this site. I started my online portfolio in 2002 on a crappy Geocities created/hosted account which had me create my design on a crappy web-based applet. In January, 2003, I felt comfortable enough with professional web authoring software that I decided to actually purchase a real domain name and create a new site (although I wasn't actually using that professional software to anywhere near its full potential-- and still really am not!).

For the most part, this site has just been my little avenue to create a space of my own online. A place to share my vision with others, and hope that they respond in some way. Hopefully the response is positive, but if negative, then at least I know that they were looking-- and as an artist, that is an accomplishment in its own. It's been great to receive random e-mails every now and then from across the globe, with people just letting me know that they have appreciated some of the work that I have put up. And for that, I say thank you.

Albeit all somewhat negative experiences, I have had three major accomplishments that this site alone has awarded me with-- something that simply making my work could not provide-- it is the method of display over the internet that these experiences are based on:

January, 2004: Was contacted by the webmaster of Alex Grey's site, politely asking me to link to Alex Grey's website every time that I appropriated one of his pieces (particularly in my Tool-themed desktops).

June, 2004: Was fired from a (shitty) Best Buy job for comics that had appeared online for over a year before they were found by management. I was also threatened to be sued, which was kind of exciting.

January, 2006: Created and posted a very therapeutic, emotional piece (although in my opinion, still honest and founded in truth), which did not show somebody in the best light. In turn, she hates me, or at least temporarily did.

Well, I tried to keep this short. Still too long. But not too bad.

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Email Me if you are interested in illustration based artwork, or general graphic and/or web design.
If you see it on this site, I can probably do it for you.

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