In elementary school, my notebooks were always a mess. Doodles that started in the margins quickly overran whatever information I’d later frantically try to decipher between the action lines of two brawling karate guys. My friends and I constructed massive “armies” of vehicles and beasts, carefully designed to annihilate everyone else’s forces. Things escalated, eventually culminating in the Ancient Dragon, a gargantuan pièce de résistance that spanned sixteen pieces of notebook paper taped together.

My love for art continued, and when our first home computer arrived, the two worlds came together like peanut butter and jelly. I knew pretty quickly that whatever I did with my life would involve both. Eventually, that path led me to motion design and animation.

The tools have changed along the way. I’m no longer filling Mead notebooks with maps, weapons, and extremely serious storylines for tabletop RPGs that will never see the light of day. But I still draw. I still paint. And I still dream.

These days, my best workdays are the ones when something I’ve made actually makes someone else feel something.