Creating places and characters with a sense of history and life is very important to me. I strive for realism and authenticity, and look for ways to draw out the dynamic qualities of a moment and create tension and atmosphere.

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I grew up on fantasy novels and computer games, immersed in books on mythology and literature. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting with my sister next to my father's desk and watching him play computer games. Those memories vastly influenced things that I create and the way that I create them. I want to evoke the same feeling of jumping into another world that I get from escaping into the pages of a book or levels of a video game. 

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For me, fundamentally, my work is a form of shared escapism. The worlds in my head are more interesting and more beautiful and more hopeful than anything in the world around me, and I want to depict those things because in some mirror-glass way that lets me be a part of them.

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I think illustration, like movies, can offer a connection to places that don't exist, an opportunity to escape the impossible flaws of the world around us and enter a world with flaws that are fixable, where the actions of one individual can matter in monumental ways.