Creating imaginary, fantastic characters like this is a dream come true.

When you break down what it is I enjoy creating, it all goes back to drawing comic books. Adon is a fictional character in The Realm Ethereal universe. He is meant to be a celestial-like being. Ethereal in every sense of the word.

Yet, visually, Adon is human-like in appearance. He has a head, a torso, and four limbs. And, sometimes, feet. The design of this character (and in fact all of my Ethereals) combines my enthusiasm for creating original characters and blending them into a form of comic book storytelling.

With my work, you will often see color illustrations alongside comic book style art. The paintings of these characters all started out as illustrations for art prints and mousepads. I always knew I wanted to tell stories with these characters as well.

Today, I’m featuring a new drawing that is a vignette into The Realm Ethereal. Adon, the Ethereal, is seen approaching Kiana. These vignettes are a dream come true for me! For over two years I was creating all of these characters as fully painting character illustrations. At the beginning of 2021, I started to feel this pullback to comic book artwork. And also I yearned to spend less time working digitally on my computer. This allowed me to pick up my inking brushes and pens again, after a two-year hiatus from drawing on paper.

Below is the first of these new “vignettes”, inked on paper. It’s interesting, but I still work digitally on drawing the pencil art for these pages. I have to admit, I still like drawing digitally. There are great advantages to being able to compose the artwork on the computer before going to traditional inks.

The entire process thus far has been a tremendous stimulus for my creativity. The result is the artwork below. Adon will play a large role in my upcoming “Enter the Realm” comic book series.

As for the work itself, I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy creating it. I hope you stick around, there’s more to come! ◈