The Dream Awakens, Book One, is the culmination of three years’ worth of experimentation in drawing, painting, and writing. This Realm Ethereal universe is what’s making all this possible. It’s the stuff that makes my art my art: creating first, discovering purpose sometime afterward. The hallmarks of what I enjoy are there: figure drawing, comic book-type characters, and fantasy-cosmic-inspired themes.

The Realm Ethereal represents a shift in my comic book creation process. When I created my other comics, the story always centered on one main character. This series is different because it came about as I was designing various characters through a series of paintings.

I was trying to become a painter! Especially since I just discovered digital painting via the Procreate app using the iPad Pro. After several of these character paintings, the fire reignited inside me again to create a comic book series using these characters.

Creating characters first is something I have never done before. In the past, I designed the main character, and the story flowed from there. But in making character paintings, I thought more and more about the type of world and interactions all these different characters could bring. I stumbled upon the idea that I could create my own “Marvel” universe. 

To this day, that’s what continues to inspire the creation of this series. The first story arc, The Dream Awakens, focuses on the character Casia Minohr. And this first story arc will also feature many more of the characters I’ve created. But, I also see endless opportunities to make more stories with different personalities. That’s what excites me the most: the possibilities.