How did Blood in the Land start?

I came up with the idea in 2012 and one thing never changed: it had to take place in a snowpocalypse. Most apocalyptic stories I love used a scorched desert Mad Max type terrain or a civilization overgrown and taken back by nature, leaving the winter setting feeling underutilized. With an icy element locked in, my early character sketches were given thick coats with jagged fur (which were very fun to draw) and became a staple to the overall design process.

What else inspired Blood in the Land?

Bone by Jeff Smith has always been and continues to be a massive influence on how I make comics; right down to how the panel composition is used to capture a cinematic feel. Manga such as Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, and Fairy Tail hooked me in with epic fights and action scenes along with juggling a wide cast of characters that each have their own emotional beats and backstories. Naughty Dog’s The Last Of Us is probably the biggest inspiration story wise as it keeps me focused on staying character driven and not losing that apocalyptic tone that could be slightly ignored in Blood in the Land’s bombastic story driven setting.

When did you start drawing comics?

Technically kindergarten, but they weren’t “comics”… more like storybooks colored with crayon that had the occasional word bubble. I would staple a preset amount of paper together in hopes it was enough to tell my story, and took up an entire page drawing one picture before moving onto the next page. I definitely didn’t understand panels and page layout back then. My manga phase in middle school changed all that and I quickly learned proper comic etiquette. High School was my digital age where I got my first tablet and learned how to draw motion comics on Adobe Flash.

What do you currently use to make comics?

I use a Wacom Cintiq Pro 24 and Photoshop.

How do you approach making a story?

I prefer to keep a handful of loose ideas circulating my brain at all times instead of putting all my creative eggs into one idea basket. Investing all your energy into only one idea can create a sunken cost fallacy that starts to push away anything else that doesn’t necessarily fit with your one idea. When I think of a concept I can see going somewhere, I write it down and let it be. I don’t actively force or spend time thinking of more ideas for it until a later stage in the process. When a new thought comes to me, I simply plug and place it into my collection of underdeveloped concepts to see where it connects the strongest. If a new idea doesn’t fit into anything in your rotation, give it its own folder and add it to the cycle.

When does the actual story start to take place?

The “think, plug, expand” process takes the largest amount of time for me because each idea grows at its own rate. Some days, specific inspirations or ideas fit better with a story only 30% developed, while other days can set off a chain reaction of ideas that go great with a story 60% developed. This not only takes pressure off from those days where you can’t think of anything for one story, but avoids burnout altogether because you’re constantly rediscovering a newfound passion for each story when the time comes. Once a story gets super far in development, I start devoting the mental energy to filling any missing pieces left to get it ready for a draft.

Any other stories in the works?

The Blood in the Land series is far from finished, with “Land” being the first of a trilogy. I have a lot of ideas on where to take it after that but still too early to set anything in stone. When I’m not drawing Blood in the Land, I’ve been crafting a comedy superhero series as well as writing drafts for a comedy fantasy series.