ACADEMIC|January 2025-Present

New York Times best-selling illustrator and production designer, Pete Oswald, and I created a project to explore my concept art and world-building skills. I was tasked with picking an iconic film and illustrating it in a style of my choice while incorporating the other artists.


I decided Twilight (2008) has to be one of the most iconic movies in the 21st century, and I wanted to see it in one of my favorite manga artist styles, Ai Yazawa. I’ve created character sheets for the three main characters, Bella, Edward, and Jacob. In addition, I’ve sketched out some locations both from the movie and from what I’ve made up. This project has challenged my character creation skills, style, and my ability to world-build. I was inspired by artists such as Robert Valley, Alberto Mielgo, and Timothy Lamb.

When I first came up with the idea of drawing concept art for Twilight in Ai Yazawa’s style I knew I wanted to put my own spin on it. I changed the original setting to Yakushima Island, Japan instead of Forks, Washington. I wanted to challenge myself and create a new perspective on what my Twilight could look like. I wrote a short brief about Twilight and made my adjustments.


I illustrated the three characters purely based on Ai Yazawa’s work and concept art. I was really challenged by proportions and making my character feel different. After getting feedback from Pete and making adjustments to my character’s proportions through the use of basic shapes, I was able to start researching and creating a moodboard for each of my characters. After getting a feel of who my characters are, I then created some wire frames of how they would walk and sit.


I was tasked to illustrate the three main characters Edward, Bella, and Jacob inspired by both Ai Yazawa and Illustrator Robert Valley. I rendered them in Alberto Miego’s style and I did this a couple of times till I landed on my final character sketches.