Hi I’m Maddie!

I’m 26 and from the USA

My artistic journey began before I can remember. I have always been drawing and developing stories; taking art classes, creating stories with barbies, writing notebooks full of ideas. I also grew up with a love toward animation, especially Disney films like Sleeping Beauty, Hercules, Aladdin, and the Little Mermaid.

When I reached middle school I started focusing on developing my drawing skills, which was inspired by my discovery of manga and anime, specifically a title named BLEACH by manga-ka Tite Kubo.

I was drawn to the fact that unlike the stereotype of many anime titles, each character design was quite unique. That and the more realistic proportions/aesthetic was quite appealing to me. It wasn’t long before I was quite involved in the community that loved the title, and I created my first "OC” (original character), Mariya.

Gallery Above:
Mariya (2009-2012)

Over the next two and a half years, I was obsessed with Mariya to the point that I was constantly drawing her. Because of this, my art skills rapidly developed, and the inspiration from BLEACH became more evident in it’s own way.

Around 2011-2012, I started spreading my focus to my own projects. I had always loved storytelling, and now with my developing art skills, I could now try to tell those stories visually. I created many plots, though of those, one began to stick out: LAPIS.

LAPIS strangely enough started as a lighthearted story about fairies. Though after a short time I found the concept boring. I wanted to tell a deeper story, something with substance. Then I found inspiration in the oddest place; watching my older brother playing video games. I occasionally sat with him and would draw as he went through the game. On this specific occasion, he was playing the game Mass Effect, a scifi game about soldiers fighting and dealing with aliens. I found myself fascinated with how it handled politics and built the world, and that was what turned me to experiment with making LAPIS a scifi.

That was 12 years ago.

The project evolved as I grew from adolescence into adulthood, becoming far more dynamic and tackling subjects that I’ve become passionate about. In a sense, LAPIS became an outlet for me when it came to understanding the world around me. And even more so, the characters (specifically the original main 4) allowed me to look at things from different angles, backgrounds.

Since, LAPIS has become my most developed plotline, which will start its second comic run on WEBTOON in May/June of 2023.

LAPIS became my main artistic focus after 2013. I had retired Mariya and began to look to what I wanted to study in college. I knew early in high school that I wanted to do something in possibly animation, and it became a definite once I was 17. From 2015 to 2019, I attended college, graduating eventually with a BFA in Animation. My specialty was in storyboarding and character design, though while I was studying, I discovered webcomics.

I was drawn to the inventive change in formatting so the comics could be read much easier on mobile. The stories that drew me in mainly came from a specific platform named WEBTOON. I loved the diversity in the storytelling, and it wasn’t long that I discovered anyone could created webcomics on the platform. So in 2017 I created my first comic, Mortal Wings.

I learned very quickly that it was far more complicated than I originally thought. After about a year I thought I’d try my hand at making LAPIS a reality in this medium. In 2018, I started posting LAPIS as part of a WEBTOON contest. After 9 episodes I retired the comic, feeling I wasn’t quite ready to tell the story. Mortal Wings was also shelved for the time being.

In early 2019, I returned from a hiatus with the comic Del Rio, a prequel to Mortal Wings.

Del Rio was updated on and off until mid 2022, with a large hiatus in the middle. In that time I had graduated, moved to Austin, Texas, and come to realize the animation field wasn’t necessarily the perfect fit for me. And with the start of the pandemic in 2020, I found myself unsure what to do.

Then by pure luck, I was accepted as a Content Intern at none other than WEBTOON, the same webcomic platform I’d been reading and posting on for 3 years. For the next 5-6 months, I had the pleasure of working with editors and creators, help with sourcing content, and test read soon to be released titles. To say I was in love was an understatement. The internship made me realize this was the field I wanted to work in. I wanted to be a visual storyteller, and this was the medium that spoke to me.

After the internship, I had moved back home and started working on different things. I started a TikTok that blew up fairly quickly, I continued working on Del Rio on and off, returned to doing some traditional painting, and once late 2021-early 2022 came, I decided to pause all projects to start working on a webcomic version of LAPIS again.

Since, I’ve opened an art business in my hometown while working on the comic to hopefully share with all of you!