Growing up as a kid of the 80s and 90s I was heavily inspired by Video games and Saturday morning cartoons.  I started my artistic journey drawing my own renditions of the Ninja Turtles, GI Joe, Sonic the Hedgehog, Mario, Link, and my favorite by far, Ren and Stimpy.  Something about Ren and Stimpy stood out to me even then as a cartoon that was pushing the boundaries of comedy, creativity, and quality.  I remember moments of the show where it would zoom in on a particular frame of animation to reveal highly detailed paintings of the characters frozen in hilarious outrageous poses.  In those moments I knew I wanted to be an animator so I could make people laugh like these shows made me laugh. 

Later on, as a slightly more mature human, I attended art school to learn how to hone my skills as an artist and to unveil the secrets of animation.  I was fortunate enough to be mentored by artists who formerly worked for Disney and Nickelodeon and even got to take classes taught by a character designer from Ren and Stimpy!  Once I had inhaled as much knowledge as I could and graduated from art school I set out to make the world laugh!

Ironically, after art school, I found myself animating ultra-violent, sailor-mouthed, machine-gun-toting, sword-wielding, characters for the gaming industry.  So I didn’t get to make people laugh but I did get to pump some high-intensity excitement into their veins, which was SUPER fun in its own right! 

I’m very proud and grateful for my career in the gaming industry and I have been able to contribute my animation to some of the world’s most successful games including Call of Duty, Uncharted, The Last of Us, Mortal Kombat, and many more.  With that said, I have always had an inner desire to work on a project that makes people laugh and smile. As I worked away at my day job doing CG animation I used my downtime and lunch breaks to sketch silly characters and doodles at my desk.  Inspired by cartoons and memes, I came up with the idea for the DerpEpals NFT line! The DerpEpals franchise is an attempt to return to my original desire to create silly fun art that everyone can enjoy.