One part scientist and one part artist, my lifelong passion has been blending imagination with scientific understanding.  I am parlaying my interests in storytelling, natural sciences, education, and mythology into a career as a concept writer for video games and video shorts.

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When I was eight, a sketchbook was given to my sister as a Christmas present.  In that moment, I was frozen because I had never contemplated having a sketchbook that wasn’t for school.  I saw the joy on her face, and it occurred to me that having a blank book to fill with one’s visions, thoughts, and dreams was an incredible thing.  Later that year, I received my own sketchbook, and have filled more than fifty since.

I didn’t draw to capture real-life images, or emulate Rodin or Picasso.  Sketching for me, was a means to an end.  I had characters in my head and fantastical worlds that I wanted to record.  Even in my first sketchbook, I accompanied most of my drawings with quotes and prose illustrating circumstance.

Upon reading my first graphic novel at eleven years old -- my mind was blown.  I had never seen a story told predominantly by images.  It was always my natural inclination to draw a setting or character description, rather than write it in prose.  The graphic novel medium removes written description of visual events, leaving it to dialog and sound effects.  I spent much of junior high, high school, and college dabbling in the graphic novel medium.

At UC Santa Cruz, I majored in Biology and minored in Linguistics.  Unlike most of my peers in the biology majors, I was not driven by the desire for a medical or laboratory career, I simply love understanding how the world works and how we work within it.  

While exploring different disciplines, I fell in love with Linguistics (the study of language and its base components.)  Linguistics, to me, is a perfect marriage of biology, psychology, philosophy, and physics.  As I gained a deeper understanding of language, a universe of playful exploration into the written and spoken word opened up for me.  At this point, my story-telling expanded to include fully prose works.

Since receiving my first PC at twelve, I have dabbled in video games, mainly fantasy RPGs, strategy, and survival genres.  I find video games to be akin to psychological experiments; they offer a controlled environment to try and try again while manipulating individual variables.  

Post college, I tutored all ages in mathematics and biology.  At a loss for what I really wanted out of a career, I found sharing my love of learning was the most fulfilling way to support myself.

Two years after graduation, I learned that my dream job existed: Concept Writer.  Since then, I have been designing, writing, painting, and learning coding and imaging software to make cocomonoco.com: my way of pursuing professionally what I truly want to do -- creating stories.

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CocoMonoco is a portfolio, a creative project, and a place for me to display my ongoing works.

Every element of CocoMonoco was imagined, designed, drawn, painted, written, and coded by me.  While it has been daunting at times being the writer, illustrator, programmer, designer, photographer, editor, and manager, every step has been invigorating and inspiring.  By taking lead in each discipline, I learned a plethora of skills, gained appreciation for a multitude of creative positions, and insight into their specific pitfalls and stresses.  

Everything I work on today becomes my inspiration for tomorrow.  I can't wait to work with other artists to bring stories to life on a larger scale.

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