LFDM: Visual Novel Demo
During my junior year at the School of Visual Arts in New York, I was attending a game culture class for my second semester elective. We learned about how the culture surrounding games evolved, how the playstyles became various, and how eventually games became an artform to tell an interactive narrative. For my final, we had a choice: essay, presentation, or create your own interactive game.
At this point in time I've only dabbled a bit in coding and had zero experience with game design outside of my experience with just playing the games themselves. Not only that, my decision to choose and finish a final was just a week away from presentation day. I thought back to the time when I first touched RenPy, a visual novel game engine, and remembered how easy it was to pick up again. Not only that, being an illustrator, art was my strongest suit and I wanted to display my skills and vision in an easily consumable format.
And thus began my six days endeavor. The first day was saved for writing the script. The second day being the menu design. The third day being the character sprites. The fourth and fifth day was saved for the background art and the sound effects. The sixth day was just a day for debugging and playtesting.
Eventually I was able to bring everything together into a comprehensible short game, only taking a maximum of ten minutes to play through and explore different endings. Hopefully someday I'll revive this project in a full length game, not necessarily in visual novel format.
You can check it out in full here: LFDM Visual Novel Game Demo
LFDM: Lore Zine
Along with my game final, of course I had another final in a different class. However, it was more of a semester long project than a final assessment. This class was a publishing class, the assignment being to create and print out a small zine based off of any subject you found interesting. It could be a informative zine, a gallery zine, or even a comic. The subject of your zine was decided on the second week of the semester while the rest of the semester is saved for you to make the zine itself.
Now during the beginning of the second semester of school, I was a mile deep under my usual original character delusions. The timeline is this: I first make a character with a design I find interesting, then I spend hours daydreaming about what their name is, their personality, their occupation, and how they came to be. Divulge to an unsuspecting audience and repeat. Now to not lengthen this paragraph further, I'll trust that the zine I made explains my excitement and love for this universe.
An interesting fact is that I've worked on this project before I've decided to make my demo game for my final. Not so interesting I guess, but this was a key factor in wanting to learn more about game art and background art.
I won't call it horror since I'd rather not mislabel something even I don't find scary. I hope you read through it thoroughly and enjoy the small tidbits.
Junior Thesis Project 2025
Ah, I almost forgot. My 2025 Junior Thesis Project. I'd be a bit frank and say that I am not too proud of this work. I'm not too sure why, but I heavily suspect it's because I've focused on trying to impress my pictorial teacher throughout the process and ended up emotionally and creatively burnt out. Despite everything, I can say for sure that my endeavors weren't in vain and I am quite satisfied with the progress I've made with this project. Afterall, thanks to my teacher, I've learned many things and gained confidence to step out of my artistic comfort zone. I like to view everything I make a step forward to my goal in being an amazing, awesome, and inspiring illustrator. It's a bit corny writing it out (or saying it out loud) but it is my genuine wish.
As for context, the junior thesis project at the School of Visual Arts details that students must make a series of illustrations based off of a book. From graphic to editorial to conceptual, students can decide how to adapt the narrative of the story in visual format.
The book I have chosen is a childhood favorite. Called "Accidental Hero" by Matt Myklusch, it tells a story about an orphaned boy who finds out his true home being a hidden nation of superheroes out in the middle of the ocean. Jack Blank, our main character, is merely excited by the notion of not only having possible superpowers, but somewhere he belongs. Unfortunately he becomes public enemy number one and throughout the book, tries to prove himself to be the hero he truly wants to be.
There's always more to come.
Thank you for coming by. Of course this is a growing list of projects, whether personal or commercial. So feel free to stick around to see my antics in real time on my socials! You can see works in progress, behind the scenes, and more.