My superhero origin story:

I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember. When you’re a little kid and you can kinda sketch a decent Simba, people tell you you’re a talented artist. So, you just keep drawing until one day you’re not bad at it! As a teenager, I discovered DeviantArt and was introduced to digital art. My parents bought me a Wacom tablet and I spent many a long evening in front of our Gateway PC- doodling, creating characters and comics, and experimenting with Photoshop and CorelDRAW.

Eventually I went on to study drawing and painting in college at a state school, and my professors did not know what to do with an animation/cartoon/anime/manga obsessed student. (In retrospect, I probably should have gone to an art-specific school!) After undergrad, I emerged into a recession, turned right back around, and retreated to the relative safety of grad school. Tricked into studying architecture, I traded cartoons for construction drawings and spent some time traveling Europe and sketching its streetscapes.

After graduation, I started working in an architecture office, and in the evenings to unwind I started sketching and creating characters again. My love for drawing returned and I began posting to Instagram, started taking commissions, and built a following and community online. During the pandemic lockdowns, I fell hard back in love with digital art. It was around this time that Azel was created as my alter ego.

I’ve always loved furry art and anthropomorphic characters- having discovered the furry fandom in the late 90s (anyone remember yerf.com?). A friend recently called it “the Disney pipeline” which is pretty on point tbh. Wanna see some old cringey fursonas and sketchbooks?

I’m currently based in Seattle, where I share my apartment with my werewolf boyfriend and a pretentiously named black-cat, Eames.