This can be a difficult decision to make when you have worked on something for years, and you really believe in the idea. This is how I felt when I stopped working on my comics, Elements and Himitsu Kessha, but I knew I had to in order to grow as an artist. It was time. 

I had been working on Elements since I was in sixth grade. I put in ten years with that story. Himitsu Kessha was maybe six years old. I had put a lot of work into these comics. I had refined and rebooted them multiple times, especially Elements. This Elements cover is maybe the eight or ninth revision I did for volume one. This cover for HK is the second version. These comics were done in the manga style, and originally, I loved drawing manga. It was simple and expressive, and I could draw disproportionate body parts. The problem was there was a ceiling for artistic growth. I was not able to try out new things and experiment, so I knew it was time to move on. There was a specific moment when I knew that I had to move on, and that was when I compared early pages to the newer ones...

The differences between page 2 and page 96 are ridiculous. Page 96 indicates that I understand proportion a little more. The art is much more refined, and the words fit into the composition more effectively and organically. Page 96 does not even really look like manga. At this point, I knew that I had learned everything I could from the manga style, and I had to explore a style that was all my own. 

Similarly, the differences were uncanny with these pages. I am understanding light more with page 57. Page 1 is washed out, and the abs looked airbrushed and synthetic. The line art on page 57 is crisp and orderly. Line art on page 1 is unpredictable. I go from thick to thin randomly. And that arm.... So, as much as I loved HK, it was time to move on. 

I knew I had grown a lot as an artist, but an even bigger problem was that Elements and Himitsu Kessha did not represent me. They said nothing about who I was. I don't know anything about being Japanese or having spiky hair. I decided to draw what I knew, and that was southern black culture, specifically the Gullah/Geechee culture of Charleston. I knew my aunts, female cousins, my sister, and my mother. They were strong, resilient, empowered individuals, and they inspired me to come up with Naomi. I named her after my mother. Naomi is just like me. She wants to be an artist. She is learning how to accept herself for who she is. She is black and proud, and the only person she allows to define her is herself. Cardinal Traits tells everything I want people to know about me. It may be the single most important project I have ever worked on, and it deserves to be completed.

Thank you!