Updated Bio & Artist Statement: Amber Perdigon

 Biography

Art has always been a staple in her household as she was surrounded by arcade games, cartoons and famous amusement parks such as Universal Studios Orlando and various Disney Parks. She was introduced to anime at a young age with franchises such as Sailor moon, Pokémon and films from Studio Ghibli (amongst others); media that further shaped Amber’s artistic style and interests. 

Later towards her adult years, she fell headfirst into the table-top roleplaying game scene and expanded her creative hobbies along with it, starting a freelance career under the artist brand “Jade Bubbles Art” in creating character conceptual art for those in her TTRPG community. It was during this time where she found she was creating an excessive number of original characters and stories that were collecting dust on her shelf as scheduling doomed many of the potential games she planned to run or be a part of. 

She thought of no better way of taking what she loves and putting it to paper than to work on graphic novels and comics. Starting with pencil and paper and shifting her thumbnail works and sketches to Clip Studio Paint, she balances both traditional pencil and pen sketching with a digital illustration medium to further detail, clean and apply text to her works.

Artist Statement 

Everything starts with an idea and a number of plain pencil sketches on cheap paper. Ideas born from my various hobbies, whether it's from video games, reading or playing a Tabletop Role-Playing game. These sketches are then photographed and then brought into an illustration program called “Clip Studio Paint” where I further edit and organize the sketches compositionally and apply text and colors. Color Palettes, photography references, and written scripts are at an arm's reach during this process as it aids in production.

Hayao Miyazaki, an artist that greatly inspires me, once said, “I do believe in the power of story. I believe that stories have an important role to play in the formation of human beings, that they can stimulate, amaze and inspire their listeners.”

As a storyteller and an artist, myself, that is a goal of mine. I write stories in my free time because I enjoy it. I use it to express my feelings, to draw up a narrative where I feel hopeless in real life, but I can find that hope again through the written word or a drawn panel. I draw and write characters that reflect the communities I’ve grown up with, so the world doesn’t feel so foreign and out of reach. Even in fantasy worlds, where I’ve spent a great deal of time enjoying the stories spun from this genre, I’ve never been able to see myself or many of my friends in these narratives.

So, I want to be that creator that makes space for us. Through making real life observations of the people around me, and through careful research of various cultures, I’ve been able to improve the diverse identity in my work. Not only does my passion for story telling drive me to work on these comics, but to see others light up when they recognize something familiar or nostalgic in my works, that is inspirational and motivating in itself.