2025 in Review

It's the beginning of a new year, a fresh start filled with energy and motivation to create new work and develop my skills to become a better illustrator. Before I talk about my goals for this year, lets look back on 2025, a year that saw some big personal accomplishments and even me getting to meet an absolute art legend!

I'm happy to share that this year I finally finished my human skull illustration. This project was discussed back in 2022 and the goal was to have it completed some time ago, however life happened and the project was put on hold. This year I really pushed myself to get back to work on the piece and wrap it up and I must say that it felt so good seeing this one take shape over the weeks, putting the finishing touches on it and calling it done felt like a major win. I’m really proud of how it came out and I even learned a few new techniques during the rendering stage that I’ll definitely be making more use of in future projects. I’ve also entered this piece into two competitions for 2026, one is the world illustration awards and the other is the applied arts awards. 

One of my pieces was also accepted into the “The Art of Planetary Science 2025” exhibition. A few years back I created a digital illustration tittle “Protoplanetary Disc” for a book and I submitted the piece on a whim and I had the pleasure of it being accepted into the exhibition. The exhibition took place on February 21st to February 23rd at the Kuiper Space Sciences Building located in Tucson, Arizona.

My family and I also took a trip to Ottawa and while there I got to visit the natural history museum and got some sketching in. This is the second trip to this amazing museum and definitely worth the trip. This year I’ve also been making a real effort to practice more with watercolour. I’ve been doing some ink and wash sketches and it feels great using this medium, below are some of the sketches I’ve done.

Probably the highlight in my career this year was meeting Aaron Blaise! He attended TAAFI 2025 this year and I leapt at the chance to meet him. It was such an honour hearing him speak in person and getting to meet him afterwards. Aaron is one of the nicest and most talented artists I’ve ever met, he talked to every single person that was there to meet him, and trust me there were a lot. I got to give him a sketch I did a while back as a small token of appreciation for everything that I have learned from taking his online courses and I even got an original sketch in return! I’ll never forget meeting Aaron, his work has been a massive inspiration to me and his outlook on life and how he handles himself is nothing but extraordinary.

Now back to 2026, I have a lot I want to accomplish artistically speaking this year. I’ve started a new technical illustration, focusing on creating an exploded illustration of the original Nintendo Game Boy, this piece will be done entirely digitally using illustrator and I’m hoping to have that one done by the end of this year. I’m also planning on doing more work on my peregrine falcon illustration which like my human skull illustration has been on hold for a little. Other than those two items, the plan is to keep practising and improving my skills throughout the year, I do have plans on doing some workshops, which are a great way to learn new techniques and improve my skills. I’m looking forward to what the new year will bring and the growth I’m hoping to see in my work this year. Stay tuned throughout the year to see any new work and progress and thanks for taking the time to read this review, wishing you the best in 2026!