OPi8.com :: Vision

This is Leanne.

She was born in 1976 and grew up in the Cincinnati area, having discovered comics before graduating from Boone City High School in 1994. She earned her B.F.A. at the University of Cincinnati by 1999.

Most of this time was spent demonstrating that art could be just as valid in a comic book as in a gallery (if not more so), and though as fluent in artspeak as any of the students, she could not convince more than a few that there is a realm beyond superheroes.

Her last year ended with the production of an independent title which led to her first convention in Chicago: Strangling Desdemona, by Lonnie Martin. In Chicago she was introduced to Mike Norton, and struck up a friendship with him that led her back to central Ohio that November, where she met Jason Alexander and Sherard Jackson, among many others. This led to her own involvement within Studio Section 8.

She produced various pieces for Jason's title Empty Zone, painted the second issue cover for Sherard's Semantic Lace, as well as a pin-up for the fourth issue of The Waiting Place. Recently she has illustrated extensively for White Wolf Gaming, including Exalted, Exalted: Scavenger Sons, Creature Collections II, and several upcoming projects not yet published.

Her influences are too numerous to count, but the main artists sought after include Mucha, Klimt, Sienkiewicz, McKean, Bachalo, Darrow, Jae Lee, Mignola, Yoji Shinkawa, Hiroaki Samura, and Yukito Kishiro.