My name is Jomaro Kindred, aka Gill Bates. I started my artistic journey at age 7 and have never looked back. While everyone was outside playing sports, you could find me firmly attached to my drafting table, drawing for hours on end. I studied everything from still life, to life drawing, my favorite comic books, and definitely anatomy books. And I am still as much in love and as enthusiastic about art as I was back then.

Now 25 years later, I’ve dabbled in almost every art medium out there in a variety of creative industries. I got my first start right out of high school. I was working two part-time jobs - a gopher at a law firm and a sales associate at an art supply store - and taking a few art related college courses, all while gearing up to make my push into the comic book industry. By sheer chance, my art caught the attention of a very interesting gentleman by the name of Kenneth Fagan, owner of a then up and coming silkscreen company. He was very interested in putting my art on his new urban t-shirt line, Rugid Wear. The idea took off extremely well, and Rugid Wear became one of the leading urban apparel lines in the entire D.C. metropolitan region! Although this endeavor definitely sidetracked my comic book artist aspirations, it was a very productive, educational, and profitable period in my artistic career. I progressed from an independent freelance artist, to a staff artist, and finally to the company art director. I even created my own t-shirt line, Introspect Graphics, which had a pretty successful run for a few years as well.

Being that I'm an avid researcher and love to learn new things, I took advantage of the slow seasons to branch out into other mediums, such as computer graphics and web design. These new skills served me well as I began to do a lot of freelance work for clients ranging from commercial suppliers, to non-profit organizations, church ministries, restaurant chains, and pretty much anyone who needed a logo and a website. Though all my skills and experience kept me busy with contract after contract, year after year, I found myself longing to get back to my first love, comic art & illustration!

It was the summer of 2005, and I had found inspiration in a mmog introduced to me by my brother, called City of Heroes. The comic book concept behind the game was right up my alley, and I just couldn’t wait to sketch up one of my characters. I picked Jules Jackson, an energy/invulnerability tank, and shared my sketch on the community message boards. Within hours I found myself inundated with private messages requesting sketches of other players’ characters. And so, I launched MMOART – Massive Multiplayer Online Art – a commissioned fan art service dedicated to the gaming world! I’ve created over 300 commissions for gamers from City of Heroes, City of Villains, World of Warcraft, ArchLord, Everquest, Guild Wars, and several other related requests.

With so much exposure to different characters and different games, I grew a strong interest in designing the games themselves. While I still and will continue to do commissions for individual gamers, there’s nothing more fun to me than creating an awesome, original character that I could actually potentially interact with in a fantasy world! Thus Kindred Concepts was born, my own artistic hub of endless ideas and personal projects. It is here where I will endlessly produce creations that I can eventually compile into a grand portfolio submission for my dream job as a game/concept artist.

There are always new things to learn and new areas to grow as an artist, and I am very excited about where my creativity will take me next. Art Is Life!