Soren Cousins

Student Artist | Illustration, Concept & Character Art, Motion Design

About

I am a Canadian artist who was born in Edmonton, Alberta, and am currently based there. I'm a versatile artist who works well with a variety of mediums both traditional and digital, but I specialize in digital art. My passions lie in character and concept art, illustration, and motion graphics.

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Disclaimer: Some artwork in this portfolio contains blood and violence, flashing imagery, frontal nudity, and sexual/suggestive themes, which may not be safe for viewing in the workspace or in the presence of younger audiences.Additionally, a section of artworks detail the personal experience of the artist as a transgender man, which touches on topics of depression, transphobia, and violence. Some viewers may find this content distressing and/or triggering. Viewer discretion advised.

Original Characters

My work shines best in the realm of character design and writing. As long as I could hold a pencil, I have been designing characters. I was always drawing comics and cartoons for friends and family, making up story-lines these characters would follow. The passion would really take off after joining a D&D club in middle school, which was originally run by my math teacher and later my social studies teacher. Both of my teachers and my friends really encouraged me to run with the passion and skill I had.Now, I have a variety of characters and stories I have been working on for a number of years - some in projects I have been working on with close friends, some belonging to original projects handwritten by me. My most recent project - "Tanglewood's Academy of Magical Arts" or "TAMA", is a project I hope to bring to the screen in animation, or to shelves in graphic novels one day.

Inspired Work

A series of artworks inspired by media I really like. One of my largest sources of inspiration is the game studio FromSoftware and their "soulslike" titles, which includes the Dark Souls trilogy of games, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring. I have also included an artwork I did based on the main character from a game called Endoparasitic in this section, as I have recently been more and more drawn to the sci-fi genre.

Motion Graphics

When I began attending classes at Medicine Hat College, I was very particular about what electives I would take and when. I intentionally saved the Motion Design 1 and Motion Design 2 electives for my final year, as I knew the graduating year was going to be stressful. I figured having classes I knew I would enjoy would make the school year a little easier for me. However, I also found that saving these classes for the end of my college career benefited me in the long run, because I had really sharpened and developed my skills by that point, and was ready to excell in a medium I have a very strong passion for. In this section, I have one project I made for Motion Design 1, and two that were created for Motion Design 2 respectively.

Bedtime Story, Oct 2024, paper, graphite, ink pen, digitally compiled into a stop motion video.

Hesper Driscoll, Feb 2025, digital artwork, motion graphics.

Hesper Driscoll, Feb 2025, digital artwork, motion graphics.This animation was created for a project in Motion Design 2 called "motion collage." The idea was to create a visual narrative of some sort using rotoscoped elements, still images, and overlapping elements. I decided to animate my characters Hesper Driscoll and Athal Sterling in one of the fantasy settings I've been writing since 2022 - Tanglewood's Academy of Magical Arts. This animation, of course, is about Hesper.Hesper is a Chronomancer (time wizard) who instructs the chronomancy school of magic at the academy. He's generally quite bubbly and cheerful, a little eccentric, and full of big ideas. When he's not teaching, he likes to tinker and build things as an engineer and inventor. The setting of the animation is the academy's "time wing" where all his classes take place. It has a very steampunk aesthetic because most of it was built by Hesper himself.Being able to control time to such a degree worsened one of Hesper's poorest habits, extreme perfectionism. He has the ability to reverse time and "undo" any mistakes he makes, no matter how small and insignificant. It leads to him bending and rewriting time constantly to make sure everything he does goes exactly as he plans it. With nobody else around him quite as experienced in Chronomancy as he is, nobody ever remembers him doing so, although Athal has vague suspicions with no proof.

The above images are rendered stills from the project.

Pulse Drive, April 2025, digital artwork, motion graphics.

Pulse Drive, April 2025, digital artwork, motion graphics.This animation was also created for Motion Design 2, but also for the Pulp Media group in Medicine Hat. Our assignment was to choose one of the themes presented to us and make an animation to be displayed at The Yard in downtown Medicine Hat in late April of 2025. I chose the theme "digital landscapes."The main character of the animation is another original character I designed named Cy Hybris, who was written for TAMA. They're the instructor of a school of magic called "chaos." However, in this animation, I've put them in the setting of Hello Game's title, No Man's Sky. I love space, and I love the work Hello Games produced in No Man's Sky. The game contains so many planets and star systems to visit, that it is impossible for one single person to see every single one in a lifetime. It is a game filled with breathtaking scenery and cinematics everywhere the player goes, and I wanted to show my love and appreciation for it in my animation. The ship asset is drawn using an in-game model as a reference, and the sound effects heard in the final scene of the animation were recorded from gameplay in No Man's Sky.

The above images are rendered stills from the project.

Graduation Work

The images below are all pieces I created for the graduates art show at Medicine Hat College in 2025, called Living:Room. Our art show was about the spaces around us, how our spaces shape who we are, how we affect these spaces, and how they change over time. Since coming out in 2020, I have been very vocal and proud about my identity as a transgender man. My identity shapes every aspect of my life, in both public and private spheres, and everything I do. I may never be tied down to one physical space, but no matter how it shifts and changes I will always have my own space in my body and mind where I can be apologetically me - my living room.

Acceptance, April 2025, digital artwork.

Reflecting back on my life, there were always signs. I didn't wake up on a random Tuesday morning and decide I wanted to be a man. I always hated dresses, threw fits when I was told to wear makeup or behave like a lady. I hated being treated like a girl, and I hated the roles I was expected to fulfill. I can speak from experience when I say many, if not most women, have struggled with feelings like that - but something about it was different. It wasn't just anger at how our society runs, it was a bone-deep resentment and hatred for who I was, who I was expected to be.When I began menstruating and going through puberty, I became passively suicidal; and I thought that was just the way it was supposed to be, because I had nobody to explain to me what gender dysphoria was. I hated my breasts so much I used to have dreams of cutting them off, or suffering breast cancer just for an excuse to remove them. I wore my hair long - down to my waist, and hated every inch. I hated my soft pretty face, my cleanly shaved legs, and my lean distinctly feminine figure. But never once did I complain. I didn't complain, because I had a comfortable lifestyle thanks to my parent's hard work, convinced myself that because I was well off, well fed, well cared for, that my suffering was selfish. That I had no reason for my pain.When I came out as a trans man, I met adversity every step of the way. I lost friends I had known for nearly a full decade. I had family members challenge my decision, make important decisions for me, and more. It took some people nearly five years to start using my chosen name and pronouns properly, and I still hear my legal name and get "she" or "her" out of people on occasion. (Despite being two years into medical transition as of writing this.) I had to advocate for myself, fend for myself, and navigate this unfamiliar territory all on my own. It was hard, and there were times I wanted to throw in the towel and quit - but I am the man I am now today because of this struggle. I experienced highs I would have never dreamed of, and I experienced lows that I can only describe as some form of divine comedy to whatever is watching over me.I do not and will not grieve who I was, because I never went anywhere. I'm still the same person, and my pain was not a loss. It was a victory, a reminder that I'm still alive and I made it through.

The Devil, April 2025, Vine Charcoal, Compressed Charcoal, Liquid Acrylic

The previous set of artworks was my story to the public about my personal experience with being trans. This piece is reflective of the social experience of both my own experience as a trans man, but the trans-masculine experience as a whole.Many people fail to realize how isolating trans-masculinity is. We spend our entire lives suffering under the weight of misogyny, raised as women and taught to be quiet, that our voices do not matter, to follow expected roles and traditions - and then being chastised whether we do or don't. When we transition, we become something even more isolated.The trans masculine experience means being labelled as a dangerous predator for embracing masculinity. It means losing all your friends who were women or femme-identifying, because they no longer see you as safe. It means being told you will "lose your pretty face / you will be an ugly man" and internalizing that. It means that oppressors will see you as a man when it's convenient, and a woman when that's more convenient. It means we have to out ourselves to be welcomed into queer spaces, medical professionals treating us poorly because now we've become "something even worse", being victims of even higher rates of sexual violence, being forgotten in discussions of trans rights regarding sports or bathrooms - or made into a joke when those topics come up. It means that discussions of reproductive rights never include us, and when they do, we're made into a joke or a "gotcha" point with no real care or concern. The list goes on and on and on, I could never cover every nuance and detail here, I would be writing a term paper.This artwork is a self portrait resembling the painting "The Fallen Angel" by Alexandre Cabanel. I chose to recreate this work because in our current society, being trans-masculine means falling from metaphorical grace, and being treated like the devil by everyone around you.

Process Images

Some process images of various artworks.

Adult Content

Content that may contain violence, nudity, or sexual imagery.

CV

Available upon request.