Writer, Gamer, Drawer of Half-Naked Men, and GIANT GEEK – Shonna White

Shonna is based out of Calgary, Alberta, and a proud Canadian. Creativity is where she finds her centre. It constantly challenges and invigorates her. Writing is her preferred form of expression, and like so many young people, it started with terrible emotional poetry.

By the age of twelve, she was already writing novel-sized manuscripts. At fourteen, she won her first serious acknowledgement while competing against people much older and experienced than herself. Though she didn’t win the publication contest, the letters received back from both the Calgary Publisher’s Society and fellow contestants were full of praise.

Professionally, Shonna has created countless training manuals, technical manuals, and marketing assets for corporations. Lost Infernal, however, is her first attempt to bring a novel to fruition.

Drawing is what Shonna does when the words just aren’t coming. She works minimally in digital mediums,  preferring to work with a good old-fashioned set of pencils. It is a medium she believes to be under-utilized in today’s more technology driven world. She enjoys the challenge of the male form and she has been dubbed ‘The Queen of Male Pin-Up’ by her fans.

Her celebrity portraits are her most popular works and are generally received by the subjects with excitement – though not always. The work has allowed her to meet and talk to numerous celebrities. Her favourite reactions have come from Matt Smith (Dr. Who), J August Richards (Agents of Shield), Dean Caine (Lois and Clark), James Marsters (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and Kris Holden-Reid (Lost Girl). In her works, whether of a person or character, she tries to be respectful in how she captures them – paying attention to as much detailing as her impatient mind can handle. Over the years, it has become a rule to never draw someone who hasn’t posed shirtless, and to keep the body type close to the source material.

Between the day-to-day, writing, and art, Shonna keeps pretty busy! But what sort of life would it be without video games? Shonna fanatically loves Halo, Dragon Age, and Final Fantasy. She even sports a large Spartan 117 tattoo on her right shoulder, though its only geeky on the surface. It actually represents overcoming some significant events in her life.

Aside from that, she’s a self-taught coder, works website development, database administration, and marketing, as well as has been an active member of a Live Action Role Playing group since she was 19. That is where she’s met some of her best friends, and even her husband.

Through her art, Shonna has had the opportunity to chat with the likes of Carrie Fisher, John Barrowman, J August Richards, Kris Holden-Ried, Dean Caine, James Marsters, and Matt Smith (some of the coolest people ever), among others. Though, she is more likely to nerd out over game developers – as she discovered at the 2016 Calgary Expo when one came over after seeing her Halo tattoo.

This beautiful Qunari, @sa_roux, is not only a great person, veteran marine, and talented artist, but works at 343 Industries on Halo. She also brought over the next guy:

Another nerd-out moment with @PatrickWeekes, author and writer at Bioware responsible for one of my fav characters, Iron Bull – Dragon Age Inquisition.

This made me ridiculously happy. Specifically, the zooming in on parts of the art (considering they took FOREVER and took a TONNE of reference pics to create). The retweets of the art by Freddie Prinze Jr. and Mike Laidlaw were also pretty awesome.

Generally composed, but if you get to know me I’m really kind of eccentric.

I’m a PC, my friends are Macs.

I’m a console gamer and own more than should be legal. PC gaming is annoying, no matter what you say, though I will admit there are things I envy about it – like making your own skins.

I collect action figures, predominantly of the PlayArts Kai or statue types.

I love horror, psychological thrillers, action, and general awesomeness. I’ve been a huge fan of the vampire genre for a very long time, although many of its recent incarnations have been … disappointing.