Laurel grew up in small-town Canada. Much of her childhood consisted of lectures concerned with the proper way to escape bears (long story short: depends on the type of bear).

She earned her BFA at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and to this day counts as her greatest achievement being able to go in the front door, get to every single one of her classrooms, and successfully navigate her way to the exit. Alumni of the institution will appreciate the difficulty of this.

She was eventually thrown out of Canada for being insufficiently enthusiastic about hockey. To their credit, they were very polite about the whole thing

She began her professional career at Splash Damage in London, UK, where she designed the characters for the FPS game BRINK. This work drew from her unshakable conviction that the world would be a nicer place if more people were more intensely grizzled.

She spent many years as a Visual Development Artist n the zergling-festooned halls of Blizzard Entertainment, and these days she works at Moonshot Games on secret projects of mystery and wonder. She enjoys living in Southern California, though she regrets the lack of opportunities to practice her bear-evasion techniques. .