Artist Q&A & Little Known Facts:
Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Nina, and I do traditional art.
Why do you do what you do?
I have enjoying drawing ever since I was a little girl coloring with crayons.
How do you work?
My art consists of pencil drawing, inking, and coloring with markers and color pencils. Though occasionally I will paint with acrylics or watercolors.
What’s your background?
I took art classes in high school, and one 'Portrait and Figure Drawing' class in college. But they hardly taught me more than to draw directly from a picture or object- which I have always done. So most of what I know about art I figured out through practice or my own research.
Has anything in your technique changed over time?
I used to color only with color pencils- which was natural to me once I outgrew crayons. I didn't transition to markers until 4 years ago, and it was the best decision I ever made.
What’s your scariest experience?
The scariest experience I had was when someone stole some of my art from here on dA and uploaded it onto some porn site. I discovered it by accident when I googled my user name one day and found it. The owner of that website was really nasty and gave me such an attitude before removing it [thank God!]. I put a memo on my ecchi folder asking people to please not upload my art anywhere without permission and thankfully (at least since last I checked) it hasn't happened again. Though I believe I have deleted from my gallery the pictures that were stolen. Though there is a difference between nude art and porn art...
What do you dislike about your work?
I dislike that I'm incapable of drawing without some kind of reference photo. It's my dream to one day be able to just draw something off of the top of my head. Every art class I've ever taken has had me draw while directly looking at a picture or an object. So I never learned how to progress from that. Though thankfully about 3 years ago I got to the point where I can create my own art and need only a reference photo of the character or pose that I'm drawing- which is something I've never been able to do before then.
What do you like about your work?
I like the way I color. I used to be good coloring with color pencil, but wanted something more time efficient- since color pencil took me a long time. Coloring with markers requires a different technique, but I greatly enjoy it.
What’s your goal?
My goal is just to keep improving with my art, and hopefully one day I'll be able to draw things off the top of my head (without it looking like someone else drew it lol).
Fun Facts:
- All my artwork gets inked twice- once to ink over the pencil, and then a second time after all the coloring is complete. That keeps the line work nice and vibrant. It's double the work, but it's worth the extra effort!
- I always listen to music while drawing.
- Though very time-consuming in terms of both planning and execution, I really enjoy
drawing comics. It's a wonder I hadn't ever tried drawing a comic years ago!
- I've been coloring with markers for only 4 years, but it feels like a lifetime.
- I do not like brush-tipped markers/inking pens.
- I completely underestimated the amount of work that goes into ACEO cards until I started drawing them.
- I prefer simplistic backgrounds to my artwork, rather than something bold and detailed.
- The smallest art pieces I've ever done are 2.5 x 3.5 inches (ACEO cards)
- The longest amount of time I've spent on an ACEO card was 4 hours.
- The largest art piece I've ever done is a 36 x 48 inch acrylic painting, and it took me 3 months of continuous work to complete.
- I prefer to do artwork during the daytime- preferably morning- when I can work under daylight.
- I drew 8 Disney villains as if they were cupcakes. This led to a commission order of nearly the entire Harry Potter cast drawn as cupcakes! ladynin-chan.deviantart.com/ga…
- The first picture I colored after transitioning from color pencils to markers was this ACEO card of Sephiroth back in 2011
