Victoria “xXMioXx” Aubry is a 21-year-old French artist who has had a fondness for art since she was a child, but began taking it seriously when she was 12. Her first inspirations were visual stories with shocking images. She wanted to be able to make others feel this way with her art and started to experiment. Until two years ago, she was self taught. Since then, she has attended a Japanese-media oriented art school.

The following is an interview with this talented artist.

Toonari Post (TP): What mediums do you use for your art work? Which is your favorite and why?

xXMioXx (M): I like to try a bit of everything! After years of using both digital and traditional media, that last one still stays my favorite. There’s a physical dimension in it that remains unequaled and asks for the artist’s hands to struggle with in order to achieve a piece. One is never too old for finger-painting! Digital has that interesting capacity in evolving quickly; we don’t really know how it is going to be in the future, and we could be greatly surprised.

TP: What piece of your work is your favorite and why? Which one are you most proud of?

M: This one is my favorite. I spent quite some time on it, working with strong and saturated colors, but it left me unsatisfied. One
day I just got rid of all the colors on it, instead of trying to refine them, and took a fresh start! It was a great relief to finish it that way. (Here you can see how it evolved ). The one I’m the most proud of is this two years old illustration. It comes with a 10 page story that I would like to re-work soon.

TP: Who or what are your inspirations and why?

M: My main and general inspiration comes from Japanese manga artists. It’s still the case, but lots of internet artists are just as inspirational! My all times favorites are still the Japanese game-designers Shigenori Soejima (Persona 3 and 4…) and Akihiko Yoshida (Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre), amongst others.

TP: Have you ever had to deal with a situation where someone else took credit for your work? If so, what did you do to resolve it? How did this art theft make you feel?

M: No, I happily have not had to face any major case of art theft! Most of the time it’s just un-credited use of artworks. But real art-thief can make you fell pretty helpless, especially when you try to discuss with the art or idea thief and you only face a wall.

TP: What is your favorite subject to draw and why?

M: I love to draw characters that are heavily influenced by all the recent Japanese anime and manga cultures. The manga style is something I’ve loved for years, and as I still see many of the young artists I met during my teenage years “growing out of it”, I’m trying to  hold onto that style, in particular.

This is not something people should be ashamed to do because it does not mean being a copy-cat or “not evolving”, it’s a style that stands by itself, as valuable as western comics, classical art, or any other imaginable style. With the actual way art is shared throughout the world with the internet, styles are not bound anymore to specific countries and I’m always glad to see an artist from outside of Japan that successfully assimilated the manga style, took liberties with it and made it his own to convey ideas.

TP: If there was any art medium that you wish you could master, what would it be and why?

M: Oil painting would be the medium I would like the most to master one day. Classical paintings fascinate me with their soft and unique texture that is created using particular kinds of paints. Still, it is a bit too expensive for me to use now! Maybe in a few years I’ll be able to afford it.

TP: Outside of Deviantart, what is your life like?

M: Sometimes I’m a student and somtimes I’m a hobby artist. I love to see as much visual material as my brain can absorb, and visiting museums. Collecting things is also my other passion! My room is my own little museum full of not-really-valuable toys, books, dolls, video games, and art prints.

TP: What is it like to be able to be part of a community (Deviantart) that allows you to share your artwork with artists from all over the globe?

M: The community part is the best thing it has to offer! I can’t count how many nice (and talented!) artists I’ve met there that led to some great art collaborations. Also, they are from locations I probably would not have been able to reach through, for example, a blog, or a forum, that are often made around a single language and country.

TP: What are your goals in life? Do you plan to continue art as a hobby or make it a career?

M: I would really like to make a living from art! I’ve tried some other disciplines like Art-History and Language, but I can’t focus on them completely; art is always in the way in my mind. So I’ll try in the near future to work it more and more and I hope things will come out as nice as possible.

If you would like to see any of xXMioXx’s artwork, check out her Deviantart page.

Image Courtesy of   http://xxmioxx.deviantart.com/gallery/

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Urukins is an artist from Portugal that has been drawing ever since she was little, but started to do it seriously around the age of 12 or 13.  Before then, she did not put much effort into her art, as it was just for entertainment.  She taught herself how to draw by looking carefully at cartoons as well as other people’s artwork to understand how the anatomy worked, how the artist used color, and other methods.

Urukins was happy to answer the following questions in an interview.  ‘TP’ will stand for Toonari Post and ‘U’ for Urukins.

TP: What mediums do you use for your art work?  Which is your favorite and why?

U: Traditionally, I use different kinds of inks, markers, pens, coloring pencils, acrylics, watercolors, and coffee.  Digitally, I just use Paint Tool Sai and Photoshop CS 5 along with my tablet, an Intuos 4. Out of all of these, the ones that take my heart are coffee and a black ballpoint BIC pen.

I pretty much spend hours doodling with these.  I think the ballpoint pen is a great tool. It gives me flowing lines, and it kind of keeps down every single line that I did to build a drawing.  People can see the effort I put into it. And then coffee, I love coffee, I think it has a pretty nice color.  I shade a lot of my sketches with coffee. It’s great to drink and also has a great smell and color!

TP:  What piece of your work is your favorite and why?  Which one are you most proud of?

U: On every moleskin sketchbook that I buy, I draw a special deer.  There will be one page dedicated to a single deer where I will put effort and a lot of myself into.  These pieces have somewhat of a special meaning to me, so I can say that they are the works that I am the proudest of.

TP: When you first started, did you ever hit any bumps in your art process?  What were they, and how did you overcome them?

U: I think my first bumps were anatomy and coloring.  I had a lot of difficulty with anatomy. I couldn’t figure out what joints were meant to fit and where.   All of the animals, people, or mythical creatures that I drew during this phase had a logic challenging structure. I cringe at looking at my old work. It’s comical how I tried to make their bodies reasonable.

I also colored like a five-year-old!  It took a while to understand how a colored pencil worked, and when I finally figured it out, I ran into another bump–light source. One cannot simply cast random lights and shades on a piece. It makes it look a bit dumb, in my opinion.  When I realized that the shading I did made no sense, I started observing my surroundings and then tried to copy what I saw onto paper.  Eventually, I got the hang of it.

TP: Who, or what, are your inspirations and why?

U: Disney, Dreamworks , cartoons, my grandfather, and my mother are my main inspirations.  They were the ones who pushed me to start drawing.  As I grew, I got other sources, of course.  If we go classical, I can point out Dali and Leonardo DaVinci. On a more modern look, there is Banksy, some Deviantart artists (such as Lunacylore, Kaziczek-wolf,and JNCarvalho), and a few Japanese artists, such as Yana Toboso and  Katagiri Ikumi.

All of these people have styles that just fill me up with a need to draw.  I want to be as good as them; I want to look at my artwork the same way that I look at theirs, to think ‘my own artwork makes me want to draw’.   Youtube videos also inspire me.  I can honestly say that watching a three-minute video of a kitten playing with a feather makes me want to draw.

TP: What is your favorite subject to draw and why?

U: Birds, canines, deer, and old people. I love animals. I think they are cute, pretty, and interesting, and I adore drawing canines because of their expressions and their behavior; they can be pretty entertaining.  Birds and deer have this beautiful, mysterious thing about them, like crows and owls.

Having one of these birds in a picture can add so much to it.  The whole environment can change just because of their presence.  We build a stereotypical image of them; we connect crows to death, owls to secrecy or silence, and so on.  Deer, as stupid as they are, are amazing animals just for their looks.

Again, we can get a certain aura and feeling with a picture of a deer that maybe a duck can’t get.  It’s hard to explain.  And old people, yeah, I love the expressions old people make, especially old men with mustaches!

TP: Outside of deviantart, what is your life like?

U: I am a regular teenager, I suppose.  I spend a good part of my day in school. Sometimes, I spend an afternoon with school friends at coffee shops.  Friday and Saturday nights are for my closer friends, games, and just overall being silly, and spending as much time as I can with my boyfriend, drawing, gaming, or reading when I should be studying!

TP:  What are your goals in life?  Do you plan to continue art as a hobby, or make it a career?

U:  I don’t know. I’m in my last year of high school, so I have to decide.  I would like to pursue something related to art, but I don’t see many art related opportunities within my country.  The most likely thing to happen is for art and work to become two different worlds in my life. Art would be a hobby, and I would pursue something else professionally.

Image Courtesy of   http://urukins.deviantart.com/

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