Dana_i_Nana Beautiful Girls Digital Art (Interview #28)

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Welcome back to YourArtPath Artist Interview series, make sure to check them all out! 🙂

Beautiful digital painting portrait of a girl. Done using digital art, digital painting.

Hello, Dana, tell us a little about yourself?

Hello, I am from Kyrgyz Republic, but now I am studying and living in China. At the moment I am 27 years old and I started drawing when I was 23, when I got my first graphics tablet.

Before digital art I was drawing traditional art too, but not every day. Maybe because I didn’t have much time since I was studying to be a programmer. After graduation, I realized that I did not want to be a programmer and decided to start my way in the world of art. Of course in the beginning I couldn’t work as a full-time artist, so I worked in at different jobs, and drew mostly when I had free time.

In China I study business management because in the future I think it will help me to move forward as an artist entrepreneur.

How did you discover your style?

To be honest it happened very smoothly. I just drew a lot, looked at the drawing technique of other artists, changed and added something of my own. But I think that the style of the artist will change all their life, and it’s good because it means that you are growing as an artist.

You post new artworks on your IG so often! How do you find the time? How long does it take you to finish one work?

When I first created my page, I had a lot of free time after classes at my university and I drew every day, and I could do posts very often. But now I have orders and have less time to draw for my IG.

Besides, I think sometimes you need to take breaks from drawing too. Like other workers who usually gets a vacation once in half a year, artist should have a break too and do other things in life or it can lead to art block.

Answering for second question: I have observed that over time I spend less time on drawing then before, but it is all depends on the drawing. So, for example, on portrait drawing of one character I spend an average of 5 hours. But I want to try on working on big projects, where I can work on one drawing maybe few weeks and I’m coming to that now.

Beautiful digital painting portrait of a girl. Done using digital art, digital painting. Such a pretty girl with a ponytail!

How do you come up with ideas for your new artworks?

When I have an inspiration, ideas come to mind themselves and there are a lot of them, but it is not possible to have inspiration every day and I look for it on the Internet.

It happens that some photograph can help come up with an idea for a new drawing. I noticed an interesting thing when you have time for drawing, ideas for some reason do not occur, but when there is no time for drawing, then ideas appear one after another.

What does your working process look like?

Sometimes an idea appears in my head, and I clearly see the future drawing in my mind, and then I don’t need a reference for drawing. But very often I use references for drawings.

It all depends on the mood, but if I use the references, it is only for pose or colors. I think using references is very useful for beginner artist, because it helps to study the lighting, proportions and colors in the character’s drawing.

What are the tools you use to create your work?

Now I draw only digital art. I use Adobe Photoshop and Wacom Intuos graphics tablet. The first and the only program which I draw in is Photoshop, because Photoshop has all the necessary tools to implement all the ideas, the only limitation are your skills and imagination.

If we talk about graphics tablet, I’m very used to drawing on a screenless tablet. Many people prefer tablets with a screen as it can imitate traditional drawing more, but for me both are convenient.

NOTE: Check out a list of top affordable graphics tablets, and a video review I did of my new one 🙂

Beautiful digital painting portrait of a girl. Done using digital art, digital painting. Mermaid digital art.

Where can we find you on social media?

Now the main page for me is IG, but a week ago I created my YouTube channel to upload the drawing processes there, and in the future I am planning to upload different training videos there.

IG : @dana_i_nana
YouTube:

What are some books you can recommend to beginner artists?

To be honest I have not studied any books for drawing, I mainly watched video tutorials. I think it is much clearer when you can see the process of drawing than to read about it.

But I plan to purchase some books from my favorite artists for skill development and also for inspiration.

Who are the artists you are absolutely in love with or look up to?

There are so many cool artists in the world, I may not know all of them. I love Loish’s work, especially I admire her ability to draw anatomy and smooth lines. I also love the work of Artgerm, his work with light is simply amazing. And I probably want to mention Fernanda Suarez, she paints very realistic drawings, but at the same time you can clearly see her style in every work.

Loish: @loisvb
Artgerm: @artgerm
Fernanda Suarez: @fdasuarez