Interview with Nyanfood

First off can you give yourself a little introduction?
I go by Nyanfood to most of those who know me. I'm a professional game artist but I do anime-style paintings and drawings in my free time, as well as dabble in music and writing. Pleased to meet you.

When did you first realize you wanted to be an artist?
Ummm I don't know exactly because I don't really think of it as "wanting to be an artist." I'm not particularly successful at anything else that my parents wanted me to do, so it was more that I wanted to do something that I could do, and the closest thing to that happened to be art. I probably decided I wanted to do it, no matter what, after graduating college, because that's what I spent pretty much all my free time doing. But that's just the decision I made, not the feeling. I don't know when the feeling started.

What sort of things from your everyday life inspire your artwork?
I roleplay with people in a Deviant Art roleplaying group. Most of my inspiration is from scenes from that, these days. I also really enjoy drawing flowers and jewels, which is a bit ironic because I really dislike real flowers. I sometimes look through Fashion Press pictures on Twitter.

What does 'being creative' mean to you?
To me, creativity is creating something novel that conveys a fresh emotion onto people who experience it. I actually try to not think about being too creative too much. It's important for marketing things but I feel like thinking about it actually gets in the way. The way I see it, if I keep looking at things and keep experiencing things, eventually I'll get bored of all of them, which means when I produce something that doesn't bore me, it's probably creative enough for other people too, especially people exposed to the same sort of content I look at. So if I keep observing and experiencing, I'll naturally develop a sense for novel feelings and ideas. Even if it's something that's been done before, people are being born all the time. It could be someone's 100th identical experience or it could be someone's 1st experience. What's important to me isn't creativity as much as 'is it satisfying?" If creativity is what satisfies me, then that criteria gets filled by default, and if it isn't what satisfies me, then I'm not working toward something meaningless to me.

What is your favorite form or theme in your artwork?
Water, smoke, particles of light and circular graphical backdrops, probably.

How do you deal with things such as art block, or writers block?
Just do studies. If I'm wasting time not creating anything new, I may as well brush up on my foundational skills.

How do you think your work space and surroundings affects your art?
My space and my work are really closely tied. I tend to spend a lot of time on my pieces, often over the course of several days. I clean my space between I start a new piece or new idea so that the negative space around me is greater, allowing for easy, comfortable brainstorming. As the project gets along, the clutter will start forming from things I eat, drink, unwrap, etc. The color palette and the nature of the clutter on the table helps me get straight back into where I left off if I stop at some point during the day. That way I don't lose my place the next time I go work on it. I often get annoyed if my fiance tries to clean things off my desk because it makes me lose my place. Sometimes I'll get blocked so I take a break by playing my electric piano, which shares my illustration set-up. I only have to turn 90 degrees to the right.

What about artwork is inspiring for you?
That's a bit of a strange question, because it's like trying to compare oranges to pencils to robots. Everything has a specific purpose in artwork, be it color, composition, shape, form, etc. The whole effect of artwork is all of those things working in tandem. If I find one aspect inspiring, it's being supported by all the other aspects, so to find just one aspect inspiring above the others seems a bit absurd to me.

If you were to give advice to a beginning artist what would you say?
There's no right or wrong methods to do things, only suitable and unsuitable for your goals. Always challenge the norm. For example, people always say "tracing is bad" and "tracing doesn't teach you anything." As it stands, there IS some minor merit to tracing, but that depends on whether or not it's suitable or unsuitable for your goals. If you use it as a supplement component of study, remember that what you produced is not your own and it doesn't belong to you, because claiming it as your own will most likely be unsuitable for your goals as an artist (but very suitable if your goal is to be a thief). Challenge every aspect of popular opinions and decide for yourself whether you agree or not and WHY. Art is "just a hobby?" Challenge that norm. Drawing as a career "will lead to poverty and starvation?" Challenge that norm. An hour of your time is "not worth that much money, and this other person charges less?" Challenge that norm. Don't just mindlessly draw. THINK. Give meaning to everything you do because art is communication. It is conveying a message or concept. That means not only conveying ideas through your pieces but also through your actions. Don't think "that's so deep." Instead, think "that's what's expected of me as an artist." Also, do gesture drawing everyday

Find more from Nyanfood on DeviantArt and Twitter