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Amanda Schank is a digital artist. I interviewed her at Super Magfest 2018 about her art, inspirations and method of working.

1:26 – Her Demon Slayer picture on an alligator rug is one of her favorite works because it’s very much “her”. It’s a line art heavy piece of work. It has a pin-up style. She likes adding shadows to the work. She combines urban wear and medieval images.

4:49 – She’ll stare at a piece of 40 minutes to see anything that needs to be fixed before she declares something done. She’ll even paint over prints once they’re ready for sale at conventions.

9:39 – She grew up watching Inuyasha and got into the mood of painting those characters. It’s influenced her throughout her career. She does everything on computer. She likes using a Cintiq for digital drawing and sketching.

12:57 – Lately she’s been inspired by lots of sci-fi. She’s creating a space station universe art book. Star Trek Deep Space Nine and Cowboy Bebop are currently inspiring her. She watches a lot of sci-fi to finish the book. She loves both the visuals and the characters and their motivations too. Evangelion also inspires her but she isn’t drawing lots of mechs.

16:14 – Her tablet is her most important tool. It’s about a 16 inch screen and she feel comfortably working on it. Photoshop has a nice textured brush too.

18:11 – In 2012 she had done a large painting of Red Riding Hood in armor. Now she revisited the character for a new piece. Right now she most enjoys doing textured line art for pin-up style work. She likes creating tattoo friendly art.

21:30 – She started making art when she was one. When she was nine or so she started watching anime and it was so different from Western cartoons she was fascinated by it. She didn’t care about art museums on school field trips until she got into art. She started posting the art online and she’s had a big following since then.

23:20 – She was on a site called Guyana online where you had an avatar that you could buy clothes for. She started selling her art to buy avatar clothes and then she realized she could make real money for her art. She realized she could make a living from art. She’s been doing commissions for 14 years.

26:14 – Artists are behind the scenes in everything in business. Art directors and artists create media, billboards and so on. They’re crucial to anything visual.

29:20 – She loves the Fifth Element and she watched it all the time with her dad. Star Wars is an inspiration. She loves Child Thief by Brom. He’s a writer and illustrator.   Cowboy Bebop has stuck with her throughout. Neverending Story is one of her loves. She’s been trying to do Fifth Element fan art for a long time but wants to make it perfect so hasn’t finished it.

32:41 – She loved the concept art for Valerian but she wasn’t happy with the movie at all. The visuals weren’t shown as much as advertised. The movie was too rushed to enjoy the art in the movie.

34:51 – Her gallery is on https://amsbt.artstation.com/.

 

Links

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290223/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106145/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0213338/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neon_Genesis_Evangelion

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119116/

https://www.amazon.com/Child-Thief-Novel-Brom/dp/0061671347

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088323/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2239822/

https://amsbt.artstation.com/

 

For more “Creating Sci-Fi and Fantasy – An Inside Look” please follow me on Facebook at crisalvarezwlc, on youtube at Cris Alvarez and on Instagram @crisalvarezscifi

 

Guests: Amanda Schank

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: science fiction, fantasy, art, artist, digital art, fifth element, cowboy bebop, anime