Hope these Interviews are interesting to read, suggestions for questions are welcome, i am no professional Journalist after all.
In the first Interview you can read about
a Portugese artist who is since around 2009 on deviantART. I requested her take on the Assassin's Creed character Captain Blackbeard and invited her to this group. Have Fun reading and a great weekend, next Monday the 2nd "DRAW A ******" starts!
Hello please tell us a bit about you, are you a professional artist, what are your goals and targets related art, what kind of tools do you use for drawing and what do you like to draw mostly?:thumb423562672:
First of all thanks for the opportunity, it's the first time I've ever done anything like this but it sounds like a great idea, I always like to hear what other artists have to say so maybe someone will enjoy what I have to say as well!
My name is Eleonor Piteira, gravity-zero on deviantArt, I'm 24 years old and I'm from Portugal.
I'm not a professional artist - yet - I certainly plan on it. I'm still developing my artistic skills and I've also been studying for the last years, I finished my Master's Degree about a month ago so I haven't had the time to put together a decent portfolio and move on from there.
As for goals I definitely want to work in Illustration (book covers, for example) and Concept art, for games especially but I wouldn't mind working on movies either.
About the tools I use for drawing, well, I sketch a lot on my sketchbook, traditionally of course, putting down ideas and that sort of thing, and I paint digitally on Photoshop with my trusty 6 year old bamboo tablet.
What I like to draw the most is without a doubt people, faces especially. Looking at my dA gallery you'd think it's the only thing I can draw! While that is not true, it's definitely what I enjoy the most.
: You are now around 5 years on deviantART and your 4th deviation was already a video game related fan art.What got you into spending a lot of your time to draw the fictional video game characters?
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I think my true fan art phase started a bit later than that and starting to play games did influence that a lot.
Those first fan art related deviations happened because I was starting to learn how to paint in Photoshop and didn't know what to draw so I did something I was familiar with instead of making something up. Still, I guess you could say my main reasons for doing fan art
are because I have a passion for characters, for good stories, for games/movies/books and for art, so, what better way to connect all of that?
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: I think your artworks got more detailed since around 2009 your artworks got more detailed, i think the selection and number of colors increased and the displayed characters seem to have more personality, your Captain Blackbeard from Assassin's Creed IV with his calm face there looks simply badass, which was the reason why I requested it for this group.Are you spending more time for each artwork now or is it more because you learned more techniques, ways to draw or a combination of both?
I'm going to disagree with you there, I think that that actually happened around 2012, at least personally it did. I finally knew what I wanted and that I had to work hard for it so I started developing my skills and it started showing. It's a forever work in progress and I still have so much to learn, but it's worth it.
And fan art is a wonderful tool for that, whatever people may say, fan art can bring you a long way.
It's a good way of developing some of your skills without having the 'trouble' of making up your own story and characters. It can help you in many ways and train you for the day when you're the one creating everything in the image you're working on. It's also a lot of fun and it allows you to pay homage to something you love
: Speaking about Assassin's Creed IV, did you play the game or did you drew Blackbeard because you liked his character and visual look and knew it from the trailers and official illustrations?What did you like about the game?
I did play the game! And painted Blackbeard just a few days later
I loved the game but while I enjoyed most of it - Edward's character development, the rest of the characters, the gameplay, the missions, the underwater parts, all of the naval parts, most of it was perfect - the 'present time' side of the story though, makes me a bit reluctant to say it's the best game ever.
And I think they should have wrapped up the Assassins's Creed story sometime ago, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag was an amazing game but if you look at it as part of the series I don't think it moved the overall story along all that much.
It's still a very good game by itself, and I recommend it all the same
:What are the most important details for you if you draw a fan art? The Scenery? The Anatomy, That the Character looks like in the game?Depends a bit on what you're trying to illustrate I suppose. But everything has a certain degree of importance.
I like to draw characters the most so everything that identifies that character is what I focus more on. Their clothes, their hair, their attitude, their face, etc. That's what makes them recognizable to the audience after all.
:What are your 3-5 favourite video games and why? The Mass Effect series is definitely one of my favourites, Saints Row as well (especially Saints Row IV, it's just so much
fun, I adore it), Dishonored is a magnificent game overall as well.
Assassin's Creed too, since the first game was actually the first 'real' game I've ever played - not counting Age of Empires and Sims when I was a kid - so it has a special place in my heart
: Are you submitting your works to deviantART groups, if yes, which ones, if not, why not?If it's fan art I usually submit it to a few related groups, that way it can reach more people that also like that same game/movie/book.
: What are 3 awesome artists on deviantART you like (and why?)Now that's something difficult to answer! There's so many! Without going for some obvious ones that everyone knows, I really like
, her work has a very nice flow and she uses color beautifully.Rossipoo's 
work is full of energy, you can see he likes what he does and he's good at it. Gabrielwigren's 
way of using color is super awesome, he captures the mood of a landscape like no one else! Thanks a lot for your time Eleonor!
