PN Featured Artist: Janice Scott
This weeks Pure Nintendo featured artist is the amazing Janice Scott. Art director of the awesome ZeldaUniverse.net and a brilliant illustrator. I am a big fan of her ‘Legend of Zelda’ pieces and I know you guys will love them as well. If you’d like to contact Janice about her artwork, or just want to ask her a question her contact info will be at the bottom of the interview. Thanks, and enjoy!
Majoras Mask: The Transformation
KD: How long have you been an illustrator, is it something you’ve always wanted to do?
JS: I have been drawing for as long as I can remember, well before I started school. There was always something so magical about creating your own characters and worlds on a piece of paper without a lot of effort. It was something that I wanted to constantly get better at to bring more life to the images that I create.
KD: What inspires you the most when creating artwork?
JS: Most of the time my inspirations come from certain video games, often times movies, but I can get inspired by anything that can happen in daily life by adding a fantasy twist to it. For example, getting inspired by the idea of drawing large cloud horses in the sky as they pull a storm front across the land.
KD: How long does it take you on average to complete a piece? Do you ever take commissions?
JS: It really depends on the art piece itself. Some can take a few hours, others a few days and larger ones a few weeks. I find that I am a lot faster with traditional artworks as there is so much more you can do with digital media which is only limited by your skill and imagination. Whereas with pencil and paper, you’re a bit more restricted, especially when it comes to color. I do accept pencil sketch commissions right now but I’m also open to do digital art and freelance for businesses.
KD: I noticed all of your pieces look amazingly smooth with bright vivid colors, it really makes them pop. I love the style. What programs or tools do you use when creating your art?
JS: I used to be a traditional artist up until a few years ago where I was slowly introduced to digital media. My favourite traditional media to use are pencils and watercolours. With digital art, I went from using Gimp for about a year and then I switched over to Corel Painter 11 where I was introduced to bringing the feel of traditional media into a digital art form. After a year or so using Painter 11, I finally switched over to Adobe Photoshop where I use it to create all of my recent digital artworks today. I use a Wacom bamboo tablet to draw digitally.
KD: I can tell that you love the Legend of Zelda series, what other Nintendo games or series are you passionate about?
JS: I don’t really draw them much but I am also very passionate with Pokemon, Super Smash Bros and Mario adventure games.
KD: You work on one of my favorite sites on the web, ZeldaUniverse.net. Can you tell our readers a little about the site and what you do there?
JS: ZeldaUniverse.net is the world’s largest ‘The Legend of Zelda’ fan community where fans can go to discuss and discover all things Zelda. My role on ZeldaUniverse.net is being the Art Director, so I am responsible for all things graphics and custom art designs and making sure that the visual quality stays high across the site. For instance, if you’ve seen our Hyrule Warriors review, I made the artwork of the header image. Anyone can put official art up in their reviews or articles but only ZU has the community truly being part of producing unique content like that, you just can’t find that anywhere else.
KD: Do you have any upcoming pieces or projects you’d like to tell us about?
JS: I don’t want to reveal too much, but there is something quite large under the works after the release of a certain Nintendo game on the Wii U.
KD: Thanks for the interview Janice, I am honored to show off such awesome artwork! Where can our readers see more of your creations or contact you if they have any questions?
JS: I use various social media sites such as DeviantArt Facebook Tumblr and Twitter.
But the best way to contact me is either through DeviantArt or FaceBook. Thank you very much for the interview!
