Colors Gallery, meet ChimaeraArts!
ChimaeraArts is an artist who prides themselves in drawing buff, burly characters with bold colors and even bolder lineart. They flexed their way onto Colors Gallery in the middle of 2021 and now that flexing has landed them as our 3rd artist of the week! Now let's get to know them even better!
What’s your story? What type of artist do you consider yourself to be?
"Well, I’m just your Art Hobbyist. I fondly draw big and buff dudes on Nintendo DS lite, 3DS, and Switch. I got to try Colors 3d when the Custom Firmware scene took off on the 3DS around 2017, it was nice to try what is like using a display tablet as at the time my drawing tablet was just a surface one. And that is how I got hooked on this application. Also thanks to the Colors! Staff for enabling my account to upload DS made artworks!"
How long have you been drawing? What’s the earliest artwork you can remember? What initially inspired you to begin making art?
"I’ve been drawing since I was kid but when I really wanted to hone it and take it seriously more I’ve started around 2014. The earliest one I remembered is a doodle of an orc, it was just a simple doodle I did cause Warcraft 3 was fresh in my mind. What got me into drawing was the time my father drew me an off-road truck after few days we went to watch an off-road exhibition event. I was so fascinated how he drew the tire track patterns and thought if I could draw that, then that made me like to draw tractors as a kid."
What’s your typical painting or drawing process? How long does it usually take you on average?
"Whenever its characters I usually start with a few sketches usually the neutral standing pose with the head then torso as the start. Drawing takes me about 2-3 weeks long cause of work. After that I decide to go for cel shading or soft shading. Lately, I’ve been experimenting with both of these and been doing good with them."
I noticed you're really adept at drawing muscles. How did you get so good?
"Yeah I have fondness of drawing muscles and buff characters. It takes practice and lots of references on how muscles work, where they’re placed and how they interact with each other. With all that you can break some rule a little."
Outside of arting, what are your hobbies? Any interest you’d like to share?
"Video games is a huge hobby that I love. I mostly play platformers like Super Mario (mostly play as Luigi if I can), rhythm games too namely Taiko no Tatsujin, and as seen on my recent artworks, Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game mostly played on their official simulator Master Duel. There’s also Remote Controlled Model Cars as it’s the hobby I want to go outside. I’ve owned 3 cars; 2 are off-road buggies and 1 truck. Also Bandai Model kits, usually Gunpla or mechs that looked cool to assemble and display on my shelves."
What are your favorite brushes & tools you use in Colors Live? What’s your go-to?
"I mostly use the sketch brush, but if you were to not specify the Nintendo Switch app, I would’ve said old classic brush pen & opacity brush from DS Homebrew app. That old brush on smallest size can really smooth out the brush stroke done by the Hard Brush."
What’s your biggest struggle when it comes to art? What’s your biggest strength?
"My usual struggle is coming up poses and composition. I’m so used to drawing the same neutral pose and call it a day. The greater struggle is looking up references for a character design. With all my attempts drawing Yu-G-Oh! monsters, it’s difficult to be accurate drawing them if the monster has few presences in other card artwork, haven’t made appearance in the anime, or promotional material by Konami. My biggest strength is to see the minor of details when looking at the references. No little detail goes unnoticed in my watch. But it can be a downfall of mine if there isn’t much material to work with and an artwork takes too long to work on making me demotivated and move on to the next."
Any advice for beginner artist just starting out or art advice for artist at all levels?
"Always see the subject of your art to Its basic shapes, deconstruct who this part works, and how this part looks in a different angle and perspective."
Is Colors Live your primary way of making art? Outside of Colors Live what is your preferred medium/art program? Do you prefer digital or traditional art? How does Colors Live assist your workflow?
"I don’t bring my switch lite much with me only my 3DS or DS. Colors Is such neat app to doodle on stuff on the go. I mainly draw on my display tablet using PaintTool Sai for sketching, Medibang for inking, and Photoshop for coloring. I do some traditional but is mostly just sketches on my sketchbook but I really don’t bring it with me cause the cover gotten beaten up, digital is usually my pick. The app does help try out ideas if I want to go forward it, like test run a character design I saw on the internet. I’ve uploaded some private sketches on my colors gallery of those."
What’s your biggest source of inspiration?
"For drawing characters, anything that catches my eye usually from cool looking designs and stuff. Buff characters what really gets me but it’s a bit boring if the character only has that going for it, they got to have other elements like cool armor, intricate designs, or a bit of personality if you get me. Just having the head be basic with a toned up body just looks silly to me."
How do you overcome art block?
"Brookes Eggleston made a video on youtube about that. What I got from that is to try doing small doodles and slowly mix it up a bit than you usually do. I haven’t gotten art block myself usually burn out and what I do about that is just taking a break for a little while and go back to doodle something."
Any features you would really like to see in Colors Live in the future? What do you like about Colors, what changes would you like to see and how do you feel about our humble gallery?
"It would be nice if there is a rotate tool only for viewing and by using the hand tool nudge the angle a bit on the canvas for comfortable painting and also have a flip-view option where it doesn’t count as actually flipping the canvas but as something for a quick view refresh. My gallery have a lot of WIPs and Sketches set to private and I’m thinking of giving them a go again maybe another take or redraw some."
Who or what inspires you the most?
"It has to GlaucoSilva from DeviantArt! I love his art so much. His works are very dynamic every time I check out his gallery! Someday I want to emulate that feeling on my works."
How did you develop your current art style?
"I’m always fond of thick outlines as seen from Rhythm Heaven and applied to my past works and the dots for eyes is from the MOTHER/Earthbound series. Then one day I wanted to try out lineless artwork. It’s kind of a stark comparison of my other style of having thick outlines with cel shading and no lines with soft shading."
Any artistic goals/plans in the near or far future?
"Improving my current styles but I feel they going to evolve to something new as art styles tend to do. I’m thinking making a webcomic just for fun. I’ve done sketches to it and I just need time and motivation to do it."
Who are your top 5 favorite artist on Colors? Who are your 5 favorites outside Colors?
Colors Gallery:
@munin, @acchan, @hachi85, @Boreal Boy, @C-F-BOMB
Outside of the Gallery:
GlaucoSilva, Brooke Eggleston, nellucnhoj, echin, braford0005
What are your top 3 favorite paintings on Colors?
As much as I like drawing buff dudes, I always love landscape art:
Romantic Departure by MsPandorasArt
Test by Acchan
o0O by Syrup_
What Colors art of yours are you the most proud of?
Since you already picked the Gladiator Beast which has Vespasius, Augustus, and Octavius art I did, here’s the other art I’m proud of, the painting Heavy Leomon done on my DS lite:
Any art pet peeves or general peeves?
"Whenever I post and share art that I’ve worked hard on yet doesn’t get much attention."
Discord Question from @DeavorBoopz: Did you take an art class or were you self-taught?
"Well no i didnt take art class, I dont know if my college has those. But, back in college though my teacher on a minor subject said to me that I have to learn to draw comics as its the final project for the subject."
Discord Question from @razrdraws: How did you get into drawing humanoid/animal-like subjects? What techniques do you use in the sketching process to get to such a character?
"Ever since my early days I surfed the internet I prefer anthro characters than humans. I learned how to draw anthros from tutorials from there too. I chose to draw anthros cause it's a little challenging and made me eager to try it. I too could draw humans but its not my usual pick."
"I usually with a circle with the cross guide, then i draw a square below the horizantal line like placing a small box in your face that covers your nose and mouth, then in that box you pit guidelines there. Or in short, imagine putting a box in front of your face making it the muzzle. Plus look out for references."
Discord Question from @Lilyofthe328Valley: what lead you to using your current art style?
"Well my art style just evolve as I draw. Thick outlines please me and sometimes drawing complicated or intricate designed charactets but with dots for eyes because why not. The other style of little to no outlines is like a breather to me."
Any Colors artist you would like to shoutout?( Doesn't need to be a favorite artists or a friend)
"Shoutouts to @jetboy!""
City Interactive by jetboy
That wraps up our interview with the cool @ChimaeraArts ! Not to flex but it was great having you as our 3rd artist of the week! We at the Colors Team thank you for accepting the interview and are excited to see your growth here in the gallery. Everyone be sure to continue checking them out!
Check out the interview with our 2nd Artist of the week @Millie_Strawb at http://colorslive.com/page/Meet-Millie_Strawb
For those who may need a reminder
The Artist of the week will be posted every Friday so be sure to tune in! Prior to that, the artist may be contacted via email or other means at least a week or more in advance so be sure to check your emails( and spam) so you don't miss out on a chance to be featured. If you don't reply within 48 hours another artist may be chosen to be featured for that week instead and you will be in a future artist of the week update.
The announcement of who is the upcoming featured artist will be announced at least 2-3 days in advance or eariler so look out for that too! If you would like for any of your questions or comments to be featured in an upcoming interview please check out colorslive.com/discord and visit the official artist of the week channel to submit questions/commentary for a chance for those to be answered before Friday.
Another reminder: Keep your eye on the current ongoing weekly challenge , #wc497 "eyes" ! The eyes weekly challenge will shut Sunday April 9th, 2023
Stay creative!
Zyik & The Colors Team
