Hope you're not too full on turkey because @ThatChurro is here to sweeten your post-Thanksgiving weekend!
An artist inspired by classic anime favorites such as Pokemon, One Piece and more, they have a taste as good as the snack their alias is named after.
Did I mention that they're also a finger artist? But enough pointing fingers, let us learn about them in this interview!
Let's go, @ThatChurro! Time to learn your origins. What should we all know? What’s your lore?
I started drawing at a very young age (probably around 4 or younger) and barely started sharing drawings online in 2023. Colors! Live was both my first social platform I ever posted on and the first place I did digital art. Not really good at introductions as you can tell “xD
MTA???!?! by ThatChurro
Pokémon, Dragon Ball, cartoons, and more. It goes without saying that your interests run far and wide. What would you say were your earliest influences and inspirations? What started your art journey, and what keeps you on that path?
My first inspiration, funny enough, was actually Pokemon! Me and my brother would always watch Indigo League together on Netflix since it was something we could both agree to put on the living room tv. I was captivated by the interesting story, character designs, and just the concept in general, but mainly the style.
It was the first anime I had watched and that’s probably what made it feel so special to me. Another thing I say inspired younger me a couple years after Pokemon was Captain Underpants. I loved how these two best friends were able to make such funny stories together that they could both enjoy. I always strived to make creations that would make others smile and make it worth something someone would want to spend their time looking at and bring them joy while consuming it, kind of like what both Pokemon and Captain Underpants gave me.
It’s crazy how much those two things impacted me so greatly now that I think about it.
Psyduck <3 by ThatChurro
How did you find your way onto Colors Live? What keeps you coming back, and what are your favorite things about the community as a whole?
I first discovered Colors Live in 2021 from my mom actually. She called me into the living room and showed me this video of someone reviewing the game and I thought it was really cool looking since I had never seen something where I could make digital artworks.
A year later I was able to save up enough to get the physical copy of Colors Live and the same day my first painting, of Porco Rosso of course, was born. The thing that gets me coming back to Colors as a place to draw and share my art is both the community and the whole painting layout if that makes sense?
The community is so amazing and supportive and I’ve made friends I never would have elsewhere! And by the layout I mean how everything is simple to understand and has a reasonable amount of brushes and it’s just easy to understand and it’s not overwhelming at all (looking at you ibis paint) which I think is really nice!
We’re ramping up Colors Live development behind the scenes, especially with the new and exciting Nintendo Switch 2 out now. What features would you like to see in a Switch 2 version of Colors Live (or Colors Live 2)? How would you like us to take advantage of the console’s new features and greater power?
I don’t personally own a Nintendo Switch 2 just yet but a feature I’ve been wanting would be the ability to change where reference images are able to be placed on the canvas, like maybe a panning tool of some sort?
I also think that being able to use in-game screenshots from the system itself would be really useful instead of having to send a screenshot to my phone then putting it in the painting to use as character reference xP. A feature that I feel like would be really funny would be the use of mouse controls. It would be very interesting to see.
I guess drawing on a mouse is an actual thing so it wouldn’t actually be bad, I know some pretty insane mouse artists on the computer I don’t know how they do it…
You have such a sweet, colorful style—worthy of your name, @ThatChurro. How did you develop it? As you grow as a person and an artist, how do you see yourself improving it, and where do you want to take your style next?
Why thank you hehe. I usually sum up my style to be a combination of different styles I’ve seen in different medias shoved into one. I have my own touches in the style of course as to how I do certain things but I take main inspiration for my style from Rune Factory, Pokemon, Ouran High School Host Club, and Yu-Gi-Oh!.
I would love to improve how I draw different poses and such. I’ve gotten better with drawing the hands more often and am slowly seeing a bit of improvement, it’s just the anatomy I have to start trying to take care of, I feel I’m lacking a bit in that area but I would love to learn how to do epic poses like in those fight scenes and stuff in the animes.
Cheese by ThatChurro
Thinking about your own work, which pieces are your favorites? Which were the most rewarding, challenging, or difficult?
Let me see…
Aminal Crossinguru by ThatChurro
Animal Crossing has always been a super special game in my heart and I took the contest theme as the perfect excuse to shove all the Animal Crossing games I’ve played into one painting.
Nothing beats a jelly filled donut by ThatChurro
I don’t even remember how I came up with the concept of this one but this was too epic not to put in here
Tamaki and Haruhi - redraw by ThatChurro
This one is a very recent one (last night) but I feel like is crazy to see the improvement over such a short amount of time. The amount a style can change in just 2 years is insane!
Blessed Rain After the Drought by ThatChurro
Speaking of recent, let’s do the complete opposite with this one! I made this one in 2023 and I was very happy with the end result and thinking “Wow, I DID THAT??!”. This one for sure will be getting a redraw >:)
Now about other artists. Who are your favorite artists on and off Colors Live? Who do you consider your “nakama,” and what makes them worthy of that title?
My friends from both here and off of colors have all helped me in ways I couldn’t fully express into words. They’ve all given me more kindness and support than I could ever ask for and I am grateful for each and everyone of them! <33
The Colors Gallery has thousands of paintings to admire. Of those, which are your top three favorites, and how do they appeal to you?
one piece by _Gen_
I really love how all the characters are captured in this painting and how you can really guess how they are just by looking at this painting! This has been in my top ten for a long time. You gotta love my boy chopper.
Thank you DT for creating such a masterpiece, I am forever indebted to you.
"Your eyeballs are MINE - " by Mewsea
Fighting for my life between Mewsea’s N, Chuuya, or this Iono painting. Their gallery is just so incredibly exquisite holy guacamole… You should totally check them out if you haven’t already.
chuwwos yuwugi senpai?! by N-Nya
I KNOW YOU SAID THREE BUT THIS ONE ABSOLUTELY HAD TO BE MENTIONED IT’S TOO PEAK.
Golly gee, even after picking 4 I still want to put at LEAST a hundred more TmT I gotta throw a folder together or something with all my favorites!
Do you use any other software or media outside Colors Live? How does Colors Live fit into your artistic process?
Digitally I've tried a couple other programs but I thought they were too overwhelming and I just hated them in comparison to Colors so most if not all my digital art has only been on Colors. If I'm not drawing on Colors I usually just resort to traditional art, I find it relaxing not having to worry about coloring the drawing or making the lines look super "perfect". When I draw on paper or a whiteboard like I tend to only do the lineart and sometimes a bit of shading if I'm on paper.
How do you come up with ideas for what to draw? What makes you think, “Hey, that’s totally cool—let me draw that!” Or do you draw more intuitively and not think too much?
I don't really know myself honestly if I had to be completely honest with you.
Lately it's been any character that I like the design of, an old favorite, or any character I deem "hot". It takes me a long while to think of the thing I should draw so I guess there's a bit more thought put into it than I even thought. I wish the ideas would come constantly, otherwise my gallery would have a lot more drawings than it does xD
Buggin' the Musician♥ by ThatChurro
I’ve been curious for a while: how did you come up with your alias @ThatChurro? Were you hungry and thinking of churros or did you decide on the username mid-bite?
I always love answering this question, glad you asked! It was back near the end of 2020 when I started wanting a Nintendo Switch and I wanted to come up with a fun and cool new username for it if I ever did end up getting one and what better person to brainstorm with than my brother?! Well we ended up getting off-topic as soon as the conversation about a username started "x)
My brother was playing Smash Bros when we started discussing the whole username thing and the name reminded me of this really good churro truck I had at an event recently called "Churros Bros" and eventually that lead to talking about problematic vegans on the internet and making fun of the fact that a lot of them were always named "ThatVegan(insert some sort of title here)" and I thought it would be a really stupid funny thing to incorporate into my username so I ended up just turning the whole conversation into a username, thus the username "ThatChurro" was born.
I actually use the name for most platforms I've been on, Colors being the first and basically only one I still use today other than my actual Switch profile which was technically the first thing to be titled under "ThatChurro". Somewhat on topic but Churros Bros recently announced a grand opening of an actual store instead of being strictly a food truck and I'm really excited to drop in and check it out in the near future and get myself a nice chocolate filled churro hehe~
Goals and plans for the future: How has 2025 been for you? What do you want to do to shake things up in 2026 and beyond?
Oh boy that's a tough one...For the future, I would really like to start practicing different poses and stuff like I mentioned earlier in here as well as attempting to do bigger paintings with multiple characters.
I started rewatching Ouran High School Host Club this past week since I'm on Thanksgiving Break and it's got me motivated to want to start a big group painting with all the members of the club or something, my goal is to finish a painting kind of like that before 2026!! 2025 has been crazy as an art journey, I've seen so much improvement in such a short amount of time with my style and such it's insane!
I was scrolling through my gallery and just the whole experience was wild. For 2026 and beyond I would like to maybe start commissions or something as a way of earning some sort of income at least for a while haha. The Pokémon ZA painting I finished last week or so was actually a commission! I thought it was really fun and cool to see different ways on how people see certain things and how we can both improve and add onto one final product is really interesting!
Happy early Thanksgiving! How do you plan to spend Turkey Day, and what does the holiday mean to you?
Not much really. We ordered some Papa Murpheys yesterday since they were most likely going to be closed today (Thanksgiving) so we had that as our Thanksgiving meal.
I'll probably just spend the night getting those in-game events in my Animal Crossing games and probably color the rest of the night xD The holiday isn't as big as it used to be with our family but it is still a great time to share together even without a super fancy dinner.
I also quite enjoy the break from school and looking at the discounts for black Friday online knowing I still can't afford any of it at it's "Low Price".
Gobble >:[ by ThatChurro
Wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving! Before we go out, who do you think deserves some extra clout?
If I had to pick one person, it would probably be my girly @Kurumiiii. bon bon jellyfish planet by Kurumiiii
I think she's been on Colors longer if not the same time as I have. I have admired her art style for such a long time and it's somehow only gotten better and better!! The way she colors is so soft and beautiful and the way she draws in general you can really tell there's a lot of love and effort put into each and every one of her pieces! She's one of my favorite artists ever and actually one of my amazing Colors friends I mentioned earlier!! She has always inspired me and help me and my style evolve in many ways and I'm so grateful for her and I consider myself so very lucky to have ever come across her account <333 As the great @Kurumiiii herself would say, she’s so incredibly pog.
That wraps up our interview with @ThatChurro! The Colors Team would like to thank you for your time! Colors Gallery- give'em a-go!
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