Feature Friday: Paprika Studios
This is the first installment of my new "Feature Friday" artist spotlight! Tabi Lu of Paprika Studios creates amazingly adorable and detailed chibi artwork! Check out the interview and then a sample of her super kawaii artwork below:
An Interview With Paprika Studios
Where do you find inspiration?My inspiration can actually come from any type of thing I do. I could be watching a television show/movie, listening to music, or reading a book and suddenly I'll get hit by inspiration. It just hits me randomly.What's your studio playlist?Haha! I don't have a normal playlist, so to speak. Sometimes I'll just listen to a little bit of everything to something that is sometimes specific to what I'm drawing. Like what I'm drawing right now is Chibi Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII and I am listening to Final Fantasy music at the moment. So it just really depends.Where is your studio?I am located out of Greensboro, North Carolina. I live in a house where I have an office that I pretty much produce almost all of my product and artwork.How do you get yourself out of a creative rut?I haven't had a creative rut in a while, thank goodness! *knocks on wood* When I feel like I'm getting into a rut though, I'll play video games, do some yoga, or even just stop the current project I'm doing and move on to another project.What artists influence your work - who are your creative idols?I don't have an artist per say that influences my artwork, but I do have people who I look up to that somewhat influenced me to become an artist.Mucha, Monet, Klimt are some of my favorite artists, who's use of color, technique, and concept of design always seem to capture my imagination. You can only imagine my excitement when I found out that Klimit's work was the influence behind the Elfen Lied's opening.Some other artists who've influenced me to become the type of artist I am today as well would be Yuu Watase, Yoshitoshi ABe, and Nobuhiro Watasuki. The story telling and artwork of the artists are just wonderful and in a way, made me realize that that was what I wanted to do in the end.Describe yourself in 5 words.Happy, positive, determined, focused, ditzDescribe your work in 5 words.Happy, cute, chibi, chibi, chibiIs there a story behind your blog/shop name?Not much of a story there. The name of my studio is actually my mascot's name, Paprika. Paprika is a character that I created back during my college days, which was before the movie came out. The name itself is a nickname I received attending college because I use to dye my hair a copper-red quite a bit. So when I created my character, I decided to give her my nickname. It's been that way ever since.What's your typical day?I have a full-time day job with typical hours and I'm also a mother of two young elementary children. So my day is often split between the day job, motherhood and dream job.What are your current short-term/long-term goals?My long-term goal is to start establishing my original characters more when I attend conventions. I will mostly likely never stop doing fanart because I absolutely love it. I love drawing my characters and then connecting with people who feel the same way.Currently I have two projects going on behind the scenes. One where it's based around my mascot and her friends and the other is a secret ^~. I also tend do funny gag comics about some silly daily experiences that happens to me that I translate into my mascot or some history because I adore history. These do not come with me to conventions currently, with the exception of my mascot. So I hope one day in the recent future, to bring more light to these characters.
Website: www.paprika-studios.comFacebook: www.facebook.com/iprika