 Q1. Tell us about your winning artwork. Where the idea come from?
The artwork is of course a painting of my very beautiful and kawaii girlfriend, and the idea comes from a memory I have from back in high school where we met and also where she gave me a jar of cookies that she had baked especially for me!
The hearts and swirls represent that warm and fuzzy feeling you get when you fall in love (lol~)!
Q2. You confessed you're color blind. The entire Wacom Community staff was really surprised when took a look at your artwork again in this light! If you don't mind, could you tell us how you colored the piece? How did you distinguish each color?
First of all, thank you for your compliments Wacom Community staff members, I'm flattered!
Well, to give you a bit of history, when I did digital paintings in the past using Photoshop, I used to paint a grayscale image and top that with a layer of color, with the "color" blend mode selected. It worked to some degree to produce a colored image, but the results were lackluster in comparison to true paintings, though at that time it was the only way I knew how to work around my partial disability of seeing colors (yes, partial because I still can see them, just not as well, or like how normal people do). For this particular piece, I forced myself to try to paint the hue shifts and not overlaying flat patches of colors on grayscale anymore, and managed to get by with some workarounds and perseverance.
As for how I distinguish colors, I still can't do that very well, which isn't likely to change I'm afraid. It's a pretty long procedure, so just to summarize, my half-solution is basically a tedious process of going back and forth with a combination of software tools such as the RGB info, Color Chart, Eyedropper, Hue and Saturation Adjuster, Levels Adjuster to try to gauge what colors I am painting as I go, but there is still a lot of guesswork involved.
Even though I feel intimidated by the fact that just about every other artist can paint faster and better than me with considerably less effort, I will still try my best to make what is worth of my potential, and thank you Wacom for this award which is a big encouragement for me not to give up!
Just a little note, this is my first time using Painter, and this is my first piece of artwork produced with it! Q3. Who has influenced your artwork?
First and foremost my family and my girl, they are my inspiration and have always helped me through my journey of becoming a better artist. Aside from that, my childhood heroes were Yoji Shinkawa (Metal Gear Solid), Tetsuya Nomura (Final Fantasy), Drew Struzan (Movie Posters), Alex Ross (Comics), well, and many more of course!
Q4. Do you often participate in social networking communities or do a lot of blogging?
Sorry but I have no blog. What I do have however is an obsolete gallery on DeviantArt. A new site is to come soon (hopefully, lol~), so check back every few months for details at http://miaharts.deviantart.com. Oh and if anyone is interested in what else I like to do other than illustrations, I have two demo reels of my works up on www.youtube.com/miaharts.
Q5. What is your favorite anime/manga?
Hmm, that's a tough one, as I love just about every anime I've seen. You know my mum bought me a rather enormous Studio Ghibli box set (thank you mum!) and if I had to pick a favorite, even just from within that selection, I would have to crack my head. Of course there is always "Spirited Away" and the likes, but aside from the commercially successful, I would say "Grave of the Fireflies" is probably one of the best, and most heartrending, underrated animes I have ever seen.
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