Brittany started exploring digital illustration at age 13, experimenting with Photoshop at home for a few hours a day. She completed a multimedia program in high school (10th grade) for 3D Modeling and Animation, attended Johnson County Community College for Animation in Overland Park, Kansas, earning her degree in 2013. She moved to Colorado in 2014 to finish her degree at The Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design in Game Art in Lakewood, Colorado, graduating in 2018. She has been doing freelance digital illustration, 3D art, and graphic design since 2005.
Tell me about your artistic process: schedule, environment, materials / tools / programs, inspirations, styles, etc.
A lot of my process depends on the project; typically, I like to brainstorm with thumbnail sketches of illustrations and designs first to give me an idea of direction. I also like to at that time come up with a couple different color palettes and collect reference images. The programs that I utilize most often are Adobe Photoshop and Autodesk Maya (for 3D work). My style ranges from photorealism to portraiture to more folksy-stylized work for illustrations.
Walk me through your commission, sales, and marketing strategies.
For commissions, a lot of the time I do not have a per hour structure. I tend to commission per the job while factoring in cost of time, materials (if traditional media), and of course the complexity of the project commissioned. A lot of my business is word of mouth and through social media.
Talk about your support system online and IRL, especially your biggest cheerleaders.
My biggest cheerleaders have been my friends. Initially my family didn’t think that going into art as a career would be a good field to jump into, but over time digital art has only blown up! Especially in the entertainment and animation fields of work, technical artists are always needed. My mother was always a champion of the arts, and strongly encouraged me to do what I wanted and chase my dreams of working in game development despite what anyone else said.
How does life influence your art and vice versa?
Life has strongly influenced my art, mostly through flora and fauna. I have always been an avid fan of realism, but fantasy has been my biggest influence. There are so many strange plants, animals and environments on the Earth to reference from that all of it has been a big inspiration for me to create “new” types of them that would exist in fantasy.
What do you love most about your creativity?
What I love most about my creativity is the way it lets me put a bit of “me” out there in the world. I don’t aim to be a super famous artist but its more than worth it to have just one single person tell me that my work inspired them in any way. Most artists, myself included, tend to be more solitary, so it’s a good format to “speak” to your audience without actually speaking. It gives me a way to communicate visually and express myself in a language that everyone can understand, with colors, shapes, and lines.
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