How road trend images impressed this online game idea artist’s character designs

This may sound odd, but street fashion photography had quite the impact on me very early on. Especially Japanese magazines. I always enjoyed seeing photos of random people just being themselves, especially before the age of social media.

There was no real artificiality to it, so to speak. It’s that feeling that I often try to capture with character design, like you took a snapshot of a random person, rather than presenting an idealised or exaggerated version of them.

Honestly, I never really planned on making a living out of it. I was studying something completely different before I stumbled on my first job, so I didn’t have any real idea or expectation of what it’s supposed to be. All of it was a bit of a surprise to me.

In some ways, it’s better than I could’ve imagined. You get to work with some of your favourite artists and get paid to design silly goblins or whatever. That’s crazy. But it’s still a job. There’s l ots of tedious administrative work, and being a freelancer is more challenging than I could’ve ever imagined.

But I love doing what I do and hope I can continue doing it for years to come.

Study the fundamentals! But, knowing myself, I wouldn’t have listened. Also, don’t get lazy when things are going good, because it sets you up for failure later on. It’s very easy to get comfortable on a project/job and neglect your studies, thinking you ‘made it’.

You always need to push yourself forward. Especially as a freelancer, where the market is so competitive and oversaturated with amazing people, who can sometimes have decades of experience more than you.

As a medium, it’s more accessible than it’s ever been, and there are endless resources to learn from nowadays, which is fantastic. But the emergence of things like generative AI, the algorithmic changes to social media, and just the way some companies treat artists really makes it hard to have digital art as a pursuit.

However, there are also more ways than ever for digital artists to make a living out of it, especially by making their own independent stuff – whether that’s educational content or personal projects. So it’s honestly been a mixed bag.

Who knows… I would love to maybe expand my skill set a bit beyond just character concepts. Animation seems quite interesting at the moment, but also so daunting.

Honestly, I just want to continue designing characters and get better at it, that’s the immediate goal. There’s always so much to learn.