Marianorth12 - MariaN - Tumblr Blog

Olivia

Andrea

Mia

Stefanie

Emma

Hi, please tell me, will you draw fanarts of the families of Anastasia, Thumbelina or the Swan Princess?

Hi! Yes definitely!

I have them all planned out with many others for future NextGen series (Most excited for).

Like the previous series once I’ve finished the Barbie NextGen I’ll post up a vote for the next series which will include non/Disney films (dreamworks, Don bluth, etc.) just have to hope enough people will wanna see them next.

Erica

Tell me, please, how did you find your style in drawing characters?

Hi!

I really don't have an original answer haha! For me, what seemed to develop it was just being interested in different kinds of artists and art styles, adopting elements from them and playing with them in a way that I personally liked, and that just eventually became my style

Back when I thought I wanted to head into animation, I was adamant with myself on trying to replicate a mix of the conventional Disney look + Don Bluth's art style. This was 2012 for me where I only drew in that style:

And then I gradually transitioned into what I call my thin lips, thin noses, big ears era lol. It wasn't super conscious, but that's what I just thought looked nice and felt natural to draw at the time. At this point, I discovered the artist Phobs and their style really inspired and influenced a lot of how I drew features during that time. There's some Minkyu Lee influence in there, a bit of Ghibli, and mainly still influenced by animation.

I started getting more into video games later on in high school, and I feel like that started to bleed into my art style somehow.

When I got to university, I had really fallen into a rabbit hole of the world of graphic novels and comics which definitely influenced my style. I was (and still am) really inspired by artists like Babs Tarr, Jorge Jimenez, Jake Wyatt, Jen Wang, Dan Mora, Jeff Smith, Emily Carroll, Faith Erin Hicks, Jamie Hewlett, to name some. There's of course so much more, but I'm just recalling and working off the top of my head!

There was a point where I started drawing more fanart for live action properties (especially for the DC movies) and that also started to influence my style, because I remember I was more interested in leaning away from a heavily cartoony style and trying to give characters slightly more realistic sized features and proportions (but of course, still very stylized.)

But eventually I fell back into a heavier cartoony and stylized look for how I drew characters which is where I'm at these days, and I really attribute this to doing comic work. I worked on my first graphic novel (it's not out yet!) and I can literally see how it changed my style when I look at the first couple of pages vs how I was drawing by the end of the book. It really loosened me up in how I draw now because of how many pages I had to whip up in a month.

For example, this is how I was drawing one of the main characters when I initially pitched the graphic novel in 2020.

and now, he looks like this. Haha!

And ultimately, after looking through old art to find some examples for this, I love that I can still see every single influence and inspiration in how I draw today. I took some different turns along the years (I honestly had so many art style shifts on the way that I didn't even detail here because this thread would be gigantic), but I can see how everything led me to the style that I feel comfortable am happy drawing in today. And I'm sure it's going to continue to look different in two years time even.

Barbie 12 dancing princesses

hi, please tell me where did you get the ideas for the costumes of the characters of the snow lady?

Hi! Thank you for the question! I get inspired a lot by historical pieces! I do a lot of research because I really like go treasure hunt of info and curiosities or just photos of past ages and far places. I can show you some comparison with Gerda and Kay. Here you can see some 1910s pieces:

Gerda loves to be elegant and with very fitting dresses. Her outfits are inspired by modern 1910s fashion and prefers a clean, linear silhouette more than complicated shapes. Even if she has german origins she has not any link to german traditional heritage since her family moved to Russia two or three generations ago and didn't really took much with them moving out. (they still have a german teacups and many decorated plates from their grandmother!)

Kay on the other hand has not a real piece of inspiration, but goes with a mix.

For example, his coat is inspired by these two very common russian coats:

He likes to be more decorated on the belt though, so you will always see more detail on that other than on common russian blank coats:

Other inspirations for Kay are Vaslav Nijinski's dancing outfits. I really like the shapes of the trousers and since Kay likes nice belts, he would love this kind of outfit, preferring them to common 1910 gentlemen attire. Kay mixes new and traditional ways so you will see both modern and old slavic elements in his clothing.

My Kitty 🎀

Swan Lake

12 dancing princesses

Disney

Barbie

Barbie aesthetics

Ravenclaw

Slizarin

Hufflepuff

hi, I know there are a lot of characters in the wild Swans fairy tale, but will you make characters based on it?

Oh yes, I absolutely plan to! I’m super fond of that fairy tale, and I love any story where I get to design an evil queen 👑

Gryffindor

Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper📚🌸

Rapunzel

Swan Lake

Summer 🌻