Featured Prints Artist: Amelia Stoner



Location: California / Age: 20 / Speciality: llustration with traditional medium and Photoshop / Contact: amelia_stoner@yahoo.com


This time around we had the great pleasure of interviewing 20 years old California illustrator and writer Amelia Stoner, better known as *nanya within the deviantART realm. Amelia knows how to improve her artistic skills to reach the goals she has set for herself. Starting out with pencil and crayon doodles in her childhood, a life-long streak of creating, trying, learning and improving shall take her to her goals of being a novelist a concept artist. At heart, her recipe sounds quite simple: Studying the arts, practicing the digital and traditional mediums, techniques, trying out new things, sucking up inspiration from fellow artists, friends and music, putting the critique her works receive to productive use in her imagery of various mythic and nightmarish creatures and figures and graphic novels.





1. First off, let’s get to know a bit or two about you.

Well, I guess the right way to start an interview would be to say that I've been an artist all of my life. I hear my parents sometimes mumbling that as a child, I never could put down a pencil or crayon. A lot of the time I would bother to draw dinosaurs, and during my teenage years I would move into drawing dragons and similar things. Twenty years into that future, I'm still continuing that life-long streak, and attending Academy of Art University with a bachelor's towards traditional illustration. Currently my drawing subjects will vary from regular studies of figure drawing to dragons or other beasts. My main goals in life? I have my dreams, to publish novels and see them expand, but I would be happy to be a concept artist for games or movies just the same.

I hear a lot of people wondering why I draw one sort of subject matter compared to another, but in honesty, I feel that what I draw is a subject matter that is in fact quite diverse. There is a large amount of imaginative quality, and even if sometimes morbid, I don't view it as such. Morbid is a word to use in opinion; my work is not morbid. I tend to look at it as "alternative", but even then I can see a group of people shaking their heads at me. It doesn't matter to me, though. I express what I feel needs to be expressed, if it represents a character, and that character happens to be slightly morbid, then I will find the most astheticly pleasing way to instill that feeling into the viewer.

2. How did you acquire your artistic skills? Did you take classes or used tutorials, or are you completely self-taught?

Till about the age of 16 everything I had in the ways of talent was self taught. I took those mediocre classes in junior high and high school, the ones where they tell you to just draw what ever you feel like drawing without much ground or basis to it. Till the age of 16 I wasn't taught a thing about what art meant, how to evoke thought through color, or something much more complex.

When I finally started going to college (you read that right, I skipped a year of highschool), I took some of the general art classes they offered. I began to learn how art REALLY worked, terminology, etc. Now, I'm in ACAD, and learning is just as wonderful as it always has been. I'm learning deep into the core of art, how to influence an audience, how to evoke attention through color and shape. Learning these kinds of things has helped me in my view of art immensely. My scope has broadened and I feel that I, myself, am broadening as well. I hope to never stop learning.

3. When you feel the need for inspiration, where do you turn? Other artwork, music, writing?

Other artwork, fellow friends often tend to be good artists, and they often try to give me some good advice on how to break my occasional slumps. Seeing a lot of my friends being so passionate and influenced with their own artwork is always an inspiration to me. Music is definitely an artistic turn on, without it I feel like most of what I imagine would end up stale, and without that pre-meditation it usually doesn't make it to a finish. I tend to have a musical ear, although I never play instruments, I appreciate music a great deal. My tastes in music vary depending on mood and feeling, especially when it comes to composing an artwork in the process. One of my favorite musical composers of all time has to be Tchaikovsky. His energetic vibes always give me that extra "spring" in my artistic step.

I'm also a writer, and whenever I write something I think would make a worthy image (or characters, I have plenty of them), that also helps influence a drawing idea, or another feeling to evoke into an already processed image. Characters have always been an imensely inspiring thing to me, to see them grow, to know their personlities, their likes, dislikes - it all forms into one bundle of appreciative substance. A good character is always a wonderful thing.

4. From the idea to the final stroke, be it the traditional or digital medium, what and how much work goes into a typical complete piece of yours?

Too much, I'd say. I spend a lot of time revising and fixing compared to actually doing the work. I ask a lot of people (some professional) for their honest opinion on how to change a lot of my work when I think it's near completion. I feel that, given the right advice, the image can blossom further than I had intended, and it's always such a satisfying thing. It's also because it would otherwise be a repetitive process to do the same scenario over and over. In my mind, revision always makes it better than it was in the beginning. Surprisingly, though - digital takes at least three times longer to finish than traditional.

In traditional, I spend a lot of time sketching the idea out before going into the inking process - and once I get into that stage, it's only a matter of having the patience to complete it. Depending on the image and what it needs to be complete, I'll either scan it and color it in Photoshop, or use ink and marker to finish it up. With digital, I have to go through another, completely different painting process with the tablet - it takes a lot more patience and procedure than the traditional medium, and to me, that makes it all the more fun. Figuring out how to overcome those small stepping stones and seeing the result of it is really very satisfying to an artist. Or so I would hope.

5. Is that solely due to the fact that you can undo every step that did not turn out as desired via CTRL+Z or just deleting a layer, or is it the overall variety of the digital medium that is not bound to the physical and chemical nature in the ways traditional art is?

That's actually a good question. Sometimes I find myself getting stuck and wanting to hit CTRL+Z to undo a mistake, but it's also what makes traditional medium so unique. It's there, it's in reality, it can't be undone. I can sit here and delete all of my PSD photoshop files and obliterate all of the work I've done. All of the hours I spent could be gone in a hard drive glitch. It's a scary thought. The only way to damage traditional medium is to take poor care of it. I try not to do such a thing. Even though it's sometimes painful to look back on your older work, it's also valuable. I can see, face to face, what the past was compared to present, and know that I am stepping forward.

However, on the other hand, the digital medium is very easy to get a handle of and be able to cheat with. I know that I cannot produce the same results on canvas that I can do in Photoshop. It's a matter of layers and color picking - and it's a completely different thing than painting. In fact, I find it almost scary to move away from the digital medium to produce something on canvas. It's a whole other realm that I have yet to conquer.

6. deviantART is the largest art community on earth. Do you believe the online art movement has had a lasting positive or negative effect?

For me, it's been positive. I've met many wonderful artists all across the states and even in the world - I've gotten most of my commissions from using deviantART's resources. A lot of the money I use for supplies in art come from the wonderful contributions of people who have bought my prints because they appreciate my work so much. It's really a miraculous thing when your viewers decide to have your work posted up on their wall as an inspirational matter. I can't help but be inspired by that in itself. I think that without the online art community, I might end up never knowing what the general consensus of my artwork is. In my neck of the woods there aren't many contemporary art galleries, and so deviantART has given me that art community, where I can flourish and meet others who share the same passion for art, a thousand miles away. I also attended last year's deviantART Summit in Hollywood, and it was an interesting event. I met a lot of people I had known through the site, some I didn't, and I got to see a lot of the wonderful people who have supported me throughout the years I've been on this site. If DA ever has a Summit again, I'd be happy to attend again.

I think that without the online art community, I might end up never knowing what the general consensus of my artwork is.

7. When looking at some of your artworks in particular, I feel the colors perfectly suit the mood and motif. How important and difficult is it to work out the right color scheme for a particular work for that matter?

Not too difficult - after learning a lot about what color means, how it works, and how it makes me, as an artist, feel, putting the pieces together seems to me like the easiest part. Around the world, color always means something different to everyone, and I try to represent that in a general way. Red can be passion, but it's also a violent color. We see red when we bleed, but we also see red in the beautiful foliage of Autumn. I tend to use red a lot, because it's a color many people can associate with. Blue happens to be my favorite color of all - it's a peaceful and calming array of color. When I use blue in my images, it's mostly to a minimal, because I want it to be in an environment it isn't meant to exist in; thereby giving "blue" as a color, it's own personality. When it doesn't belong in a picture filled with red, but desperately tries to show itself, you pay much more attention to the blue than all the red combined.

As for color scheme plotting, it hasn't been an issue of mine - and if it ever is, there's always the little trial and error to see what works and what doesn't. It is, however, extremely important to find the right color scheme - color in itself is an artistic form, and without color in a lot of my images, they wouldn't speak the same volume.

8. Art critique. It's an artist's bread and water. Is giving and receiving constructive critique equally important to you?

Very, extremely, and about a thousand similar words. Critique is definitely the bread and water - without knowing what people like and dislike, there's a good chance I've made a mistake I know that what ever I make is beyond perfection, and in order to get it as close as possible, I need the eyes of the outsiders, without a personal attachment to my artwork, to tell me what they think is and isn't working. If they tell me there's too much of this color, I can manifest that and add another color to bump contrast. If I don't see a glaring anatomical error, they'll tell me, and I can fix it to my best ability. Hearing advice from those professionals, who have spent their lives teaching and learning, eating and breathing art, is a wonderful experience. Their advice is invaluable, and I absorb all I can from their words about my artwork.

I always encourage that people ask for critique. Even when they don't ask for it, I give my honest opinion in a very straightforward manner. There are those that think their work is far too personal to be "ripped apart" by critique, but in honesty, it looks more like laziness to me. If you're so attached to your artwork, why not ask for help in order to make it one of your best pieces? If it means so much, you should want it to look the part.

Hearing advice from those professionals, who have spent their lives teaching and learning, eating and breathing art, is a wonderful experience.

9. Here's your spot to encourage our art-appreciating readers and fellow artists to be more critical and express their critique in a constructive way.

Critique is like a general consensus. Depending on the audience, it can range from mediocre critique to advanced. Even then, it's all important. Being blind sighted means you aren't willing to improve. If you're willing to admit that each and every work of art you do has some flaw, you'll find that it's easier to learn and grow. If you can't see the flaw in a diamond, you can't polish it and make it sparkle. It's that simple.

I hear a lot of people using the same old excuse of "I'm not looking to improve". I wonder why anyone would go through the trouble of learning and working on art if they didn't ultimately want to improve? Why practice if you don't want to go anywhere? I know a lot of people draw as a hobby, and don't intend to make a living out of their doodling, but isn't it more of a personal objective? Wouldn't you feel better knowing you were improving, even if it is just a hobby?

If you can't see the flaw in a diamond, you can't polish it and make it sparkle.

10. Please tell us about Grimmus Cyclo, your character and the comics.

Grimmus Cyclo is... well, I guess he would refer to himself as too thin. The comics I'm creating (but have sadly had a slight hiatus on), are about a realm outside of this one that lives and breathes on dreams and nightmares. Three different worlds associated with the different stages in life (child, adolescent, adult) are less than happy to meet one another, but Grimmus' father is trying to put an end to that and create one large...mass, if you will. Grimmus, as his slacking laborer, has to go out and do his bidding (including kidnapping children from this realm).

Grimmus is meant to be the type of character that gets a kick out of being the sarcastic ass once and a while - but in the end, his spine is pretty much bent. He's a nightmare - so in retrospect, I guess that would make sense. I want Grimmus to be more than just the joker of the series - although he fronts that, he has a much deeper meaning and purpose. Even though he doesn't know it, he wants to be the hero. He wants to mean something. Sadly, he does a poor job about it.

11. Would you say Grimmus is a 100% fictional character or is there a bit, or more, of yourself in him?

I try to add a lot of myself in my characters, may it be a part of my personality, my past, or my thoughts on life and the way it works. Grimmus, in particular, is one of those characters that doesn't reflect me in an obvious way. He's peculiar, to say the least. I never intended to dump a lot of my personal traits into him; it was never planned out. Although, it's natural to step in and want to add something I'm familiar with, in order to familiarize myself with my own character. If my character is a stranger to me, it's harder to control them and know what they'll do in certain situations. Grimmus is the type of character that wants to inherently do good, even if he wouldn't openly say such a thing; but in the end will know he isn't. He's spunky, full of rhetorical thoughts, and it's an amusement on my part. I tend to have a fun personality when it comes to jokes, and so does he.

12. The trend of a lot of artists having their own fictional character is quite a prominent one here on deviantART. In your opinion, what makes a character, such as your Grimmus, a real character of its own, and not just some generic figure you draw, give it a "unique" set of looks and accessories and that's it?

It's hard to say what unique qualities exist anymore. Ideas are brought round in circles between artists and their inspirations. For Grimmus, he started out as a doodle on a paper - much less than an actual character. Sooner than later, I gave him a name, and it all started to roll together. I wanted to create and give him a story; a life. To me, characters aren't just drawings on a paper, they aren't a certain look with a name. They're individuals, with backgrounds, stories, and reasons for exisiting. They have purpose; and that is far beyond the physical properties of a character. May it be produced through a novel or a comic book series, the character will eventually show their purpose. I do illusrations of my characters all the time, but it in no way entails all that they are and ever will be.

They're individuals, with backgrounds, stories, and reasons for exisiting.

13. Real art is a constant process. What to you do to keep your juices flowing in terms of improving your skills and creativity?

My passion, music, other artists, critique, school - it's a constant web of construction. Creativity is a matter of what is at heart - applying what I know to what I don't know in order to expand the learning process. I can often tell myself "Well I've never done this before", and therefore I end up trying it out. If I've never done it before, it's just more for me to learn. Like I mentioned earlier, practice is a process. A lot of people don't want to make it look like they're "practicing", but if it isn't practicing, is it art? Will it, in the end, make itself known as artwork rather than a ten minute doodle of your dog? Creativity is all about mind over matter. Sometimes people can't find that special creative niche, where ideas don't come so naturally. Others are better at expanding their imagination, and often have their heads over the clouds, always trying to think up something new. Creativity isn't exactly the life-force of art as a whole, but it is a good way to become a better artist. Everyone likes to see creativity in art. Seeing the same thing repetitively is very tiresome.

A lot of people don't want to make it look like they're "practicing", but if it isn't practicing, is it art?

14. When looking at some of your artworks in particular, I feel the colors perfectly suit the mood and motif. How important and difficult is it to work out the right color scheme for a particular work for that matter?

Not too difficult - after learning a lot about what color means, how it works, and how it makes me, as an artist, feel, putting the pieces together seems to me like the easiest part. Around the world, color always means something different to everyone, and I try to represent that in a general way. Red can be passion, but it's also a violent color. We see red when we bleed, but we also see red in the beautiful foliage of Autumn. I tend to use red a lot, because it's a color many people can associate with. Blue happens to be my favorite color of all - it's a peaceful and calming array of color. When I use blue in my images, it's mostly to a minimal, because I want it to be in an environment it isn't meant to exist in; thereby giving "blue" as a color, it's own personality. When it doesn't belong in a picture filled with red, but desperately tries to show itself, you pay much more attention to the blue than all the red combined. As for color scheme plotting, it hasn't been an issue of mine - and if it ever is, there's always the little trial and error to see what works and what doesn't. It is, however, extremely important to find the right color scheme - color in itself is an artistic form, and without color in a lot of my images, they wouldn't speak the same volume.

15. Your computer and Wacom or your pens and markers. One has to go. Which one would it be?

Ohhhh my. What are you trying to do to me, Ollie? Haha, well... if I had to choose... ow, I guess the pen and markers. The computer is such a viable and vast tool that sometime in the future... maybe I can mimic some of the pen and marker effect. Even though it would be like tearing out a part of ones own soul, the overall availability of tools and expandable ideas would flourish much more using the computer than just pen and marker alone. Sadly, a lot of the ideas I get are much more involved than pen and paper - it's a matter of atmosphere, feeling, evoking that feeling in a type of painting. Since I'm no master of the oil or acrylic paints, digital means have been the best resource for those ideas. I can sketch quickly or I can sit for days working on one painting. The same can be said for pen and ink, but the result always looks the same beyond the subject matter. Although, it is tough to know that some ideas that require pen and marker will no longer be available, I would try my best to recreate the idea in digital means.

16. Some of your creations have an insane amount of details. I wished everyone could have a peek at your "Big Horn" print source. Is it a painful process to achieve such a high level of detail?

Painful....more like mind numbing. It's an insane amount of detail that often leaves me with a dry taste in my mouth - it looks good in the end but...the learning process I talked about earlier? I usually never feel it when working on details - it's something that makes the image pop out, sure - but it's all aesthetic quality. But when you think about it in the long run, painful really is a good word for it. I tend to actually blur my mind in the detailing process - there isn't need to focus on light source, color, or anything of the such when working on detail work. It's more of an extra step beyond all of those other steps that makes the artwork flourish. I love detailing my work - it drags the viewer in, forces them to witness the image in a much more intense manner. Why else would I spend so long adding details into an image if the viewer wasn't going to even notice them? There's always reason to my crazy ideas.

Detail Closeups of "Big Horn" can be viewed here: 1 2 3

17. Are you established as an artist outside the realm of deviantART, either online or offline?

Besides school, not at the moment. Like I said earlier, the art galleries here in my town are pretty lacking - and any of them that I would like to attend have so many good artists that I feel almost a sense of inadequacy trying to go in. I know a lot of places that happen down in the south of California that I would love to attend if I had the time and money to get up and go on a road trip. The sad fact is that I don't have that personal satisfaction in my work to ask if I can show my work in any of those events. I know a lot of professionals show their faces outside of the online world, their works are just as stunning there in a gallery as it is online, if not more. Sadly, all I would really offer would be prints and rather small drawings. I don't use large canvases or paper - I make them rather compact, as a way to stabilize the work load. I would, however, love to establish myself outside the online world. I would love to live as an artist and make a career out of it.

18. Are there any persons in the art world you look up to? Did someone change your views on art and creating it in a significant way?

There's a list somewhere in the back closet of my mind, I can say. From a kid all the way till now the list is changing and fluctuating depending on my skill level or personal tastes about art. Even games sometimes will change my artistic senses for a while - it's really a matter of the moment. Although a good artist to call for the moment would be the awesome Justin Cherry ([link]). His goal is pretty much like mine - to find and express the beauty in the not-so-usual sense. He's also a very available artist, he loves talking to people about art, and that's always a positive thing for me. When an artist only shows art as a front, and not their faces as the creator, what's the point of showing us your work? We want to know who you are just as much as we want to see what it is you create. To know the person beyond the painting is really a fascinating thing for me. I always try to make myself available to people when they need me - to know that I'm not just some front that uploads things on deviantART just to pass time.

When an artist only shows art as a front, and not their faces as the creator, what's the point of showing us your work? We want to know who you are just as much as we want to see what it is you create.

19. What's your current profession, if any? Is it related to art?

My current profession is student. Learning and more learning. I freelance on my own terms, depending on my schedule. Sometimes I volunteer for a project, sometimes I do commissioned work for comics or just for a client. As I mentioned earlier, I would love to be a conceptual artist. The idea of putting my creativity to work in an environment very artistically relevant is really a dream. Then, above all of that, seeing the creations I put down on paper come to life in order to produce something phenomenal is a treat I hope to see in the future.

20. What do you wish the future hold for you, art-wise and in general?

A well paying, respectable job in the art field, to continue my growth, to publish my books someday, and overall, to just be happy with my life. Concept art, freelancing, what ever it'll be in the future. I want it to be fulfilling, I want it to all have meaning in one form or another. Be it to inspire future generations or just the current one in some sci-fi fantasy game. I would love to leave an artistic mark on the world in some form or another. Granted, I'll never achieve a level as, say, Leonardo Da Vinci, but hey, we all have our dreams, don't we? Although such a large audience would definitely be a scary thing.

21. Do you have any last words of advise for our readers and fellow artists?

What I said about critique earlier? I know some of you skipped reading it, I know a lot of people plug their ears and start humming when the subject matter comes up, but you ought to go back and take it to heart! Learning is the key to any success - any artist will tell you that. Without the practice, without the dedication to learn, you may as well be walking against a brick wall. You won't go anywhere, or achieve anything you hope to achieve. I know critique is scary for a lot of people, but once the milestones are passed, you'll see that it's a long, and easy road to walk though in the end. In fact, it might even become a road that you enjoy walking down every day.

So what are you waiting for? Go draw!

_{Interview conducted by $spinegrinder. Thanks a lot, *nanya!}


VISIT: Nanya's Prints Store & Amelia Stoner's LULU Storefront


Previous Interviews


Kevin Rolly - George B. Smith III. - Stanley Lau - Marion Herrmann - Nykolai Aleksander - Anne-Julie Aubry - Justin Maller - Daniel Conway - Bobby Haynes - Tegan Coddington - Directors Cut - Dan Meyer - Bradley W Schenk - Jason Engle - Tom Wilcox - Phillip Prescott - Stephanie Dodson - Rick Pirman - Joseph Arruda - Tobias Zeising - Nicholas Rougex - Lia Saile