Teefury

A word from the curator:
I had a pet mouse once. It was not even close to as awesome as the mice on this shirt. Sorry Fievel!

Tell us about this design:
I love whimsical, storybook-like illustrations of animals. I draw a lot of birds and insects, but mice are also one of my favorite subjects, their paws and eyes are very expressive. This pair has been caught unawares while harvesting food for winter.

What's a day in the life of Kiriko like?
It's full of lasers and rollercoasters! No, I'm actually super boring. I have to get up early for my day job, then I spend the middle of the day working on illustration jobs, answering emails, blogging, then spend the evening back at my day job. GLAMOROUS. When I have a Saturday or Sunday off I like to spend time at Golden Gate Park, particularly the Botanical Gardens.

What do you want TeeFury fans to know about you?
I'm very excited and a little nervous to have my first print up on Teefury! I hope you like it!

How did you get your start in art?
I've been drawing with serious intent since I was 3 years old, and I've known I wanted a career in art since I was about 12. I briefly detoured into graphic design in college, but also took illustration courses, and ultimately decided that was what I would pursue. I've been working freelance, and it's been a real struggle these past couple years but I'm still pushing on! I'm trying to find my niche and I keep hoping for a big break somewhere along the line, but in the meantime I'm working a day job and get pretty consistent requests for smaller jobs.

What's your art process like, from initial sketch to finished product?
I work in a mix of traditional and digital media, so I always start with pencil thumbnails. I usually scan them into Photoshop and mess around with the size and composition, I'll then print it, trace over it using a light table, and draw a cleaner sketch. I used to ink directly over my sketches, these days I either use the light table and ink on Bristol, or I'll scan the sketch, print it in blue and ink directly over the blue lines and drop the blue channel out in Photoshop later on.

Once the inking is finished, I scan it and do my coloring in Photoshop. I keep it pretty simple, I have a Wacom tablet and mostly just use the round opaque paintbrush and the eraser. I use some gradients, though lately I've been playing with halftones instead.

Where would you like to see yourself in 5 years with your art career or other?
At this point my 5 year goal is simply to be able to quit my day job - or at least replace it with something art or design related.

MAC or PC?
I think this is the part where I get made fun of? I'm a devoted PC user and I don't believe that Photoshop works any better or worse on either machine. And that's really all I use my computer for, Photoshop, email and internets. Though I'm getting pretty tired of constantly trying to keep viruses and malware out of my system...I'm going to be switching over to Linux.

Any shout outs?
I have to give a shoutout to all my friends and fans from Livejournal. That's where I got my start with social networking online, I've met some amazing people there, and I know would never have come this far without their continuing love and support.