Art that tells stories has always been an incredibly impactful factor in all our lives. From the animations of our favorite tv shows, to the art of our ancestors throughout history, art has helped to brighten our days and lift our spirits. And during troublesome times such as these, creativity is needed more than ever.
Maia Genisio, a freshman at Community High School, uses all different types of mediums to express her characters and thoughts alike through illustration. This time, she settled on using Procreate, an illustrating app that allows you to draw and animate digitally, to help create one of her greatest visuals yet.
“Drawing it out is the best way I can picture it in my mind,” Genisio said.
Genisio’s original character, Viktor Aleksandrov, is one of her favorite original characters she’s created, as shown throughout the video capturing Genisio’s process. Being newly crowned as a young king, the portrait illustrates their concept art for his coronation outfit. The concept consists of the country’s symbol, a goat, decorating his skin as a tattoo (demonstrated largely in the background of the piece), followed by gold makeup and other assorted decorative culturally fictional customs.
“I’ve done a lot of world building for this story, and in this country,” Genisio said. They continue on to discuss the cultural significance of many of Aleksandrov’s features shown in their piece.
“Instead of [using] crowns or marriage rings [for ceremonies], they use tattoos,” Genisio said.
Process always ties into creativity in a very important way. The creative process of Genisio’s work is further continued through their description of the plot of their current book, and how their artistic skills tie into helping lift the story into its full shape and form.
“...These characters have been taking up a lot of space in my brain,” Genisio said.
The way that their story is shown to their audience and the world is something that means a lot to them. Making sure that the story is executed with a different, more exciting frame to it while still remaining realistic is also very important too. Genisio keeps this in mind as they continue to develop more of building the pieces of the world constructed around and by all their different characters.
“I want to portray it in a way that…is different and very captivating but also [still] realistic,” Genisio said. “You could almost see it in everyday life. That's what I want to do when working on world building for my story.”
Genisio’s sequence of tasks to create her next illustrative piece is always a key step into tying up her story in the best way possible. Being able to connect her writing and her art together is something she enjoys, especially when she’s showing off her process to the same people who will be learning more and more about her stories.
“You can kind of see how similar [digital art]...is to traditional art,” Genisio said.“My brother is one of those people who’s like, ‘Digital art isn’t real art because it’s easier,’ and I’m like, ‘Do you want to look at all the steps I’ve taken to work on this piece and how, in many cases, it’s more difficult?’”
Although their step-by-step process of creating art is important to the outcome of Genisio’s work, they stress that the most vital thing to illustration is to be creative and use your imagination. And, of course, to always have fun.
“A lot of this is really for fun, and for just my own enjoyment. I've been able to practice a lot to a point where I'm really proud of what I've made,” Genisio concluded.