@VIATHINE - @Aalasteir (Q) - Index

Q: How did you become interested in creating art and designing characters?

A. I always liked creating art ever since I was little, particularly cartoon drawings, having been inspired by childhood shows and movies. Realism never enticed me as much as the vibrant and expressive nature of cartoons and I'd constantly try to recapture that magic I saw on the screen in my sketchbook. It wasn't until I played a game called Fire Emblem Awakening that my interests began to veer towards character design, however. In that game, you'd unlock party members throughout the campaign, each with their own unique designs and personality, and I'd always be itching to see what the next one would look like and being very excited upon seeing them; it inspired me to start making my own characters instead of just redrawing existing ones. I wanted to show people my ideas and hopefully someday have others feel that same joy and excitement from seeing what I had to offer as an artist and character designer.

Q: What is your advice for building the habit of creating art?

A. I think first and foremost, you need that passion in you to create art. You absolutely do not want art to feel like a chore, it is something that cannot be forced. You need to ask yourself "am I doing art out of love or some kind of obligation?" because if it's the latter, you likely won't yield favorable results. There is no one-size-fits-all advice I can give to help people get into the habit such as "draw in your sketchbook once a day" because everyone's routine is different but I do think that something we artists all have in common is we love doing what we do and that's enough to fuel our drive to create.

Q: How have Tyson Tan and Tom Fischbach inspired you?

A. Tyson Tan is my art idol, really. I said earlier that games and shows inspired me to do art but Tyson Tan's work is the final nail that got me to lock in if that makes sense, it's what made me go "this is what I want to do for real." He specializes in drawing robotic anthropomorphic characters in a way that perfectly blends organic and mechanical design elements and a lot of his work draws inspiration from Chinese themes and mythology, which really resonated with me since I'm also Chinese. I love cute things but I'm also a big fan of "cool" stuff such as robots and Tyson's work taught me that it's possible to seamlessly merge the two.

Tom Fischbach is another artist whose work played a big role in shaping my work into what it is today; I stumbled across a post of his on Deviantart by pure happenstance titled "Tkturials- Digitigrade Legs Guide," which was an in-depth guide on how to draw digitigrade legs for furry characters. The idea of having a character walk on their digits, mimicking their animal counterparts, was a concept so foreign yet fascinating to me that I wanted to practice drawing it; I browsed more of Tom's art for inspiration and used his style and Tyson's as the basis for developing my own over time.

Q: Can you share the story behind your username: VIATHINE?

A. This is a weird one and actually not the first time I told this story. I was in Shanghai, I had just finished having mushroom soup dinner and was waiting outside the restroom for my friends and had nothing else to do so I started brainstorming names for my OCs. Viathine was one of them. In hindsight these were very goofy so I never ended up using any but for some reason, I didn't want to get rid of Viathine so I reused it as a username. One byproduct is the name now reminds me of mushrooms and I pray that you, the viewer, don't start associating me with mushrooms after having read that.

Q: How did you discover the Newgrounds website? What inspired you to join the community? How do you feel about the site now compared to when you first joined?

A. Newgrounds is a site I was always aware of but knew little about up until recently. Not even I can remember the chain of events that lead me here so I guess you can just chalk it up to fate, hah. I don't regret it though, I've only been here for a month but it's already starting to feel like home. There's this strong sense of community on Newgrounds you can't quite find on other platforms and it's very refreshing.

Q: How would you describe your experiences playing League of Legends?

A. Aptly put, I don't like it. I mostly just play it to socialize with my friends and when they forcibly send skins to my account to guilt me into playing with them. Two good things I did get out of League, however, is the treasure trove of inspiration from its champion and skin designs as well as meeting an amazing and influential artist in a match by pure happenstance. That's the person who convinced me to start putting my work online this year and it was the best advice I ever took.

Q: In your opinion, what makes a video game good?

A. I'm not versed in game design enough to gauge the objective quality of a game. I just think that if you enjoy playing something, it is good to you.

Q: What inspires you to study character designs from video games?

A. I think it has to do with games being an interactive form of media. When I play a game, I myself am put into that world and so I'm more likely to "understand" the characters in it. I mostly look to games for inspiration because they allow me to evaluate their designs from various angles, figuratively and literally, that other media cannot offer.

Q: What makes a good show?

A. Very similar to my previous answer regarding games, animation and storytelling to a lesser degree aren't my forte so I don't think it's my place to judge a show's quality on an objective level. I simply engage with the media that makes me happy and inspires me to push my art in new ways, that's all there is to it. Never let people tell you you're wrong because you enjoy something. Ꮚᵔꈊ’Ꮚෆ