How did you become an artist?

Art has been an intrinsic part of my life since I can remember. I’ve always loved to create. One of my earliest memories of drawing was with a childhood friend who was much older than me. She first inspired me to draw. I still remember the first drawing I did with her. It was of Sailor Venus from Sailor Moon. I was drawn to the anime style as soon as I was introduced to it. From then on, I would take a lot of inspiration from anime and would practice from that style of art. Later on in life, in high school, I took a special visual arts program for two years which helped me to improve the technical part of my drawing (still life, gesture drawing, studying values, etc.) Then in my last two years of high school in a regular art class, I started looking for my style in art and enhancing the parts of it that made it unique to me. Now, years after graduation, I’m still drawing and looking for new ways to improve my art!

Where do you get inspiration?

I think many artists would agree with me when I say that one of the greatest places to find inspiration is Pinterest. I find a lot, if not all, of my drawing references from there. Some things I find there that inspire me are different colour palettes, poses, hairstyles, accessories, outfits, environments, or even just a vibe or aesthetic.
Something else that inspires me is the work of other artists. I find a lot of value in learning from the experience of others and making it a part of my own.
Of course, I can’t forget music when drawing. Depending on the mood of the piece I’m working on, I might for example listen to something chill and relaxing like lofi or chillstep for a cozy and peaceful drawing. This also helps me with the pace at which I draw.
The last thing that inspires me is just what’s in the world around me, for example when it rains, when I go out for coffee with family and friends, when I sit in my backyard and look at the plants and trees, or even my sister while she’s sleeping. Oddly enough, that last one is where I got inspiration for my Koi drawing.

What’s your hardware setup?

I use a Microsoft Surface Laptop 3 with a Wacom Cintiq 13 HD hooked up to it.

What do you like best about Clip Studio Paint?

I think my favourite part about Clip Studio Paint is the diverse tools and features. There’s so much you can do with the program. With the basic tools and brushes alone, there’s already a lot of variety. Even before I went in looking for new brushes to download from the community, I was already making some of my favourite pieces with the standard brushes. And one of my favourite features that I’ve been using a lot lately is the tonal correction feature. It really helps me achieve the exact colours and tones I need without having to reselect and paint over every colour manually. There’s honestly so much to talk about when it comes to what I like about Clip Studio Paint. It really is a great tool for artists!

How long does it take you to make a single illustration?

The whole process from looking for references, to sketching out the composition, to lining, choosing colours, and finally rendering usually takes me 3 days. But if it’s a really complex piece, it might take me two weeks to a month.

How has Clip Studio Paint improved your workflow?

Clip Studio Paint has made the process of drawing convenient for me in a number of ways. One of the tools I’ve been using a lot to help me with adjusting the proportions of my drawing has been the liquify tool. With my old program, I’d have to select all of the layers that apply to the adjustment and manually move each part. Then I’d additionally have to ‘patch up’ what I’ve moved by repainting + redrawing every part I’ve moved! But now in CSP with this tool, the process is much faster.
Something else that’s really helped with time are the decoration brushes. Instead of having to draw every leaf, petal, chain, etc, I can use the brushes already provided to me. I also love that you can customize the tools to get different brush and particle sizes as well particle densities. It’s also great that there are so many different kinds of decoration brushes you can download from the community and easily import into the program.

Would you like to promote some recent project?

With all of the practice I had using Clip Studio Paint and gaining experience with the different brushes, tools, and features, I was able to take on and create one of my first commissions, a book cover illustration for Roxana Macias’ debut novel, Luna’s Edge! (typography by fantastical_ink on instagram)

Where can we follow your work?

I post most of my work on instagram at @yaesoolj and recently also on Cara (also at @yaesoolj). Sometimes, I post speedpaints on YouTube too where you can see my full drawing process. My channel is Yaesool J