Nicole has always been our go-to for personalised gifts – she has a magical touch that transforms our friends into cute anime characters. They are then immortalised through badges or keychains.
Known for her cheerful disposition, Nicole’s happy virus spreads not only when you meet her personally but also in the virtual world too. I always keep up with Nicole’s artwork, and have taken joy in her latest series titled Life’s Lemons, where she illustrates her daily life.
However, Nicole is not a full-time anime artist. Instead, she is a Graphic Designer by day, and tries to put in some time daily to draw after work hours. She admits that keeping this up can be difficult.
“Sometimes it gets challenging – I try to maintain a social life, have family time, and balance my other hobbies and passions which are time consuming too. But I do believe that art is something which requires a lot of hours, commitment and practice. So I try to set aside some time every day to draw my personal stuff, even if it’s just loose sketches.”
Humble Beginnings
Having first started drawing at the age of 5, anime was a big influence and motivation for Nicole. She started watching anime since then, and says that her favourite series include Sailor Moon, Card Captor Sakura and Pokemon.
However, she adds that she’s also a fan of Western cartoons and enjoyed watching Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and Disney.
Amongst all of these, CLAMP had the biggest influence on her as she was growing up. According to Nicole, they’re an all-female circle of manga artists who have produced titles such as Card Captor Sakura, Magic Knight Rayearth and Chobits.
Nicole’s like many of us – her skills did not come to her naturally. Her first fan art that she drew were of Sailor Moon, Card Captor Sakura and Pokemon. In fact, her first illustrated series began as a result of her own disappointment in her fan art.
“I’d look at my drawings and be like “Sakura doesn’t look anything like this!” I would get discouraged and dejected by my lack of skill.”
Even so, her passion was clear even at a young age – in primary school, she had a personal Pokemon drawing project. She brought her Pokemon handbook to school and copied Pokemon drawings in between lessons.
Maturing Into An Artist
Since then, it’s safe to say that Nicole’s skills have improved – she has participated at the annual Anime Festival Asia convention held at Suntec Convention Centre, which is the biggest convention in Singapore.
“It’s the best con for sales and exposure, as well as meeting fellow artists as an exhibitor. I got to meet some of the artists I’d been following online for years, such as RWBY’s character designer, Einlee, our local Stanley Lau Artgerm, as well as other artists with huge followings like Namie, Eternal-S and Erebun.”
Nicole recalls another convention that she participated in several years ago, which was tied to a Pokemon Gym Challenge event.
The participating booths were labelled as Gym Leaders, and had an element to be Gym Leaders over. Since all of them owned Nintendo 3DS consoles and had Pokemon X/Y, customers who came to their booth to buy things could also challenge them to Pokemon battles.
“If the customer won, we’d give them a “badge” stamp on a card provided for them, and they could go around defeating the gym leaders and earning stamps. Once they won a certain number of leaders, they could claim free prizes that were supplied by us!”
Come next July, she is set to visit Los Angeles for her first overseas convention.
“Each country and each convention has its own culture and little quirks about them, so every convention I go to is a new adventure and experience for me!”
Conventions and competitions aside, Nicole is also active in online roleplaying groups and art communities, where they create and draw their own original characters, roleplaying them in a world setting decided by moderators.
She adds that she had the privilege of being a moderator of a 100-members-strong group before, which was “a crazy learning experience” for her.
Through Rough Seas
However, things haven’t always been smooth-sailing for Nicole.
Often, customers are unaware that she’s the artist behind the artwork and merchandise, which means she’s had her fair share of nasty, strange, and hilarious comments made by potential customers.
“It used to be hurtful as a younger artist when they say your art “sucks” or that the other booth sells better artwork, or that what you draw hardly looks like the character at all, but nowadays I try to take every negative comment as a potential critique that I can use to better myself and my work!”
Nicole also brought up a few difficulties faced by other anime artists like herself. The common belief that anime style “isn’t real art” – has led the style to seem inferior. These include not only the masses but some professional artists and teachers as well.
Nicole mentions that she knows of artists who have applied to art schools with an anime-style portfolio but were rejected because it was believed that anime is not art.
Yet another misconception is that anime artists don’t study anatomy since they don’t need it, which Nicole says stems from the notion that anime is easy to draw.
“Just like regular artists, we need to study and practise anatomy too, otherwise the suspension of disbelief in our artwork might be a little too much for our viewers to handle.”
There’s so much work and practice and background work that goes on that people don’t see – they only see the end product and go: “That looks so simple. It must’ve been so easy to draw.”
When I ask her if she had any plans to develop her anime drawing into her career, Nicole mentions the difficulties that many artists face.
“When it comes to animators who work on anime series, there’ve been interviews conducted and news articles reporting the notoriety of their devastatingly low pay.”
In fact, an article by Goboiano mentions how the animator who has worked on titles like Gundam Seed, Initial D and Aldnoah.Zero has an average income of under $2000 a month. These artists make anime their full-time career – at a cost. They’ve given up luxuries in life to pursue their passions.
“As much as I’d wish for the industry to continue to grow and support these talents, this is a rooted problem that has been in the industry for years. I hope one day there’ll be a breakthrough so that these careers can be more accessible to people who hold such talents and passions in them. Perhaps this is why many artists choose to be freelance on the side, as it’s a more practical way for them to get by.”
Pushing On
Despite these difficulties, Nicole’s faith in the anime community remains strong.
“I’ve always believed that artists are in a community of helping hands, instead of being competitors. We help each other out, and we help each other grow and improve together.”
One of her fondest memories that she keeps close to her is of her early years at a convention.
She had a lot of doubts about her drawing style then – she was told that her style wasn’t popular with the masses, and this reflected in poor sales. A customer who came to her booth at the convention looked at her art, and asked if she was the artist behind them.
“When I told him I was, he told me that I’ve a really unique style that he’s never seen before. He told me not to be discouraged by anything anyone says about it and to keep at it, because the industry needs varieties and differences like these. After buying one of my things, he took my name card, thanked me, and wished me “good luck”. He also told me to keep working hard and never to give up.”
Such encounters help Nicole to persevere despite her doubts and insecurities, and motivate her to work harder instead. The customer remains a fan of hers.
“The cool thing is that he followed me on my pages and comments really nice and encouraging things every once in awhile! It’s nice to have supporters and people who give such positive affirmation to your hard work.”
She adds that through drawing, she has also gotten to know fellow artists and formed strong ties despite them living in completely different countries.
These days, besides working on Life’s Lemons, Nicole is also working on several other webcomics that she hopes to release in the future.
To check out Nicole’s artworks, click here.
