This Weeks Featured Artist - Rekala
This weeks artist is so talented. She creates gorgeous animals, especially her big cats, but we have also seen amazing wolves, parrots and dragons. Her characters are beautiful and her animations are seamless. Just phenomenal shading in all of her work. This weeks featured artist has done so many inspirational clips and she is a great community member too. This weeks featured artist is Rekala.
Tell us about yourself, what is a typical day like?
Hi! I am an 18 year old female, I live in Denmark, Scandinavia. I’m probably best known by the phrase “The crazy cat with a fish”. After I drew a small image of my OC and Fursona, Rekala, with a fish in her mouth, the sentence kinda stuck ;) Rekala is not my name in real life, but it is what I prefer to use online. A typical day for me, at least now that we’re in the middle of the summer holidays, starts by being woken up at 7 or 8 am by my 11 weeks old puppy Aslan. Then I usually share my breakfast with 1 of my 3 kitties, Virus, Lukas and Baby. The rest of the day usually goes with either reading, surfing the internet, planning for my work-in-progress comic, playing with my pets, or going somewhere with the family.
How old were you when you started drawing? Ever animated anything before?
I am not really sure how old I was.. But the oldest drawings I have saved, are from when I was 11. Back then, I drew multi-colored horses and animals a lot. I also liked to make up my own species. At age 14 I started drawing manga, cause a friend intruduced it to me. From then on, I started getting more serious about my art. At age 16/17 I dropped the manga, and started drawing more animals and dragons. About a half a year ago, I started getting interested in drawing realism, and now I practice both scenery, animals and humans. I found that it boosted my art a great deal. It is only a short while ago I started drawing big cats, which are my favorite animals.
I started animating small things in GIMP about a year ago, but now I prefer DoInk, cause it’s more practical than GIMP (:
Do you have a favorite artist or animator?
Uuuhmm.. That’s such a tough question. I pretty much have a favorite artist for every genre! I have a favorite feline artist, realism artist, background artist.. It’s impossible for me to favor just one! When in comes to animators.. I am pretty much really impressed by anyone who’s good enough to animate on cartoons. But I am not enough “into it” to know any animators by name.
What inspires you?
I know it’s pretty cliche to say “everything inspires me”.. and I guess when I really think about it; movies inspire me a great deal. A lot more than I used to think! After watching a movie that I really like, my own ideas will start to grow (: I can imagine new characters, new worlds and new plots, maybe based on a few things from the movie. Movies inspire me to keep creating and expanding my own universe and my own characters. Watching character developement on film, can often also give me a good idea for developing my own characters! Just as reading good fantasy books can inspire me to write stories of my own.
Do you have a favorite cartoon and/or anime character?
My favorites change all the time. My favorite character today, might be a different next month! I am sure if I thought long enough, I could find at least 15 favorites from the 90’s cartoons. My two current favorites though, are Jim Hawkins from Treasure Planet and Zuko from Avatar: The last airbender. Both of these characters went through major character development during the time we were watching them, and I am a huge fan of character development! If you haven’t watched Treasure Planet, I’d definetaly recommend it! It’s such a beautiful movie. Both visually and spiritually.
What is your favorite musician or band, what are you listening to?
My taste in music varies a lot. I am not very picky when it comes to music. But my very favorite genre is instrumental and movie soundtracks. No one is singing, so there are no words to influence how you interpret the song. Soundtracks can be whatever you want them to be. I love to play soundtracks when I draw and I have a long playlist on youtube, for whenever I start drawing. I am most fond of soundtracks with speed that can give me chills, or even ones that can make me cry! James Howard and Hans Zimmer will have to be my favorite composers when it comes to soundtracks like these.
What are your Favorite websites, outside of DoInk?
Deviantart! Most definatelty. That is where I spend the most time. I joined the website 3½ years ago. I met so many amazing people there to share my interest with, and it is also where I have most of my artwork on display.
What are your hobbies?
Drawing (: Obviously. Also, Languages. I love learning new languages. My native language is Danish. I took 6 years of English class in school and 3-4 years of German class. Although I don’t speak much more German than a few sentences. Aside from that, I am currently learning Korean on my own, and have learned a little japanese. Other hobbies include my cats, asian culture and martial arts, and riding my unicycle.
What are your favorite Computer Game?
I don’t play computer games much. I only play World of Warcraft. It’s labelled as geeky, addictive, and overall bad for you, but I enjoy it (: And I haven’t had any problems with it. Although I haven’t been playing any games for 7 months.
How did you find DoInk and what is your experience so far?
Someone recommended it to my friend “liltwilightwolf” Twi. She then showed the website to me, and we both joined. I decided to stay, and have grown very fond of this place! I really like that the site isn’t super popular, and that it is really very kind, casual and welcoming.
If you could add any features to DoInk, what would they be?
Ooooh that’s a good question!! Maybe a collab canvas? Mostly because I love collabs! And drawing together at places like iScribble and Artspots can be really fun.
Any advice for other DoInk users?
Don’t take drawing too seriously. Of course you should take it seriously if you wanna improve, but I know how frustrated I can get, when I wanna draw something so bad, I want it to be perfect and look like *this* and I get so frustrated when it doesn’t work out and I end up giving up. Drawing as a hobby is supposed to be fun (: So don’t beat yourself up over it. People have asked me what to do when they encounter an Art Block. Should they just keep drawing, even if it’s not fun? I say, do whatever you want! I don’t believe in Art Blocks. If you don’t feel like drawing, don’t push yourself. If you don’t know what to draw, draw something you see around you, a cup, a toy, your keyboard even! And don’t take the whole “Study anatomy and life *only*” too seriously. I started drawing animals and anime because it was fun. Not because I wanted to get super good back then. That came later. If you just draw what you like, you’ll never completely fail ;) All the rest can come in time.
Your favorite clip that you have done?
