Hi I’m Maria Iacono and this is my Meet the Artist. Just wanted to put out there that I’m usually a traditional artist so digital art is sorta new to me but I thought I’d give it a try with this task. 

My art has changed quite drastically to where it started like with many artists. In 2012 i used to be really into the manga art style so i would draw like that often. I would practice and practice watching multiple videos on how to perfect the art style. And over the years I got good at symmetry and redrawing characters with the same look. But I realized when I was starting to improve (about 2017) I hated my manga art style. I realized it had gotten too hard for me to draw and I was so limited with what I could do. I knew I wasn’t gonna get anywhere by just drawing heads and shoulders constantly.  So i decided to just started drawing what was easiest for me instead of worrying about perfecting that dumb anime eye over and over. And eventually I developed the style I’m using today! I must admit that when i draw traditionally vs when i draw digitally the style completely changes. On paper it’s semi realistic and digitally it’s more chibi cartoony. I don’t know why that happens but it just does and I think of my style as an artist with one style but also many different kinds because of how different I can draw sometimes.

I’m proud to say that I’ve really improved to just drawing heads and shoulders to full bodies and all sorts of poses which seemed impossible for me in the past. All I know is that my past self would’ve been jealous of my future self’s art and that’s definitely comforting.