Interview #18: Special guest Simone Grünewald
Learn about Simone Grünewald's art process and her thoughts and advice on art career
* Note to my Italian friends: Clicca (QUI) per leggere l’intervista in italiano!
Happy Sunday friends!!! Today we have a special guest,
also known as @schmoedraws. It was an honor for me to talk with one of my all-time favorite artists and bring her on board! Hope you’ll enjoy this interview :)For those just finding me - you can subscribe to my Sunday artist interviews for free! You will receive them directly in your inbox:
Simone Grünewald is a teacher, character designer and visual development artist from Hamburg, Germany. Honestly, I could write a whole page about her work and art career. And that still wouldn't be enough! But I don't want this interview to be a repetition of information you can already find on google and social media. I would like you to learn more about Simone's thoughts and insights on the nowadays art industry. And how she runs her freelance art business. So let's get into it!
✦ Hi Simone and thank you for joining forArtists! Could you tell us what was your artistic path that led you to where you are today?
From very early on I have memories of enjoying drawing. When I was ten I thought it would be fabulous to be a toy designer and I would draw the toys I would like to have with all their accessories.
As a teen I went to an evening art school once a week where I painted vases along with little old ladies, but there I also learned about people studying art and preparing for entrance exams, which I started doing in my last year of school.
I was preparing for fine art studies, but a friend of mine said "Hey, why don't you come to my school, we have comic and storyboard classes" and that immediately seemed more interesting. So that's what I did. I went to the HTK Technical Art school in Hamburg and absorbed every piece of information like a sponge! In my spare time I joined a small comic studio that had opened and drew weird space comics, not really my thing, but I learned a lot :D
At HTK I learned about the Hamburg School of Animation, which you could attend as an additional year of study. Which I did and loved and got a quick course on animation.
At the same time a startup game company Daedalic was looking for a background artist for 100 painted backgrounds and I was recommended by a couple of my teachers independently to them. I declined their job since I would have never been able to do 100 backgrounds for them while studying. But they returned to me asking for a bunch of character designs. This was manageable and got me into the gaming industry without me even planning on it. I stayed for almost ten years there.
All the while I maintained a presence on social media, Animexx < the first ever art on the Internet back in 2001, Deviantart, Tumblr and finally Instagram. Instagram really got me into posting very regularly and helped me maintain a sketching routine which I am very grateful for.
With the birth of my son in 2017, many things changed for me. I went back to working at Daedalic, but it just didn't fit my schedule with having a child.
So I quit and went freelance.
I did prepare for this half a year beforehand. I started my Patreon where I shared tutorials once a week on Fridays. I also had a long-term offer to work as a storyboarder and planned to publish a book via Kickstarter with the tutorials I had created on Patreon together with 3Dtotal.
And from then on I've been happily freelancing and working on my own projects, such as my newsletter and Patreon, where I create resources for other artists.
✦ If you went back in time and started from 0, what would you do differently in terms of your studies, work and personal choices?
Honestly I wouldn't do anything differently. I've always been intently following my passion, sometimes a bit maniacally, but this unique mindset about art has always brought me opportunities. I’ve loved working in a video game company for almost ten years, and I’m also enjoying my current freelance life. I also met my husband at Daedalic.
✦ How has the art industry changed from when you started? And what would you recommend to a beginner artist who is looking for his first job?
I'm not sure how the industry changed. I changed, social media changed. I guess everything felt a bit smaller back then. I think nowadays it is MUCH easier to find good affordable resources, but learning from them is still hard and requires a lot of discipline. For me, as explained above, it all happened by following the artistic path intently. I find it hard to give specific advice, other than to get REALLY good at a small area and then expand from there. Don't try to do everything at once because you'll be mediocre at everything for a longer time.
Pursue what gives you most joy, what makes you feel thrilled and happy and that will show in your art and it will be easier to stand out and someone will notice if you show it to the world. That is.
✦ You work in a wide variety of fields, games, character design, books, covers, and more.. What are the common skills that all these fields require? Would you prefer to work in only one of these fields, if you could, or do you love to change often?
I really love the variety of working in different fields and learning new things. I think my key skill is being able to depict lively characters, and around that my other skills of designing characters, understanding colors and backgrounds are grouped.
✦ What are the pros and cons of working in a studio? And what are the ones of working as a freelancer?
The pros of working in a studio are the ability to bounce ideas around and get feedback easily. Also the camaraderie with your colleagues and the network you get to build.
The cons I’ve experienced are the turnover of colleagues with each project, which can be heartbreaking at times. Also having to travel to your workplace every day and not being very flexible, which with a kid is hard to manage.
The pros of freelance work are flexibility and variety. The cons are not having colleagues to gossip with, while making a cup of coffee, and the financial anxiety that quickly arises when one job is not quickly followed by another. This can easily lead to taking on too much, due to the fear of "what if this is the LAST time someone approaches me with a job offer". It takes some getting used to.
✦ How do you balance your personal and work life? What does a typical day of yours look like?
Wake up at 7am, do 5 minutes of yoga and together with my husband get our son ready for school. Then I sit on the balcony with a coffee for 10 minutes and afterwards either start working or take my son to school (my husband and I take turns).
The work is varied and I start by checking my tasks on Trello. Every half hour my husband and I do 2 minutes of quick cleaning so we are not too sedentary. At 12 we eat lunch that one of us has prepared beforehand..
Then we always go for a walk and grocery shopping or whatever else needs to be done. Back to work until one of us has to pick up our son from school. The working day of the one who picks him up ends with that, and the other can keep working until dinner at 6 pm.
In the evenings I usually work on personal stuff and social media, if I have the energy.
✦ You are such a complete artist with so many drawings behind you. Is there ever a time when you feel like you have already achieved everything and don't know what you would like to do next?
NO. xD I feel I still have a lot to learn and love it most days. Especially capturing a certain mood with colors from the top of my head is still impossible for me. I need a bunch of refs for that.
✦ What are your favorite materials, both traditional and digital?
Traditional: Illo sketchbook, col-erase carmine red and scarlet red pencils, gouache and watercolors, no particular brand.
Digital: Ipad pro, Procreate, the watercolor brushes by Max Ulichney. But all his brush packs are great... I also love the retro pack and Procreate’s native chalk brush.
✦ What do you think are the key ingredients for a successful illustration?
References :) A reference for me often sparks an idea. And illustrations where I have one or more references, always feel more solid than those where I make everything up.
✦ Among all the educational resources you have created, including courses, books, newsletters and content on Patreon, which would you recommend to an artist, without professional training, who wants to have a solid foundation in drawing?
My Easy Art Essentials which you can get by subscribing to my newsletter. And then my Patreon.
The "Easy Art Essentials" were created by me with beginners in mind. And on my Patreon I have basically shared everything I know.
✦ What projects will you be working on this year?
Jobwise, I can't share what I'm working on yet, but in my downtime I'm working on a book about my little people <3 which I might launch on kickstarter this year or next... depending on how it goes :)
-That’s awesome! Hope to see it soon ♥
☆☆ Find more about Simone’s work on Instagram and Cara. And subscribe to her newsletter and Patreon.
Thank you for the interview! It looks lovely.