Doki Doki Literature Club: Exclusive Interview with Character Artist Satchely
Hey! This is a longer post, as we have an exclusive interview for you! Satchely, the artist who drew the character art for Doki Doki Literature Club, was kind enough to give us an interview where she talked about her influences and her journey as an artist. Hopefully there’s something in here that you’ll enjoy!
Q: What makes you want to create art? What influences led you to start drawing?
A: My first influences were digimon/pokemon as a young kid. I started drawing the creatures in those to create my own worlds. Then I would basically just sit in my room and play out stories with my own art. Which kinda leads back to present time where other people use my art to tell stories.
What keeps me going now is my love for any and all art out there. Be it anime/architecture/fashion/games or graphic design. I take inspiration from all of those.
Art is a huge part of my life and I see myself creating it until I'm not able to do so anymore.
Also, striving to make better art and seeing it being rewarded is the best feeling. Those rewards could be just simply likes on Twitter or people telling me my art inspires them to become better themselves.
It's fulfilling to create something from nothing and see it coming alive.
Studio Ghibli is [an influence, and also] the art for visual novels and games in general to me. (Gayarou/Kantoku for visual novels and Akihiko Yoshida/Shigenori Soejima for other games).
Q: Where does your art style come from? What do you like about drawing in this style?
A: My art style comes from the moe art-style you see in lots of anime and japanese visual novels/games. Often times it's being used for sexual themed media, so I think it's great that DDLC didn't follow this trend. I hope more creators out there will realize that you don't need sexually explicit content when making an anime styled game.
What I like about this style is that it's very cleanly/precisely drawn and obviously cute. It's easy to show a wide range of emotions, because the most apparent trait of it are the big expressive eyes.
I also don't like to limit myself to just one style. I experiment with different genres that are not anime. I believe this helps me become a better artist who can also adapt to different media/clients.
Q: You describe yourself as a self-taught artist. What did that involve?Â
A: Being a self-taught artist is easier than ever with the internet. There's a ton of free tutorials/references out there that helped me become better. Besides this, I surround myself with art everyday so I develop a better eye for what looks good and what doesn't. I also learned that real life is the best teacher. If there's something I don't know how to draw, I turn to real life and that solves the problem most of the time for me. I feel like a lot of beginner artists don't do that and shy away from using references.
Q: What was it like when you started doing commissions on DeviantArt? How did you build your following online?
A: When I first started offering commissions I was scared that nobody would want my art. At first that was the case but over time and with me putting more of my art out there, the number of commissions I received slowly increased. Also, I was scared to increase my prices but the better I got, the more confidence I had in my work.
I think artists shouldn't undervalue their work and not have to work below minimum wage, even though that is sadly often times the case. It would be better for the whole of the industry if people valued their work higher.
I built my following slowly over time by just uploading my art to DeviantArt. Uploading it also to social media like Twitter helped even more.
Because of DDLC I had a huge influx of new followers and it's incredible to me how impactful games can be!
Q: What led you to studying art at college? What do you feel you've learned from your studies?
A: I went to an art focused high school and initially I wanted to continue by studying medicine. After much research and soul searching I've decided to follow my true passion (art and design), so that's what led me here.
My high school focused on traditional art and not on design. I really didn't like that they didn't appreciate digitally drawn art, so I had to do everything on paper. I still learned a lot, but my heart lies with the digital medium.
I've now been studying design at college for half a year. I had to go through entrance exams and submit a 30 piece portfolio, which was a big challenge for me. I had to step out of my comfort zone and draw things that weren't in my usual style, but in the end it taught me a lot of things that helped make my regular art better.
My college portfolio had no anime in it. It was western cartoon styled illustrations and realistically drawn portraits.
I was scared of the bad stigma around cute anime art and that the college professors wouldn't take me seriously because of it. Also I just wanted to step out of my comfort zone and try new things.
The first semester at design college consisted of many different subjects like film & animation, graphic design, illustration, product design and many more. Out of those I chose graphic design, typography and interactive design as my focus for the coming years. I'm excited to learn things I know next to nothing about! Of course I will also continue working on games and other things.
Q: What was it like working with Dan Salvato on DDLC? I know he gave your source materials to inspire your work, so what was that like?
A: Working with Dan was fun and I liked that his vision for the game was very clear. It made my life as the character artist a whole lot easier instead of having to guess what he might like to see.
While I was working on DDLC I was close to graduating high school, so often times my studies had to be prioritized over drawing. It was great that he understood that and was patient with me.
There were a few reference pictures of the characters that existed before I started drawing them. After that, he just sent me random references of poses/clothes etc that really helped me.
Q: What was the biggest challenge you faced working on the game? How did you overcome it?
A: The biggest challenge was probably the process of slowly becoming a better artist. Before DDLC I shied away from drawing full size characters because I had trouble drawing legs/hands or scenes. When I started facing these challenges I slowly became better.
Like mentioned above having references is a huge help. Also mirroring the canvas all the time makes mistakes in your pictures stand out a lot more. After a while you just need a fresh eye on your drawing because you become blind to your own mistakes.
When I look at my drawings that are even just a few days old I suddenly see it in a completely different light and I wonder how those mistakes weren't visible to me before.
Q: What has the fan reaction to the game been like for you?
A: I'm still really surprised by the huge reaction this game has had. Neither I nor Dan expected this at all. At first I thought maybe a few hundred people would write reviews for it on Steam, but to see it climbing towards 100k now is just incredible to me.
Also it's just surreal to me that millions of people saw my art. With that comes a lot of critique and often times I can agree with it. The most common ones are probably that the anatomy is wrong in places. Like I said before, your own mistakes are kind of invisible to you until you take a step back.
But the positive feedback I get on my art has been the majority and I couldn't be more thankful and happy for that! It really means a lot to me to see people appreciating my work.
Overall, I think the community built around this game has been fantastic so far, especially on Reddit. Now and then I go there and laugh at all the creative memes/jokes people make or be impressed by all the fanart.
Q: If you were telling your own story, what would be the lesson or the moral for people to learn from it?
A: When I create my own story, I would want it to show that there's beauty in the little things, that you can find happiness/inspiration anywhere and that life is too short to waste it on things that make you unhappy.
I would want the characters to grow and get past their fears, accomplishing the things they love.
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