Studio Q+A: Andrea Rosales
Linework NW is at its heart a gathering of remarkable creators, editors, illustrators, cartoonists, and publishers who represent some of the best work that is being produced in these mediums today.
Each day from now until the show we will be highlighting the amazing creators of Linework NW in a series of short interviews on their process and studios.
Today’s Q+A, conducted by Kinoko Evans, will be spotlighting artist Andrea Rosales.
Where do you live?
I’m a self-exiled Portlandian bouncing around between studio spaces in Los Angeles, California and Portland, Oregon. Right now I live in Los Angeles.
Where does the majority of your creative practice take place?
A majority of my creative work happens at my gigantic desk where I have a 24-inch Cintiq, a giant drawer filled with half-drawn in sketchbooks, and other drawers filled with various types of paints, inking pens and brushes and other art-making goodies. When I feel the need to get a change of scenery, I will go out to work in a coffee shop, the library or at a friend’s place if I am collaborating with them. Sometimes I find that changing my workspace helps me to regain focus and hone in on my work.
I’m a bit of a neat-freak, so it’s difficult for me to work in an environment that’s messy because I’ll always want to clean up around me before I set off to work. I’ll change locations if I’m feeling a bit restless or if my studio is too messy for me to work in and I don’t have time to clean it up (this is quite rare). I tend to travel around a bit, and this helps with generating new ideas.
What are your favorite tools of the trade?
Most of the work I create nowadays is done digitally with my Cintiq and 15”inch Macbook pro, but before I do any work on my computer, I sketch my ideas, drafts, concepts and thumbnails out onto my sketchbooks. I love working in my sketchbooks first because it’s where I can really “think” through my ideas on paper. The sketchbook is where an artist makes their thinking visible. My favorite tools of the trade include good-ol’ col-erase pencils, soft lead pencils (the darker the line, the better!), mechanical pencils, eraser pens, thin liner pens and brush pens. I also thoroughly enjoy working with gouache paints.
Do you keep any posters, toys, artworks in your creative space for inspiration?
Absolutely! Right now I’ve got a calendar with classic Disneyland attraction posters and I’ve also got a few Japanese ukiyo-e prints along with various other Disney prints and a Star Wars poster. In my Portland studio space I’ve got lots of photos from places I’ve traveled to around the world and postcards. I love postcards! I love that they offer terrific shots that you can’t easily get yourself and that they are super affordable souvenirs. That they pack flat is also a big plus. I always return from a trip with a sizable stack of postcards. I don't have any figurines (yet!), but a few action figures here and there.
I also have a considerable stack of concept art books nearby that I love to flip through. In general, art books and comic books are never too far away from my desk.
(The books pictured below are a small fraction of my entire collection of art books. These are the ones I have with me now in Los Angeles.)
What are you working on for this year's Linework NW?
For this year’s Linework NW, I’m working away on pages and merch ( buttons and bookmarks!) for Nine Twilights, an action/adventure magical girls meets Norse mythology web-comic ( think Sailor Moon meets Thor). I’m incredibly excited that my collaborators, writer-mastermind Anne Agnew and editor extraordinaire Chris Hansbrough will be joining me for Linework NW. We’ve been working away on this project together for a while now and they’re both such a joy to work with. I feel so incredibly lucky to work with them. We have a lot of fun times together but we also keep each other focused and push other to do the best work possible and I think that shows on each page. We just launched the comic this past April and we update on Tuesdays and Thursdays on NineTwilights.com.
This project is a fusion of our loves and things that we’ve always wanted to have together in a comic: a diverse international cast featuring an empowered magical all girl super-team packing a punch to defeat the undead, blended with Norse mythology, fun character expressiveness and properly drawn archery scenes. We’re thrilled to be sharing it with Linework NW and we’re excited to take it to Rose City Comic-Con and Long Beach Comic-Con later this year as well.
I’ve also got other prints and artworks (visit andrearosales.com to see more) that I’m selling under the name of Good Walrus Goods, which is my online Etsy shop (https://www.etsy.com/shop/GoodWalrusGoods).
I love working with color and making cute illustrations inspired from my love of animation. In all of my work I’m trying to imbue my characters with as much life as possible so that they instantly connect with viewers. My hope is that the charm, energy and vim and vigor of my characters in my art can brighten peoples’ day and make them feel a little happier.
