As a visual storyteller, different things inspire me to create artworks. But most of the time it starts with my personal memories.
The Nutcracker’ Project was more specific to my dream. To pursue my dream as a visual development artist in animation in spring 2017, I wanted to create a project that can express myself as well as show what I can do. To those who don’t know, Visual Development is an art stage in animation production where the world and characters are created and designed by visualizing the story. This fact attracted me. It actually matched perfectly with my dream ‘becoming the artist who makes amazing animations that can inspire people’ With this in mind, I chose one of the existing stories and started to redesign the world with my point of view. I chose ‘The Nutcracker’, which originated from a German fairy tale and became famous through ballet.
There are several reasons why the story ‘The Nutcracker’ inspired me. It was one of those stories I liked as a child. Those magical adventures always attracted me. And the main reason was I wanted to work on a story that makes people feel warm-hearted and reminds them of their childhood. For those of you that need a refresher; the story is about a young girl named Clara who dreams to become a ballerina and she believes in magic. The adventure starts when she gets ‘The Nutcracker’ as a Christmas present from her godfather. Clara resembles me a lot as a child with all those toys and dreams. Not only the story inspired me but also there were plenty of elements that were fun to design, which I enjoyed.
When it comes to choosing colors, I like using rich colors. But when I am painting the scene, the color has to do with storytelling. Depending on what mood I want to express and what story I want to tell, the lighting will be decided and then the color comes. I use ‘warm vs cool color combination’ a lot in the scene paintings because it is a good way to show the mood with the contrast. Usually, the focal points become warm colors and the rest of them are cool desaturated colors.
Just like ‘The Nutcracker’ story, there are so many themes I love to work and are willing to work on. But mainly, I want my artworks to be inspiring and memorable to people, not a piece that can be forgotten easily. Thus, I love creating warm mindfulness artworks with a little magic inside. I also enjoy working on a story that blows up good memories in life as well as the theme of ‘family, friendship, dream and travelling.’
In conclusion, my inspiration starts with my personal memories. I am a person who considers one’s experiences and memories very special. Memory can come from everything: your childhood, travel, things you saw, people you met, etc. Because I consider this special, I try to keep a journal of it. I have a habit of writing a diary. I record not only my daily schedules but also my thoughts because I know this will become my creative storage that only I can have. The famous director said the most personal thing can be the most creative. So maybe this is the secret of my inspiration.
