Sanskarans :: Interview

[Pew-Pew]

Welcome, Sanskarans! Tell us a bit about yourself. Well I used to known as Sanskarans throughout the art communities but my born registered name is Sandeep Karunakaran. I am 25 year old artist from a small city called Calicut (Kerala) which is located in southern part of India. I am a freelance artist and illustrator working for clients from the entertainment business and private individuals. Currently I live with my parents and elder brother. I also have two sisters unfortunately they are in form of Pet DOGS What started your interest in art? As like every artist, I started drawing at a very early age. I always had a keen interest in paintings, cartoons, comics, story writing and watching English movies (especially sci-fi, horror and creature stuff). I guess this has influenced me a lot for developing my creativity. During that time my brother used to share with me his artistic skill of storytelling through pictures. This inspired me to a certain extent and eventually led to the creation of my own comics. On the other hand Marvel and DC characters drenched me to the world of superheroes. Inspired from mainstream superheroes like batman, superman, hulk and spiderman, I used to make own comics of my characters but not for publishing only for self satisfaction. My first step to the world of digital art was on early 2002. This was the first time I bought my computer. It started with MSpaint, 3dsmax, photoshop.... goes on. Until what I am doing now.... How do you describe the style of your work? It is really hard to describe my style but if I am right I guess I have varied styles. You can see most of my pictures are of superheroes and sci-fi oriented. I am still trying to do new things and innovations to my works. Most of all I am trying to give a cinematic feel for my artworks. I always like to convey a story and theme through my art. I don't like to do work without content. My view is that a picture must always convey a message or theme to viewer .It doesn't matter even if it is a fan art or something. Most of all I do everything from imagination. I don't use reference for my works and this has affected me to a certain extent like trouble handling perspective and anatomical stuff. Now am switching on to use references for my pictures because no one can come up with a better picture without some reference. Did you take any art courses or are you self taught? Tell us what has been essential in developing your skills. I never took any art courses and even computer education. I am self taught. I try to learn by watching and inspiring from bests of the industry. My academic qualification is actually B.com (Commerce) Graduate but I took art as my career. It is my passion. I cannot live without art. In our land art is not considered as a safer path, but for me I always like to take non safer side. Yes I am damn crazy about art. As I am self-taught I really had to go through lots of troubles understanding anatomy and perspectives principles. I am still striving to learn these principles to become a better artist. Perceptive and anatomical issues are killing my art to a certain extent. So I am I trying to put my efforts to learning these basic principles to become a better artist. Is your current job in the creative industries? If not, is this one of your long term goals? I do some commissions and freelance work but not so much. I am striving to get into the Entertainment industry. At first I want to be best at what I do, a better artist and wanted to produce some quality artworks. Hope I will make it one day. I am getting some good offers nowadays but before that I want to attain perfection in what I do. What is the inspiration behind your art? Movies, comics, cartoons inspires me a lot. But the real thing that boosts my creativity is crazy hours of wild imaginations. Watching the world with a crazy mind really enhances my creativity. Yes I totally goes psycho sometimes. Even dark rainy thunderstorms inspire me a lot in my creativity. Yep I am a Psycho :52: Which is your favorite piece of work and why? For an artist every work of his/her is favorite. If I am picky I definitely go for 'Fallen’. I have a weakness over aliens and misty chaos backgrounds. Yep I am crazy lol :52: Do you sometimes have creative blocks? If so, what do you do to try and get past them? Actually I never faced such thing as creative block but I do go lazy on some works when I didn't get enough satisfaction, especially when I’m not able to picture the things that I had in mind. I really get frustrated this times and gaze at computer monitor watching other artist saying "How the hell these guys are doing that". I try to work on other pictures to overcome these situations. Sometimes eating junk food helps me a lot. What is the best piece of advice you've ever been given? Actually I didn't get any advice but I heard from best among the industry. Aaron Smith, Ben Templesmith and finally special mention from Bobby Chiu. Their support helps me a lot for doing more. I got every support from people of Australia, United States, England, Mexico, Spain, Netherlands, Armenia, France, Norway, Switzerland, Bangkok, Brazil, Malaysia, Philippines...........I have a sincere thanks to these people for supporting me. You guys rock. Thanks for such a great interview, Sanskarans! Can't wait to see what that crazy mind comes up with next