Ayu Marquez, Fantasy illustrator for games and RPGs

Hello, thank you for taking the time to answer this written interview. Let's start with an introduction, tell us about yourself, what do you do in life, your background?

I'm known by the nickname Ayu, and I really like video games, I've always played and drew since I was a little kid. As I always wanted to be an artist, I graduated from the College of Visual Arts.

And after college I took some courses to improve myself in drawing and digital painting. Today I work as a freelance illustrator doing fantasy art, mainly for games and rpg. As a hobby I really enjoy playing electronic cooperative games, board games and rpgs, painting, modeling and playing my ocarina.


Can you share with us your favorite creation among the personal or professional works you have done?

Introduce us to this project, why did you do it? What was the context of its creation?

Usually in illustrations, artists show the main elements of the image, such as character, story, important items. In the case of this image, the element that appears the most is a blue flower, making the person looking at it to think that the image is talking about it, but no.

The flower is there just to distract you, that's her goal, but the image is about a village of gnomes that come hiding in this forest. I like this image because of that, because it hides its main element, but that is its purpose.

The flower is there just to distract you

Approximately, how long did this project take you to complete? (in hours, weeks or months depending on the project)

It's been a long time, so I don't remember anymore, but it must have been around 1 month, to be able to study and experiment.

Take us through your process to arrive at this result as if we were 5 years old:

First: Idea of what will be shown in the image, what is important? And seek reference about it.

Second: Experiment with scene angles and lighting with just black and white scaling.

Third: Color variation and testing, choosing which color to use

Fourth: Finalization, defining what is most important and extracting information from what is not.


Let's do a mini role play, professionally, who is Jean, your main type of client?

TTRPG/Boardgame Publisher

Jean contacts you for the first time, he absolutely needs your services for his project. Walk us through a typical collaboration with Jean, from the first contact to the last interaction?

In the first contact, I would ask for an explanation of exactly what he needs, type of drawing, how many drawings there will be, what the project is about and what it will be used for.

Based on the information about the illustration type and quantity, I would calculate the price of the service, to pass the invoice price to it. When you have everything in agreement and in contract. I start the work.

Following the steps:

1- Draft
2- Color test
3- Finalization

Always showing each step to the customer in case they wanted to change something. With everything ready, the file is passed in high resolution


I always try to work with projects on subjects that I understand the most.

From your perspective, what made this collaboration possible, exciting, successful?

Good communication.

The project can be amazing, but if you don't have good communication, many parts may be missing and not reach the right result.


We are almost at the end, is there anything else you would like to add or clarify?

I always try to work with projects on subjects that I understand the most.

Because it's easier for both me and the client to maintain good communication and do something that really achieves its goal.

I recommend to any game developer, don't just work with someone who is a good artist, but who is friendly, professional and understands about the content, even if it's at a higher price.


That's it! Thank you so much for your time and for sharing so much with us! Last question: Where can we follow you and contact you?

You can contact me by email:

AyuMarques

And I have a twitter to

https://twitter.com/AyuMarquesart

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