Meet Lisa Maria | Character Designer & Illustrator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Lisa Maria and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Lisa, why did you pursue a creative career?
When I was in senior high school, people often said something like this: “It’s nice that you don’t have to think about what to choose for a career”. Those words struck me because I agree and it comes to my realization that my whole life, I already know that I want to pursue a creative career. I want to draw and tell my story through my art. Being an ” artist” has become my identity since I was little. So, maybe this is a bit cliché, but pursuing a creative career is my childhood dream and my whole life’s dream. I truly enjoy the creative process of creating from nothing into something, and I always know that I want to pursue it.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I’m the happiest when I draw animals, so my early art career is taking commissions to draw pets and animal character art. Over time, I try to get myself into illustrating children’s books. I love simple art and storytelling, especially one that has animal characters in them! So I become one and collaborate with authors. After some time, I realize that maybe illustrating books is not really my thing; I love it, but I want something more explorative. After high school, I choose to study animation at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and among all behind the scene of making an animated film, I love designing characters; creating the actors in a film! I could draw, and explore designs, faces, personalities, styles, and so forth to tell their story. It is fun and I don’t have to tie myself to a certain art style. So I choose to pursue to be a character designer for animation.

In the journey, I learn that I still have a lot to learn and I thought that my whole life is about art; it is not. As much as I love creating, I need to remember to take care of myself. I realize it the hard way. Maybe it can be the classic story of an artist’s burnout. I heard about it; I know what it is, and I got it too sometimes, but now, I know what burnout really means when I’m suffering from it for the past 2 years. For me, this artist burnout is when I want to draw, but I can’t bring myself to draw. constantly feel worthless and everything I create sucks. I end up stopping to draw and self-proclaiming that I’m not good enough, and that is mentally exhausting. It is difficult, but all I can say is I should have taken it easy on myself, knowing that making mistakes is okay, and being bad at it is okay as long as I learn something from it and keep going. That happened during my transition from “I want to be a children’s book illustrator” to “I want to be a character designer for an animated movie”. I still learn and try to recover from burnout. I take it easy nowadays and try to have something to do besides doing art, the bittersweet of turning a hobby into a job.
In the end, it is nice to have the fire lit within yourself, all the burning passion for doing something is good and I hope the fire never dies. But it is also important to remember not to burn yourself with your own fire.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I think I would take them to experience nature, the city, that touristy spot and last, the local only spot.

I would take them to visit natural history museums, and trails and have a cute picnic in a park, next I want to take them to downtown to shop or just window shopping and eat food for what the area is famous for.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I’d love to give a shout-out to my Grandparents, they’re the ones who always support me in pursuing art career, never doubted me even for a second, and love me unconditionally.

I also want to give a big shout-out to the Community I’m In: Rise Up Animation (RUA), Asian in Animation (AIA), Women In Animation (WIA), and Asian Queens In Animation (AQIA)! People in this community are blessings to me. They are there to help, give resources, and provide information about the animation industry. Through them, I’m able to build close friendships with people who also pursue careers in animation and lift each other up in our creative endeavors.

Website: www.artofliria.com

Instagram: https://instagram.com/artofliria

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-maria-b77532182/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/artofliria