Meet Pauline Maltseva | Concept Artist & Illustrator

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

Hi Pauline, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
I was born and raised in a small town near Moscow, Russia, and my early childhood happened in the 90s during Perestroyka. It was a very hard but also a very hopeful time when, after decades of living behind the Iron Curtain, suddenly, the floodgates opened, and the Russian media space exploded with movies, books, music and art from all over the world. It felt like everything was happening all at once and it was a very exciting time to be a kid.

By the time the 00s rolled around and the Internet had finally gotten to the outskirts of Moscow, a whole new aesthetic had emerged: the future was here and it was a bizarre mix of promises of new technologies and dystopian scenarios. The Matrix was playing in theaters, and movies like Hackers and Ghost in the Shell were on their way to becoming cyberpunk classics. Me and my friends were playing Fallout and StarCraft and arguing about whether the robot uprising will happen in this decade or the next.

At the same time I was discovering fantasy classics that everyone in the West knew and loved – I would come back from school and read and re-read The Lord of the Rings and Andre Norton’s Witch World, getting lost in daydreams and making up new plot lines. Aside from the wonderful stories, those books provided something more – their covers were like nothing I’ve seen before, certainly not like the art that was hanging in local galleries! Dragons, spaceships, mages – everything that was considered “childish” and “frivolous” by my school teachers, was meticulously envisioned and rendered on those covers with great care and incredible skill. I fell completely in love with the works of Michael Whelan, Frank Frazetta, John Berkey, Drew Struzan and other fantasy and sci-fi artists. I could spend hours just looking at the fine details and color transitions.

Back then my own attempts at drawing and painting felt so small and insignificant compared to those intricate artworks, that I could never imagine that art like this could be “learned”. And even if it could, there was another problem – in the 00s there simply wasn’t a steady market for anything like this in Russia – the gaming industry was in it’s infancy and book covers were mostly imported art or pieces stolen off the Internet. So, once I graduated university with an Industrial Design degree, I turned to graphic design and advertisement. It was a new, but booming market back then, which promised a, more or less, steady and paying job.

As for my favorite artworks, I gave up on thinking about them as anything but pretty pictures.

However, the longer hours I worked and the more I pretended that I love making yet another yogurt ad and airbrushing eyebags off people’s faces, the more it felt like I was missing something incredibly important, something that used to fire up all the cylinders in my brain and would make me pace around for hours in my room trying to visualize an alien from a planet on which the protagonist just landed his spaceship, trying to draw it, getting frustrated, trying again…

I’d be lying if I said that the realization that things need to change hit me suddenly, and that the next day I was on my way to working as a concept artist or a sci-fi cover illustrator. Instead, it built up slowly, turned into moving from design to illustration jobs within the studios I already worked in, then, tentatively into taking small jobs in mobile games and publishing.

I learned the hard way that, whether you choose to pursue an artistic career or not, might not really be up to you. You can try to ignore your artistic needs but eventually the desire to tell your stories and dreams will find a way either in pursuit of a career or in a hobby even if all you can carve out are a couple of minutes per day.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I’m currently working as a concept artist for mobile games and trying to juggle a couple of personal projects in my spare time. My biggest dream is to build a coherent world character-by-character and I’m finally at a place where my skills allow me to “dream big”, so most of my free time is spent dreaming and sketching. I’m also slowly weaving together a personal sci-fi comics project that forces me to constantly learn new things from how to draw big battle robots to figuring out the anatomy of horrifying insect-like aliens. When you’re in a creative career the learning never stops but that’s what makes it exciting!

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?
Considering my choice of career, I would naturally try to cram as much artsy and geeky entertainment into my friend’s trip as possible, and LA is one of the best cities to visit when it comes to both.

We could start with the Arts District in downtown, then visit Gallery 1988 and, of course, no art trip would be complete without the Getty Museum.

Then, after we’ve had enough of the classics, I would take her to Golden Apple Comics and the Requiem Cafe in Anaheim for it’s magical atmosphere.

When it comes to diners, I’m obsessed with Googie architecture and it’s retro sci-fi vibes, so Norms, Bob’s Big Boy and Chips Restaurant would definitely be on the menu.

The last few stops would be The Hollywood Museum for it’s sci-fi exhibit, and the Griffith Observatory, because what could be better than looking at fictional spaceships? Only looking at real stars and planets!

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?
The most important person in my life who has been there for me every step of the way, and who always has nothing but support and encouragement for my creative endeavors, is my Mom. She never tried to dissuade me from moving towards my dreams, while patiently enduring my “artistic tantrums” and I’m incredibly grateful to her for that.

She worked as a scientist for most of her life, but as long as I can remember, she would always do something creative in her spare time: sew clothes for me and herself, knit and make stunning elaborate embroidery tapestries (one of her embroidery projects took her 10 years!). Her latest obsession is beadwork jewelry. She always inspires me with how patient and involved she becomes while learning to work with new and often temperament materials and I’m so happy that I can always share my thoughts and dreams with her.

I also want to shoutout all the wonderful clients who gave me a chance to prove myself as an ‘actual artist’, such as authors K.N. Smith and J.R. Barbosa and the filmmaker Jason Merrin – their positive attitude and trust in my creative process helped me become confident in my craft.

Also a big shoutout to all the kind people on social media, who acknowledged my work instead of walking past. ❤️

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