Meet Shamara Araujo | Traditional and digital artist.

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

Hi Shamara, what are you inspired by?
I have been drawing since I was a little kid. I used to draw specific animals (I loved horses so much that I wanted to draw them all the time), then I started drawing fairies (inspired by The Winx Club) and later on, during my teenager years, I watched lots of anime and I read tons of mangas too. It inspired me a lot to continue drawing. I am also very inspired by artists like Linnea Sterte, Chiara Bautista and others that I love so much until these days. They helped me develop this semi-realistic art style that I have today, specially Chiara Bautista. I also love Tatsuki Fujimoto’s art style a lot; he is the author of Chainsaw Man. Kohei Horikoshi (author of My Hero Academia) is also a big source of inspiration to me. And I have to mention Naoki Urasawa (the author of Monster), Katsuhiro Otomo (the author of Akira) and Takehiko Inoue (the author of Vagabond) too. I love the way all of these artists ink and I love their art style so much, they are pure gems. I am also a huge fan of the Studio Ghibli movies, I’ve watched almost all of their movies. Only 3 or 4 of them haven’t been watched yet. So I can say that I am mostly inspired by manga and anime, specially manga, those are the main source I look for when I’m drawing.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I’m really proud of my art journey. I never gave up, even though I felt really numb during most of my days. Art really is what keeps me alive and that thing that makes me happy. Talking about what sets me apart from others, I consider myself as an artist that is really good with watercolors. I bought a Lukas Student watercolor set for myself in 2021 and I was good with it. My pieces were not goofy, I knew what I had to do to get what I wanted, even though I have never painted with watercolor previously.
Now, professionally speaking, I have been doing freelances in my teenager years and also during the time I spent in college (I quit Veterinary Medicin because it was not the career I wanted to follow). 1 week later, I was called by a guy that knew me for a while and whom received a recommendation of a friend of his, this guy wanted to have me in a project he was working at, he was the screnwriter of many stories and needed 2 artists for those stories. It was financed by two guys from the United States of America, they owed the company and called it Slately. I did a few tests with 1 day of deadline and they approved me. I was working with webcomics, there were other artists working with other stories writen by that one lonely screenwriter. We did all the work by ourselves, each one with a story made for them . We did the sketch, the lineart, the painting, we did the backgrounds, we did everything. Each artist had all of this job to do in their own story. It was about 7 stories and 5 artists (some of them finished their stories and the screenwriter wrote new ones for them).
I had been working with it since 2022 until june of 2023, when they told everyone to shut down the production, and we have been in the dark since then and the project have not come to light yet, I’m not even sure if it will. But I was approved in college again (now it’s cinema and audiovisual, I am studying at a very famous university from Brazil, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais), my parents supported me in this new journey and now I’m here, doing this interview with you guys.
It was not an easy way, specially dealing with depression along the way. I overcame the challenges with my stubborness. I refused to fall for depression during my first graduation, I clung to art because it was the one thing that made me feel happy during those hard days. And I can say that art and the support my parents and friends (specially Amarildo), have given me are the things that made me go through the hard times. And I’m still fighting with my own demons, but art is definitely something that made me stay alive.
I want the world to know that I never give up. I can take a time to understand everything, but I’m stubborn and I’ll keep trying my best everyday.

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 am now living at a city called Belo Horizonte, it is the capital of the state of Minas Gerais. We have lots of different foods here, and the traditional foods from our state are some of the best ones from Brazil. There is doce de leite, feijoada, pão de queijo, bolo de fubá, there are lots of different and traditional foods around here I would love to take a friend to. You could eat at korean restaurants, japanese restaurants, portuguese restaurants, italian or french restaurants, there are taiwanese restaurants that makes vegetarian foods. There is a little bit of everything here, and I have been here for only a few days, but I have tasted a few of the foods from these restaurants (mostly asian foods) and I can say that all of them are good. Some are really traditional, but there are a few ones that have the brazilian touch, which I dare to say: it makes the food tastier.
There are also historical cities that are not far from here, like Ouro Preto, which is known for its gold ore during the XVIII. century. I would also take a friend to Diamantina, which is not that far from here and is known for its diamond extraction around the XVIII century. You can also go from here to Vitoria, the capital of the state of Espirito Santo, in a train, a trip that takes around 12 hours long. Also, Minas Gerais have lots of beautiful waterfalls, which I would love to take someone on a trip to and spend a few days enjoyng the nature. There are many beautiful historical places in Belo Horizonte to visit too, really nice places with rich stories behind them. So there is a lot to visit here.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Studio Ghibli, Amarildo Junior (the one who told you guys about me), those friends and artists that always believed in me since the beginning and whom have been by my side ever since I decided to follow an art career, and also to my biggest inspiration until these days, Chiara Bautista.

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