Today we have a very beautiful artist, Adriatica Creation- Adrijana Cernic with us. She has given an amazing interview! Do read it and get inspired!
1. Introduce yourself.
Hi, my name is Adrijana Cernic and I am a digital artist and professional book cover designer from Croatia, Europe. I am a completely self-taught artist. I create photo manipulations enriched with colors, shadows and lighting.
I like to tell a story with my art and my most favorite themes are fantasy worlds filled with magic lights, lovely creatures, adventurous heroes and brave warriors.
2. Do you work as a professional artist or is it your hobby?
It was my hobby and my passion for a long time. At first, it was just digital art. But after a while, I started to create book covers from my art. I love to tell the stories with my art. So book covers came naturally from my digital art. As a self-taught artist, I wasn’t really sure about my skills and I also felt like I was missing some knowledge about fonts and publishing.
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So I went back to school. My teacher at school for graphic design saw my work and after a lot of persuasion and encouragement from his side, I finally gathered the courage to start my own business. Starting this May, I have started to work as a professional book cover designer and digital artist, under my brand name Adriatica Creation.
3. Pick any one of your favourite works from your portfolio and describe why you made it. Any specific reason behind creating it?
I have 2 favourite works in my portfolio that are special to me.
First is “Before the storm”. Inspiration came when I saw image of beautiful Fae. It is a very simple composition but still shows so many emotions. I love how these shades of green and red work so well together. I also love the sense of motion I managed to create (that will become very important part of my future art). This art is special to me because it was the first art that brought me wider exposure on Deviant Art.
The other one is “Forgotten attic”. For that one I had an image in my mind that I wanted to create and it came up just how I imagined it. This one is also special to me because it was a starting point of my style. Till then I was still searching for it and was experimenting a lot. Now when I look at it I see how my style formed from that point. It also brought me my first client for a book cover.
4. What software do you use mostly?
I use Adobe Photoshop for everything. I learned Adobe Illustrator and In Design. I know all the benefits of those programs but I am so much more efficient with Photoshop and I use it all the time.
5. Since how long are you working in this field?
Six years I ago I was playing MMORPG “Perfect World” (this game made a lot of impact on my art with its bright colours and shiny/dreamy/fantasy look). There was a place on their site where people were posting art from the game. I wanted to created something with my game character so I started to search for something that can help me with image editing. I found Photoshop and I was overwhelmed with its possibilities. I watched YouTube tutorials and I began to learn the program.
After a couple of months after I found Deviant Art site. I discovered a whole new world by watching the photo manipulations for the first time. Since I was really bad at drawing I finally found how I could express my imagination. I joined the community and I learned so much by being a part of it.
I remember the day when I saw all these beautiful images on Daily Deviation page and thought “I want to be that good and want to have my image posted here one day”.
Five years after that, I got my first DD for “In cage”. So, my dreams came true!
6. How long does it take for completion of an artwork?
It depends mostly on how many stocks I use and how detailed the image is. It can be from 3 to 7 days. I hate searching for stocks and that process can take sometimes the same amount of time as image creation.
When I see the stock image that inspires me, all the process becomes fast. But when I have an idea that I want to create, I have to search for specific stocks it usually takes a while. I really dislike that part. Many times I had to drop the idea just because I couldn’t find the right stock images.
7. Any softwares you want to learn in the future?
DAZ Studio for sure. Many times, I imagine the model in a certain pose which is sometimes very hard to find in stock images.
If I manage to find the time to learn it, my life would become much easier.
8. Would you like to share some techniques you use for your works?
People usually ask me: “Did you draw that?”
