Meet the artist!

Gabrielle Szafranski is an Illustrator from Illinois. She recently received her BFA in Illustration from the American Academy of Art College in Chicago. Throughout her time at the Academy, she learned more about herself as an illustrator and was able to hone and improve her skills and techniques to become better in her field. Some of these skills include refining her knowledge of the proportions of the human body with knowledge she gathered during her Life Drawing and Anatomy classes. She also gained better knowledge in shading techniques and value in her Life Drawing classes.  

As she got older, she grew to love digital art and all the things she could do with it. She found that she enjoyed the multitude of options digital art has to offer across all the different platforms, especially Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Digital illustration has also allowed her to develop her knowledge of color and lighting and how they work within a scene. She has developed different styles along the way, both two-dimensional cartoony styles which are inspired by her love for anime as well as realistic three-dimensional styles, applying the skills she previously used in traditional art and using that knowledge to render digitally. Constantly growing as an illustrator and having an interest in character design, Gabrielle strives to continue creating work that falls into the fantasy genre in the future and in her career as an artist.

What I love most about illustration is the fact that I don’t have to limit myself to one art style or even one medium. Working digitally in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, my work shows my skill as an illustrator who uses a range of different styles from realistic, detailed, and textured works that have a three-dimensional feel such as my Fluevog illustration to two dimensional cartoon-like works that have more of an anime-esq look to them such as some of my original character designs.

 Within my works, I use variations in color palettes to match the theme and tone of the illustration and style used. I enjoy coming up with designs and backstories for my own original characters, especially in the genre of fantasy where things such as magic and different realms and species are involved, making room for a vast amount of creative possibilities to come into play.