Cris Ortega, the very well known digital illustrator, whose works are worldwide much appreciated by lots of people fond of her excellent art
is a good old friend of CGWaves.
Cris has been interviewed in Amazing Events issue #002 and we wish to share with you what we talked about with her.

1. Hello Cris. Thank you very much for accepting the interview.
   It's a honour to have you here. You're one of the most famous actual digital painter and I would thank you for the time you're giving us for this interview.
   Let's start, for those (really really few) who don't know who you are with telling us something about yourself.

Thanks to you, I’m very glad to be here :).

I was born in Valladolid (Spain) in 1980, and took interest in art and literature since I was a child, with special love for the horror genre. While I was studying as illustrator, I began to publish my works on several magazines and comic publishers. Some time later I began to work as Art Director in and advertising agency –until some few months ago-, working at the same time in book covers, websites and commission works, standing out the edition of the comic anthology Shade.

In 2005 I began to work with my current publisher, Norma Editorial, publishing with them my own series of artbooks with written stories, Forgotten, that has already two issues in the market. The book series Forgotten has been published in several languages and the artworks had been used to merchandising products, like puzzles and posters.

My paintings had been published too in artbooks like Exotique and Spectrum, role playing games, games design, book covers and magazines.

1. Did you have art studies or are you a self-taught artist?

A mixture of both. I began to work first by myself, trying techniques, learning from books and from looking at others art, studying the old masters, using my knowledge about traditional techniques, …. Later, when I was sure I wanted to do art for a living, I went to the Art School of Valladolid, where I learned a lot of things about illustration, photography and design, techniques and ways to express myself. When I finished my studies, I continued to learn by myself. I think in art you need to keep studying and improving yourself during all your life.

1. Do you express yourself only through digital painting or are you a girl exploring art also through other forms such as music or writing?

I have interest in a lot of art forms, and I also do some of them. Far before I began to work in my artworks, I was a writer. Right now I continue to write short and long stories, most of them focusing on horror and fantasy themes. Indeed, my artbooks have always written stories accompanying the images.

Photography is also one of my hobbies; I love to do photos of landscapes mostly, from all the countries that I visit in my travels. I also love to dance and the theather, but as I don’t have enough time now, I can’t do this activities anymore. Music always interested me, and it’s something I want to try again in the future; I would love to learn to play a violin, for example :).

1. Let's start now to talk about your art. Most of your amazing artworks are about fantasy happenings or situations. Do you paint also different subjects, maybe for commisions ?

Fantasy and horror have been always my favourite subjects, but they’re not the only ones I do. I also worked on subjects like modern times, fashion design, art deco, animals and landscapes, classical figures of literature, children’s images, logos and web designs, packaging, signal art, abstract subjects, figures and games design, photomanipulation, animation, vexel and vector art, and a lot more that I can’t remember now. Most of them were done on a daily basis, for publishers, enterprises and clients of all kind. Of course, the styles of the paintings were also different from my usual ones. I have a large amount of this kinds of art, but I can’t show them because my agreement with the clients.

1. Do you paint at home, do you have your own private studio outside or are you working in a company?

I’m currently working on my own studio, placed in one of the floors of my home, at the outside of the city. From there I can contact with my clients and my publishers using the internet and the phone. I have been working on a design studio in the city while I was in the advertising agency, but right now I work better here.

1. Adobe Photoshop or Corel Painter? And which is the approach when you start to create a new piece?

Both Photoshop and Painter are the best programs to paint, the preference depends on each one :). Personally, I work mostly in Photoshop, and some few times also in Painter. I found Photoshop very comfortable to work with, as I get used to the brushes and layers and it’s very compatible with other software. Painter is better to imitate painting techniques, but I have difficulties with large amounts of data and big canvas, so I don’t use it as often.

My usual approach to a painting begins with one or two weeks of studying the subject and searching for information. Then, when I have a good idea of what I want to paint and how, I began to work in some sketchs. With the final sketch done, I choose the basement and the color scheme. I put some of the shadows and lights of the image with rough strokes until the basic form of the characters and subjects are defined, and then comes the real work. At this step I usually began with the face because is one of the most important parts of the image, and later I work in the skin, hair, clothes and details. The background is usually the last thing I work on.

1. Some books from Ballistic Publishing have your incredible works. We know they publish the best art on the market and I think most of our readers dream about to be in their books one day. We know that being there it's also a matter of hard work and learning everyday but is there any particular suggestion or tip you could give our readers so some of them could hope to reach your level and be published too?

As you said, hard work and experience is the real key to achieve your goal in the art market. But that’s not the only things you have to keep in mind while working on this.

I highly recommend to have a free mind and accept the critiques the same way you accept the praise. A good constructive critique can help a lot to find your mistakes and fix them. And they also give you a different point of view.

Other tip I think it’s really important is develop your own style and personality in your works. There’s a great amount of artists around, if you do the same as everybody it’s not a great deal. You have to build your own personal way of paint and do what you really want to do, since the result will be show at the end.

1. References for paintings: yes or not? What's your opinion?

Well, there’s a lot of controversy about this subject right now, and I think it’s mostly because a great lack of knowledge. First of all, let’s make things clear ^_^ : a reference is not a photomanipulation, it’s not a paintover, it’s not a copy. A reference is a visual help to achieve a concrete subject. So, let’s not lie ourselves: everybody needs references sometimes, it’s the way they used them what makes the difference.

So, yes, I use references for my paintings when I need them, when the subject I’m painting it’s not something I’m familiarized with or if I have to paint some difficult positions. I don’t use references for the faces of my characters, but that’s because I have been painting faces for ten years. The faces I paint are the result of a mixture of styles and of a lot of experience.

When I need references I prefer to use living models –a familiar, a friend, myself in a mirror- or real objects as visual help. When I can’t use this kind of reference, I look at lots of books or photos, I study them and I try to paint something that is a mixture of all the things I saw on them, because I like to create something new, different.

1. Which are your sources of inspiration and have the place where you're living or you're education / studies influenced your work?

I don’t have a concrete source of inspiration, it just comes to me when it wants; sometimes it’s something I saw, a landscape, a night full of stars, people in the streets… sometimes it comes from the books I read or the movies I saw… but most of the time it just comes while I’m working or when I’m walking around thinking about other things. In that instant I feel something and then I have an idea. And for that reason I always bring with me a pen and a notebook :).

I think everything it’s an influence. Of course, the things you study and all the people you meet in your live are a great influence in the artworks. I always put a lot of hints in my paintings about the symbolism, myths and history that I read or learn about in my life.
 

1. Is your country a place helpful for digital artist like you or do you think your career would be better in another nation?

Not really. Spain it’s a little difficult for this kind of profession. We don’t have a great market, such as USA or Japan, or other European countries, so it’s not easy to develop a good career as illustrator. Indeed, I began to work first for other countries, and several years later my work became interesting for spanish publishers. Also, there’s the great problem that spanish readers seems to think that artists are better if they’re from outside ^^. At least, this last years some publishers began to bet for the new artists, so perhaps this could change in the future :).

1. Do you listen to the music when you're painting or do you prefer silence? And what kind of music do you listen to?

I usually listen music while I’m painting. The kind depends on what I feel in the moment :). I like almost all kind of music, from classical to heavy, so if I feel happy I choose cheerful songs, if I feel sad I choose quiet music, …. My great favourites are always pop and rock, j-pop (also called japan pop) and gothic-celtic themes.

1. Please tell us which is your favourite artwork in your production and why. (please include the hi-res version of it for putting it in the interview columns)

It’s difficult to choose a favourite work, because I have a special love for all of them. But if I have to choose, I think it will be "Spider's Soul - Aracne", because when I first did that image I spent about a month working on it and then my computer crashed and I lost almost all the image. So I did it again. I spent almost two months for the new version, but I have a special love for it. It showed me that I can do better, that I can improve myself and overcome all the difficulties.

1. Do you actually have or did you have any collaboration or projects with some other artist?

Yes, mostly on comic art. Most of my collaborations were scripts for other comic artists. Some times I also work in projects that counts with the collaboration of several artists, most of the times for solidary events.

I also work hand by hand with writers when I do artworks for their books, trying to find a way to do a perfect match between the characters and situations on the story. And sometimes I work as colorist for other artists. Right now, I’m coloring a great image of a spanish comic artist, Juanjo Ryp; the final image will be a poster for a fantasy convention.

1. Why most of your works are about women (men are a few pieces) and not landscapes or objects?

Well, the true is I do a lot more men, landscapes and objects that the ones you can see on my galleries. I only can show around a 10% of my work, the rest is published on different formats or is owned by the client who paid for it. The artworks on my galleries are mostly personal paintings or a very few pieces of my books, and in that cases I prefer to work on the things I have more fun with.

I found the female form as an image of beauty. If you check artworks from any culture and time, you will always find a lot of females on them, since they’re representative of our idea of beauty. When I paint I want to show a world that doesn’t exist in reality, a world made of fantasy and dreams, where you can escape from the real world. Women are far better to show this kind of feeling.

1. This is the end of the interview, Cris. The last question: is there any project for the next future?

There’s a lot of projects for the future, and I hope to be able to do most of them.

Right now I’m working on the third issue of Forgotten, that will be released in 2009, and at the same time I’m working on an exhibition and several commission artworks.

In the future I have plans for more issues of Forgotten –since it’s an open series- and other projects of artbooks and comics. Also, I’m writing two novels and several short stories that I hope to publish as soon as they’re finished, and they will have artworks too.

I also hope this year we can show some of the projects we were working on last year :).