Maryam Safdar | Interview

Times of Youth:  For those who don’t know about you and your work, can you tell us a little about yourself?

Maryam Safdar: I’m Maryam Safdar, just an average girl who loves drawing. I have been drawing since my childhood. My interest grew when I came to know about anime. The character designs and their back stories really inspired me. I think that is when the real artist inside me popped out. After that I started to observe everything in my life and the world around from a different  aspect. I’m not good with painting sceneries and architectural artworks but drawing different characters with different attitudes and styles is totally my thing. I started as a traditional artist, taking art requests and commissions. It helped me groom and  that’s how my name got known. Now I’m a digital artist and working online as a comic/manga artist for a magazine. I also work as a story board artist for some companies time to time. Other then that, I take online fan art commissions.

Maryam Safdar: Mostly people ask me “what paper and colors you use?” on my digital paintings. So I think there are people who do not know about digital art. So I would say that there are many mediums for drawing artworks. Digital painting is one of them. All of my work is related to drawing portraits and character designs, and I do this all digitally on my computer with my graphics tablet.

Maryam Safdar: That’s a tough one… I think it’s the “feelings” that inspired me in arts. Yeah, everyday happenings, emotional states like being happy, sad, angry or frustrated. Even weather conditions. When watching a movie or anime, reading books/manga, even having a conversation. Anything and everything is inspirational for me.

Maryam Safdar: Like I said, I’ve been drawing since childhood but professionally I have been drawing for a year. And yes my family has always been supportive. My parents always tell me to give your best in any field you like.

Maryam Safdar:  I’m proud of each and every thing I’ve created. From all the rough sketches to a detailed work. I feel this way because it shows how I’m growing and how vast my mind can be. Whenever I look back, I see countless flaws but I smile at them because they are the reason I’m here right now. But I still have a long way to go, there are many things I
have to learn in the field of art.

Maryam Safdar: Well, I have too many dreams to accomplish! I see myself learning and practicing more and more drawing techniques and new styles and probably working with some well known company and creating cool characters for them to be used in different media. Because drawing characters is what I’m best at, so getting noticed by big companies
like “Disney”, “Dreamworks” or “Pixar” is really something big for me. It sounds impossible but that is my goal.

Maryam Safdar: I’m thankful to the people who like my art and give critiques on my work. And I’m also grateful to all Pakistani fellow artists; they are really inspiring.  The most important thing for an artist is to keep keen observation on everything around, it really helps in drawing. And having a crazy, imaginative mind is also a key method to draw stuff. Since i’m more into drawing characters so i observe the expressions of all the people around me. It helps a lot while drawing facial expressions. And one last thing, Try to find out what you’re best at, once you do that, never let go of it and work hard on it. Don’t ever give up on your dreams!

Maryam Safdar: You can contact me on my facebook page: “Art of Maryam Safdar”. And my deviantart account: “Mari945” for feedback. ^_^