HI, my name is Karina Rodriguez. I’m an artist from California. Now, I know everyone says this but, I really have been drawing since I was little. Since kindergarten. I’ve always loved drawing and then one day in school, we learned about the masters of the arts. I learned about who Leonardo Da Vinci was and since that day I became more interested in art. I then learned about Van Gough and many others. I remember wanting to be a better artist after seeing all the amazing art from Leonardo da Vinci and bought my first art book teaching me how to draw farm animals. Then through the years I kept drawing and then in high school, in my junior year I decided I would pursue art as a career. At first though I wanted to be a fashion designer and it wasn’t until I started drawing more that I realized I wanted to be an animator. Shortly after, I realized what I actually wanted to be was an Illustrator. I even won a scholarship to the Academy of Art that only accepted three students to win that specific category they were offering. Then after all that I discovered anime…

As soon as I found out about Anime, a lot of things changed. I found even more stories to experience, and I found a lot of different artists who drew so differently than what I grew up drawing. I got so inspired by the art, and I wanted to draw more like the artists from Japan. I am very inspired by the art and storytelling of Japan, and I love what they can do with Animation. Some of the artists that I’m a big fan of are the artist Satoi, Sui Ishida, and Daisuke Richard. I love their art and hope to be a great artist like them one day. I love stories, so much so that I am now writing my own comic. So many things inspire me from anime and manga, books, movies and video games. Some of my favorite video games are Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Tomb Raider, and Control. There are many others too like The Witcher 3 that really know how to tell a story and I love these games for that reason. As far as movies go, I love Spirited Away and Howl’s moving Castle. One thing that I love about these movies beside the characters, the animation, and the overall story is the music. I love music almost as must as I love stories and art. It’s such an inspiration for the stories I’m writing, and Joe Hisaishi is an amazing composer. I love how the music adds an extra dose of magic to the movies. One of my favorite pieces of music from him are Haku’s theme from Spirited Away and the Merry Go Round of Life from Howl’s Moving Castle. One more thing I want to add is how much I appreciate voice actors. They bring our favorite characters to life. Some of my favorite voice actors from Japan are Hirakawa Daisuke, Midorikawa Hikaru, Kimura Ryouhei, Hosoya Yoshimasa and Mamoru Miyano. I hope one day I can work with them to bring my characters to life too. I love the Japanese language so much and a few months after getting into anime I started learning the language. I hope to one day be fluent in Japanese but until then I’ll keep studying. So, if anyone needs to speak to me in Japanese, please feel free to do so. I have been studying for a few years and I am confident in my ability to speak. Not perfectly, but I am able to communicate. I am also still learning how to read kanji, but I find studying the kanji to be fun if I’m being honest. Japanese isn’t the only language I know; I also speak Spanish. That’s about it, I hope you learned a little more about who I am, and I hope you will keep up with everything I do in the future, and hopefully the story I bring you will make you happy and you’ll fall in love with the characters. So, I hope you will stick around for more art and for me to grow and get better in my work, thank you for reading. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to work- and to enjoy more amazing stories.