Creator Interview：Nyoijizai

Nyoijizai

〜Together with you, this year as well〜

I was working on oil paintings while in the high school art club.

I started to draw pictures because I wanted to draw characters of a game that I was into.

Due to some reasons, there were times when I wasn’t able to draw exactly what I wanted. Often, I was struggling with these situations and I had no idea how to get myself out of them.

I really believe it’s very important to draw what you like.

I first joined at a sokubaikai (art sales and exhibition event) held in December 2012, at the Winter Comic Market.

At that time, I really, really sucked at drawing. I didn’t even want to attend the sokubaikai.

I even thought about leaving in the middle of the event. I heard that you could make friends at these events, but it doesn’t seem like that.

But after I began drawing what I wanted to draw, and continuing it for a while, I could make friends, and was able to get repeat customers.

Now, I’m focused primarily on attending COMITIA and Comic Market.

COMITIA (in Tokyo) is held 4 times a year, in February, May, August and October. Comic Market is held twice a year, in August and December, so there’s an event just about once every other month.

Also – and I just started doing this from July of 2013 – I even tried drawing at the sokubaikai with a Surface Pro / SAI combo. This actually turned out to be a great way to practice drawing with speed.

I bought the Surface Pro with the idea of using it at various sokubaikai, however I’ve actually gotten so used to it that I use it when I’m at my desk, too.

I try to bring new collections of works to each sokubaikai, so I’ve started pumping out new collections at a pace of once every other month.

I back-calculate it to start working on my new collection about a month and a half before the next event, then continuously refine my ideas over the next 6 weeks.

The thing I like the most about sokubaikai events is the feedbacks I get from the fans I met there. It’s more frank than the reviews that people post on the web.

This really means something. And, to see the faces of repeat customers really means something as well.

From our Editor

Interviewed month: March, 2014.

Nyoijizai is a master at drawing girls with very soft, welcoming features, each of whom are seem very sweet. It won’t be hard to find a picture you like from these wonderful collections.

*Surface Pro is a tablet sold by Microsoft. SAI is a illustration software developed by KK SYSTEMAX.