N a m e :
Michelle Hoefener

D a t e  O f  B i r t h:
August 7, 1984

H o m e  S t a t e :
Missouri, USA

C u r r e n t  L o c a t i o n :
Chicago IL, USA (Schooling at the Illinois
Institute of Art: Chicago)

W e b s i t e  &  A r t w o r k  R e l a t e d  F A Q

Do you create your own site layouts?
Yup ^_~

Are you available for commission?
I am not accepting new commission requests at this time.

How do you create your artwork?
The majority of my colored work is painted or colored in Adobe Photoshop with a 6x8 Wacom Graphire 3 digital drawing tablet.  It is either first drawn out in Adobe Photoshop or on paper with pencil and ink and scanned in.  I am currently using Adobe Photoshop CS, though in the future I hope to become practiced enough to produce art in Corel Painter as well.  Most of my black and white line art is first sketched out in pencil and then inked over with black 01 micron pen on white sketchbook paper.  I then erase the pencil lines after the line art on top is complete.

How do you get inspiration for your artwork?
Pretty much anything can contribute to my inspiration for creating artwork.  In general, colors, color combinations, seasons, weather, environments that I go to, music, books, video games, movies, and other art that I like all contributes in varying degrees to my ideas and inspiration for my artwork.  A few of my favorite artists that greatly inspire me are Hyung Tae-Kim, Thomas Kinkade, Sue Dawe, Drew Struzan, Ayami Kojima, Steve McNiven (mainly for his Meridian art), and Tetsuya Nomura, though there are many other artists that inspire me as well.

What is your favorite style of artwork?
Currently my favorite style is realistic anime/manga style, with strong emphasis on vivid color and light and shadow.  I'm not quite sure what it is specifically called, but it seems like I see it often in Street Fighter and Soul Caliber artwork, as well as other similar anime based video games.

Can I use your artwork for my website layout, desktop wallpaper, message tag/banner, etc?
You are welcome to use my art in this manner, as long as it is only for your own personal use and ONLY as long as you DO NOT claim it to be your own work.  I ask that somewhere near the image that you mention the art belongs to me, and please do not remove any of my copyright information from the art unless you need to for design purposes (web layouts, buttons, etc)  If you do this I ask that you state somewhere else near the art that it was created by me.  Too many times have I found people on the internet who have stolen my art and posted it as their own artwork and erased my copyright watermarks and replaced them with their own.  PLEASE don't steal my art in this way.

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