We recently connected with Noelia Sevillano and have shared our conversation below.

Noelia, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

When I was a kid I was the kind of girl who like a lot to draw, it’s something always have been with me.

In highschool I realized that I wanted to learn more about art and illustration and not to studie something I didn’t want for my future, but I didn’t have any idea for where could I started, so one of my best friends helped me to find an art school near my city. At that time I felt so small compared to my favorite artists but with time and dedication I went to my first Artist Alley.

Beign there reassured me about how I feel with my career. I was a bit insecure about which jobs can I applied or If I was good enough to job as an artist, but when I started to go to events I felt that was my place, among other artists. At the end of the day, I saw how becoming and improving as an artist was something that made me happier. So after that I started opening comissions and making my own merchandise and products.

Today I’m focused not only on improving but on keep learning and improve my work. I finally understand about the reason I always chose the art path even if It made me feel insecure. The reason is the art make me happy.

Noelia, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

For those who doesn’t know who I am, you can call me Shirocreate (as you imagined) or Shiro!
I am a Freelancer Artist and a Senior Graphic Designer.

As I stated before I started at this going to an art school where I studied a Graphic Design career while I keep improving as an artist independently. It was my first Artist Alley attendance that made me follow this path and give form to a known question: “Is my art good enough to make a living?”. Obviously at that time it wasn’t, I still had so much to learn not only as an artist, also as an entrepeneur. Of course that involves a lot of things I didn’t know even existed back then. When I look back… I don’t think how I was brave enough in my 20s to stand up and say: “This is what I want, I know”. But the time flies and… here we are.

As of today I have my own Etsy shop, my own branding and I feel free to sell my own designs as merchandise. That not always been easy. When I started I sold mostly fanart stickers from my favorites animes and movies. Now I have a lot of differents products in my store like clothes, charms, phonegrips, mousepads, bags, accesories and decorations.

Also I was so nervous when a customer asked me for anything. With time, patience and practice I started to felt more comfortable with that kind of interactions as for today I admit that I love to talk personally with my customers and try to avoid automated messages and that kind of things. Is not always possible, but I love to speak from person to person even if is for something so “easy” as a charm.

I quoted “easy” for a thing many people don’t take in consideration when they start selling their own designs. I, for example, didn’t notice until a friend of mine pointed out this. But even something small or simple as a charm, a scrunchie or a pencilcase, even if they are everyday things, they can make people happy. And a lot of people purchase me items as a gift for someone. At first you may not notice but when you realize that people chose YOU to make a gift for that special person in their lives, with a globally and saturated market, that is a feeling hard to forget once you see it.

To know that people resonate with your ideas and designs, many of them coming from heart, is a breathtaking feeling. I think what sets me apart from others is I like to put a touch of magic in their lives, they can feel more cosmic or magical with my clothes or have a little fantasy buddy in their day to day. That’s what I’m proud of.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Even if it sounds a bit dumb the main help for artist is always sharing our works. With social media so stablished and technology at peak, it’s easy to give credit to an artist if you see an illustration in any site and want to share it with your followers or friends. We can see every day on media a lot of people reposting or publishing compilations of art never quoting or giving credit to the artists and maker behind that work. Calling out that kind of behavior always help us to feel suported and listened.

This may vary según the artist, but personally I always love to have feedback of my art. I know it can be difficult to answer a lot of comments or messages but I need to make something clear: we love to know how our works made people feel. If there is something important for an artist is the capacity to conect and resonate with other people mediante our works.

And lastly but not less important is our rights as artists. As I said before, technology is at his peak, we have so many advances in the industry that sometimes feels to fast to stay updated. And that of course includes people trying to take advantage of it. Nowadays we have so many tools to steal art in a way of other, and it’s not so simple as seeing a repost and comment “give credit to the artist”. In the recent years so many f*ke shops appeared and take artists designs to sell it printed on other products like shirts, even if they steal art with so less quality.
Our most recently fight is obviously generative AIs, feed with so many artists that makes impossible to take actions agaisnt it even if we had laws at our side. That hurts a lot not only to artist also customers that are scammed with that kind of content.
We need to stand up and fight to defend our art, our creative licenses and our rights as artists.

And we can’t do it only by ourselfs. Supporting our cause is supporting the laws that protect us too, and not giving money to companies with that kind of predatory systems to generate their services.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I built a connection with my followers by being myself, talking a little about my day to day life, my work, posting my art. I have also talked about when something has gone well or bad. I don’t like to give the impression many influencers give that everything in their life is perfect, and I think that is what makes me closer to my followers.

If I had to give one piece of advice, as typical as it may sound, it’s that numbers are not that important. I know people with very few followers who work as artists in big companies and are very talented. Others who have big numbers and yet cannot live of their art. At the end of the day, what you do with your skill is more important than reaching a large amount of followers. Just post, the photos don’t have to be perfect, show your process and allow yourself to be an amateur.

Remember, what is not shown doesn’t exist!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://shirocreate.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/shirocreate
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/shirocreate
• Twitter: https://x.com/Shirocreate
• Other: bsky.app/profile/shirocreate.bsky.social
  vgen.co/Shirocreate
  artstation.com/shirocreate

Image Credits

Shirocreate