We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Akira Haru a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Akira, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today The first dollar you earn is always exciting – it’s like the start of a new chapter and so we’d love to hear about the first time you sold or generated revenue from your creative work?

I’ve started my commissions journey very early, i was around 15-16 when i started to sell little artworks to the people around me , it would be portraits and character drawings. Then i decided to give a try to digital arts , i acquired a graphic tablet and It felt surprisingly natural to me ! Which is why i decided to open digital art commissions.
So far it’s been around 3 years , and I’m getting so much support from my community and my friends which I’m extremely grateful for.
I grew as an artist thanks to them as well !

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m an anonymous illustration artist from France, people know me as Akira Haru.

I work on my personal projects such as the universe of my original characters, artworks about my characters but also do commission illustrations/designs for other content creators or simply regular people who would like to get themselves art from me !

I work with freelance writers , vtubers , game developpers and so on.

My goal is to provide good quality and affordable art for everyone. Being careful about the pricing of my work but at the same time, trying to keep It accessible for a bigger range of people. Anyone can request art from me !

I’m proud to say i do work on some major projects with some of my clients, such as games that might come out in a year or two. For now, i make sure to keep these projects under cover , but I sure am excited to share these with everyone in the near future !

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I would say avoid AI generators as much as possible. I do agree on the fact that the advancement of technology is an important part of society , and that sometimes, artists can be difficult to afford for everyone. Which is exactly why I’m trying to make my art affordable and qualitative.

AI generators kill artists slowly, stealing their artworks to generate new pieces.
It would be a huge improvement for the creative ecosystem if everyone understood the danger behind AI generators.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Perfectionnism. From the very beginning, i have always thought that if everything isn’t perfect , then it wouldn’t work out. Which is completely false!

You could make the most flawless piece of art, with all the perfect lines , if it doesn’t have artistic creativity and doesn’t have a originality it will feel empty and won’t seem to have any personality whatsoever.

I would advise having fun!
Have fun with the colors , have fun with the artstyle, have fun with the lines!
Perfectionnism is not necessarily a bad thing, but it sure does block many people’s way to creativity.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://akiraharuart.wixsite.com/akiraharu/en
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a.kira.haru?igsh=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA==
• Twitter: https://x.com/a_kira_haru?t=69QvvWzwrN-_30rAoL18Zg&s=09

Image Credits
Akira Haru