We recently connected with Emma Cormarie and have shared our conversation below.

Emma, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

Growing up, I was a very introverted and shy girl. I struggled socially, and escaped through writing, drawing, and watching as many movies as I could. Eventually, I found my people online – sharing my art with my community allowed me to connect to similar people. We would mutually motivate each other to improve, while geeking out over mutual interests. I believe having the right community and social environment when starting out is important, whether physical or online. It keeps you going, you learn things you may not necessarily have access to otherwise! Sharing resources, techniques, this constant exchange is so enriching.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m a French American Illustrator and designer for animation! I relocated to the USA just one month before the pandemic hit, so I definitely don’t have a great sense of timing. While I have always loved to draw and write stories, I only began seriously pursuing it as a career in my mid twenties.

I came to LA hoping to find my first full time job in a studio – but fate had it otherwise. While I do still work as a designer in the industry regularly as a freelancer, I have come to thoroughly enjoy illustrating graphic novels and book covers for middle age audiences. I absolutely love bringing a story to life with my own style, art quirks, and personal touches.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I started at a young age, posting on websites such as Deviantart. I learned pretty early on how to attract audiences to my work, the online lingo, algorithms. Building a wide audience does not happen overtime – the more you understand how algorithms work, the easier it will be to use that to your advantage.

I started gaining a huge audience online in the early 2010s by sharing art with fan communities of certain shows or movies. Interaction goes a long way in building that loyal audience! Of course, this should not be the driving force for your creative output – if building a large following is your sole motivation, you are setting yourself up for anxiety and insecurity on the long run. You run the risk of also losing any motivation to draw at all.

Nowadays, I just post when I have anything new that isn’t NDA to share.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I really want to appeal to my inner child today through my work. Having been very shy as a kid, as an adult I want to release all that whimsy and magic of childhood into the world and be authentically me. And that starts by drawing colorful and expressive art, which feels authentically me in the inside.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://emmacormarie.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eimqo/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-cormarie-ab962b114/