Ep.59: Kiki Eiseman (Gweakles) on overcoming obstacles to become a full time artist

Kiersten Eiseman, a Florida native, is a full-time visual designer and illustrator with a focus on pop culture illustration. Her tastes vary anywhere between comics, movies, or sometimes a dark, creepy/cute style which she likes to explore concept art. She went to the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale where she achieved a Bachelor’s of Science in Illustration, working freelance and building her design and illustration skills ever since.

She uses Gweakles as her online artist name and Kiki for a more personal touch on a nickname. Most of her art activity has been on Instagram until nearly two years ago when she involved herself in the YouTube community where her following and art community grew into something she strives to keep positive, motivating, and inspirational.

Art Side of Life Newsletter

Get in touch with Kiki

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/gweakles
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gweakles/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/gweakles

Key Takeaways

“We are the worst critics of ourselves, so be sweet to yourself. Don’t forget why you are doing it. You do it for yourself to make yourself happy!”

Parents didn’t support Kiki in her pursuit of art as a career. She had to overcome that and she had to fight for deciding to go to an Art school. She knew this makes her happy and she always saw how they came back from work unhappy
Best advice Kiki received was from her professors. Unless the person understands art, they will never understand what you are going through. The next best advice was to stop comparing yourself to other people. Compare yourself to yourself and your progress
One of the worst advice she ever got was “There is a lot of artists working in McDonalds right now”
The best motivation for Kiki is to just make herself to do it – Jake Parker has a great video about it: Finished, not perfect.
Some tips from Kiki on taking care of your YouTube channel. She tries to respond to every comment because she wants to make sure the community knows she is there. Another great tip is just to be yourself and be genuine on Youtube

Resources mentioned

Note: some of the resources below may be affiliate links, meaning I get paid a commission (at no extra cost to you) if you use that link to make a purchase.

Kiki’s mentors: her friend – ursuladecay – she was always able to put things into perspective
Art tools:
- She is mainly traditional artist and uses iPad Pro for practicing digital art
- iPad Pro with Apple Pencil and ProCreate App before / now MediBang Paint – she feels more free and fluid with her strokes
- Adobe Photoshop
- Copic markers
- Watercolors
  - She gets watercolors from Dickblickand Utrechtart