@echo_octoroll - the Artist behind our summer stickers!

Y: Tell us a little about yourself and your work, your artistic style and chosen medium, anything about your art that you feel is important. 
E: Hi, nice to meet you! My name is Echo, I am a freelance artist. My art focuses mainly on Character Design and Chibi style drawings. As for my chosen medium, I have been dabbling in digital art lately. Generally, however, I consider myself to be quite versatile: I work both traditionally, be it ink, markers or watercolours, and digitally - as mentioned before.

Y: What is the art scene like in the area where you live, or where you come from? 
E: I am originally from Sardinia and, although it pains me to admit it, unfortunately there are not many events that allow young artists to make their art known within the region. Over the past few years, I have seen a few small local conventions emerge and, although some are still in an embryonic stage, I hope they will catch on! Being on an island, then, I realise how difficult it is to participate in larger events in the rest of Italy - I myself have had great difficulty in attending certain conventions because of the very high costs due to having to take a plane and having to stay in a hotel. Given the expense, I recognise that, for many emerging artists, it is quite risky to try to participate. Personally, I was able to attend several events thanks to the help of the Black List collective and later thanks to the help of a few other friends. Having had the opportunity to start the con business with people who already knew the industry was a great help! Moreover, I have now been able to move to Florence for study reasons and I hope to be able to access more events than before.

Y: What prompted you to enter the world of digital art? How did you start your artistic journey? Tell us about your course of study. Did you study anything specifically related to art or did your interest stem from something else?
E: Actually, I started drawing digitally quite late. I started drawing in traditional when I was 12 years old, and from there a passion was born; I was given my first graphics tablet when I was 18. I have to say that the transition to digital was quite traumatic at first, especially because at the time I only had access to a tablet without a screen - but I got used to it as I used it more and more. Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to follow specific courses or enrol in specialised schools: I attended the italian Liceo Classico and I am currently continuing my academic education by taking a master's course in Art History, so I have always been self-taught. In more recent years, however, I at least had the opportunity to attend a small 5-lesson workshop on digital comics organised by the Lucca Manga School.

Y: Art is a challenging, yet extremely satisfying field. What impact has it had on your life so far?
E: I have always had an unconditional love for art and drawing, I don't think I could ever imagine my life without the presence of creativity. I don't know what the future holds for me, but I am sure that even if I had to choose a career that has nothing to do with this field, I would continue to draw at least as a personal hobby. 

Y: Does your art allow you to support yourself economically? 
E: The idea of being able to support myself with art has always been a big dream for me! At the moment I am still far from being able to consider it my full-time job, mainly due to my university studies, which take up most of my time for now. However, since I started attending conventions and working on commissions more frequently two years ago, I think I might try to pursue this kind of career in the future.

Y: What platforms do you use to promote your work? Do you think they need to be fixed and improved in any way? Do you think a new platform concerning only digital art could be useful?
E: As far as social media is concerned, I mainly use Instagram, and I think entire books could be filled with complaints about its poor functioning lately. Both through my own experience and through discussions with friends and colleagues, I have noticed how in recent times the platform is making it increasingly difficult to reach not only new audiences, but also one's own followers - posts are shown to far fewer people than before, and the chance to grow seems more and more determined by fate. Personally, I would like to see a platform emerge that can rival historical social networks like IG or Twitter. For example, I am seeing many artists migrate en masse to Bsky because of the growing discontent on other platforms.

My concern with a social network exclusively dedicated to digital art is that maybe artists would not be able to reach a more casual audience that is only interested in art as a hobby. Of course, with an art-only platform there would be a much more present and aware audience in the digital industry, and growing and receiving commissions from an audience that cares more about the medium would really be ideal. I hope to see one emerge and gain a foothold as soon as possible, so as to compete with other, less qualitative platforms. 

Y: Have you ever had problems with copyright and its management? 
E: Unlike many of my colleagues, I cannot say that I have had any particular problems with copyright: unfortunately, some artists I know have sadly seen their art stolen and put up for sale online over and over again. However, I must admit that I have had problems with clients who did not understand the issue of commercial use - obviously, when it comes to commissioned work, a work for commercial use will have to be paid more than one for personal use only. Some clients, unfortunately, just don't seem to understand this and demand to be able to use designs paid a pittance for anything. Sadly, such experiences are more common on certain platforms, where clients dealing perhaps with cryptocurrencies and NFT try to commission work at the lowest possible price. The best advice I can give is to always ascertain the destination of your commercial work before accepting or even rejecting such offers hands down to avoid your artwork being misused without your knowledge.

Y: Are you in favour of Artificial Intelligences using your art to enrich their database?
E: NO. On the issue of AI I could go on and on, I could talk about it for hours. I find its misuse to emulate art to be a terrible plague on the current market. All too often I have sadly seen so many shops, even during conventions, selling products with AI-generated designs; furthermore, I find it truly depressing that the controls at these types of events allow them to be sold. Just this year I participated in an anti AI awareness campaign with some Sardinian artists and, through the sale of ‘NO AI’ pins, we were able to donate the entire proceeds to the EGAIR association to aim for its regulation in the European market. 

Y: What would you change about the current art scene if you could? What do you expect from the future of art?
E: The thing I would most like to see in the future is more space dedicated to self-publishing. In addition, if Italian publishers gave more space to new voices in the Italian illustration and comics scene, that would be ideal.

Y: What do you think about the management of artist alleys at trade fairs nowadays? Are there any experiences you would like to share with us?
E: In my experience I have seen both well-organised and unorganised Artist Alleys. The advantage is definitely in the low price of the exhibition space, so in most cases the low cost and the possibility of sharing a stand with other emerging artists can be an opportunity to start approaching the con environment and make yourself known. From an organisational point of view, however, the Artist Alley is often an area that is relegated to inaccessible areas of the events, somewhat hidden away, and is not always valued as much as it could be. Should I get the chance, I would be curious to see how it is handled at events I have not yet been able to attend! 

Thanks again to @echo_octoroll for participating in this interview and, of course, for the wonderful work. In case you are interested in her work, please have a look at her Instagram profile and the link in her bio!