Mirri
The Archive's members this month cast a decisive vote for Mirri, who for
the past three years has been developing an irresistible style that takes
all the expressiveness of Disney art and extends it to new reaches of
richly colored character portrait art.
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In the Artist's Own Words:
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This is amazing and I don't really know what to say...
First of all: THANK YOU EVERYONE!!
Thanks to Brian for running this awesome website and to all the great
artists and friends I found here! This archive and its members really
became a very important part of my life and to look at new pictures every
morning is the only thing to get me out of my bed XD
I started drawing lions when I saw "The Lion King" in cinema years ago but they all looked terrible and so it quit. In 2002 I saw the TLK musical and fell in love with the characters again. So I was looking for fanarts on the internet and found this place. That's why I started to draw lions again. Drawing means everything to me and I can't spend a day without drawing at least a little sketch. It's my obsession to give life to my ideas and characters and I really hope that I'll be able to learn and to improve my style. Since I joined the archive I really learned a lot about art from all those amazing artists here. When I started uploading I didn't know what to do with my tablet and now I wouldn't be able to live without it. A short but special "Thank You!" goes out to all my fantastic friends, especially Astrocat, Wolverina and Kian for their special support and the great time we had so far. =3 I'd be lost without you guys! So thanks for your votes again! (Yay for May being my birthday month!!) *hugs everyone* -Mirri |
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Mirri has an easily identifiable style: sharp, crisp outlines filled with rich, bright colors on rounded feline bodies that exhibit a great sense of anatomy, particularly in the well-formed paws with intermittent linework that works with the smooth shading to give a real sense of three-dimensionality to the necessary flatness of Disney-style cel shading.
While she's created many "gag" pieces that stun the senses with their humor as well as their execution (such as the "Pirates of the Pridelands", at left), it's something about Mirri's pure character portraits—a certain simplicity of purpose, and focus on expression and presentation—that really defines her work. Each character piece she does seems to have had heart and soul poured into it. Each one has its own unique complexities layered onto the character, made concrete by the evocative, vividly clear facial expressions as well as masterful body language. It's all the more of a bonus when Mirri gives a piece a full background, as the characters work well enough on their own, but nothing finishes off such a picture quite so well as a rich and verdant savannah scene or a sky full of the realistic-looking clouds and moon and sun that show up so frequently in her work.
She's got a lot of friends and a lot of fans, and deservedly so—Mirri has worked hard to get to where she is today. Such dedication can only be applauded. Congratulations!