Life & Work with Karina Moreno of Tucson

Today we’d like to introduce you to Karina Moreno.

Hi Karina, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Ever since I could remember, I have been creating artwork. After high school, I went to the University of Arizona to study Illustration; however, this was only the first step toward where I am today. In 2017, I started vending at comic conventions, and my small business kickstarted from there! I am a freelance illustrator and artist specializing in character art and comics. I work in digital and traditional media (watercolor and pen/ink). I focus on showing representation, beauty, and narrative in a piece. I tend to focus on women, LGBTQ+ characters, and people of color. I have been focusing on my webcomic that features all these themes, which has been my passion since 2020.

Alright, let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what challenges have you had to overcome?
As an artist trying to make a living, the struggles are always there. After college, I only picked up the pencil to do art for about two years. I needed to figure out how to make a living as an artist – now I had the skills, but now what? In those times, figuring out what I was passionate about was challenging. After slowly getting back into artwork and remembering what I loved to draw most (characters), I signed up to vend at Tucson Comic Con in 2017 without any artwork to sell. About four months before the show, I decided to create a new piece of artwork every week. Even in 2023, I still sell some of these old prints I made from this period. I am fortunate to have a very stable support system to pull me through – my partner, who always accompanies me to in-person shows (even out-of-state comic conventions), my found family who have never lost faith in me and are my biggest fans, and my immediate family who did the same and support me. Today, it’s hard to balance artwork for pleasure and survival, but I’d rather be here doing what I love.

Let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I create character artwork – I.E., characters from shows/anime/pop culture- and custom character designs for my freelance work. I am a Mexican-American woman, and depicting representation in my work is very important. I love to draw women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ characters and focus on creating stories revolving around this. I am also a comic artist. I’ve created over 100 pages of my webcomic Wild Rose – this is where my true passion lies. Aside from being an illustrator, creating comics made me realize I also love writing stories. My comic may not be as popular as some of the merchandise I’ve created for my online shop, but this project is what I’m most proud of. I started conceptualizing the comic in 2019 and began making pages in 2020 without any prior experience in creating a comic. But I learned on the way. I always say, “If you want to improve at drawing, draw a comic.” Despite what people may think, drawing comics can be grueling, tedious work, but it is also gratifying. Whether it be a teenage girl mixed up with a warrior out for blood (Wild Rose) or a vampire quinceañera (La Maldición), I’ll always be excited to see how different stories unfold.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from growing up.
My favorite childhood memory came when I visited a castle in the German Alps. It sounds like a fairy tale thinking about it now. My father was in the military until I was 12, and we lived in many different places. My favorite was Germany. For my 10th birthday, my older brother was on leave from being deployed in the Iraq war (this was in 2002). So as an extra special celebration, we went to the Neuschwanstein Castle in the Alps. I remember this: I was a 10-year-old girl who loved Disney, fairytales, princesses, and Sailor Moon. You can imagine the impact that had on my already over-active imagination!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.karina-moreno.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karinamorenoart/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kmorenoillustration/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/karinamorenoart
• Other: https://linktr.ee/karinamorenoart