Samantha Donisi
Assistant Editor

It's always nice when a person finds a hobby he or she really enjoys. It's even better when that hobby can earn the individual a little money.

Sarah Wiedemann, a sophomore at NIACC, has been doing artwork as a hobby ever since she was little. For the past seven years she has been able to turn her hobby into a small-time business.

Wiedemann said she has been working as a free-lance digital illustrator for seven years. She started when she was about 13 years old.

She said she takes requests from online gamers to draw characters for various role-playing games. The customers send her the specifications for the artwork, and Wiedemann gives their ideas life.

Wiedemann said she started her free-lance work almost by accident.

" I used to play a lot of games on-line where your character was customizable, so I did my own artwork for enjoyment," Wiedemann said.

Wiedemann said the owners of the game saw what she had done and really liked it.

"They bought some of my stuff to use for their sites, and then a lot of other people starting asking me if I would do characters for them," Wiedemann said.

Pretty soon, Wiedemann was getting all the requests she could handle, and started officially free-lancing her work under the psuedo-name Kestral.

Wiedemann said she has created up to 200 commissions since she started, and normally does about one a month.

Her commissions range anywhere from a simple pencil sketch to a fully animated, color character called a sprite.

Wiedemann bases the cost of her work on how much time and effort she has to put into them, and how much of her own money is spent on equipment.

"The simplest drawings that I do cost about ten dollars," Wiedemann said. "These are just pencil sketches that can be scanned on to the computer."

Wiedemann said that the average commissions range from $50-$80, and have no hardcopy, meaning they are drawn completely on the computer. The most expensive commission she ever did cost over $200.

When Wiedemann began free-lancing she said she did everything on paper.

"I sketched out the drawings by hand, inked them over with pen, erased the pencil, then filled them in with watercolor," Wiedemann said. "It was quite time-consuming."

Eventually, she said she saved up enough money to buy a computer program that made her job a lot simpler.

"I started out with a program a fellow artist recommended, a professional photo-editing program called Photoshop," Wiedemann said. "Now I still use Photoshop 5.7 for my color pieces, and something called Pro-Create Painter for my line sketches." Wiedemann uses a Wacom Tablet, a special drawing pad and a pen that is hooked up to the computer, to create her art right on the screen.

The Tablet is a pressure-sensitive pad that allows her to draw right on the monitor, she presses harder for dark lines, and lighter for sketchy pen strokes.

Although Wiedemann said she gets requests for almost every type of character imaginable, she said she wants to stick to fantasy creations like elves, dragons and knights.

"I like to draw stuff that flows right out of your head," Wiedemann said. "Stuff that you won't see walking down the street."