{"id":806679,"date":"2019-11-13T21:05:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-13T21:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eu.shop.wacom.eu\/us\/?p=3032"},"modified":"2026-06-05T09:24:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T16:24:19","slug":"10-questions-for-ohnips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/10-questions-for-ohnips\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Questions for Ohnips"},"content":{"rendered":"

Header from <\/span>Deviantart<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\nOf the artists and Youtubers we\u2019ve partnered with, Nicole \u201cOhnips\u201d Echeverria might have the most interesting story.<\/span>\n\nBorn to Dominican and Spanish immigrants in Miami, she took a roundabout course to her art career: She started messing around with Deviantart in her teens (as you might have, if you\u2019re reading this) which began building the audience that came to support her as an adult. But at the time, she didn\u2019t think it could be anything more than a hobby, and went to Florida International University, where she got her biology degree in hopes of going to medical school.<\/span>\n\nAs a student, she started doing commission drawings as a side hustle, but by the time she graduated, found it was profitable enough to make a living off of, and ended up changing her plans. To the bemusement of her parents but at the insistence of her best friend, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in illustration and comics, working tirelessly on commissions and regularly touring cons.\u00a0<\/span>\n\nShe eventually relocated to Las Vegas where she lives now, finding most of her work doing promotional art, wallpapers, and profile drawings for esports teams\u2014she\u2019s worked with many, but she\u2019s currently with Team Liquid\u2014and until recently, doing official art for <\/span>League of Legends<\/span><\/i>.<\/span>\n\nOn the side, she runs art channels on Youtube where she vlogs, posts art updates, and does digital art tutorials and speedpaints, and on Twitch, where her drawing streams sometimes run up to 12 hours.<\/span>\n\nHer passion project is the Patreon-supported webcomic <\/span>OFFcell!<\/span><\/i><\/a>, which follows a ragtag group of (young, attractive) felons from all over the world who find themselves in a mysterious and very unorthodox jail.\u00a0\u00a0A mixture of quirky character comedy, romance, violence, and lewds\u2014you know, the regular\u2014it could be compared to the cult hit ecchi manga Prison School<\/i>.<\/span>\n\n\"\"\n\nBut for most of her career, she\u2019s specialized in pinups and erotic art, a niche that\u2019s both led her to some of her most fulfilling work and a number of online controversies, one of which blew up so much it was covered by Forbes and Kotaku. We\u2019ll be covering those in a follow-up article.<\/span>\n\nBut no matter what you think of her content or how you come to her art, there\u2019s no denying it\u2019s underpinned by a jaw-dropping technical skill. Despite (or maybe because of) constantly producing and working to deadlines, she somehow finds the time to pull off tricky perspectives, wild action poses, and <\/span>inventive color schemes<\/span><\/a> like it\u2019s nothing.<\/span>\n

\n\nhttps:\/\/twitter.com\/ohnips\/status\/1078240153179582465<\/a>\n\n<\/div>\n \n\nRecently, she partnered with us for How I Sketch<\/em>, a Youtube tutorial where she walked through the process of creating her Team Liquid art in Photoshop on a Cintiq 16:<\/span>\n\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/UDtiyjJ_CIg\n\nI talked to her via email about her art process and more.<\/span>\n\nHow much did studying biology help you learn to draw anatomy? Because you have an excellent grasp on it.<\/b>\n\nThank you so much! It did help<\/span> a lot<\/span><\/i>. Anatomy was my favorite subject in college and being able to know where everything is certainly aided in the speed with which I learned to draw the body. However, anatomy knowledge isn't everything, as I quickly noticed. Putting that information onto paper and refining your artistic execution is a whole 'nother story. It was very interesting to feel the difference in crafts (medicine and art) but then the satisfaction of combining them, after some practice, was very unique and fulfilling. It's why, until this day, it's still my favorite thing to draw!<\/span>\n\n\"\"\n

One Piece fanart from Artstation<\/a><\/em><\/p>\nAnd do you have any of your commission drawings from college to compare to today?<\/b>\n\nA commission I did for a League of Legends content coverage company called Surrender@20 in 2014. I used to do a lot of chibi work back in the day and this was a large order of all their staff.<\/span>\n\n\"\"\n\nYou\u2019ve also got high angles and fisheye effects down, two things even most pros struggle with. How did you learn to do that?<\/b>\n\nHonestly, I winged a lot of it. A lot of my skills come from \"good\" instinct and it's something that, as a seasoned professional, I\u2019m paying the price for now. Because I never trained in the fundamentals (since I always did art as a hobby), advancing became difficult because I didn't necessarily know why I was making a mistake and how to objectively \"fix\" it. But, in the last two years or so, I've focused on really learning the foundations of art and combining them with my innate instincts to level up my drawing game. Extreme angles and movement are things I love to put into my pieces and I'd love to execute them with more knowledge and finesse!\u00a0<\/span>\n\n\"\"\n

From <\/span><\/i>Artstation<\/span><\/i><\/a>. <\/span><\/i>Process gif<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\nAnd how do you stay so productive? There was an interview where you said you\u2019re still able to produce work to your standards even when you don\u2019t like it. That\u2019s practically a superpower. Is it purely because you need to pay the bills, or out of a love of drawing even if the subject isn\u2019t your thing?<\/b>\n\nI think a lot of it has to do with being a workaholic. I like to keep myself busy and like getting things done. I also have a huge sense of guilt when I take time off or when I'm not being productive. Aside from all of that, I have a pretty overactive mind and staying busy helps me cope. Probably not a healthy way to cope since I should learn to be in silence and calm, but alas.\u00a0<\/span>\n\nYou\u2019re also prone to doing 11-12 hour streams. Do you like doing marathon sessions or do you just lose track of time?<\/b>\n\nTypically, time flies by and I don't really realize it. We actually have a \"meme\" on my stream called #justasketch because I usually try to convince myself that what I'm drawing is\u2026 Just a sketch\u2026 even though I'm taking really long and I won't stop drawing. So, 4 hours later, I'm still calling it a sketch and my chat is spamming #JustASketch! I usually don't notice time passing by since we're drawing and having fun, but my body will start to feel it with wrist pains etc. That's usually my cue to stop.<\/span>\n\nWhat took you from LA to Las Vegas? I always hear LA described as a digital art mecca, with all the concept art, animation, VFX, and ad illustration gigs there, as well as CalArts, Disney, and so on. Was it too expensive? Too competitive?<\/b>\n\nIt was just too expensive! My online store started growing and I needed a place to store my inventory and pack comfortably. Not only that, but my studio was also getting bigger and could no longer feasibly fit in my bedroom. There <\/span>is <\/span><\/i>a lot of important art stuff going on in LA but Vegas is close enough that I can commute: Most freelance artists can work entirely from home so your location doesn't matter too much. I can afford to rent a house for a fraction of the price of an apartment in LA!<\/span>\n\n\"\"\n

Nips\u2019s home studio<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/p>\nYou got to show your art to Kim Jung Gi. What was that like? What did he think of it?<\/b>\u00a0<\/span>\n\n