User:Tazmaa

"Tazmaa" is a nickname for artist Valerie A. Ryan who runs an online artwork website under the alias of Tazmaa's Studio.

Born in Montreal Quebec Canada in 1981, Valerie has enjoyed drawing a cartoon style and designing her own unique characters since the age of 8. She used traditional media, pencils and pencil crayons until well into her teenage years where she started to produce more digitally finished works. Lacking formal education her early works have noticeable technical errors and lack perspective, though the design of the characters are charming, carefree, youthful and imaginative which captures her audience.

Valerie's art style is a mix between Japanese anime and western comic character with a curvy, feminine influence reminiscence of the Art Nouveau era but with a comic style and bold digital color making her work distinct. The characters design hold a carefree aura that captures interest and displays a youthful charm.

Valerie draws for many people all over the world, doing custom artwork according to the customers requests. This has led to character designs which are used for logo's, stories, weddings, website graphics, personalized tattoos and even decals for motor vehicles. Most recently she is working on vectorized graphics for mobile applications and Flash games. Valerie has been freelancing as a digital illustrator since 2002, being self-taught until joining a diploma program in 2010.

Valerie did not have any formal training in art until July 2010 where she attended Visual College of Art & Design to study Graphic Design. Having attained her diploma in 2012 she is now doing freelance artwork once again but with a focus on both graphic design and illustration.