The Power Of Art: An Interview With Artist Erin Lefler

Art is at the heart of comic-con. Between detailed portraits of your favorite characters and colorful prints of the most iconic comic scenes, art has become a way for artists to depict their own visions of films and comics. Artist Erin Lefler is no exception to this.

Known as Butternut Gouache on her social media pages, Erin has grown from an infant who colored on all of her walls to a regularly featured artist at ACE Comic Con.

"I've been making art for as long as I can remember," Erin recalls. "Literally as soon as I could pick up a crayon, pencil and pen, I was trying to make things come to life on paper."

Her first piece of art was a house made of paper when she was three-years-old. From there, Erin continued to create pieces of art. Her creativity was inspiring, and many artists influenced Erin to continue to pursue her passion of drawing.

Overtime, Erin has found a style of art that has become her personal favorite: simplified-detailed cartoons. Drawing popular characters from comics and films, such as Carol Danvers and Rapunzel, the style of Erin's art stands out amongst other artists and gives the characters a unique and fun page personality. Erin describes her art as not hyper-realistic but detailed when it comes to the clothing, patterns, and markings of the character.

The process of creating her art involves Erin getting into a certain mindset to create her pieces. After making a playlist to help get her in the zone, Erin takes pictures of herself to look at as a reference for the character's pose or facial expression. When her reference photoshoot is done, Erin gathers her color palette, gets down to drawing a rough sketch, cleans it up, and then creates her final masterpiece using colors, lighting, and shadows.

And the final outcome is exactly that: a simplified-detailed cartoon. The expressions of the characters showcase so much emotion and the lighting on their bodies holds immense meaning. Looking closely at Erin's work, you can truly see the effort and time that it takes to develop such unique pieces of art.

But between all of her works, Erin does have her favorites.

"My favorite piece is currently a tie between a montage I made in my spare time of Star Wars parents holding their babies and a group shot I created from Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure," Erin says. "I really loved how the lighting and colors worked out on that piece."

But with so many art pieces, what does Erin do with them exactly? Well, she packs them up and displays them at ACE Comic Con for interested fans to buy. One of Erin's favorite parts of comic-con is creating the endless variety of pieces specifically for the event and getting to connect with everyone. With so many fandoms being represented at ACE Comic Con, there is no shortage of muses for Erin to be inspired by. Dipping into different fandoms helps keep her work interesting and refreshing.

When it comes to connecting with guests at comic-con, Erin says the feeling is unmatched.

"It adds this whole other special feeling because you miss getting to see that reaction posting things online," Erin says. "Seeing it real time face to face brings a whole other human element which makes it even more special for me since I put my heart and soul into my work."

Not only does Erin connect with guests, but she also helps guide them along in their own art journey. She tries to help aspiring artists grow and find inspiration into their future works. Helping others helps Erin grow herself, giving both artists some beneficial positivity from the interaction!

Another way that Erin continues to hone her craft is just to continuously work on it. As of right now, Erin has a handful of pieces that she's working on, a few of which are inspired by Tangled, that she's debuting soon. There's more projects that Erin has been recruited to work on, but she can't give those away just yet! It's a surprise as to who she's working with but she can't wait for people to see what she's working on.

Today, Erin draws her favorite characters daily by working as a licensed Lucasfilms LTD merchandise artist. Growing up as a big Star Wars fan, Erin has really connected with the franchise that sculpted her childhood.

"I've really connected the most to Rey," Erin says. "Getting to work on her daily is like a dream come true!"

Working on art in general is a dream come true to Erin. According to the artist, art is a celebration of life and being human. Using art to express emotions, interests, and ways of healing is something personal and helps us connect with ourselves and others.

For that reason, Erin states that throughout everything she's done, her greatest achievement is her creation of an anti-cyberbullying campaign. Erin helps people using her work and inspires them to push through the toxicity online.

"It may be something very small and it doesn't make cyberbullying or online harassment go away," Erin says about her campaign. "But knowing that I'm doing what I can with my capabilities to help is better than any job or experience I've had with my work."

Connect with Erin through her social media:

Instagram: @butternut_gouache

Twitter: @butternutgouach

TikTok: @butternutgouache