We reached out to Kira, a freelance illustrator and Vtuber from Sydney, Australia. Kira’s hobbies mainly consist of drawing, streaming, and gacha games but also enjoys cosplaying from time to time. We caught up to learn more about her beautiful illustrations and her creative Vtubing moments. Don’t forget to support her and follow her Instagram, @kirabunni.

1. Tell me about your character and how you design it?

My Vtuber’s name is Kirari (from kira) and she’s a magical girl! For my Vtuber, I put in elements of things I really like (strawberries, magical girls, bunnies) altogether to make a design I would be happy to use for vtubing. I was also heavily inspired by magical girl anime I watched as a kid (Cardcaptor Sakura, Tokyo mew mew, etc), and having a model that represents my childhood dreams just makes it so much more fun to stream!

2. What is the best comment you’ve ever received?

The vtubing community is really nice and supportive! A lot of friends tell me my model is very cute and that it suits me a lot.

3. What one event inspired you to do this?

I saw a lot of vtuber posts on Twitter and was like “oh that looks fun!”. I ended up researching how to make a model and how to rig it. It was a painful process but also very rewarding. However, I just recently started so i still have lots to improve on! Hoping to be a mama of a lot of cute Vtuber children.

4. What is your least favorite thing about doing this?

Honestly, I have a lot of social anxiety and stage freight T___T It was really difficult for me to bring up the courage to stream and talk. I’m more used to it now and more open, since streaming and talking with my chat is a lot of fun! However, there will always be things that I do that wouldn’t get as much attention and I hate the feeling I get when it feels like I have to ‘fight’ for people to notice me. This goes for art as well.

5. Is there anyone you would like to partner with on a special episode?

Hmm…Skadi and cyrus vtuber when?!

6. Who are your biggest artistic influences? I am inspired by a lot of different artists!

My main inspirations would be CLAMP, rei17, kawanocy, and also some mutuals on Instagram and Twitter.

7. Tell me about your favorite medium?

My favourite medium will have to be digital! I love working on the tablet since there are so many options on how you can paint, sketch, unlimited canvas sizes, and just endless possibilities. However, I still love to work with mediums such as watercolor and gouache since it gives a feeling that is hard to imitate on the digital medium.

8. Where do you find inspiration?

A lot of my inspiration comes from looking at other people’s works, playing games, or reading manga! Sometimes if I want to draw a character, I’d look at stuff relating to that character, know about their background more and see how I can portray them in my art.

9. What motivates you to create?

I really just like the process of drawing, it’s very rewarding when I finish and see how I went from blobs of shape to a fully coloured piece. It also makes me very happy when people see my art and enjoy it!

10. Does art help you in other areas of your life?

Ever since I graduated from uni, I’ve been trying to do freelancing/conventions as my job. I want to be able to survive doing what i like. So far, it’s going well! I want to be able to travel to America one day to do conventions. Art also helped me make a lot of friends. It’s kinda hard for me to socialise but art has made me meet a lot of friends online, at conventions, and has given me something to talk about and be proud of as well.

11. How do you define success as an artist?

Success as an artist to me would be to be able to draw what you like and be financially stable I guess? Another type of success to me would be, being able to be proud of your work and draw what you love. It took me so long to find a style that I like and was proud of. Now I’m still not 100% happy with it but I will work hard to improve!

11. What advice do you have for people wanting to create art?

If you want to improve, you gotta experiment a lot! Do studies, experiment with colours and poses, etc, etc. I think having friends who do art definitely motivates you to draw and improve. But I think the most important thing is to enjoy it! Nothing looks good when you force yourself to draw when you don’t want to.